Quote :

"Ahahahaha let's apply the dictionary definition of causation to social settings, guys. Aaronburro, resident genius, says it's okay. Don't worry that he is unaware of a nearly 2000 year study of the topic which has finally, in the last century, culminated in a mathematical rigorous and quantitative field. This is an example of where philosophy goes right and terminates in mathematics useful for science. You should check it out assuming you give a fuck about things. "

So, in short, you are just gonna use a completely different definition than what every one else means when they say "A caused B," and that is 100% ok.

let's say I give you a poison that will kill you in 1 hour. That has made your death 100% probable within the next hour, thus increasing it's likelihood, right? I then shoot you in the head 15 times. Did the poison cause your death? No. Thus, it is intuitively obvious that your definition of "cause" is incorrect.

1/10/2011 8:48:35 PM

^What you are missing is that there were two interventions in that scenario, so the causal model framework is still consistent.

1/10/2011 10:17:43 PM

No one here has made this argument, thankfully, but the dumb one I have heard on one of the news stations is "No one in that crowd was carrying a firearm, had they been, this might have been avoided". I find this argument comical in that the entire incident happened within 30 seconds, not even james bond could have assessed the situation, made it through the crowd, gotten a clear and safe aim at the guy, and hit him within that 30 seconds.

1/10/2011 10:48:36 PM

Shit just got real real on The Daily Show, btw.

OMG LIEBERAL MEDIA!!!

1/10/2011 11:13:24 PM

do you watch the daily show live or something?

1/10/2011 11:25:03 PM

Did they do the thing where they edit together clips of different reporters saying the same 3 words and then make fun of them for being wrong?

1/10/2011 11:37:22 PM

I missed the first five minutes, but it was more of the "heartfelt reach out for reason" a-la 9/11. Steve did the other bit.

1/11/2011 12:20:16 AM

http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting

1/11/2011 12:25:12 AM

I think the fact that people are throwing themselves into a debate over this in terms of referencing the incendiary rhetoric, the hate-mongering, and the war-like imagery present in the media/politics today says volumes about where we stand as a nation. To me, it doesn't matter whether or not Jared was batshit crazy or his attack was politically motivated. At times, it is funny to me to see the places where big stories like this end up. It is I really wish that as a country, we could just quell our pride long enough, use our collective reasoning long enough, and pull our heads out of our asses long enough to just realize that there are bigger fucking fish to fry than some of the goddamn things people get so heated about in this country. Everybody likes to talk about how the left is so bad because of x y and z, and how the right is so bad because of x y and z. You're no fucking better off than the other side is whenever you have that attitude, to whatever dipshit it may concern, and you're just another cog in the machine.

1/11/2011 12:49:41 AM

the Right hates our freedom, therefore we're better

Quote :

""No one in that crowd was carrying a firearm, had they been, this might have been avoided""

I thought someone actually was carrying a firearm, so whatever news-network "reporter" said that is unfit for that title.

1/11/2011 1:01:54 AM

Quote :

"and pull our heads out of our asses long enough to just realize that there are bigger fucking fish to fry than some of the goddamn things people get so heated about in this country. Everybody likes to talk about how the left is so bad because of x y and z, and how the right is so bad because of x y and z."

Pretty much.

It’s funny to take a look at the going-ons in other countries, where their politicians are literally making life or death decisions about their people, while we are fuming about a few percentage points shifting around on the budget.

1/11/2011 1:20:47 AM

Quote :

"Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County. Amy Loughner is a Natural Resource specialist for the Pima County Parks and Recreation. My sympathies and my heart goes out to her and the rest of Mr. Loughner’s family. This tragedy must be tearing them up inside wondering if they had done the right things in trying to manage Jared’s obvious mental instability. This was not an act of politics. This was an act of a mentally disturbed young man hell bent on getting his 15 minutes of infamy. The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sherriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact. "

http://thechollajumps.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/jared-loughner-is-a-product-of-sheriff-dupniks-office/
Are there any news articles to back up the claims of this blog post? Seems this would be a big enough deal to be all over the news by now.

[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 10:14 AM. Reason : .,.]

1/11/2011 10:08:19 AM

Reuters had something about it. Link in death penalty thread.

Quote :

"Even a single person can act as a social cause, unilaterally."

This is just an inane and useless definition. But let's take it at face value. If one person acting alone can be a "social cause" how do you distinguish between a "social cause" and someone like John Allen Muhammad?

Quote :

"Also possible, but to suppose zero connection between violent rhetoric and violence denies that rhetoric serves any purpose whatsoever."

Or alternatively, that the people who listen to the rhetoric are not the ones predisposed to committing violence.

1/11/2011 10:44:33 AM

Quote :

"http://tv.gawker.com/5730178/watch-jon-stewarts-poignant-speech-on-the-arizona-shooting"

Stewart seems to think that we should only address something as a cause if it's the sole cause. I couldn't disagree more; addressing a cause of a particular type of event might decrease the probability that the event will occur without precluding it from happening.

Quote :

"This is just an inane and useless definition. But let's take it at face value. If one person acting alone can be a "social cause" how do you distinguish between a "social cause" and someone like John Allen Muhammad?"

I meant to say that one person can serve to influence other people with their words; it doesn't take a genius to figure this out. I'm making one of the weakest claims of all time and you can't swallow it for some reason. Keep in mind there's probably a useful distinction to be made between coercion, a criminal conspiracy, and someone who is acting as a social cause (in the sense of driving up the propensity for violence considerably).

Quote :

"Or alternatively, that the people who listen to the rhetoric are not the ones predisposed to committing violence."

The question is about the propensity changing as a result of hearing the rhetoric. You can stretch your intuitions any which way you need to in order to come out of this feeling like you lost nothing, if you'd like. Don't expect me to do the same; it seems clear to me that one person hate-mongering can increase the likeliness of a violent event. Your side of the aisle has been crowing about this with respect to Islam and A-Rabz for a decade.

1/11/2011 11:02:37 AM

1/11/2011 11:28:21 AM

Seeing as how the Tea Party and the right in general have shifted the national dialogue to the point that it's commonplace and even banal to claim that Obama is a cryptoislamofascist Marxists bent on destroying the United States so he and the Fed and the global bankers can establish a global socialist Caliphate...yeah it's really not hard for me to believe that those messages might resonate with paranoid schizophrenics and possibly fuel their (nuts like loughner) delusions and fantasies.

[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 12:01 PM. Reason : by the end i wasnt sure if i was talking about loughner or the tea party itself]

1/11/2011 12:00:11 PM

Ah yes, when you can't attack a real opponent or message, make one up and attack that one. Works every time.

1/11/2011 12:13:10 PM

i see you haven't addressed my assraping of your "definition" of cause.

1/11/2011 12:37:05 PM

yep perfectly sane, coherent, rational dialogue here



he's just an entertainer though, its not like anybody takes him seriously or anyt-



[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 12:52 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2011 12:51:57 PM

haha, burn

1/11/2011 12:56:21 PM

http://img.waffleimages.com/502d2e675508e5173ed3791d274e517445133885/021009church-manifesto-1.png
http://img.waffleimages.com/f939a47deea944e42244d891a21e312673eb6413/021009church-manifesto-2.png
http://img.waffleimages.com/db24213d93404da2ffeee8a3c30b07786754d787/021009church-manifesto-3.png
http://img.waffleimages.com/d115bb5a1e67206e167d79f23ffd3f8a2fee1122/021009church-manifesto-4.jpg


[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 1:09 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2011 12:56:54 PM

Quote :

"I’m not a media critic and never will be, but this has not been a shining 48 hours for my profession. Following the shooting that left Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., gravely wounded and six bystanders murdered at a Tucson shopping center, the media have spent as much time trying to assign political blame for the cause of the shooting as they have trying to unearth facts. As it turns out, the murderer is a mentally unstable individual, with no coherent political ideology. For all the blame placed on politicians for their aggressive political rhetoric, the media have been just as guilty in promoting crude political discourse and conflict. I’m not just talking about the Glenn Becks and Keith Olbermanns of the world, but news coverage that elevates conflict over substance and encourages contentious arguments over thoughtful discussion. And in the aftermath of the Tucson shooting, the media’s worst tendencies were on display, from the onset of the crisis when several outlets inaccurately reported that Giffords had died, to the immediate, unwarranted assumption that the killer was associated with the tea party. Ironically, even as politicians have been scrutinized for overheated rhetoric, it's the political class that reflected the country's mood best in the aftermath of this weekend's senseless shootings. From President Obama's pitch-perfect speech to the nation, to House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi working together to reassure members and staff, there was little hint of the blame game that fueled much of the media's coverage. It’s becoming increasingly clear that overheated political vitriol played virtually no role in Jared Lee Loughner’s shooting spree. His political thinking is hardly coherent, and his obsession with Giffords predated the tea party and Sarah Palin’s emergence in national politics. One of his few close friends told Mother Jones that he became fixated on the congresswoman when he asked her a question at a 2007 town hall about "the government having no meaning" and felt she didn’t answer. His killing spree wasn’t motivated by disagreement with her positions on health care or immigration. Based on the available evidence, Loughner sounds like someone with untreated mental illness, whose grasp of reality grew ever more tenuous with time. He fits the profile of someone whose horrific shooting spree didn't have to be triggered by any provocative political rhetoric in the news. But even with those facts out there, it didn’t stop numerous media outlets from connecting his beliefs to politics -- and isn’t stopping the continued rush to politicize this tragic event. The fervor to fit such craziness into a political matrix is regrettable, and, sadly, contributes to the overheated political environment that many in the media are condemning in the first place. Much of the broadcast and print coverage over the weekend was devoted to decrying the state of political discourse, despite its tenuous connection to the shootings. Politico immediately ran several stories putting the shooter and his rampage in a political context, including one quoting a Democratic strategist -- anonymously -- arguing that this was a golden opportunity to “pin this on the tea partiers.” This, just 24 hours after Giffords was gravely wounded. Where’s the outrage? To be sure, the increasingly strident tone of politicians -- on both sides of the aisle -- is a worthy topic of discussion. But in the aftermath of the shooting, there are much more relevant issues that should have been debated: in particular, how to better identify and treat those afflicted with serious mental illness and how to prevent guns from getting into their hands. I heard very little of that discussed in the aftermath of the shooting. Violent metaphors are all over our culture, in politics and outside of it, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. The political lexicon is awash in gun metaphors -- from campaign committee lists of top “targets” to political “showdowns” to “battleground districts” to challengers “playing defense,” just to name a few. If this were a crime, the political media would be as guilty as anyone. (In fact, on the morning of the shooting, the New York Post ran a front-page photo of Peyton Manning with a bull's-eye over him, before the day’s big playoff game. No one blinked an eye, or thought it was a call for New York Jets fans to murder the Indianapolis Colts quarterback.) The other lesson learned from the coverage of this awful tragedy is that it’s better to be right than first -- a challenge in a journalism culture that increasingly rewards speed over substance. In the rush to break news as the crisis unfolded, several major media outlets inaccurately reported that Giffords had died. Others later inaccurately reported that Giffords was speaking after her surgery on the day of the attack. It raises questions about news organizations' standards for what’s allowed on air or online. Those standards have been in decline, and go beyond reporting inaccurate information. Far too often, we give serious leeway for sources to anonymously attack their opponents. It makes for sexier stories but further coarsens the discourse in Washington. Far too often, we rush to report campaign attacks on candidates without verifying their validity and without even getting a response. Campaigns and national party committees know that news outlets are hungry for sensational material, and they exploit that. By all means, let’s encourage civility in politics; it’s long overdue. But let’s also take steps to ensure that the same rules of engagement apply to a 24-7 media culture that has fed off the conflict culture that it decries."

http://nationaljournal.com/columns/against-the-grain/stop-the-blame-game-20110110

1/11/2011 1:57:05 PM

tldr

1/11/2011 2:06:29 PM

Since the "tea party caused this" narrative fell through, it's back to gun control. That's an excellent idea - let's make it illegal for anyone to own a gun, except the government. There's no way that could backfire.

A lot of the incendiary rhetoric is being labeled "anti-government," as if that's somehow a bad thing, or unjustified. The reality is that the the government, specifically the United States government, is responsible for more atrocities in the 21st century than any other single government or group. How many people have been sacrificed at the altar of "U.S. interests" in the past decade? 100,000? 200,000? How much wealth has been stolen from developing nations so that bankers here could make another billion?

Anti-government rhetoric isn't the problem, it's the solution. Killing politicians is not, and never has been, a good way of scaling back government, though. The Tea Party knows this. The vast majority of anarchists know this. Articulating this point is beyond useless, though. The organized left has been painting the entire Tea Party as frenzied, violent revolutionaries since the media started reporting on it, waiting for some event like this that they could pin on their political opposition, no matter how unrelated the shooter's motives actually were.

1/11/2011 3:37:37 PM

well when you decide to go on your shooting rampage just stay away from me, k? I'll probably be armed anyways.

also, :rbrthwrd has just turned himself into fiction so you can't hit me anyways because i am now no longer fact. if you try i will verbify you.

[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 4:42 PM. Reason : .]

1/11/2011 4:27:49 PM

http://firstread.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/01/11/5814091-ny-republican-wants-to-outlaw-guns-near-officials-judges

Out of all the things that are wrong with this the one I like to reflect on the most is the implication that judges and officials are just more important than the dirty common folk.

1/11/2011 4:37:47 PM

i think its stupid, but to be fair it could also simply that they are more likely targets and i think thats probably true.

still ridiculous though, doesn't matter because it will never fly

1/11/2011 4:40:23 PM

They may be more likely to be a target, but passing a stupid law like this would only serve one purpose, to have one more thing to charge people that kill judges or officials.

Note that the law isn't helping toward preventing an actual assassination, it's just... tacking on a few more years to a prison sentence or adding some fee to charge someone after they got caught trying to (or succeeding in) killing a judge/official.

I really couldn't see this as being enforceable until after some greater crime had been committed. With that in mind, why bother? Just raise the minimum punishments for the other crimes.


[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 4:49 PM. Reason : -]

1/11/2011 4:47:03 PM

That's going to suck when I'm legally carrying and get in a fender bender with a federal judge.

1/11/2011 4:53:43 PM

Quote :

"Anti-government rhetoric isn't the problem, it's the solution."

Having fun talking to yourself? Last time I checked "anti-government" and "violent" are not co-extensive.

1/11/2011 4:53:50 PM

^^Or when they revisit the handgun all guns ban in D.C.

1/11/2011 4:55:39 PM

Quote :

"Anti-government rhetoric isn't the problem, it's the solution. Killing politicians is not, and never has been, a good way of scaling back government, though. The Tea Party knows this. The vast majority of anarchists know this."

I totally agree, and this highlights the key intellectual contradiction of the shooting. The senator was a good person, by all means, and probably an above average congress person. A collection of good people, however, can and have created a corrupt and in many respects, evil, government.

We're saying that A does not imply B, even though B is thought to come from A in common discourse. Let's be clear that the shooter is dumb. I can not pick a more appropriate word. He would scarcely be able to participate in the conversation we're having. Observation of A and B concluded in "shoot A" in his mind, and rational shortcomings of his logic are, obviously, lost on him.

In that way, both the Tea Party and anarchists have better been able to think about the situation and not act on a very dumb and demonstrably ineffective plan that could, by some argument, conclude from their political position.

Quote :

"Articulating this point is beyond useless, though. The organized left has been painting the entire Tea Party as frenzied, violent revolutionaries since the media started reporting on it, waiting for some event like this that they could pin on their political opposition, no matter how unrelated the shooter's motives actually were."

I believe the shooter was incapable of separating action from effect, but I do not believe the "organized left" has. And after all, what is the argument of the "organized left"? I can try to make the argument for them here.

The murder was political. She was shot because she's democrat and because she's an elected official - voting for the health care bill and myriad of other factors might have also motivated it, we don't know yet. The murder was intended to achieve some political aim, however incomprehensible the logic surrounding it was. As best we can tell, it will not achieve those political aims (thankfully), but those political aims are also fairly clearly influenced by the right wing media and its leaders.

Whether you like it or not some culpability lies in the message that campaigners have put out there in the past. That doesn't, however, implicate their political views as leading to things like shootings.

1/11/2011 4:59:28 PM

someone murdered a senator? whoa.

1/11/2011 5:06:54 PM

Quote :

"Out of all the things that are wrong with this the one I like to reflect on the most is the implication that judges and officials are just more important than the dirty common folk."

we are a "nation of laws"

if our officials are in fear and cant write, judge, or enforce our laws, then we will become a failed state like Mexico.

our elected officials, and the officials appointed to assist them, do "the work of the people". as individuals they are not elevated, but the office they hold is. the office they hold serves and is responsible to the collective people, and not one individual.

just like a serial killer or mass murderer is (theoretically) more heinous than one individual killing another, so is an assault against an office that represents the collective rather than the individual.

if it takes additional efforts to protect the offices that create, judge and protect our laws, then that's what it takes.

HOWEVER.

I'm very skeptical that banning guns around a person is the answer. the logistics of enforcing a gun ban radius around a moving center point is highly dubious.

we already have stiffer federal sentences for assaulting/killing members of congress, judges, administrators performing their government functions. this is the correct direction, IMO: make the sentences stiffer and more inflexible if necessary.


EDIT: case in point. there have been a few high-profile instances of assaults against city bus drivers in some locations. the state of Washington has recently made any physical assault on or otherwise physically interfering with a bus driver a Felony. I understand it's reduced the number of assaults significantly.



[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 5:25 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2011 5:15:36 PM

If a judge or lawmaker is killed by a lover because they had an affair (or some other personal matter), there is nothing special about the murder.

Almost every time such an official is murdered, it is a political murder. If political aims are being achieved through violence, then the nation itself is threatened. And we know how a nation behaves when it feels threatened.

1/11/2011 5:42:34 PM

most of the laws includes language relating to the victim performing their official duties.



[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 5:50 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2011 5:49:33 PM

Quote :

"They may be more likely to be a target, but passing a stupid law like this would only serve one purpose, to have one more thing to charge people that kill judges or officials. "

Quote :

"I'm very skeptical that banning guns around a person is the answer. the logistics of enforcing a gun ban radius around a moving center point is highly dubious. "

After the human tragedy of all of this, I think the next biggest tragedy is that it will likely cause other politicians to sequester themselves further from the actual public. Regardless of whether this congresswoman was good or bad, she was at the very least actually interacting with her constituents, in an apparently non formal setting; something most politicians rarely if ever do outside of election campaigns. Now because of one nutcase with a grudge, it is likely that it will be even harder to get personal time with a politician than it was before.

Quote :

"we already have stiffer federal sentences for assaulting/killing members of congress, judges, administrators performing their government functions. this is the correct direction, IMO: make the sentences stiffer and more inflexible if necessary. EDIT: case in point. there have been a few high-profile instances of assaults against city bus drivers in some locations. the state of Washington has recently made any physical assault on or otherwise physically interfering with a bus driver a Felony. I understand it's reduced the number of assaults significantly. "

This is indeed the way to go, but it's also worth noting that it has a diminishing returns problem. I imagine that after x number of years in prison, tacking x more years onto the sentence won't actually have any appreciable effect on deterring someone who has made up their mind to commit such an act.

1/11/2011 5:52:04 PM

Quote :

"I imagine that ... tacking x more years onto the sentence won't actually have any appreciable effect on deterring someone who has made up their mind to commit such an act."

perhaps. but what can ya do? haters gonna hate.

1/11/2011 6:10:32 PM

You do exactly what you would have done if a regular group of citizens was shot up for no good reason. The idea that a politician's or judge's life is more valuable than anyone else is highly offensive. No one that walks into a building and starts shooting people is expecting to make it out alive or return to normal life. They've made their decision. They should be charged to the fullest extent of the law.

The thing that makes this such a big news is the public nature of the target. The punishment should fit the crime, though, and if you firmly reject the concept of nobility, as I do, you should agree. I apply the same reasoning to terrorism, hate crimes, or any other violent crime. Charge the person with the crime they committed - no need to tack on some ambiguous "social harm" charge.

[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 6:28 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2011 6:28:15 PM

nobility? are you purposely being a sensationalist drama queen, or do you not really undertand the nature of representative democracy?

its not the office holder. it's the office. i don't know how much more plainly to put it than that.

people in the public spotlight are far more likely to be targeted. if you're a celebrity, thats your own buisiness. but if you're doing *the work of the people*, then you need to have some amount of security in place to PERMIT you to do the work that your elected or appointed office DEMANDS.

increase punishment for offenders .... assign professional security detail .... something. but limiting constitutional rights is generally not the answer to anything, IMO.




[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 6:36 PM. Reason : ]

1/11/2011 6:32:36 PM

I don't care. I don't know how to put that any plainer. Charging a person with murder and either locking them up permanently, executing them, or putting them in the loony bin is going to be as much of a deterrent as you could hope for. No one is sitting home right now saying, "Damn, this guy is going to get off as mentally ill or sit in jail for the rest of his life? What am I waiting on, time to kill my local representative!" Don't be ridiculous. No laws like you're talking about are needed, and elevating a public official like you suggest is the very opposite of what a representative democracy aims to achieve.

1/11/2011 6:38:59 PM

gun control is eerily similar to the war on drugs.

stupid and ineffective.

1/11/2011 8:01:24 PM

________ is eerily similar to the war on drugs.

stupid and ineffective.

1/11/2011 9:50:28 PM

Looks like it is going to be the "dream defense"


basically, some people know they are dreaming and they make things happen as they wish....supposedly he is one of those.....so, he thought he was dreaming....since apparently he slept most of the time so he could be off in fantasy land controling the plots of his dreams.



[Edited on January 11, 2011 at 10:39 PM. Reason : he thought he was dreamining when he wrote those words they found.....]

1/11/2011 10:39:15 PM

One time I dreamed I was watching the movie "Inception"

1/11/2011 11:03:39 PM

christopher nolan is to blame, clearly

1/11/2011 11:03:54 PM

^^Sounds more like a nightmare

1/11/2011 11:48:23 PM

that might work better than the Chewbacca defense

1/11/2011 11:48:29 PM

Hey, Chewbacca is a wookie.

1/11/2011 11:49:19 PM

Quote :

"Looks like it is going to be the "dream defense" basically, some people know they are dreaming and they make things happen as they wish....supposedly he is one of those.....so, he thought he was dreaming....since apparently he slept most of the time so he could be off in fantasy land controling the plots of his dreams."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uryUCVhjtr4

1/12/2011 3:02:12 AM