Originally Posted by
gwahir
If people on the left encouraged "second amendment solutions", and told everyone to solve their problems with violence, then YES. Palin's catchcry is "don't retreat, reload"!
Re. the gun-sights map:
Also, the "second amendment solutions" quote is actually not Palin's, so I apologise for getting that wrong. It was actually Tea Party candidate Sharron Angle, and the exact wording was "second amendment remedies" (which, if anything, sounds worse, to me).
If, in your example, Obama and Reid and Pelosi were using this kind of language, and there was a Tea Party equivalent for the Left, then yes, I think it would be utterly fair to apportion them some blame. As with what I said about the Qu'ran: if it's explicitly in the teachings, the philosophies, the holy documents, the written, spoken and defended statements of the leaders, then I definitely think that the construct of the party/group/religion deserves a share of the blame.
I'm not acting like people don't have free will. You're acting like people's decisions are made without external input of stimuli like religious and political conviction. It is naive to imagine a neat line dividing "crazy" and "sane" when it comes to violence for that reason.
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