[Newsbot]

Filibuster Cartoons
Title: Cloudy vision (click to view)
Date: January 16, 2011
In the week since the Tucson massacre, we've learned a great deal about alleged assassin Jared Loughner, but very little to confirm the initial, knee-jerk speculation that the man was some sort of far-right nutcase, driven to the brink by continual exposure to violent Tea Party rhetoric.

To the extent Loughner even has political views, they have been shown to be random and incoherent to the point where Timothy McVeigh looks like John Locke in comparison. According to friends and classmates, Loughner never watched or talked about the news, and was only interested in the concept of "government" in the most abstract, superficial sense; some totemic, symbolic thing he instinctively hated and distrusted — much like every other icon of authority in his life. His hatred of Democrat Gabrielle Giffords, likewise, seems to have stemmed from some strange, apolitical, esoteric grudge he held after meeting the Congresswoman briefly at an event in 2007, as opposed to any agenda you or I would describe as identifiably "political."

By all accounts, Loughner was a deeply troubled man with intense symptoms of schizophrenia, psychosis, and psychopathy that were repeatedly observed by those around him, but for various reasons went untreated. Along with his obvious mental illness, some have also laid blame on the man's apparently chronic drug use, which included both pot and the hallucinogen salvia, both of which have been tied (more controversially in the case of pot) to psychotic episodes in obsessive users.

Around this time last year I read a fantastic, thick book by journalist Dave Cullen called simply Columbine. Writing ten years after the tragedy, Cullen's main thesis was that there was very little evidence to support the conventional wisdom about the massacre — namely that the two teenage killers were misfit outcasts driven to the brink of madness by a miserable life of bullying and harassment. In contrast to that comfortable narrative, which provided such a useful — as President Obama might say — "teachable moment" about the dangers of bullying, Columbine argues that the two boys were actually reasonably popular and accepted by their peers, and that the only thing that ultimately drove them to kill was shared delusions of grandeur and psychopathic self-importance. Eric Harris in particular, who is presented as the leader of the two, was a textbook case of psychopathic personality disorder, once again tying a horrific tragedy to individual mental illness, rather than larger societal influences.

Tragedies almost always bring out a base human desire to cram senseless acts into tidy, sense-making narratives, and as our culture becomes more and more politicized, that impulse becomes more crass, sloppy, and partisan. All of the examples in the above cartoon illustrate actual, mainstream explanations of massacres and tragedies in the immediate wake of their occurrence, and all of them share the depressing common variable of ignorant leaps of judgement based simply on what seemed plausible according to the political obsessions of the moment. Rather than, you know, evidence,

The aftermath of the Tucson massacre has probably brought out some of the ugliest examples of what an ignorant rush-to-judgement looks like, and how poisonous and destructive the consequences can be for civilized discourse. If there is a "teachable moment" that arises from all of this (other than the importance of detecting and treating mental illness), I hope it will be a renewed sense of humility among ideologues of all stripes, and a greater willingness to admit the simple fact that sometimes, just sometimes, events don't unfold in perfect sync with the neat little scripts we have prewritten.

[Zipperfish]

Well, in hindsight I have to say that I was one of the many who jumped whole-heartedly onto the "ignorant rush-to-judgment" bandwagon. Hopefully that is a "teachable moment" for me, and next time I'll just keep my mouth shut until some facts come to light.

Another excellent strip JJ. Congrats on the appearances in my morning Metro, too!!!

[Thanos]

So it's been conclusively and factually proven that the atmosphere of total hate and incipient violence that's been deliberately stoked up by the American right wing had nothing to do with the shooting, or with the long list of other violent incidents that can be traced directly back to the right-wing and it's hate-radio and propaganda cable-news machinery? Has Loughner said anything yet to anyone that 100% conclusively disproves that he's just a lone nut with a gun and not a lone wolf instead who was purposely operating in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh? Or are his pothead 'friends' random observations on FaceBook supposed to pass as unimpeachable journalistic confirmation of his insanity and it's time to once again go into 'move along folks, there's nothing to see here' zombie mode?

Whatever. This is a waste of time. JJ's just another hack taking his marching directions from Glenn BecKKK and Limbaugh. The only 'rush to judgement' going on is the rush by the American right-wing hatebots to absolve themselves of any responsibility for the monster they stoked up and then let loose to rampage it's merry way across the width and breadth of the United States.

[xerxes]

JJ's right. There was a rush to judgement as to the initial motives; myself included. But let's look at why: why would people instantly speculate that it must have been some right-wing radical? There may be no causal link between rhetoric and action, but let's really be honest here.

We here have all been watching and hearing the political rhetoric in the US since Obama's election and despite the shock and horror of this tragedy, none of here were particularily surprised that this happened; we were only surprised as to the shooter's true motivations (the crazy shit in his head).

[andyt]

There is definitely an atmosphere of violence in the air in the US - always has been, more than other western countries. (I mean civilian violence). And the US is a rightwing state. People have said Obama is to the right of Herpes. (Thought I'd give you a thrill, Thanos) I doubt if myself, but they're certainly way right of anybody else in the west. And, right now the extreme right, in this rightwing wunderland, is who's kicking up a storm. The days of the SDS and Panthers are long gone.

So the right should be taking a long hard look at themselves here. But of course they won't. This will just feed their persecution complex and probably make them amp it up even more.

[PublicAnimalNo9]

I avoided posting this when the original thread came out, but I didn't think for one minute it was ideologically motivated.
One of the first things that went through my brain was that maybe he had some unresolved mommy issues and Gifford was the unfortunate target for some transferrance on his part.
But then, that doesn't explain the rest of the people he shot at and killed.

[Khar]

It works both ways, Thanos. There is no proof indicating that this atmosphere you reference did play a role in these people dying. Hence, we can't simply assume it played a role in it, and there is evidence that it didn't -- what ideals he shared are up for all to see. The point here is that people ARE making assumptions like "it happened/didn't happen because of the Tea Party" or "it happened because of/lack of gun control" and there is no strong, solid evidence to back it up, only ideologies.

But people leaped onto the podium to play victim and martyr for their cause anyway.

We don't claim that Gang Lu killed five and injured another in response to a call from the Republicans for him to do so. We don't claim Charles Whitman was a man created by the Tea Party. We don't claim Seung-Hui Cho committed his massacre because of Glenn Beck, or that Hinkley attempted an assassination because he was in awe of Sarah Palin. The idea of a mentally ill or just plain crazy person committing these atrocities does not sound so odd to me -- indeed, that we can quote mass murder cases from decades ago with mentally unstable participants shows that there is precedence, and so far the evidence from this case has pointed far more towards that than to anything else.

I'm betting that list is a lot longer... and has a history which reaches farther back than 2008, as my examples are meant to show. Yes, there is a problem in the United States and the atmosphere created there. No, we cannot categorically shunt all related instances into these cases.

The man was an insular, social deviant who avoided contact with others, and believed that grammar was a way for the government to control people. He was not exactly enmeshed in the workings of the Tea Party movement, no? The reason people like JJ are able to say that they feel he was "a"political is because the evidence falls in line with pointing to the man being a deranged psychopath, not a man motivated by a political ideology which falls pleasantly in line with the current political atmosphere south of the border. While we cannot be sure of that, we can be sure in which direction the evidence points that we have at hand and so it's possible to make a clearer assumption on that evidence. Sure, we don't know yet. But the more stuff which comes out, the more it points to that assumption.

That it rings true with a lot of this site's more leftist folks, like hurley (and some of the prominent leftists he has posted articles from), points out that JJ is not alone in this ideal, nor is it politicized. Other folks who are more moderate or libertarian (like Zipperfish) agree. It is exactly like his strip back when Columbine occurred, and everyone was using it as a lesson for their own ideology. It is quickly turning into the same case here. I would agree with JJ here, and it's a point worthy of keeping in mind for all topics.

If you want to call someone a back, you should have to back up your words with the same sort of evidence you demanded of the folks here. To me, it looks like it isn't hackery -- people across the political spectrum agree with what JJ is saying here, and other people are still leaping to conclusions. This is a call from all sides to avoid pointless, ardent rhetoric, for the sake of it. To avoid polarization and hasty judgments. I think it's a good call.

xerxes and andyt, I think, ask the right questions. Declaring JJ a hack falls more into the point he was trying to make with his cartoon. He was criticizing the right just as much as the left.

[thealmightynarf]

I think the worst part of all the talk of ideological extremism and right wing hyperbole (or as I like to call... rhetoric of rhetoric) is that it draws attention away from the questions we really should be addressing.

For instance, I don't think even the most ardent supporters of the second amendment feels that mentally unstable people with violent tendencies should be allowed to have fire arms. How exactly did this person legally acquire a hand gun? Is Arizonan completely with-out gun control in any form? I mean, if you're going to with-hold guns from anyone, I would think the mentally unstable would be at the top of the list.

And also, if just about everyone who knew him were already aware that he was so disturbed and showed so many signs of violent tendencies... why did know one try to help him? Why was he not in a mental institution? Wikipedia tells me that he attended both high school and college... did the school faculty not notice? Are they not required to do something?

I mean, yea, sure it's fun to bash on the Tea Party and Sarah Palin, and perhaps the rhetoric in the US goes a bit further than it should, but even if it were in any way related, focusing on that does nothing to solve the very real problems that went wrong here. This should have been a completely preventable event. There should have been systems in place to stop this from happening at every stage and they have horribly failed if they existed at all. THAT is where our focus should be. The political prejudice isn't helping anyone.

[Psudo]

Thanos wrote:

So it's been conclusively and factually proven that the atmosphere of total hate and incipient violence that's been deliberately stoked up by the American right wing had nothing to do with the shooting

A friend of his says, "He didn't listen to political radio, he didn't take sides, he wasn't on the left, he wasn't on the right." He was a 9/11 truther, a pothead, and an atheist and avid critic of religion generally. How does that sound like the influence of Beck or Limbaugh?

Maybe when there's actually a trial some evidence will surface, but your stating that he's right-wing because you haven't seen proof otherwise is much like claiming there are Martians among us because we can't prove there aren't. Rather than relying on the "Prove a negative" fallacy, you could reserve judgment until the trial is actually held. That would give someone the chance to prove a positive.

Thanos wrote:

or with the long list of other violent incidents that can be traced directly back to the right-wing and it's hate-radio and propaganda cable-news machinery?

Do you really imagine there's no list of left-wing nuts just as long? Especially using the same sloppy methodology, where no distinction is made between "hardcore Neo-Nazis" and Limbaugh listeners; we would be able to claim 1940s Soviet spies as mainstream Democrats by that reasoning, and every liberal rabble-rouser who hoisted a Bush-hate sign at an anti-war protest can be considered equivalent to Jon Stewart. Welcome to the new McCarthyism.

thealmightynarf wrote:

I don't think even the most ardent supporters of the second amendment feels that mentally unstable people with violent tendencies should be allowed to have fire arms.

Felons, with a few white-collar exceptions, are thankfully not allowed to legally own firearms. Aside from felony convictions, how can government determine who has "violent tendencies?" Anything else erodes the presumption of innocence, a core (and liberal!) precept of our legal system that most Republicans like.

[andyt]

Before people go yapping down the road of mental illness as an explanation:

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Crime+mental+illness+explanation+that/4113733/story.html

Quote:

Crime and mental illness: The explanation that isn't

Quote:

Clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell, writing on slate.com,offers a helpful analogy in this regard. It's well known that a small subgroup of soccer fans engages in violent behaviour on a regular basis. But if you have a friend who is a soccer fan, it tells you nothing at all about his propensity for violence. And even if he gets into a fight during a game, his interest in soccer will not explain why -- for that you would need, and would ask for, much more information...
Although mentally ill people suffer most from these misrepresentations, offering and accepting mental illness as an explanation for violence does everyone a disservice. For it seduces us into believing that all we need to do to keep safe is to keep away from people with mental illness, when in reality, we need to keep away from "explanations" that conceal more than they reveal.

[thealmightynarf]

Psudo wrote:

thealmightynarf wrote:

I don't think even the most ardent supporters of the second amendment feels that mentally unstable people with violent tendencies should be allowed to have fire arms.

Felons, with a few white-collar exceptions, are thankfully not allowed to legally own firearms. Aside from felony convictions, how can government determine who has "violent tendencies?" Anything else erodes the presumption of innocence, a core (and liberal!) precept of our legal system that most Republicans like.

Well, again, he should have been medically diagnosed. And, by all accounts I've seen, I think that would've been enough. Also, I would find it extremely hard to believe that he doesn't have a juvenile criminal record of some kind. While, not publicly available, it should still have raised red flags when he tried to buy a weapon.

And, any state that requires one to acquire a permit to own hand guns generally requires one to take fire arm safety courses... I would like to think the instructors of said courses would have picked up on his problems.

[thealmightynarf]

Thanos wrote:

So it's been conclusively and factually proven that the atmosphere of total hate and incipient violence that's been deliberately stoked up by the American right wing had nothing to do with the shooting, or with the long list of other violent incidents that can be traced directly back to the right-wing and it's hate-radio and propaganda cable-news machinery? Has Loughner said anything yet to anyone that 100% conclusively disproves that he's just a lone nut with a gun and not a lone wolf instead who was purposely operating in the same vein as Timothy McVeigh? Or are his pothead 'friends' random observations on FaceBook supposed to pass as unimpeachable journalistic confirmation of his insanity and it's time to once again go into 'move along folks, there's nothing to see here' zombie mode?

Or, ya'know, you could research the guy yourself and try to find anything that even remotely supports your view. A lot of the things he's said and believes are publicly available.

[Ted223]

thealmightynarf wrote:

Or, ya'know, you could research the guy yourself and try to find anything that even remotely supports your view. A lot of the things he's said and believes are publicly available.

Going by what I've just heard some of my family say about the subject, regardless of facts, in the court of public opinion anyone right of mainstream democrats seems to considered guilty, regardless of innocence. After hearing my stepmother insist that he had a 92 round magazine and was driven by your hated right wing public figure of your choosing, there will be people like Thanos who will insist that the burden of proof is on the defendant and not the plaintiff, regardless of what happens.

[Khar]

andyt wrote:

Before people go yapping down the road of mental illness as an explanation:

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Crime+mental+illness+explanation+that/4113733/story.html

Quote:

Crime and mental illness: The explanation that isn't

Quote:

Clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell, writing on slate.com,offers a helpful analogy in this regard. It's well known that a small subgroup of soccer fans engages in violent behaviour on a regular basis. But if you have a friend who is a soccer fan, it tells you nothing at all about his propensity for violence. And even if he gets into a fight during a game, his interest in soccer will not explain why -- for that you would need, and would ask for, much more information...
Although mentally ill people suffer most from these misrepresentations, offering and accepting mental illness as an explanation for violence does everyone a disservice. For it seduces us into believing that all we need to do to keep safe is to keep away from people with mental illness, when in reality, we need to keep away from "explanations" that conceal more than they reveal.

While he makes a good analogy, he shouldn't forget that a risk factor for potential violence was that the person was at the Football game, and that riots routinely occur because of this violent behaviour.

It certainly doesn't mean that if a person is mentally ill that they are violent, but it cannot be ignored how some mental illnesses can manifest themselves. Just like those with depression have risk factors which lead to an increased chance of suicide, some mental illnesses can and will mutate into risk factors for violence if not provided the right treatment or if exacerbated by other factors.

Indeed, in the case of aforementioned suspected psychosis in many articles, should this diagnosis be proven true, it often can be used as grounds for "guilty but insane" due to the nature of that mental illness should that diagnosis show it has morphed into a contributing factor. However, it should be noted that most legal systems I know of will otherwise treat a person as sane, due to the fact that a person should not be stigmatized due to a mental illness, nor should others who share their treatment.

These folks are making a good point by saying that we should not be using the term mentally ill, as that encapsulates a whole range of diseases and everyone with those symptoms. Even though I did use other terms and did not use an absolute (it was an "or" possibility), I did use the term and the implications therein, and I'll change my term use accordingly, thanks for the correction. However, focusing down on such topics as psychosis with comorbid substance abuse and it's medical/legal history somewhat negates these problems as there is a well established connection between psychosis and substance abuse comorbidity having a strong additive effect on the likelihood of a person to commit violence, even in modern times when the connection between psychosis and violence has been explored in a more balanced approach.

I agree that we should not stop at that point, though, and I'm kind of surprised a lot of articles make it sound like it will. I guess it's more for folks who will not follow past the mental illness bit? Just like we don't stop when we know that a person who has completed suicide had depression, we shouldn't stop in this case either.

Just my point of view, might be wrong, please correct me if I am (I don't know much about mental illnesses in general). Good points, andy, thanks for the article reference!

[andyt]

I think the main point he's making is that saying someone is mentally ill and so it explains why they committed the violence isn't helpful. He's saying there is a small subset of the mentally ill who are more prone to violence than the general population, but if we don't identify what the elements of that subset are, we haven't solved or prevented anything.

He also makes the point that the main predictor of violence is drug use - including alcohol. That's a better predictor than other forms of mental illness.

He's saying that we need to look deeper. Just to label the shooter and nut, and figured we've solved the problem doesn't accomplish anything.

I'm saying that our understanding of mental illness is still in the dark ages. So is our ability to recognize it and treat it and prevent the small subset of violent mentally ill from acting out.