The tragedy in Arizona and who is really to blame

[cityboi]

The assassination attempt against Rep. Gabrielle Giffords by a lone gunman has sparked a new debate. Who is really at fault here? I think there is a lot of blame to go around. First and foremost, the gunman is primarily the blame. He is the one who did the shooting. However Politics have reached a new level in this country and its creating an atmosphere of not only anger but hatred. Each political side is making the other look evil. Its not about the issues anymore. I think if we can pinpoint the beginning of all this hatred we have to go back to the mid 1990s when the GOP fought for impeaching president Clinton. Then the 2000 election fiasco inflamed things. Since then, the steam has been building. We saw this during the 2008 presidential campaign when politicians made Barack Obama seem like an evil terrorist with people at Sarah Palin rallies saying "kill him". Recently Sarah Palin posted a map of the United States with gun cross hairs over some democratic districts including Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Because of this people are now saying that although Sarah Palin didn't pull the trigger, she has blood on her hands and gave people ideas and threw gasoline over the fire during a time when Americans across the country were already angry and yelling at politicians at town hall meetings. Now death threats against Sarah Palin have reached an all time high. The threats are real and in fact the former Alaska governor's team is so concerned they have been talking to security professionals. She continues to use words and phrases that could trigger violence such as "don't retreat, reload" and now show saying stuff like "liberals can't shut me up" Its almost like she is just asking for some crazy lunatic to bring it on. I think the political game play has to stop because its beginning to cost lives now. Even after the midterm elections, politicians are disappointing the American people by playing politics instead of solving the main problem in this country which is jobs. Repealing healthcare shouldn't even be on the radar but political posturing for 2012 has become a priority for many politicians. Every election we elect these politicians on a promise of change in Washington and instead they play the same old game when they get elected.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/blood-libel-sarah-palins-controversial-reference-riled-emotions/story?id=12601352reached

Notice Rep. Gabrielle Giffords on the list.....It should be interesting to note that a good portion of the democrats on this map had received death threats shortly after Sarah Palin posted the map on her website. In 2008 the Secret Service warned the Obama family of a spike in death threats against them immediately after Palin accused Barack Obama of "palling around with terrorists,"

[cloudship]

I was wondering when this was going to make it into the coffee house.

I don't really think that the shooter was particularly aligned with any party, for that matter I would think he probably was more anti-right wing than anti-left wing. I am worried that there are too many people on both sides trying to turn it into a political issue in that respect.

What I DO think we need to be more vigilant about, and what I think is a more underlying issue, is this fanaticism and extremism that tends to inflame this kind of behavior. Seems everyone is always trying to declare war against the enemy - fight whoever else is there. The government isn't against or for us, it IS us. WE need to start taking responsibility to fix things and work problems out and not fight to see who wins by head count.

[cityboi]

I was wondering when this was going to make it into the coffee house.

I don't really think that the shooter was particularly aligned with any party, for that matter I would think he probably was more anti-right wing than anti-left wing. I am worried that there are too many people on both sides trying to turn it into a political issue in that respect.

What I DO think we need to be more vigilant about, and what I think is a more underlying issue, is this fanaticism and extremism that tends to inflame this kind of behavior. Seems everyone is always trying to declare war against the enemy - fight whoever else is there. The government isn't against or for us, it IS us. WE need to start taking responsibility to fix things and work problems out and not fight to see who wins by head count.

Thats right. And i think its the tone that our political leaders are setting on both sides thats leading to all this anger. A democratic congressman just recently compared the GOP to Nazis. This is the kind of stuff i'm talking about. If our leaders just stuck to the issues instead of scoring political points to gain power we'll be much better off and we'll find there won't be quite so much anger in this country. I really blame politicians and especially the media for stirring the pot.