Saturday’s senseless shooting at a political meet-and-greet took the lives of 6 people – including a 9-year-old girl – and injured more than a dozen others. The fact that Rep. Gabrielle Giffords survived and will likely make a decent recovery is nothing short of a miracle.
However, now the media – both left and right (though left-wing media far outnumbers right) – are baying for more blood, by blaming each other for the carnage.
The meme on the left is that Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck are responsible for this tragedy, what with their re-load, Apocalypso, allegedly hate-filled harping. On the right, frequent mentions of shooter Jared Loughner’s reading list (Communist Manifesto, Mein Kampf) are made, making him out to be a leftist of the most dangerous kind. After all, it’s not like the left doesn’t use rhetoric or violent imagery… (or make snuff films about killing a sitting president)
Tis a rare day that I offer perspective from what I believe to be the middle, and this is one of those days.
I don’t believe Jared Loughner to be either left or right. He’s more of a Dylan Klebold than a Lee Harvey Oswald. A messed up kid that’s had a hate-on for Rep Giffords since 2007 – long before anyone knew the name Sarah Palin – and whose preferred book list is lacking only Catcher In The Rye to make him the quintessential attention seeker. In fact, if his favorite book is the Communist Manifesto that puts him on a par with Canadian blogger Dr. Dawg, who blames Sarah Palin. And if he hates government and religion and smokes a lot of weed, that puts him more in the Ron Paul/Cato Institute group of crazies, doesn’t it? Pass the bong, dude.
This kid can’t be pigeonholed, because his head is so messed up. We can play the left-vs-right game all we want in search of meaning behind this, but in the end, all we’ll do is further divide the country. Lock him up with Hinckley and Chapman, and throw away the key.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by RightGirl, RightGirl and Craig R.. Craig R. said: More Hinkley than Booth RT @RightGirl: My take on Jared Loughner http://j.mp/gBZpqF [...]
Too much dope and public (US) education will do that to a child. We can only speculate about his home environment. Did his father berate him about being a dope smoking loser? Did his mother baby him too long? What kind of “death metal BS” did he listen to on his iPod? “KILL KILL KILL…THRILL THRILL THRILL”?
RG- Now that his mug shot has been released, it would not surprise me if Jared Loughner’s also a fan of Travis Bickle, the fictional character in the movie Taxi Driver.
(Just beating the MSM to that punch.)
RG- Now that his mug shot has been released, it would not surprise me if Jared Loughner is also a fan of Travis Bickle, the fictional character in the movie Taxi Driver.
(Just beating the MSM to that punch.)
oops- I must be punch drunk, submitted twice, sorry!
From what I can gather so far, from yours and others’ takes on this, and the testimony of former friends who told of his weird ramblings and outbursts and ill-at-ease social encounters (from the real take, not the blamefest) I’d agree that he more fits the category of NUT than any kind of ideology. Yeppers.
[...] podcaster and friend Wendy beat me to the punch on the whole “being a voice of reason” in this sea of insanity: …both left and right (though [...]
RG
Was just checking some MSM sites, and see Heather Mallick used a Travis Bickle reference in her column about Loughner published on the 11th of January.
Any idea if she reads your blog?