I was struck by today’s response of Sarah Palin to criticism that her rhetoric and “targeting” of Rep. Gifford’s district may have added to the recent massacre in Tucson. In fairness to Palin, the family stated today that Jared Loughner did not watch news or listen to talk radio. However, I was most interested in her claim that the attacks against her and conservative commentators amounted to a “blood libel.”
On her Facebook page, Palin has the following comments:
But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.
There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.
Of course, she is not speaking of actual libel. Such criticism of the over-the-top rhetoric of conservative commentators is clearly opinion and not defamation.
“Blood libel” is a term usually associated with religious groups who are accused to killing innocents. Blood libels have a strong anti-Semitic history, such as claims that Jews feed on the flesh or blood of innocent children. For that reason, the Anti-Defamation League has denounced the use of the term — though I do not believe that the simple use of this term is evidence of any anti-semiticism by Palin.
That is a pretty loaded term to use for the criticism over violent terminology and over-heated rhetoric. Indeed, it seems to emphasize a degree of persecution. There is probably some distance between dueling and discourse.
The closest term in torts is “group libel” which (as discussed earlier) is generally difficult to establish.
If either term is relevant, there appears to be an ongoing effort on both sides to tag the other with the massacre. Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik stated “The kind of rhetoric that flows from people like Rush Limbaugh, in my judgment he is irresponsible, uses partial information, sometimes wrong information. . . [Limbaugh] attacks people, angers them against government, angers them against elected officials and that kind of behavior in my opinion is not without consequences.”
Limbaugh has reportedly fired back by saying that the Democratic Party supports Loughner and is “attempting to find anybody but him to blame.”
In the meantime, members are moving toward a spasm of new laws to criminalize speech.
There is of course another obvious possibility: Loughner is mentally unstable and fully motivated by his own personal demons. Of course, this does not mean that we should not reexamine the rhetoric of our politics.
Frankly, I also share the concern of conservative commentators with politicians like Bernie Sanders (who I agree with on many issues) referring to the massacre in fundraising appeals. This massacre has somehow become about the politicians as opposed to the killer or the victims. That alone says something about the state of our politics.
Jonathan Turley
Good point, shano.
The attempted assassination of a politician is inherently political.
Slarti: “Bob said: “The act here is lying and it’s wrong.”
Except it’s not a lie – there is a connection between violent speech and violent actions.”
There is no connection known (yet) between Laughner’s actions and the violent speech of the right by Palin, Angle, etc. To infer otherwise is in fact lying. Period.
Slarti: “As for the Jets, once again, I will be rooting for them against the Steelers, but I’m dubious as to their chances (hopefully that prediction will work out the same as yesterdays…)”
Groovy!
Slarti: “shano said: “That is the way it is here.”
And it shouldn’t be. Bob, how would you suggest we go about changing this if we can’t mention the connection between violent speech and violent acts?”
Show the goddamn nexus between the speech as it incited the act. Otherwise, preface it all with “what if…”
Rule number one: Do not mortgage your credibility for a cheap short gain.
Buddha: “However, since Loughner had clearly picked up some right wing tropes in his pre-shooting ravings, how exactly is that not exacerbation by the right? It need not be traceable to a single source, but he was clearly hooked on some far rightist memes.”
Clearly what? Do you have information that the authorities have yet to pick up on?
Right wing extremist speech is wrong and God bless ya for shaming it; but it doesn’t give you license to create connections where they don’t exist.
P.S. Did you catch 60 Minutes last Sunday night? Amazing observation by the Secret Service regarding mentally deranged assassins; they have yet to find one that did it for political reasons.
Right is Right,
Just google Ingraham and Malkin. I am not going to do your work for you. Did you not review shano’s link last night that gave you a real timeline to violence that was aided and abetted by Malkin and her crowd. But don’t believe that, just do the google thing. Did Dr. Laura have a little problem with the “N” word? You many want to ask Gays if Michelle Malkin spreads lies and hate. Not to mention Geraldo Rivera.
(Just for you RIR:
http://www.zerohedge.com/article/adam-smith-critiques-deficit-reduction-commission
btw, I do not get this type of liar email from the ‘left’.
It is an incredible problem for the right wing if people are going to believe lies. Lies that are full of hate speech.
RIR, I am not going to go off topic. But I will tell you that I lost friends in my county because of Palin and the right wing liar email carousel.
I have two friends who have nothing whatsoever to do with each other that would send me the exact same liar email-tell me, is there some concerted effort on the right to spread hate speech and lies? It certainly seems that way.
When I get emails from people that are full of hate speech and lies, I correct them. I send people to snopes, etc.
They refuse to believe iron clad facts. That tells me there is something incredibly wrong with people who are consuming this right wing ‘information’. Why would anyone believe a lie, even after you have proven it to be a hateful lie?
Shano:
I will assume you are a liberal, may I ask if you believe in these ideas:
expansion of government to help people
tax the people making over say $100,000 per year
government health care
heavy regulation on business
or please let me know what others you believe in. I would honestly like to know, if you are liberal, what sets you apart from a conservative?
Elaine M:
“rafflaw,
Malkin, Coulter, Ingraham–the Three Amigas of hateful right-wing Rhetoric.”
You don’t even know what you are talking about do you?
You might be able to make a case against Coulter but I listen to Laura Ingraham and she is tough but she is not hateful. And Malkin gives as good as she gets.
Just because they call you out on your loony ideas doesn’t mean it is hate speech.
If you don’t like your views then change them but don’t call someone hateful because they think your ideas are stupid and can make a case against them.
Rafflaw:
“Right is Right,
It is amazing that you quote Michelle Malkin on a thread discussing the vitriol by conservatives. Talk about the Pot calling the Kettle Black. She is one of the worst offenders of abusive comments on the Right. And that doesn’t even include outright falsehoods that she continues to spew and write about.”
Show me citations, don’t just make an assertion.
“I think the left made too hasty a leap in this case”
You would not think that if you lived in a red county in Arizona. The left here have been terrorized in myriad ways since Palin was picked by local ‘Hero” John McCain. We do not have much of a voice in most of the state with Tucson being the exception.
All the hate groups in the state gravitated to Palin, and we saw McCain giving even more power to her following in the last election.
He was forced to cave to the TeaParty on a number of issues because of a serious challenge by a neo-nut radical right wing radio host named Hayworth.
er … make that “fools rush in” not “some rush fools in.”
shano:
Interesting story and while I think the left made too hasty a leap in this case, I agree one cannot set the table, prepare the feast, throw open the doors and then feign surprise that some rush fools in to consume the meal. There are all manner of invitations.
From David Neiwert:
An especially egregious case:
I often refer to a case that happened here in Seattle back in 1986 to help explain the dynamic at work here: On Christmas eve, a mentally ill loner named David Lewis Rice showed up at the Madrona-neighborhood home of Charles and Annie Goldmark and their two boys. Posing as a deliveryman, he forced his way into their home with a toy gun, tied the family up and chloroformed them, and then proceeded over the next several hours to torture and slowly kill them.
Why did Rice do this? It seemed he favored hanging out with a local collection of former John Birch Society members, ardent McCarthyite conspiracists, who called themselves the “Duck Club.” Their regular gatherings at a local watering hole were largely devoted to extemporizing on the evils of local suspected Communists — among them the Goldmark family. Charles Goldmark’s father, a Chelan rancher and state legislator in the 1950s, had been at the center of a landmark early-’60s libel case in which some Spokane-area Red-hunters were successfully sued for falsely smearing Goldmark and his wife as “card-carrying Communists.” In the minds of the Duck Clubbers, there was no doubt they were Communists then — and still were now.
Of course, in reality, not only were the elder Goldmarks innocent of the smear, as they proved in court, but their children were equally if not more so. Nonetheless, when the libel case turned back up in the news in 1986, their names were prominently mentioned in angry discussions at the Duck Club — where David Lewis Rice lapped up every word. Indeed, he decided to take it upon himself to rid the world of the awful Communist menace posed by Charles and Annie Goldmark and their two children, and so he did, on Christmas Eve.
Now, could those murders, which gripped and horrified the city of Seattle, especially as the details emerged, be blamed on the Duck Club? Well, no — at least not criminally speaking. They had broken no laws and had not directly incited Rice to violence. But ethically and morally speaking — that was another matter altogether. The people involved in the Duck Club, some of whom had once been prominent in the Republican Party, were forever tainted, their reputations destroyed. Everyone in Seattle understood that, having filled David Lewis Rice’s head with lies and smears — the kind that dehumanized and demonized the victims — the blood of the Goldmark family was on their hands as well.
shano,
thanks for the link to just a few facts that Ms. Malkin and Right is Right left out. I wonder how Ms. Malkin could have missed all of these examples?
A more complete timeline of violence in America compared to that pathetic attempt by M.Malkin:
http://www.csgv.org/issues-and-campaigns/guns-democracy-and-freedom/insurrection-timeline
The effects of stochastic terrorism on a populace.:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUZZ4yQ7hTs
Yes, there is an actual term for what we are talking about.
Elaine,
you hit the nail on the head with the Three Amigas!
Bob said: “The act here is lying and it’s wrong.”
Except it’s not a lie – there is a connection between violent speech and violent actions.
As for the Jets, once again, I will be rooting for them against the Steelers, but I’m dubious as to their chances (hopefully that prediction will work out the same as yesterdays…)
shano said: “That is the way it is here.”
And it shouldn’t be. Bob, how would you suggest we go about changing this if we can’t mention the connection between violent speech and violent acts?