"a 25% increase in the unemployment rate led to a 5% increase in the murder rate" - ok, if a mechanism of causality can be shown.

"a 25% increase in the unemployment rate led to Timothy McVeigh" - I hear that they're hiring at UC Berkeley...you should apply.

Screaming about politically-inspired murder in the US is like screaming about female rapists...you have a point, but you're missing the point.

reallynow won't even talk to me anymore because of all the attention "she" gets from Joan.

I've been crying my eyes out!

Quantification by definition involves a numerical process...rather than an emotional reaction to whatever red meat the news editors throw out.

Political violence in the US is random. I challenge you to present any data that shows a trend or pattern WRT the political party in power, or any other metric for that matter.

you, on the other hand, are "typical".

and most poor people are democrats.

so do we profile poor people...or democrats.

I don't really have an opinion. Just wondering about the correct hierarchy of bias.

For the left, ordinary lower-class killers represent a failure of the social contract and demand a compassionate response from the system to reduce social inequity.

Conversely, murderers with a political agenga demand that we rethink the whole "free speech" thing...

No, there's no problem with that...

and thank you too.

could you repeat the question

I guess you're what they call "process oriented".

these events were pretty recent, but hate radio has been around for years...so if it was the cause, something should have happened sooner.

proving only that the left gets less time at the range.

As a counter example, I would bring up the case of Ted Kaczynski. He was practically the archetype of an anarcho-left terrorist. But I don't remember any great cry to censor the underground press.

Maybe I remember wrong.

I thought I was making my point with Ted Kaczynski.

Anyway...Timothy McVeigh + a few other nuts + Bush + hate radio = A New Nazi Era? Seems to be the consensus on Salon.

Yes, the hate media have gone over the top and should pull back.

I have read at least one article that stated T.K. may have been influenced by Earth First and other anarchist groups. This is not to say that he was a member of any of these groups...but he had radical back-to-the-earth beliefs.

without your influence I've been turning into a wingnut.

maybe

nobody want to know that.

And Timothy McVeigh was a self-identified Libertarian, which is mistranslated as "right wing whacko" by the media.

well not really

The idea that right-wing talk radio caused these recent killings is theory, not fact.

20 million dead...guess we better not do any of that social engineering. Because every concept in politics is all or nothing.

And every small-town mayor could be the next Mao...every disturbed kid could be the next Manson.

But if you stop listening to Rush everything will be all better.

Russia was a Communist country under Stalin. Your impulse to rebrand him as a right-wing despot is, well, rather stalinist.

The right believes in heaven...the left believes in Utopian Socialism.

Your desire seems to be to define socialism such that there are no negative attributes, or that when a socialist system develops authoritarian characteristics, it somehow becomes right-wing...

Left/right and libertarian/authoritarian are separate political scales. To think that "true" socialism is only libertarian is clearly utopian thinking.

but it's not working

when Clinton lied nobody died.

they're a big employer here in Hateville

Hateville has better strip malls though.

Clearly, there is evidence in history that hate speech can lead to violence.

Clearly, there is no research showing that, over the last 20 years, right-wing talk radio was responsible for an increase in the rate of political crime in the US.

If there is research, please provide a link.

somebody at UC Berzerkeley must have drawn that raggedy line between McVeigh, the abortion bombers, Von Nutt, and Rush...perhaps using multivariate regression or something equally groovy.

I'm concerned with free speech - anybody's speech. The terms "hate speech" and "rabble rousing" are too broad to say much of anything, as far as I'm concerned.

If Rush did a broadcast about the liberals in San Francisco, and then 20 minutes later a mob was on Market Street breaking windows, I would agree with you. But that really isn't what's happening.

Elephantman recently linked to a site that had mug shots of accused criminals...who all were wearing Obama t-shirts. Is that how we want to approach crime?

but I'll argue with him all night anyway if he wants...

I vote mostly liberal but the attitude turns me off. One hand on the wheel of the Volvo, the other messing with an ipod while driving to the clinic to have an abortion.

Ridiculous yes but I get tired of hearing how anyone who has moral qualms about abortion is some sort of troglodyte from the Middle Ages.

Your rhetorical devices of moving goalposts and creating strawmen are what I find completely repulsive and smug.

It's a position of some feminists not to recognize any moral component in abortion, seeing that as only a smokescreen for a patriarchal control paradigm.

This might be a strawman in relation your current tennis match...I really don't care.

it's, like, Jews who eat pork...

Great White is a passing storm...or passing gas.

there's some tension there.

for no apparent reason

for no apparent reason

Your meta-commentary on my posting strategy is of no interest to me.