Jared Loughner , who
pled guilty today to several murder charges in relation to the shooting of
Gabby Giffords, said he picked his target off a "target map" posted
on Sarah Palin’s Facebook page.
I mean that proves it,
right? Sarah Palin set this off, and
thus shares some of the blame. And as
much as I hate to admit they were right, and I...
...just pulled a patented Aaron
“Worthing” Walker headfake on you. No,
that story is fictional, but it was based on another story that really did
happen. From the Washington
Examiner:
Southern Poverty Law Center website triggered FRC shooting
The Family Research
Council shooter, who pleaded guilty today to a terrorism charge, picked his
target off a "hate map" on the website of the ultra-liberal Southern
Poverty Law Center which is upset with the conservative group's opposition to
gay rights.
Floyd Lee Corkins II
pleaded guilty to three charges including a charge of committing an act of
terrorism related to the August 15, 2012 injuring of FRC's guard. He told the
FBI that he wanted to kill anti-gay targets and went to the law center's
website for ideas.
At a court hearing
where his comments to the FBI were revealed, he said that he intended to
"kill as many as possible and smear the Chick-Fil-A sandwiches in victims'
faces, and kill the guard." The shooting occurred after an executive with
Chick-Fil-A announced his opposition to same-sex marriage.
Indeed that “hate map” is still
up, here. As is their page denouncing the FRC, here. And you can read Professor Jacobson’s able
denunciation of that, here.
There has never been one piece of
evidence suggesting that Sarah Palin’s map motivated Jared Loughner. There was not one piece of evidence that
supposedly heated rhetoric led to Loughner’s crime. And yet for several weeks if you didn’t know
any better, you would think Palin personally met with Loughner, handed him the gun
and told him that if she killed a Congresswoman she would sleep with him.
And indeed that claim that Palin
was somehow uniquely hateful or violent in her rhetoric ignored the heated
rhetoric on the other side. How many
years did they denounce Bush in ever more deranged terms, so that we mocked it
as “Chimpy McHitlerburton.” Or try this. Do a google search for the phrase “NRA blood
on their hands” and peruse
over a million hits. Republicans are
supposedly in a war on women because most are pro-life, they want to push
grandma off a cliff, and on and on. Or
for that matter, look at the sheer
mindless hate directed at Palin herself!
There is plenty of hate coming from the left these days, plenty of
heated rhetoric. And if people are truly motivated to violence by that sort of thing, the Democrats provide plenty of fuel for the fire.
So all those people who blood-libeled
Sarah Palin after the Loughner murder, are they going to go after the Southern
Poverty Law Center? Is the SPLC going to
face enormous public pressure to shut down their Hate Watch map?
No, not likely.
Now from my perspective I don’t
believe in this entire exercise. There
is no one to blame for Corkins’ crime but Corkins himself. But the left doesn’t play this game. They blame Sarah Palin for the shooting of Gabby
Giffords (and Loughner's other victims) and the question is simply this: do they really believe it? If they do, then they will demand that the SPLC
take this “hate map” down.
And if they don’t, they will do
what they are doing right now: pretend the story doesn’t exist. And then we will know this claim for the
cheap and insincere blood libel that it is.
And hopefully less of us will fall for it in the future.
---------------------------------------
My wife and I have lost our jobs
due to the harassment of convicted terrorist Brett Kimberlin, including an attempt
to get us killed and to frame me for a crime carrying a sentence of up to ten
years. I know that claim sounds
fantastic, but if you read starting here, you will see absolute proof of these
claims using documentary and video evidence.
If you would like to help in the fight to hold Mr. Kimberlin
accountable, please hit the Blogger’s Defense Team button on the right. And thank you.
Follow me at Twitter @aaronworthing,
mostly for snark and site updates. And
you can purchase my book (or borrow it for free if you have Amazon Prime), Archangel: A Novel of Alternate, Recent
History here.
And you can read a little more about my novel, here.
---------------------------------------
Disclaimer:
I have accused some people,
particularly Brett Kimberlin, of
reprehensible conduct. In some cases, the conduct is even
criminal. In all cases, the only justice I want is through the
appropriate legal process—such as the criminal justice system. I do not want to see vigilante violence
against any person or any threat of such violence. This kind of conduct is not only morally
wrong, but it is counter-productive.
In the particular case of Brett
Kimberlin, I do not want you to even contact him. Do not call him. Do not write him a letter. Do not write him an email. Do not text-message him. Do not engage in any kind of directed
communication. I say this in part
because under Maryland law, that can quickly become harassment and I don’t want
that to happen to him.
And for that matter, don’t go on
his property. Don’t sneak around and try
to photograph him. Frankly try not to
even be within his field of vision. Your
behavior could quickly cross the line into harassment in that way too (not to
mention trespass and other concerns).
And do not contact his
organizations, either. And most of all, leave his family alone.
The only exception to all that is
that if you are reporting on this, there is of course nothing wrong with
contacting him for things like his official response to any stories you might
report. And even then if he tells you to
stop contacting him, obey that request. That
this is a key element in making out a harassment claim under Maryland law—that
a person asks you to stop and you refuse.
And let me say something
else. In my heart of hearts, I don’t
believe that any person supporting me has done any of the above. But if any of you have, stop it, and if you
haven’t don’t start.
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