An American Suicide Terrorist

Thursday 20 January 2011

by: William John Cox, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

An American Suicide Terrorist
(Photo: Varin Tsai / Flickr)

The shooter of Congresswoman Giffords acted as a domestic suicide terrorist on the political "battleground" of American politics. His YouTube postings and "goodbye" phone messages are ominously reminiscent of the traditional farewell videos of Islamist martyrs.

The deadly combination of suicide terrorists' mental instability, their political and religious indoctrination and readily available bomb materials and firearms explode in violence almost every day somewhere in the Middle East.

Thus, it should come as no surprise that Jared Loughner, a young, schizophrenic American, whose untreated illness is exacerbated by inflamed political rhetoric, easily buys a legally concealed combat handgun and shoots the "target" of the political "speech" under conditions where there is no escape.

As we evaluate the cause and effects of the Tucson murders, assign responsibility and seek solutions, we must continue to uphold the freedom of speech while taking reasonable steps to avoid violent consequences.

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Political speech has always been inflammatory in the United States, but perhaps due to the increasing militarization of the nation, politicians and commentators have come to routinely talk about "hunting" and "targeting" political opponents, and stupidly say things like: "never retreat - reload." It is disingenuous to assert such language does not incite violence, and it is naive to believe it is harmless.

As best we can, given the Second Amendment as currently interpreted by the Supreme Court, we must do everything we can to legally ensure that mentally disturbed people, including those under the influence of highly-charged, political speech, cannot purchase, possess and carry concealed firearms, particularly those with combat capabilities.

It is highly unlikely the narrowly defined defense of insanity will excuse Loughner from the legal consequences of his acts, and it is unlikely that those who recklessly painted a gun sight cross hair on his intended victim's district will be held legally responsible under a theory of negligence. However, all of us must remember, as Gabby Giffords herself said when informed that she had been targeted on Sarah Palin's web site, "words have consequences."

While politicians, on both the right and left, may not be liable in a court of law for the consequences of their inflammatory words, voters must carefully consider such speech when evaluating the character and reliability of those who seek to influence their vote.

Accountability can be assessed in the polling booth, as well as in the courtroom.

This work by Truthout is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.

Comments

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Yes, words DO have

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 16:04 — Anonarcmous (not verified)

Yes, words DO have consequences, that is why we speak them. In the 2nd Amendment the "right to bear arms ...militia" does not speak of votes but weapons and that is what is used in a militia.

There has never been a more

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 16:11 — Anonymous (not verified)

There has never been a more Orwellian, or politically manipulable concept than "Terrorist". Tyrants love it.

I think the rush to deny

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 16:14 — Marianne C (not verified)

I think the rush to deny culpability speaks volumes. Jared Loughner was unbalanced, probably schizoid, should have been on medication, should not have been able to buy a gun or ammunition, is to blame for his own actions, and worked alone.

All of this is true, but it isn't the WHOLE truth. He was inspired by something. Something made him believe, in his disordered thinking, that killing this marked congresswoman would be a good thing. THAT is what makes us look to the person who marked her and ask what level of blame that person should bear.

The selective use of inflammatory rhetoric is a choice, not a necessity. The kind of verbal barrage the right has been vomiting up recently is designed and intended to inflame, arouse, and incite the public. Claiming it was harmless AFTER it had it's logical outcome & affect is more than merely dishonest -- it's a sign of an inherent amorality that is both disgusting and disturbing. The right wing's casually violent rhetoric may be claimed to have never INTENDED real, physical violence -- but what, then, WAS it's intent? If it isn't meant to incite rage, hate, reaction, and the venting of spleen, what IS it meant to do?

Words are not just empty air. They take root and grow in the human mind. When the violent rhetoric has reached the point of the near psychotic, it's more than fair to blame the source when the rhetoric bears fruit. The shooting of a congresswoman who had been marked with gun sight cross hairs is just too horrific to be a true coincidence.

In the words of an American

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 16:16 — PAgrad (not verified)

In the words of an American political advocacy group:
“Guns don’t kill people, the NRA and their lobbying constituents do.”

Well,while we all articulate

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 16:25 — Anonymous (not verified)

Well,while we all articulate fancy scenarios and
and eat up the schizophrenic horseshit that brings a living to psychiatrists.These dirtbags
play along with them learning the"how to be immune from the law game".They learn just what to say over time.Hell,who wouldn't want to keep that status.Usually they're indoctrinated from children with"behavioral problems",which has no connection to the same witch docters who say spanking is bad.No,lets wait till they are grown up and drugged up their whole life,and finally realize they have nothing because they've been riding the system,and knowing that they are looser (the real meaning of depression),they take the last step to ensure permanent status.But what's even stupider that these cultivated androids is that the form you fill out to buy a gun asks if you have been treated for mental illness.Well,here's the stupidest part you can only expect in America....They're nor allowed to verify the answer.Yup,any coo coo bird can buy any gun they want.No problem.I know,my brother was murdered by one of those special status people who simply lied on the application.So,before you blame guns,blame the idiots who are putting us all in danger by not correcting this mega screw up.Call your
senator and demand they get real.No better time seeing how they now know they are not immune from the mess they usually pile on us. us

Thank you Marianne C. The

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 17:16 — Anonymous (not verified)

Thank you Marianne C. The murderer may be a lunatic - afterall, HE'S A MURDERER, but he still lives on THIS planet and is influenced by the voices he hears OUTside of his head, but coming from THIS planet. The fact is, if he hears voices in his head telling him to kill, and a voice on the radio or Fox telling him WHO to kill, someone is RESPONSIBLE.

Besides, this isn't exactly an "isolated incident". There have been atleast 4 other major politically motivated assasination attempts, or even successful assasinations in the past 12 months alone. ALL OF THEM WERE RIGHT-WINGERS WHO TOOK RIGHT-WING VOICES ON THE RADIO AND TV SERIOUSLY.

Charlie Manson didn't actually kill anyone. bin laden didn't actually fly into any buildings. We hold these people accountable FOR THEIR WORDS. Right-wing pundits have proposed killing American politicians, and possible targets for future terrorists to attack. As far as I'm concerned, whether or not the most recent murderer working on their behalf, actually was sane enough to realize THAT THEY ARE INSANE, is inconsequential. These people need to be dealt with the same way we deal with ANY OTHER TERRORISTS. Most of them think abu graib is a good idea, so I think that would be a great place for them to spend their remaining years. I'd start with beck, coulter, and o'reilly.

Witch, Communist, Terrorist,

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 17:22 — Freedom of Thought (not verified)

Witch, Communist, Terrorist, the word changes with time. It's easy to label someone to discredit their words or actions. the matter of fact is people are taking drastic measures to try and wake up the population to a large and potentially deadly hidden threat. Martyrs are the highest tier of such individuals. The problem is obviously that this young man didn't realize that the people involved in political arguments are simply puppets on a stage to distract us from the real threat. The threat of the men in suites and white collars who meet behind closed doors and pull the strings. Oh, and the biggest problem of all is people still remain ignorant through all of this and find the most redundant things to blame when the problem is literally themselves, their passiveness, laziness or just sheer comfort in ignorance, either way it only gets worse from here. If your going to wait for the storm to bow over I at least suggest you educate yourself with the "real" truth.

Trying to sort out

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 17:28 — Anonymous (not verified)

Trying to sort out "crazyoids" from the "not crazyoids" will be fraught with abuses I suspect. At any given time at least 1 in 4 americans is subject to mental illness with 1 in 17 considered extreme.

Giving anyone, government, police, etc the power to incarcerate someone against their will without substantial oversight other than what we have now is looking for abuse. The former Soviet Union used mental illness as pretext for much involuntary imprisonment of dissidents. This practice is undoubtedly still in practice in totalitarian regimes.

Let's not go here. I am willing to live with the inherent risks that a free society must live with.

PLEASE don't let it be

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 20:07 — Anonymous (not verified)

PLEASE don't let it be forgotten that all this inflammatory rhetoric is being continuously blasted at people who are already psychologically unbalanced by this economic Depression (let's call it what it is). All that the mainstream media has admitted, so far, about the shooting incident is that inflammatory rhetoric is known by psychologists, across the board, to create violent actions in the mentally unstable. We need to talk about the fact that the country is, itself, somewhat mentally unstable at this point in its history. No, really!

It's frightening to observe

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 20:23 — Anonymous (not verified)

It's frightening to observe that the words of a political ignoramus can suggest, plant, control the mind that has the hand, that holds the weapon, that pulls the trigger and wreaks "shock and awe" on the American people.

It is interesting to note

Sat, 01/22/2011 - 20:54 — Anonymous (not verified)

It is interesting to note that the medications taken by all these shooters, even the Columbine school boys is not brought up. The symptoms from some of these medications include anger, and violence. Just interesting so many are on these drugs now, and no mention of it without a little digging. But of course that would mean less profits from the pharmaceutical elite. I am more concerned NOT with the singular shooter, but with the thousands of American solders coming back from multiple trips to the middle east and so many are on various forms of antidepressants, and they have been trained in warfare, violence, and weapons. The suicide rates and family violence in this category is being hidden from view. Our media is totally controlled people. Unfortunately, truth will not prevail, be assured of that. We are being manipulated by one party giving us the illusion of 2 parties and that keeps us quiet and content thinking that our vote will make a difference. I doesn't, it won't... the international corporations own it all... including us.

I would like to just point

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 08:11 — Anonymous (not verified)

I would like to just point out that "schizophrenia" is a special psychiatric diagnosis, and I am not aware that Loughner has been clinically diagnosed as such. As far as I've read, he's taken the 5th amendment and isn't talking to anyone.

Though he may, of course, have schizophrenia, but for that matter, so may a lot of these politicians, who speak thus (about gun targeting, etc.), not to mention a whole other host of psychiatric diagnoses and learning disabilities.

Based on the history of this country, and the history of some of organizations and group related to "hot button" (for example, immgration), that evolved, over time, out of the klan and other white supremist organizations -- also, these Alaskan separatists who were, indeed, involved in domestic terrorism that the federal government was investigating -- well, based on that, I DO think these politicians like Sarah Palin are talking about assassination -- and I wouldn't even call it "code" talk because it's so thinly veiled -- they are, indeed, telling their followers to go out there and used armed vigilante violence.

While I support stricter gun control, I agree with the sentiment that you can't really use mental health diagnoses to allow or deny someone the right to bear arms. Consider that you would actually be discouraging people who might need mental health services from seeking those services if it threatened their right to get a gun or a rifle. I, too, feel very wary of this sort of "psychiatric slavery" approach that Dr. Thomas Szasz wrote about and warned people about.

This kind of violence is

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 09:11 — Anonymous (not verified)

This kind of violence is inevitable when government is os unresponsive to the needs of the people. No health care, endless war, a crumbling economy with jobs going out, etc; people take sides and neither side sees any result.

The tip toeing around that the Obama administration has engaged in, in my opinion, has opened the door for this kind of stuff. They should have boldly and unapologetically gotten us out of Iraq and Afghanistant, opened up an expanded Medicare, greatly expand social security, pass immigration.

"Civility" is such a pretentious engagement of debate since there is nothing civil about what the government is doing, and "civility" is basically their excuse not to take the kind of bold, ballsy, Roosevelt or Johnson (as in the case of Medicare and civil rights, for example) action on issues like the war, healthcare, and the econonmy.

I mean, this young man wasn't at home with his parents because he was a schlep. He was at home because there's no work. He was unemployed, right? There's only so many psychiatric pills you can give for the streses associated with unemployment; but when it comes down to it, the only thing that's going to really work or jell is a job.

Of course it's convenient to blame all the violent-inciting right wing nuts. And they are certainly part of it. But it also detracts from holding politicians accountable who should know better. A society without the appropriate taxes and regulations in order to sanely begins to fall apart in kinds of ways, including this guy, Loughner.

Don't forget Michael

Sun, 01/23/2011 - 19:10 — Anonymous (not verified)

Don't forget Michael Reagan's order to assassinate Mark Dice.

Medical Marijuana patients

Mon, 01/24/2011 - 12:53 — Art Hawley (not verified)

Medical Marijuana patients in my state are automatically placed on the FBI's list of people who are not allowed to buy guns. Legitimate gun dealers are required by law to access this database at the point of sale, and face huge penalties for selling to anyone on the list.

How hard would it be to add Schizophrenics to the list?

Get your priorities straight America.

There are " Sickos " in

Mon, 01/24/2011 - 20:17 — Herman (not verified)

There are " Sickos " in every level of society , from the very top down to the very bottom . A good example is Draft Dodger King George Bush . He and his Neo Con Zionist ilk fabricated the reason to attack Iraq . Because of his LIES , about 5000 innocent young U.S. kids died and over 30,000 were severely wounded physically or mentally.

Who are the real Terrorists? A lone looney tunes or the most powerful country in the world who uses their Weapons of Mass Destruction on small 3 rd world countries who are barely armed . Since 1950 , the U.S. has directly or indirectly attacked Korea, Vietnam , Laos, Cambodia, Nicaragua , Chile, Cuba, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Iran, Iraq [ 2 X ] , Zaire, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Philippines, Lebanon, Afghanistan, South Africa, Palestine, etc. As was said in many countries , " It was a turkey shoot ." We murdered hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians in order to bring them " Democracy "

Why do people hate us ? Remember , " An eye for an eye , a tooth for a tooth ."