A voter's hand reflects in his sunglasses as he casts his vote in Juba on January 12, 2011. South Sudan's ruling party said Wednesday that the 60-percent turnout threshhold required for a landmark independence vote to be declared valid has been reached after just three days of polling. By Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images.
A reader writes:
I think it is clear that we Jews owe Sarah Palin an apology. For centuries, we have had the temerity to compare our suffering to Hers.
I must say the harmonic convergence of Alan Dershowitz and Pat Buchanan on this question is a little unnerving.
Some studies on the alleged relationship. They conflict. But actual violence has been declining very swiftly in the US in the past decade or so, as measured by rates of assault. Ever since Grand Theft Auto came on the scene.
Mark Thompson has grown tired of the "debate over debate":
The trouble with incivility and complaints about incivility is that it is an endless downward spiral and cycle. If Team Red attacks Team Blue in what Team Blue perceives (rightly or wrongly) to be an uncivil manner, Team Blue will respond in kind, regardless of whether it responds in degree as well. Such a response will be justifiable as self-defense, except that act of self-defense will not be perceived as an act of self-defense by Team Red, but instead as an act of aggression. And so Team Red will respond in kind, regardless of whether it responds in degree. Often, Team Purple will help make things worse by throwing a sucker punch and blaming it on someone else by pretending to be neutral.
His larger point:
If we in fact are interested in improving the quality of tone and debate in this country, then we have to first commit to improving the quality of our own individual tone and debate rather than demanding that everyone else first do the same, and definitely rather than demanding that everyone else accept blame for everything they’ve done in the past.
"Sarah Palin has a perfect right, both legally and morally, to protest those who are trying to directly tie her, her rhetoric, or the rhetoric of her political allies, to Loughner. Doing so by asserting that her and her pals getting pinked for their political messaging is just like the entire nation of the Jews enduring centuries of pogroms and persecution because of the enduring lie that they murdered babies for their religious ceremonies? …
Again: Palin perfectly correct to complain about those trying to blame her for Loughner’s actions. But of all the stupid, appalling, jackassed things Sarah Palin has ever said in the history of the time she’s inflicted herself on the consciousness of our great nation, this is, alas, merely the most recent," – John Scalzi.
Reading the WSJ's excellent reporting on Loughner's participation in various computer game forums, the same patterns emerge. He's obviously mentally disturbed, and the content of his addled mind is best described by the WSJ:
The postings exhibit fixations on grammar, the education system, government and currency, which some friends and acquaintances have described separately in the days since the attack. They are peppered with displays of misogyny.
As the Dish has noted from the get-go, he doesn't seem very political except in a broadly paranoid sense, which is why the core question that remains unanswered is why he decided to try to assassinate his congresswoman. But we do get weird diversions into currency and this:
One post alluded to the Fifth Amendment, which aims to protect citizens against the government abusing its power in legal proceedings.
The most important thing in understanding him is mental illness. There is no evidence of any formal political connection to any group or ideology. My reason to pause and leave this question still marginally open is his expression of such intense paranoia, references to government illegitimacy, and suspicion of government currency. There's paranoia on far right and far left, and then there's the paranoia in which that distinction seems moot (and is some strange conflation of both).
By the way, it appears that he gave up smoking pot a while ago; and it also appears that he lived large swathes of his life as an avatar online.
Update: We still don't really know why Loughner targeted Giffords, as I wrote above, but I didn't mean to imply there was evidence of a connection. This is not dispositive but it is relevant:
Bryce Tierney, a friend of alleged shooter Jared Loughner tells Mother Jones magazine that Loughner had always had a grudge against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), and that it was a missed voice mail message Loughner left on his phone that led him to believe Loughner was involved in the mass shooting. In the message Loughner said, "Hey man, it's Jared. Me and you had good times. Peace out. Later."
Tierney, described as "an old and close friend with whom he had gone to high school and college" in the Mother Jones report, said that Loughner had repeatedly called Giffords a "fake," and that his hatred of Giffords intensified after he attended a campaign event where he posed a question to the congresswoman. According to Tierny, Loughner's question was, "What is government if words have no meaning?"
"He said, 'Can you believe it, they wouldn't answer my question,' and I told him, 'Dude, no one's going to answer that,'" Tierney recalls. "Ever since that, he thought she was fake, he had something against her."
First Read asks why Palin didn't wait until tomorrow:
By releasing this video a full 15 hours before tonight's memorial service — and thanks to the relatively slow day in the political world before tonight — her video will get plenty of attention. And whether she meant to or not, there will likely be a stark contrast drawn between her words and what the president says tonight.
Amy Sullivan also wonders why Palin didn't "hold off on the lashing out at her critics and casting herself as a victim for just a few more days":
Palin simply can't help it. You know that friend of yours for whom everything is always about them? Your dad is in the hospital and your cat just died and you lost your job, and yet she blows up at you because you forgot her birthday? Palin is that friend.
A reader writes:
Listen, I'm no fan of the drug war, but your recent post on the purchase of pseudoephedrine ignores the enormous success Oregon has seen in reducing domestic meth production by making pseudoephedrine prescription-only. Rather than create a large network of "smurfing" (where individuals buy small amounts across a number of pharmacies), the law has made the purchase of such medicines restricted but still available to those who have a cold. A look at the number of meth lab busts in Oregon since the law was enacted in 2005 is pretty striking (PDF).
Has it solved the problem of meth usage? No. But this policy has clearly reduced domestic meth production (not to mention it has near-universal support among Oregon pharmacists and residents). I'd say it's a point against meth, no?
Another writes:
Balko’s quotes and attributions to that AP story are HIGHLY selective and in large measure misrepresent the AP story.
But, even more egregious, the gist of the AP story is simply not supported – in many ways it is contradicted – by the very information the AP author cites. And they all lack the background to understand today’s problem in the context of a 15-year effort against large scale meth manufacturing in the post-biker era.
Anyone who knows the story of the meth/pseudoephedrine efforts over the last 15 years – and I was there on the ground floor Year One in California in 1994 – understands that the “smurfing” of pseudoephedrine tablets that Balko complains of represent a huge law enforcement success against meth manufacturing when you consider it against the landscape that existed in that trade from 1995 to 2000.
Google up “DEA Operation Mountain Express” and see what you get. That was the pseudo trade, pre-smurfing. Want to go back to that? Those were the days of “super labs” manufacturing 40 pounds of meth in 48 hours, leaving behind toxic waste dumps that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up and polluted ground water for miles around.
But, like with all drug issues, you have to separate the efforts on the supply side from the efforts on the demand side. So long as there is a demand, there will eventually be a supply to meet the demand. So it will always been a little bit like a water balloon – push in one spot, and the water moves to another spot. But you catch a lot of very bad people along the way – and that is a good thing no matter how you look at it because it is the suppliers that prey on the weakness of the consumers all in the name of a buck.
A reader in Portland writes:
I think it's high time these pharmaceutical companies stop making pseudoephedrine, much as foreign pharma companies stopped making ingredients for quaaludes in the '70s. Why can't our drug czar simply ask them to stop feeding the problem? Otherwise, legislators and enforcement officals will continue to chase their tail to solve a problem which could be easily solved if Pharma took responsibility.
Sudafed, etc. isn't effective anyway. Use a freaking neti pot, eat right, use steam and hot baths if you have a bad cold. Take responsibility for your own illness rather than relying on these monstrous companies to solve your problem.
The above Frontline segment covers the quaalude crackdown and efforts to replicate its success with amphetamines – only to get derailed by the pharmaceutical lobby. The full episode, "The Meth Epidemic", is here.
Don Taylor thinks "the essence of the progressive/liberal hubris is that we think we are smarter than everyone else" and "the essence of the conservative hubris is the belief that conservatives are more moral/noble/patriotic than others." The effect:
At their heart, both sources of hubris say that people with different views are illegitimate in one way or another. Someone who is illegitimate is not worth talking to, respecting, listening to, understanding, or even debating reasonably. Certainly not worthy of compromising with to solve the huge problems facing our nation.
"I can only operate to the utmost and to 100 percent of my potential if I have no safety net. Because it's only then that I'm at my peak. That's one reason I never did TV shows — I didn't want to have that security. What I liked about being governor was never knowing how a meeting would end. The legislative leaders could leave and destroy you to the press. Or they go out and compliment you. So you don't know. You don't know the way the people go. One year they like something, the next year it's number seven on their priority list. So you just never know. That brings excitement and spice to life. And that to me is the difference between living and existing," – Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Dish 