Palin Made Me Do It

In the wake of the shooting of Congresswomen Giffords, there is no question that this is a tragic event and it should unite ALL Americans. After all, this is an act of domestic terrorism because it is a threat to our democracy, governance, and freedoms. For centuries our federal government changes over anywhere from 5% to 25% of its seats without incident every two years. This attack is symbolic because it shows how vulnerable and how we take our democracy for granted. It only takes a few nut cases to change history for the worst. This event should not be an argument about conservatism or liberalism, Republicans or Democrats, or Right and Left. It should be an event that brings ALL Americans together to condemn this heinous act in the most civil way possible. But this is not happening. Left wing Paul Krugman of the New York Times is at it again, placing the entire burden of blame for the Arizona massacre on conservative politicians and pundits. You would think Krugman could focus on some of the heroic actions of the day, but no. He has to formulate a negative hypothesis based on assumptions and conjecture instead of a positive hypothesis based on facts.

Unfortunately, the Left cannot let a good crisis go to waste. And what’s worse, instead of seeking solutions to the problem that resulted in the shooting of Giffords, the Left is playing the blame game leaving the Right to defend their position on guns (which, incidentally, is the same position that Giffords holds on firearm ownership). The Left is trying to link the shooter, Jared Loughner, as a Rightwing nut case that followed the beliefs of Palin, Hannity, Beck, and Limbaugh. Although it seems that Loughner was politically all over the map having cited the Communist Manifesto as one of his favorite readings, the Left insists the blame for his actions sits with the Right. Heck, Loughner was even a conspiracy theorist and a 9/11 truther. Let’s face facts; Loughner is delusional and mentally disturbed whether he was influenced by far right or far left rhetoric.

The Left cites a Palin made political map of the U.S. where Giffords’ district is represented by a gun target. Although this merely meant that Giffords district was being targeted by the GOP for takeover in the last election, Democrats insist the target was used to rile up extremists to take out Giffords. And let’s not forget the Democratic National Committee put out a similar U.S. map targeting Republican districts in 2006. This type of behavior of finding blame is not only wrong; it is doing nothing to solve our national problems. Instead, it is leading to more needless polarity and division. When this happens; nothing productive ever gets accomplished. Finding political blame in the Giffords shooting is just as irresponsible as the Right blaming Gore or environmentalists for the shooting at the Discovery Channel headquarters by James Lee. What if the right blamed Olbermann’s anti-war rhetoric as what influenced Major Nidal Hasan to open fire at Fort Hood? This too would be irresponsible. We have become a nation of blamers and excuse makers. In other words, we have become a nation of problem creators instead of problem solvers. And the nonsense of excuses, blaming, no accountability, no personal responsibility, and no commonsense has got to stop. People are accountable for their actions regardless of their external influences. For instance, being an abused child is not an excuse to commit crimes later in life. People who commit crimes are solely responsible and placing further blame does nothing to undo what has transpired. It merely pours more gas onto an already burning fire, which solves nothing.

The bottom line is that it pains me to no end to see Americans acting and behaving like a bunch of school kids. What’s next? Our justice system will allow a new defense claim for psychopathic killers – Someone else made me do it; or Gore made me do it; or Olbermann made me do it; or Palin made me do it! Please, we need to grow up and have a positive impact on society instead of being a bunch of negative agitators motivated solely for political gain.