I especially like the last two sentences. It's even better than his assertion that JFK assassination conspiracies are illogical but a connection between Palin and Tucson is clear as a bell.Did he scoff at me? I think he did! This fellow scoffed at me on the Internet!
We've come to a strange pass when even the most outlandish JFK speculations (e.g., that Jackie tried to flee the convertible after the first sniper shot, but the limo driver from the Secret Service spun around and shot JFK in the head and then ordered Jackie to sit back down) are simply Accepted Facts, but where even the suggestion of a connection between Sarah Palin and Jared Loughner is beyond the pale. It would be child's play to concoct an assassination conspiracy yarn connecting Palin and Loughner. I'm inclined to do so, just for the challenge!
What would such a yarn consist of? Well, there is the Palin's riflescope map - almost too easy!
But there must be more to it than that.
A friend sent this video, where Glenn Beck speaks a bit too freely about shooting people in the head.
Beck is talking about the Left having to do so, not the Right, but it's violent hyperbole nonetheless. Indeed, Beck was expostulating about violence the entire month of June, 2010.
I was struck by the date of Beck's video: June 10, 2010. Here is a second example, from Tucson, that same week:
This announcement from the Pima County Republican website was totally provocative, but it's in that same time frame too.What else was going on that second week of June? What was special about that week?
On June 12, 2010, FOX News hosted this ostentatious effort to unite the Ron Paul Libertarians and the Sarah Palin social conservatives (perhaps a misnomer, because Palin is really more of a Tea-Party-type than a holy roller, but whatever) behind the GOP banner in advance of the November elections.
In the old days, it was the responsibility of the party to iron out these sorts of differences, but as David Frum has pointed out, these days, the GOP is more an appendage of FOX News than vice-versa, so the responsibility falls on FOX News.
Everyone here is on their best behavior, trying to be as agreeable and pleasant to each other as possible, and to find common ground.
So, what could be wrong with that?
Extremists don't think like ordinary people in some respects. When extremists hear rumors of trouble and hear a call for unity, they don't think in terms of finding common ground and working for the common good. They think in terms of silencing all opposition.
I remember once being in a theatrical production where, unbeknownst to everyone, the director was an extremist. A pleasant person, but an extremist nonetheless. Several times, the director spoke to the cast and crew about the importance of working together for the greater good of the show. As a cast member, I interpreted the director's comments as meaning we must all work together for the greater good of the show (something which community-theater people do anyway, almost instinctively).
As an example, if you gather five actors together, you might have six different opinions about which direction the sun rises in the morning, but for the sake of being agreeable (particularly if it's in the script), everyone decides that, for this production, the sun will rise in the east.
That kind of agreeability was not what the director had in mind, though. What the director meant was that one of the crew members persisted in bringing unanticipated difficulties to the director's attention, which interfered with the director's interpretation of the principle of unity. The greater good of the show thus (regrettably) required that the crew member be crushed. The show must go on!
This kind of extremism can pop up whenever a call to unity goes out. Another example is the Irish Republican Army. All they ever asked for was a United Ireland. You have a problem with that?
Now, Jared Loughner, with his concerns about currency, might hold Ron Paul in some esteem, since Paul is concerned about currency too, so when Loughner heard the call to unity (which he well might have, given the ubiquity of mass media), his thoughts naturally turned to his nemesis, Gabrielle Giffords, and to murder.
That second week of June, 2010, Jared Loughner was likely in his second week of summer session at Pima Community College (Sessions A & C start up there just after Memorial Day) and rapidly-becoming infamous for his many outbursts. Was he deliberately ramping up the chaos in order to establish a public record for instability as part of a plan to plead insanity if his efforts to shoot Gabrielle Giffords went awry and he was captured? (Jared Loughner's ex-girl friend certainly seems to suggest as much.) If so, careful planning!
It's also important to remember that another fanatic from Fresno also heard Glenn Beck's warnings of danger and undertook to rid the world of the Tides Foundation, in July, 2010:
Williams is charged with allegedly opening fire on police on Interstate 580 in Oakland, California, while on his way to "start a revolution" by attacking members of the ACLU and the Tides Foundation. As we've reported, the Tides Foundation is a favorite punching bag of Glenn Beck's, and he counts the group among his cabal of liberals aiming to bring socialism to America.It may be that Byron Williams and Jared Loughner were thinking along parallel lines. And why? Because they believed themselves instructed to do so? Imagine!
Now, do I really think that Sarah Palin instigated a plot to rub out Gabrielle Giffords? Probably not - human agency is in the way, and people are far too clever (with JFK, people have never given Oswald his diabolical due, as they aren't doing so with Loughner today).
Nevertheless, would it be easy to create an all-but-airtight conspiracy theory where Sarah Palin issued a kill order against Giffords? Child's play! I haven't even really started with that second week of June, 2010, and I'm sure more "evidence" lies in plain sight. A determined conspiracy theorist has A LOT to work with!
As King Henry II learned with Becket many years ago, all a leader has to do is put the idea *out there*, and others will take up the challenge.
We must also give sufficient weight to a Call to Unity: the most dangerous call in all of politics!
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