All this gun talk

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Are you also for banning violent video games?

Rock music?

Alcohol?

How about everything ever possibly blamed for inciting random acts of violence from psychopaths?


You can't look to censor stuff just because one nutjob does what the one nutjobs of the world tend to do.


That said: the violent rhetoric is old and obscene to some of us...but don't use the shooting as a reason.

I'm for none of the above. Who are you addressing anyways? Social conservatives?

The liberals who are using this as a means to attack the rhetoric. I don't like the rhetoric at all and I find it obscene but I won't pin these deaths on that rhetoric. That's just irresponsible.

Oh ok, this looked like it had something to do with "family values" for a moment cuz I didn't figure libs were against alcohol or rock music. I'm glad you aren't holding the rhetoric responsible for the incident, since rhetoric is more of an after the fact thing and being plain nuts means you're lacking the checks and balances sane left and right wingers have.

Yeah, that was kinda my point. It's the same stupid tactic to scapegoat something that the other side finds obscene. Conservatives go after rock, drugs, and video games; liberals go after pro-gun rhetoric and nationalistic rhetoric.

I play in a rock band, enjoyed video games until my xbox exploded and still play on occasion, and drink once or twice a week. Yet I would consider myself a conservative. Otherwise, no drugs, which I would think most libs in general would agree are also destructive, anyway.

I agree with you on the rhetoric thing.

Yeah I agree on that. All this scapegoating is ridiculous and dodges the real issue.

I'm a right libertarian that smokes weed, is currently learning to play electric guitar, drinks, and play a lot of first person shooters. Haahhhh looks like partisanship is a baggage I don't have to carry...

No one SHOULD carry it, frankly.

When I call myself conservative, I am referring much to "family values" and Christian ideals. While you can say that Conservative Christians as a bloc espouse a certain set of ideals, there's no reason to assume that you MUST agree on THIS issue or you have to believe THAT. Not all libertarians are in universal agreement on what that even is.

Honestly, I don't know what to think about smoking weed. Smoking in general is a health risk. Tobacco smoke, on the one hand, is safer due to the refinement process of tobacco, but often contains harmful additives. Weed, from what I understand, is riskier from being unprocessed, yet doesn't carry a lot of the health risks of tobacco additives. Judging from the actual effects of THC on the nervous system, I don't really see how it's more harmful than alcohol. Not speaking for present company of course, but chronic pot smokers have a reputation for being largely unmotivated to do anything else besides smoke more pot. Evidence suggests that smoking weed isn't as harmful as has been suggested, but that possibly it's not a good idea to drive stoned.

Good luck learning electric guitar! I know a few songs to play to give my fingers a rest from keyboard duty and will play some classical guitar tunes just for my own relaxation. I've played much more difficult instruments, though, so I do hope you'll find electric guitar enjoyable. What do you play (Fender/Gibson/Ibanez/...)?

Yeah true, I'm not saying ALL social conservatives believe the same things, but that social conservatism as an ideology believes it is within the government's jurisdiction to enforce what they consider harmful to society at large. To what extent is the real question when it comes to political views.

Some social conservatives may consider weed harmful to society, others don't. And for those that do believe weed is harmful, they don't all have the same reasons for believing so. Some are against it for it's harm to health, some for it's harm to society, some who simply are against the principle of instant gratification, etc.

Just like some libertarians are for absolute minimalist government, while others are for reduced government but not a government that has a bare minimum of jurisdiction.

I have a Gibson Les Paul and it's pretty sweet. I've got some nice big callouses on the tips of my fingers from trying to play Fistful of Steel by Rage Against the Machine, so yeah I'm just pretty much on power chords so far. Yes they're a left wing band, but I'm not a tight ass who involves politics in every aspect of my life lol. But besides that, Zack has a smooth flow and the guitar riffs really get me pumped. Plus I can relate to the message of not blindly bending over for authority.

And yeah I've known lazy stoners, but those people have repulsive personalities in general so I don't really think it's the weed that did that to em, but rather that irresponsible people tend to drink or get stoned more than people who are more responsible. For most people, there's a time and place for getting drunk or stoned, but for those who are irresponsible they do so with every opportunity they get.

btw, you should keep your posts short like that more often. I've actually had the patience to read that post lol.

I do think the media and liberals in particular have jumped the gun in blaming the mainstream right-wing rhetoric in this particular case. Based on my own analysis it seems Loughner's paranoid ideas were mostly his own, or were based off rather obscure internet sources. However its understandable for people on the left to feel wary considering the recent Byron Williams incident which was indeed motivated (by William's own admission) by a BS conspiracy theory spread by none other than Glenn Beck.

Compare the reaction of the media to this shooting vs the Fort Hood shooting, and you'll see a bit of why people are so angry about the premature spin. I mean aside from the general distastefulness of so quickly exploiting a tragedy to score political points, this really feeds into the conservative stereotype of the "liberal media".

Contrast the instantaneous attempts to assign a motive to the Tuscon shooter and link him to Sarah Palin and the Tea Party despite no evidence of such, with Nidal Malik Hasan, who's radical Islam was well known to the FBI and who shouted Allahu Akbhar! while shooting soldiers but the media refused to finger militant Islam as his motivation for some time after the shootings. Why make wild speculations on no evidence in one incident, yet refuse to publish a very clear and obvious motive in the other case? It forces people to look at the politics; who has what to gain or lose by how the spin is handled?

lol! Noted.

In general, I'd prefer to. Some challenges defy brevity, however. If someone delves into deep and difficult issues such as theology and apologetics, leaving no stone unturned and responding in a disciplined manner is complicated by the sheer size of the stones. Something I personally find distasteful is the ENDLESS tendency of some to pick apart every single sentence. I don't know if this is deliberate, but the effect is that it puts you in the position of opening battles on multiple fronts, which is not something anyone can really "win." I try as best I can to respond to issues related to a single topic. Mcalavera has done a decent job sticking with the idea of Biblical injustice relating to discipline and the death penalty, which makes the objections he raises easy to respond to. I respect that. If he'd brought up, say, a string of Biblical contradictions, I'd have simply picked out one objection to respond to and ignored the rest. I felt what he had to say was worthy of the response I gave it. One mistake that Christians too often make in exchanges like this is taking the bait of side topics that aren't really relevant; and I'm guilty of that, too. That leads you down multiple paths you know nothing about, guaranteeing you'll weaken your own position. I don't care if I "win" or not, but a sense of defeat is not conducive to continuing discussion. It's easy to get "lost" from being so overwhelmed. I'm glad to see a small but strong number of Christians in PPR as of late, but there have been many more who have wandered through. It's a shame they didn't try to stick with it. They would have learned much about their faith, disciplined their minds, and enhanced their own expression if they had.

And unlike some, much of what I write is "stream-of-consciousness," rereading the Bible as needed. If I went the copy-and-paste route, think how much LONGER my posts would be!

Excellent choice on the LP. For my own personal taste in guitar tone, I find the LP is right on the line between "warm" and "muddy." In the right hands, it's a great sound. Perhaps I've just heard too many awful LP players. I have a 60th Anniversary American Strat and a modded MIM Tele. I'm not very good, so most of my playing is just for recordings or sampling. Oddly enough, my favorite music is 80s hard rock and metal, not what you really associate with the Fender sound!

It is a shooting of a prominent political personality. It is already a political issue. It is already politicized.

Regarding the Fort Hood shooting: http://www.good.is/post/why-is-nobody-c ... -terrorist

Teabaggers are crazy people and I enjoy every opportunity to out them as such. Palin's hit list most likely did not cause this shooting, but it was still pretty darn irresponsible to distribute such thing. She knows the kind of nut jobs that follow her, so she should be more careful with what she tells her people.

This does not mean such rhetoric must be banned or anything. But it needs underlining because that horrible human being wants to be president of the US one day.

These "crazy people" want the Constitution to be the Law of the Land. Wow! That is so insane.

ruveyn

They're nostalgic for "the constitution" like others are nostalgic for the 50s.

I think the media was right to err on the side of caution in the case of Nidal Hassan. They were reluctant to call the incident an act of terrorism because they didn't want to spread fear and panic by spreading the impression that the murders were possibly part of a larger, foreign orchestrated or "sleeper cell" plot when there was no evidence for that. Few media sources outright denied that Islamic extremism was a motive.

However I think the media was wrong to bring Sarah Palin into this case just because her electorate map had cross-hairs on Rep. Giffords' district.