Hold on, there, sheriff.
Before the crime scene had even been fully analyzed, Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik was quick to blame free speech after the horrific attack Jan. 8 in Tucson, Ariz., that left a federal judge and several others dead and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords gravely wounded.
“Let me say one thing, because people tend to pooh-pooh this business about all the vitriol that we hear inflaming the American public by people who make a living off of doing that,” Dupnik declared in a press conference. “That may be free speech, but it’s not without consequences.”
And in an interview earlier that day on MSNBC via local NBC affiliate KPNX, Dupnik said, as quoted by politico.com: “It’s time that this country take a little introspective look at the crap that comes out on radio and TV.”
The sheriff has company. The next day FBI Director Robert Muller suggested that threats posted on the Internet were also in the blame mix.
Gentlemen, do the names Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan and James Earl Ray ring a bell? How about Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme, Sara Jane Moore, John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman? None of those assassins and would-be assassins needed talk radio, TV political panels or Facebook to prod them into committing their vicious acts.
It seems rather irresponsible for elected officials to speculate on motivations for murder before an investigation is even two days old. What evidence besides their personal feelings do Muller and Dupnik have for their views? Here's some information from ABC News that they may not have considered:
A Pima Community College student, ABC reported, said he took a poetry course with with the suspect, Jared Loughner. "One day [Loughner] started making comments about terrorism and laughing about killing the baby," classmate Don Coorough told ABC News, referring to a discussion about abortions. "The rest of us were looking at him in shock ... I thought this young man was troubled."
Fellow student Lydian Ali, also remembered the outburst, ABC said. "A girl had written a poem about an abortion. It was very emotional and she was teary eyed and he said something about strapping a bomb to the fetus and making a baby bomber," Ali said.
Does this sound like someone tuned in to talk radio?
And let's drag Sarah Palin into this while we're at it. A political map on her website used rifle-scope symbols to "target" Democrats for election defeat in 2010. Sounds bad. But then you look at a similar strategy map drawn up by Democrats. It used bull's-eye targets, according to Outside the Beltway.
And President Barack Obama said of his political opponents June 13 in Philadelphia: “If they bring a knife to the fight, we bring a gun," The Wall Street Journal reported at the time.
Calls have gone out from political leaders to tone down the rhetoric. But how do we know when it's toned down enough? Is it true, as Sheriff Dupnik seems to think, that overheated rhetoric can cause deranged people to act out the dictates of their disconnected minds? What about John Hinckley Jr., who shot President Reagan in order to impress actress Jodie Foster? Was that Foster's fault too?
"Squeaky" Fromme was a disturbed environmentalist, Sara Jane Moore a militant civil rights activist. Did we blame inflamed rhetoric for their acts? Shouldn't we blame primarily those who commit atrocities, rather than any supposed climate of speech?
Nobody has proposed regulating speech yet as a result of this tragedy. But let's tone down the overheated rhetoric about so-called overheated rhetoric. Free speech should not be under investigation or on trial here.
In a profound irony, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords' reading on the floor of the House of Representatives last week had a special resonance. It was the text of the First Amendment.
12 comments:
The representative was shot because of her right to speak and express her opinions. However, I don't believe that it was because of the first amendment that the guy did what he did to those innocent people. There is a difference between speaking what you are thinking (whether good or bad) and between actually doing what you are thinking. That guy was troubled and his actions were HIS actions. Not the actions of the first amendment or anything else.
Ha.ha... That was enjoyable ...
I do agree with the author of this article, saying free speech isn't to blame.. If there wasn't any free speech (or rfreedom of religion, press etc..) I imagine there would be many more 'outbursts' than there are now.
Oh... And "attaching a bomb to fetus (or feti?)" as a means of efficient abortion.. This guy certainly is smoking something other than unfiltered media.. Perhaps his own insanity
I have never clearly understood the sentiment that cutting down free speech will somehow lead to less political violence. Perhaps monitoring free speech will, but that's already being done (Patriot Act), and so far, it doesn't look like it's doing much. The Arizona shootings were undeniably tragic, but I agree with the idea that "no assassins need talk radio, tv, or facebook to prod them into committing vicious acts". The ugly truth is that there will always be assassins, extremists, and terrorists, whatever you like to call them, so we have to decide if we'd want these people behind closed doors or (at least somewhat) out in the open. Furthermore, the media is not to blame for our actions. WE are to blame for our actions. It's not as if we're being subliminally messaged here, people. If you don't like it, who says you have to watch it? All i'm saying is, it's a pretty big stretch to imply that a mention of "guns" and "knives" in a speech Obama gave 8 months ago is behind all of this.
In my opinion I don't think the frst amendment should be brought up at all. He was allowed to say what he wants, but the people around should have caught on that he wasn't in his right mind. Deduction reasoning right. The classmates that heard his negative comments about strapping a bomb to a baby probably should have known he wasn't clear in thinking. And what about the teacher did they not hear him talk about terrorism or the baby comment. It all comes down to him and not anyone should be blamed for this tragedy, only that it was his choice and that it wasn't a good one.
The first amendment just needs to stay out of this. The only problem with this situation is that some people can deal with their differences with a candidate rationally, like campaigning against them, and some cant. The ones who cant are the ones who think of doing crazy things like shooting them. The ones that are really messed up are the ones who are crazy enough to actually do it. Freedom of speech is completely unrelated to this incident and therefore needs to be left out of the convo.
I completely agree with the author of this article. The guy who caused this horrible tragedy did this of his own volition. No person or media outlet could have told him to kill and injure all of those people. This young man was obviously very troubled and would have done what he had done whether he heard any sort of media or not. Playing the blame game is often something people enjoy, but in this circumstance, Loughner is the man who should be blamed, not our First Amendment. I believe that if legislation was put in place to limit our freedom of speech, many would be upset and make just as many bad choices or more than are made now with freedom of speech. Hopefully someday, people will stop playing this absurd game and realize every action is made by choice and whoever makes decisions is responsible for their consequences and no one else is responsible.
I can see where Dupnik and others blame the first amendment but I can also see where it has nothing to do with it. People should have noticed that he was not exactly all there in the head. Cause you cant be sane if you're talking about strapping a bomb to a baby right? I think that he should take the blame for it and not the radio or press or whatever they want to blame.
Reading about this tragedy is awful. I agree with the author, free speech isn't to blame. I love when tragedies like this occur and people always try to use the amendments as their excuse. I don't believe anyone was violating any laws, the shooter did it on his own accord. The other students should have realized that he wasn't completely there after the comments he made in class. No one is to blame but the shooter himself and the action he chose.
I think that free speech cannot be to blame for the shootings. Instead, we should hold criminals such as the Tuscon shooter responsible for their actions. Because although the media does do a pretty good job of influencing many peoples' ideas about politics, individuals must be held accountable for their own actions, and held responsible for the choices they make.
Besides, I'm pretty sure the media never said "go murder some people". And even if they did, there are enough reasonably smart people in this nation to make sure it didn't happen more than once.
I don't think there are many sane people who would actually view Sarah Palin's clever map thingy as a message to slaughter six people at a political appearance. The guy was obviously nuts. It might be different if he was just out to assinate the representative, but besides her, he shot 19 people and killed a nine-year old girl. Thats not political at all. Thats just messed up...
I don't think they're right in blaming this incident on the first amendment, more specifically free speech. It is one thing to say something, and another thing entirely to take action. Stating that the actions of these murderers, like in the situation in Arizona, is directly the result of "overheated rhetoric" that has been spread is wrong. You cannot blame someone's actions on another's words. Actions are a result of whether you choose to act or not, so the blame goes to no one except the murderer here.
It seems I share the sentiments of my classmates and the author.
I agree, wholeheartedly, with the notion that the 1st amendment is NOT to blame for this tragedy.
Clearly, the killer himself is to blame.
And the Sheriff's statement?
To me, he sounds like an uneducated man trying to sound smart using SAT words like "vitriol" and "introspective". This only detracts from his already thin argument that the first amendment is to blame for the terrible tragedy that occurred in Arizona. Maybe he doesn't understand that the right to free speech is what allows him to spew his opinions on the very news sources that he criticizes. So maybe when we're "look[ing] at the crap" like he suggests, we can filter out ignorant comments such as his.
For starters, I would like to commend Dupnik for having the audacity to use his freedom of speech in a way that could get him assassinated. Although he comes off as a "tool", his words do have some truth in that TV and media create bad perspective towards things and makes fallacy's to reality. The research done in presidential races makes me chuckle. I mean seriously, these are the people running to control our country? They need to be more creative in the ways they ridicule their opponents. I could do better.
Bo your amazing, and your comments are the bomb. (haha get it!) The subject is not funny but for how this article was written it is...Anyways i looked up the plural form of fetus and the correct way is fetuses. Fetus is a Greek word so it cant end in "i". That was for all those viewers wondering.
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