January 14, 2011

"In 1970, when I was 22 years old — the same age as Jared Loughner — I was a founder of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society."

Writes Mark Rudd in the Washington Post:
My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups. I wanted to be a true revolutionary like my guerrilla hero, Ernesto "Che" Guevara. I wanted the chant we used at demonstrations defending the Black Panthers to be more than just words: "The revolution has come/Time to pick up the gun!"

As the Weather Underground believed in the absolute necessity of bombs to address actual moral grievances such as the Vietnam War and racism, Loughner might have believed in the absolute necessity of a Glock to answer his imagined moral grievances....

87 comments:

Charlie Martin said...

Resolved: That anyone who writes about the Tucson shootings, including a line like "Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map deserve nothing but ignominy," without mentioning the nearly exactly similar maps of the DLC, is to be hit on the head with a rubber truncheon and sent to bed without supper.

kent said...

Insane violence has always been part and parcel of the political left in this country. From Cathy Young, today, at Reason:

"Fourth, the laments about hateful political rhetoric focus almost exclusively on the right: to look for comparable left-wing vitriol, says Krugman, is 'a false pretense of balance.'"

"Never mind the once-trendy Bush assassination fantasies, such as the Air America radio skit in which an angry retiree responded to Bush's Social Security reform proposals with gunshots, or the misogynistic anti-Palin rants in leftist publications. Or the smears against opponents of racial preferences in the public sector—accused of racism if they are white, self-loathing if black. Or the posting of a map with the home addresses of donors to the campaign for California's same-sex marriage ban, surely more intimidating than crosshairs on congressional districts. Never mind political violence on the left, from the rampage by protesters at the 2008 Republican National Convention to assaults on conservative speakers on college campuses."

Capt. Schmoe said...

Way too much time is being spent trying to determine what this guy's motivation was. It is immaterial. The guy was a murderous lunatic. No more, no less.

Accept it, get over it and move on. The more discourse that occurs, the more discord will surely follow.

PaulV said...

What a hypocrit. He may as well have said that except for the fact that Ayers was incompetent in designing bombs, so go I. Dishonest to attack Palin's marks when his democrat heroes used worse, targets and gunsights.

Pastafarian said...

From the linked article: "Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map deserve nothing but ignominy..."

You know, I've shot a lot of bolt-action rifles with scopes. I've yet to find one with a reticle that extends beyond the round field of view.

I know this guy is a great big brave planter of pipe bombs and various other weapons that allow the wielder to run and hide after deployment; but I suspect that he's never looked down a scope before in his life. Or he'd know that these aren't cross-hairs.

Unknown said...

Theoretically, the Weathermen were more or less sane. They knew what they were doing and had no problem with it.

What might be called the tin foil element is the difference. Loughner may have wanted to consciously kill Gabrielle Giffords, but what was his excuse for the score or so of others, especially the little girl?

The WaPo seems to be engaged in some sort of effort to make Loughner into another dashing Lefty commando, but I don't think it's gonna fly.

Randy said...

Looks like someone is seeking attention, hoping to bask in a few additional minutes of fame, his prior 15 not being enough to offset the unremarkable and probably dreary life he has led since then.

Wince said...

I was a founder of the Weather Underground, an offshoot of the antiwar group Students for a Democratic Society.

Wouldn't the term "splinter group" be more apt?

Makes you sound more bad ass at the time, especially when you regale your community college students years later. Plus, after you eventually declare yourself a former terrorist, you avoid the ugly word shoot.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Another liberal pussy who could get some work at Bloggingheads.

The Crack Emcee said...

I'ma go back and read the rest, but I had to comment on this:

At his age, I had thought myself into a similar corner. My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups.

This reminded me of Meade's comments/thoughts about me and TMR - that we're exhibiting some exaggerated vision of masculinity to hide shortcomings. It's bullshit - both anyone who would do that, and the suggestion it's what I do.

I am an unreconstructed-by-feminism "man" - which, by today's standards, seems "macho". I don't have to act a part, and even refuse to do so (that's why I rejected Ann's view that I reign in what I call elements of my humanity and she calls "self-pity"). All I have to do is be me - and demand that's not only good enough but (in light of the examples I see in others) better than most - to ruffle the feathers of those under the spell of feminism, like Meade.

And, for the record, I'm not attacking Meade here but trying to talk real talk:

A "man" nowadays doesn't have to push his chest out and wear a wifebeater to get attacked as what used to be called a sexist pig. He just has to be a man and look out for Number One - which naturally means opposing feminism, because it's got nothing for me, is out to get me, and assumes I'll roll over for it. Well, I've done a lot of fucking in my life but I don't roll over for anybody, and ain't gonna start now for no woman, no matter how badly she (or her gay friends) want to claim my ass. It don't work that way, no matter how many other pussy men are happy to do so:

I ain't the one.

And that's The Macho Response.

Meade said...

Charlie Martin said...
"...nearly exactly similar maps of the DLC..."

Except the text on the Palin map does not begin:"BEHIND ENEMY LINES" as the DLC map does.

Pastafarian said...

You know, I hate to type eliminationist rhetoric that might influence some crazy person to carry out a horrific act, but I'm surprised that there are so many former Weathermen running around out there. You'd think that the families of some of their victims would have tracked them down and administered second amendment solutions.

But then, one realizes: Mostly all they managed to do was blow off their own fingers. Fucking pot-head hippy shit-for-brains.

One more thing that this guy has in common with Loughner, who was unable to murder an unarmed woman while sneaking up behind her with a fully functional semiautomatic handgun but did manage to kill 6 others that weren't his primary target and wound dozens more:

Incompetence.

KCFleming said...

"""In 1970, when I was 22 years old — blah blah blah"

Please, Mark , go to hell.

rcocean said...

Personally, I think people who set bombs off for "Moral Reasons" should be stood up against a wall and shot & not be allowed to write articles for the WaPo.

But that's just me. Mr. Moderate.

Synova said...

I'm... confused...

Is the guy trying to say that Loughner wasn't bat-shit crazy?

Is he trying to say that ALL 20 year old male persons are violent by nature and thus he didn't do anything wrong?

Is he trying to make Loughner sane so that he can reaffirm his own sanity?

What?

The Crack Emcee said...

I'ma go back and read the rest, but I had to comment on this:

At his age, I had thought myself into a similar corner. My willingness to endorse and engage in violence had something to do with an exaggerated sense of my own importance. I wanted to prove myself as a man - a motive exploited by all armies and terrorist groups.

This reminded me of Meade's comments/thoughts about me and TMR - that we're exhibiting some exaggerated vision of masculinity to hide shortcomings. It's bullshit - both anyone who would do that, and the suggestion it's what I do.

I am an unreconstructed-by-feminism "man" - which, by today's standards, seems "macho". I don't have to act a part, and even refuse to do so (that's why I rejected Ann's view that I reign in what I call elements of my humanity and she calls "self-pity"). All I have to do is be me - and demand that's not only good enough but (in light of the examples I see in others) better than most - to ruffle the feathers of those under the spell of feminism, like Meade.

And, for the record, I'm not attacking Meade here but trying to talk real talk:

A "man" nowadays doesn't have to push his chest out and wear a wifebeater to get attacked as what used to be called a sexist pig. He just has to be a man and look out for Number One - which naturally means opposing feminism, because it's got nothing for me, is out to get me, and assumes I'll roll over for it. Well, I've done a lot of fucking in my life but I don't roll over for anybody, and ain't gonna start now for no woman, no matter how badly she (or her gay friends) want to claim my ass. It don't work that way, no matter how many other pussy men are happy to do so:

I ain't the one.

And that's The Macho Response.

sakredkow said...

I watched the documentary The Weather Underground a couple of months ago. Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn just came across basically unrepentant ideologues, not really into self-introspection. Mark Rudd had a little more insight into himself and his failures.

In WaPo he writes "After I turned myself in, I spent the next 25 years trying to figure out why I had made so many disastrous decisions as a young man."

I can't totally hate someone who puts it that way.

The Crack Emcee said...

If that post keeps coming up, it's because I can't see it. I don't know if it's blogger or my browser, but something ain't acting right.

gadfly said...

Tucson is not comparable to the Rudd's "Days of Rage."

Mark Rudd, like Ayres and Dohrn, should be in jail for treason. Instead he too is ensconced in academia pretending to be an upstanding citizen.

From Conservapedia: "Mark Rudd is a leader of Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS)–a grouping of former Weather Underground leaders and senior Communist Party USA, Democratic Socialists of America and Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism activists.

Several MDS leaders, including Bill Ayers, Bernardine Dohrn, Carl Davidson and Rashid Khalidi know Barack Obama personally. Several MDS leaders including Tom Hayden, Bill Fletcher, Jr., Barbara Ehrenreich and Carl Davidson were involved in setting up Progressives for Obama – an organization tasked with uniting the far left behind Barack Obama. Rudd also is a member."

This Power Line piece and its main link provide a needed perspective of this old Weatherman.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/03/023153.php

The corrected busted link is here:

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/books/item_sBBw74CXo766HF1uMkggoI#ixzz1B4jVR366

The Crack Emcee said...

phx,

In WaPo he writes "After I turned myself in, I spent the next 25 years trying to figure out why I had made so many disastrous decisions as a young man."

I can't totally hate someone who puts it that way.


Agreed - but then he went and supported Obama with Ayers and Dohrn.

That tells me he ain't thought about his mistakes too hard.

Quaestor said...

Note how Rudd stakes out his territory: Loughner's motivation for violence was purely a product of his fevered imagination, while Rudd's casus belli was undeniably real. If there's one thing all paranoid schizophrenics have in common it's this -- they're all cocksure about the reality of their delusions.

wv: tatie - as in "Pass the taties, Moick"

Skyler said...

He compares himself to a schizophrenic murderer and I'm not sure he comes out on top. At least the schizophrenic man has an excuse for his behavior.

Anonymous said...

Comparing this Loughner nut to Rudd and his fellow fascists, you have to give Loughner a pass.

I mean, after all, Loughner wasn't a spoiled cunt from plenty of wealth who killed people with the hope of fomenting a revolution that would cause deaths in the millions and bring massive poverty.

Fuck Mark Rudd. If I see him in hell, I will stick hot coals up his ass every day for eternity.

sakredkow said...

@Skyler - interesting observation. Rudd seems to be saying he was better because his own ideology was correct, his behaviors were failures. He's saying Loughner had no ideology, in fact had nothing but - did he use the term paranoid schizophrenic? Seems like that was what he was saying.

Both of them are pretty horrible. The delusional and murderous psychopath, and the True Believer. They're both frighteningly random, and seemingly incapable of genuine compassion or humanity. It seems like they don't have the capacity to doubt themselves either.

Synova said...

I noticed that he does this "thing."

He says that he founded, or was a founder of, the Weather Underground, and then adds distance... it was not *his* belief that bombs were an absolute necessity, but the belief of the non-personal entity "Weather Underground". Not only that, of course, but that "bomb" avoids saying "blowing sh*t up and murdering people" was an absolute necessity. He stops at the thing before getting to the purpose.

And to say that Loughner may have felt a Glock an absolute necessity follows with that, as if it was about the gun and not the murder.

Synova said...

And I have to agree with Skyler and Seven...

We don't hold persons who are unwell to the same standards of responsibility as we hold wealthy spoiled brats.

Anonymous said...

As far as social problems go, I'll take Loughers over Rudds any day. The most your Loughners will do is kill a few people in a day of violence or -- if they are really good -- send around some mail bombs.

Things fall right for a cunt like Mark Rudd and you got Pol Pot killing six million Cambodians, or decades of evil and death in all of Eastern Europe.

What an awful cunt of a man.

Ann Althouse said...

@Crack Blogger flagged your comment (and a bunch of others) as spam. I clicked them through.

WestVirginiaRebel said...

It sounds like he was saying, "Hey, I was a revolutionary, an idealist-not some cold-blooded psychopath! Honest!"

Still trying to rationalize his own behavior like many "reformed" radicals.

Anonymous said...

Shorter Mark Rudd: When what I did caused people to die, it was good because I think it was good. When Jared Loughner caused people to die, it was bad because I think it was bad.

It's all about intent for these cunts. As Pol Pot would (and did, hilariously) say: "Mistakes were made." But your heart was in the right place. Right, Mark?

Meade said...

According to Mark Rudd, Mark Rudd had to address actual moral grievances while Jared Loughner was addressing imagined moral grievances.

Or so Mark Rudd imagines.

JAL said...

Note his other examples are Tim McVeigh (?) who blew up civil servants, children and senior citizens for ideological reasons (presumedly right wing from Rudd's perspective,) James Earl Ray who murdered MLK, and an anti-abortion murderer.

No Lee Harvey Oswald or Sirhan Sirhan -- to who Bill Ayers DEDICATED his manifesto Prairie Fire to. (And I don't recall Ayers has disavowed it. Shit. Ayers hasn't disavowed *anything.*)

No Che Guevera epiphany (evil crazy murderer!!)

So he makes a typical charming case but still is pretty thin with a little poking around. Good link to Power Line, gadfly.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

I don't think the man was insane.

Simply calling mass murder insane doesn't explain it.

He was a jerk, and believed a lot of strange things.

But, here's the thing, I don't see anything indecipherable about his motives. He said what they were. They aren't any crazier than most motives for murder: a personal slight on top of a mountain of impotent rage and self-importance.

This was a man who didn't matter to anyone, and desperately wanted to matter. The harder he tried the more people loathed him. He didn't have the perspective to see that he was the problem.

Next- well, haven't we all met trolls that were at least as bad? Bizarre beliefs, impenetrable tautology and fountains of anger? Haven't we all seen this before?

No, there's no insanity here, any more than the men who set off bombs in crowded restaurants are insane. There is purpose, premeditation, and motive. It's terrorism. Just because the motivating ideology seems so bizarre doesn't change what it was. And I find nothing bizarre about isolationist, anti-Christian, 9/11 truthers on the internet. They come in six-packs. It's a pathetic attempt to feel superior by avoiding any real worldview choices. Hate everyone, and when no one likes you it proves you are right.

I have no sympathy, at all, for this murderer. I think he had the ability to choose what he did, and he certainly knew what he did was wrong. I haven't said anything about this whole thing, but the thread of sympathy flowing from the incorrect belief that somehow the world failed this man irritates me.

So, I wish people would stop projecting what they want to see onto this whole bloody affair. There's nothing to see. It really is as simple as it appears.

bagoh20 said...

I guess we're lucky Loughner was a loner, and that his friends weren't dumb or evil enough to join him. Rudd didn't even have enough sense or character to find decent people for friends. At least on this Loughner is superior. I don't see what Rudd feels superior about.

BJM said...

I'm with Synova on this one. What?

Rudd thinks he can absolve himself by comparing his youthful motivation to do violence with that of a madman?

Does. not. compute.

However, Rudd's not writing this for the public, but for the elitist echo chamber in which he lives and works.

I betting the WH, Ayers & crew aren't pleased to have this dredged up at the moment.

Rudd is still trying to fit in with the cool kids. FAIL.

Anonymous said...

Why it's almost as if Billy Ayers had written a new short story of moral equivalency using buzz phrases from this week (imagined morals) wrapped in the cloak of MLK (think of the date!) using the words of Marx to refudiate small government advocates from a speaker "with absolute moral authority" on the dangers of violence and revolution.

Anonymous said...

How long will the narrative that this guy had anything to do with small-government conservatism persist?

MayBee said...

In 20 years, our future President will launch his logical career in Jared Loughner's living room

Anonymous said...

How long will the narrative that this guy had anything to do with small-government conservatism persist?

You missed the point. This entire exercise in the media is directed at silencing the tea party movement which advocates for small government conservatism by tarring them with the evil, violent, intolerant, hateful rhetoric.

Why else would it be wrapped up in such a nice, neat package hitting all the talking points and buzz words of the week?

Quaestor said...

Ask Mark Rudd about the Weather Underground's war aims and he'd pontificate about creating a just society. He should be thankful America isn't a society obsessed with justice, else he'd have been nailed to a plank decades ago.

Use every man after his desert, and who should 'scape whipping?
Hamlet scene ii

wv: wingfull - "Jonathan Livingston Seagull can stuff his avian zen where the sun don't shine. Personally I've had a wingfull."

Anonymous said...

Stevie: we agree. I did not miss the point.

MayBee said...

Stupid iPhone.
In 20 years our future president will launch his political career in Jared Loughner's living room.

MarkD said...

At his age, I was a Marine. Rudd can stuff it up his poop chute. Somebody else's kid paid the price he wouldn't.

I know what he is, and he know what he is. Anything else is superfluous.

Quaestor said...

20 years is just about on schedule for Markos Moulitsas.

Gene said...

Mark Rudd isn't thinking any more clearly today than he did 40 years ago. He starts off conceding Loughner was nuts. Then practically in the next breath he turns around and suggests Loughner still had a political motive even if he "probably" didn't know what it was.

The left just cannot (will not) give up the notion that Loughner shot 20 people to achieve some (right wing) political goal. It fits too wonderfully into their narrative not to be true--even when it demonstrably isn't.

holdfast said...

I don't get it - what's the relevance? Is this another Obama Buddy coming out of the woodwork?

Gene said...

John Lynch: "No, there's no insanity here, any more than the men who set off bombs in crowded restaurants are insane."

Loughner shot 20 people apparently because Congressman Giffords chose not to answer an indecipherable question during a Q&A three years ago. How many people would he have to shoot over such a trivial matter before you would consider him insane?

You seem to be saying anyone who had any reason for doing what he did is not insane. I would agree Loughner had a reason. It just was an insane one.

Alex said...

Interesting that Alpha, Ritmo, garage, victoria are all absent from this thread. Isn't it?

Anonymous said...

Not really, Alex, since it went up at 10pm on a Friday night.

Anonymous said...

Gene -- Insane in the sense you speak and insane in the sense that a person is not fit for trial are two different things.

Mr. Forward said...

" The Crack Emcee said...
If that post keeps coming up, it's because I can't see it. I don't know if it's blogger or my browser, but something ain't acting right."

Love your blog, Crack, but that something that ain't acting right is you. Civility is not a New Age scam, so go ahead and try some. Just sayin'.

rhhardin said...

Wombs not bombs

traditionalguy said...

The Maoists always said that power comes out of the barrel of a gun. And the Dems claim all of the moral authority to exercise power.Today their saying is that all power comes out of a Media conspiracy using a digital Journolist.So Sarah gets her Ignominy Tag by reason of posting her thoughts on the competing conservative Journolist called a Facebook/Twitter account.

Revenant said...

John,

The reason your argument doesn't work is that Loughner's behavior and thought processes were clearly insane even when you exclude the actual murders from consideration.

Anonymous said...

Way too much time is being spent trying to determine what this guy's motivation was. It is immaterial. The guy was a murderous lunatic. No more, no less."

Hmmmm.

What if Loughner says he was only doing what Barack Obama - your President - told him to do?

What if Loughner says he brought a gun to the fight (just like Obama told him to) and that he just wanted to get in their faces (just like Obama told him to do) and that he just wanted to punish his enemies (just like Obama told him to do).

What if he says that he was inspired to kill these people by Barack Hussein Obama?

Would you still argue that Loughner's political motives are unimportant?

Anonymous said...

Not true.

Barack Obama's friends in the terrorist organization known as the Weather Underground killed or tried to kill many people with terrorist bombs, arson and other acts of guerilla warfare.

"On February 16, 1970 a nail bomb placed on a window ledge of the Park Police substation in the Upper Haight neighborhood of San Francisco exploded at 10:45 p.m. The blast killed police Sergeant Brian McDonnell. Law enforcement suspected the Weather Underground but was unable to prove conclusively that the organization was involved.[62] A second officer, Robert Fogarty was partially blinded by the bomb’s shrapnel."

The reason most of them are free is that they are Democrats. Barack Obama launched his political career from the home of one of the members of the Weather Underground - Bill Ayers.

These killers are free because one of their own is in the White House - protecting them.

Anonymous said...

"Interesting that Alpha, Ritmo, garage, victoria are all absent from this thread. Isn't it?"

Not surprising really. Any time the domestic terrorists who make up Barack Obama's Facebook friends list start writing Op-Ed's in the Washington Post, the leftards AlphaLiberal, GarageMahal et. al. go to ground.

They don't want to stoke the discussion, because it only reminds average Americans that their hero, the man currently occupying the White House, is a known associate of a domestic terrorist organization who wants people to call him Hussein.

Barack Obama is associated with terrorists who bombed inside our own country.

They simply cannot discuss that. They simply cannot see that.
They simply cannot acknowledge that.

It would destroy their psyches.

test said...

Funny that he still insists his co-conspirators were bright. In fact they were idiots being manipulated by people whispering hatred in their ears, just like the current crop of leftist activists.

test said...

"But then, one realizes: Mostly all they managed to do was blow off their own fingers."

Not true. They eventually figured out their methods didn't work, so they joined the education establishment. Now they teach college students to hate America using the same techniques once used on them.

The Drill SGT said...

without mentioning the nearly exactly similar maps of the DLC

for the record, it was Federal Office holders at the DCCC, not private citizens at the DLC who put bullseyes on people.

e.g. Congresswoman Giffords peers...

Bartender Cabbie said...

Right on Marshal. Those that can do and those that can't "teach."Luckily for America this Rudd and Co. were fairly incompetent terrorists but terrorists they were. I marvel that this Rudd is not still getting buggered in a prison somewhere. Instead he is paid on the taxpayer dime to "teach" young folk. Crazy.

Anonymous said...

I can't think of anyone more worthy of idolatry than Che Guevara except maybe Hitler, Stalin or Mao.

Sadly, the people who actually know history and still revere Che probably think the other three were pretty groovy, too.

Anonymous said...

the suspect probably didn't worry that liberals would blame conservatives for the shooting or that conservatives would take umbrage at every media accusation.

Yeah. Why would conservatives take umbrage at such a thing? Overreacting!

vet66 said...

Alex; Did you read the part about the photos of Loughner posing in a red string bikini with the 9mm accentuating his glutes?

Now that is a telling fashion statement worthy of their quiet consideration.

WV: catio

Henry said...

From the link:

"Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map deserve nothing but ignominy"

By their asides you shall know them.

Note: Not "Sarah Palin's cross-hairs map" but "Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map" (my emphasis).

If you just tag the graphical sin,
the ignominy gets spread too thin.

Michael said...

And the WaPo, of course, had to provide space for us to get the deep thoughts of Mark Rudd. Mark, please go away. Please. We really don't need your deep thoughts on alienation and violence. We really don't. We just want to go to ball games with our kids and cook out with the neighbors and maybe after a few beers do a little flirting. We want the hideous normal things you so loathe, that you find so bourgeois, so banal. Go away.

damikesc said...

OT: But after the first leaks of Ron Jr's book about his dad came out, it seems everybody here who said he didn't know what the hell he was talking about have been shown to be correct, as he cites surgeries that never happened and signs that contradict what Reagan's doctors have said.

Bruce said...

"anyone who writes about the Tucson shootings, including a line like 'Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map deserve nothing but ignominy,' without mentioning the nearly exactly similar maps of the DLC...."

Forget about the similar maps, what about all the Bush assassination chic, the sheer hatred, the horrifying quotes made by so many on the left?

The Crack Emcee said...

Mr. Forward,

Love your blog, Crack, but that something that ain't acting right is you. Civility is not a New Age scam, so go ahead and try some. Just sayin'.

I'm a crude man and civility, as defined by political correctness, is not only overrated but - you're wrong - designed to stifle men, so I refuse to go along, sorry. Except for once, when I was reacting to Meade's semi-regular "I'll kick your ass" outbursts (or other unwarranted acts of aggression) I've never threatened anyone. The fact so many feel comfortable lecturing me tells me y'all know that. (I've noticed that, because of the different ways we're wrongly perceived, I've never heard/seen anyone tell the "civil" Meade to knock it off.)

It's all leftover hippie bullshit, as fake as two people with kids by two other people, who they claim to have once married, now claiming to be married themselves - but, oh yea, it's real this time. You know, that that they've already had kids, and don't have to struggle together for money, and all that other stuff that made their "first" marriages so hard. Whatever. Listen Forward:

When I find someone talking legit shit, I'll bow to it, but until then, this American don't make like Barack Obama on tour to nobody.

Cedarford said...

Capt. Schmoe said...
Way too much time is being spent trying to determine what this guy's motivation was. It is immaterial. The guy was a murderous lunatic. No more, no less.

Accept it, get over it and move on. The more discourse that occurs, the more discord will surely follow.
=======================
Absolutely.
Our interminable, Talmudic, endless due process "modern" legal system is designed to give assassins and terrorists maximum time in the spotlight. As well-paid lawyers suck up taxpayer money and talk about the many years and many millions justice, endless expert witnesses, brilliant new strategies to "defend" a KSM or a serial rapist killer or a Loughner - requires.

Pat Buchanan had a column a few days ago that noted before the legal system was perverted, assassins and past terrorists had weeks to a few months to live if caught.

Paraphasing:

"We didn't seek to understand the co-conspirators involved in Lincolns assassination. They got a fair military tribunal and were shortly hanged."

"McKinley's assassin was a deranged man. We electrocuted him inside a month"

"The similarly deranged person who shot Mayor Cernak of Chicago trying for FDR was sentenced to life imprionment within weeks without "trying to understand his life and motives". When Cernak died, a day-long trial meted out thedeath penalty and he walked to the chair within weeks"

George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower did not seek to understand the person or the motives of a number of black and white US soldiers that killed and raped British, French, Australian, even German women.
They promptly shot or hanged them, after a proper court martial.
Several hundred Germans and Japs were hanging by a rope or riddled by a firing squad withing months of capture for warcrimes.

Had Lee Harvey Oswald lived, his assassination happened before US justice was perverted in the mid-60s. He would have been quickly found guilty and quickly executed.

The mid-60s were the demarcation point.

The subsequent assassins of RFK and Martin Luther King were given long trials, endless appeals, and allowed to live.

Meade said...

Crack's moral grievances are actual moral grievances while everyone else's moral grievances are only imagined moral grievances.

PaulV said...

Could someone write Loughter's op-ed that will be published in Wash Compost in 40 years. Some leftist might blow up before he writes it.
Or maybe Cpmpost mightbbe blown up by then.

Hagar said...

PBS has a documentary on the ex Weatherman people that they have run several times (I think it was made about 1990+/-).

It is remarkable in that all the men, with the exception of Bill Ayers, speak with some doubts about their activities back then, while all the women seem wholly convinced that their problem was only in being too early, and all expressed hope that the real revolution would come while they were still alive and could join the fighting on the barricades.

The other really remarkable thing was that all the interviewees were employed at universities (except Mark Rudd, who was just a lowly math instructor at the Albuquerque TVI, possibly because he was the most doubtful in the lot), some as professors such as Ayers and Dohrn, others in the bureaucracy in potentially influential positions.

The Crack Emcee said...

Meade,

Crack's moral grievances are actual moral grievances while everyone else's moral grievances are only imagined moral grievances.

Hey, that's better than your actual threats for my imagined crimes. Who's the better man there? Who's been more obnoxiously "macho"? Who can't defend their position with anything more than their fists and legal threats? I told you:

You can't win - and really ought to knock it off.

caplight said...

People like Paul(to look for comparable left-wing vitriol is 'a false pretense of balance) Krugman and Mark(Sarah Palin and her cross-hairs map deserve nothing but ignominy) Rudd and liberals in general have to spend an awful lot of time drawing boundaries for speech and thought because if they didn't rationality and common sense would break through and destroy much of their world view and beliefs.

Meade said...

Not sure what "actual threats" you're imagining, Crack, but, yes, you win - you are the better Macho Man. Congratulations.

paul a'barge said...

I can't keep these Weather-Morons apart anymore. Is Rudd the one who repented from his violent background or is he one of the ones like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn who has never grown up?

Can't someone come along and find a solution to these vile, violent mutts still plaguing American society after all these years?

What's the upside to some doofus with a big-ass bald spot on the back of his head ranting about the violent overthrow of our government? Remind me, I guess I forgot.

Phil 314 said...

Loughner - though he's the product of a different era and may have been motivated only by his madness

I am getting so tired of these equivocating phrases "may have been motivated only by his madness")

This is as silly as some fashion writer discussing the shooting and suggesting Loughner was motivated by the return of the boot to fashion.

While we can't know what truly motivated Mr. Loughner, many have complained about the militaristic look of the now fashionable knee-high boots. Such fashion outrage has motivated violent reactions in the past.

Hagar said...

Paul a'Barge,

As evident from the linked article, "repented" is too strong a word, but in the PBS documentary Rudd comes across as the most nearly doubtful of the wisdom of their youthful actions.

Hagar said...

That is, wisdom as to the tactics employed; he still does not doubt the wisdom of the cause.

NotWhoIUsedtoBe said...

NPR on fame through assassination.

kent said...

"Interesting that Alpha

AlphaTard is currently "shunning" (his word) the Professor, because he determined her mild, apologetic criticisms of The Anointed One to be -- and I quote -- "sinful."

Religious fanatics are like that, sometimes.

kent said...

The video that got Loughner suspended from college

kent said...

Bizarrely, [Bill] Maher Blames Tucson Shooting On...Lack of ObamaCare

Charlie Martin said...

But, here's the thing, I don't see anything indecipherable about his motives. He said what they were. They aren't any crazier than most motives for murder: a personal slight on top of a mountain of impotent rage and self-importance.

Dude, look at the stuff he wrote and/or posted on YouTube: whether you think his motives were understandable or not, he was bat-shit crazy.

Anonymous said...

Fuck Rudd.

Fuck him right in the ear.

The fact that he's lived his life outside of prison is a disgrace.

That he's paid to opine on anything is a bigger disgrace.

AST said...

Could Rudd testify as a character witness for Loughner?

I don't really get his point here. Is he saying that it's normal for young people to turn to murder? Maybe he's saying why he thinks everybody of the left was so certain, despite a complete absence of evidence, that conservative lack of "civility" was what triggered Loughner's decision to commit murder.