Playing politics with the Tucson tragedy

By Nicholas Wilbur

Nobody doubted the depth of denial that would gush from Rush Limbaugh's radio studio following the murderous rampage in Tucson this weekend. The "vitriol in politics" became a primary focus of the national media almost immediately after the news of the shooting broke.

Those who had made references to "second amendment remedies" and "firing machine guns" and "violent revolution" were targeted for contributing to the hate-filled rhetoric that has marked the past two years of political discourse. Having defended most of the Tea Party and Fox News celebrities who led the march against Democrats in November by riling their base and inciting the masses to join this new wave of "activism," Limbaugh, among many others, was put on the defensive.

Before his broadcast, I ignorantly maintained a sliver of hope that as one of America's most popular political personalities, Limbaugh would join the bipartisan movement to condemn both the savage murders and the extremism that has taken over this country. Instead, he demonstrated general ignorance of mass media's influence by denying the persuasive power of celebrities and excused the tone of politics by pointing fingers at the "liberal" media for "politicizing" the Tucson shooting as some sort of bizarrely-contrived Democratic conspiracy.

The attempted assassination of a politician is as political as it gets, but a Democratic Congresswoman taking a 9-mm bullet in the head at point-blank range wasn't enough to deter the almighty Limbaugh from accusing the left of political opportunism.

In a rant that should be remembered only in the history archives of national radio as the beginning of a giant's end, Limbaugh lambasted the left for capitalizing on a tragedy and criminalizing all Americans by anticipating the assassination as a means for pushing through a political agenda.

"I guarantee you," he said, "that somewhere in a desk drawer in Washington, D.C., someplace, in an FCC bureaucrat's office or some place, the government machinery will be in place to take away as many political freedoms as they can manage on the left. They already have it in place... just waiting for the right event for a clampdown. They have been trying this ever since the Oklahoma City bombing."

He continued: 

Here you have a 22-year-old kid, a dopehead – marijuana – just genuinely insane. Irrational. And the first thought – the desperate hope that the losers in November of 2010 had – was that they could revitalize their political fortunes because of this unfortunate shooting of a Congresswoman in Arizona. That was the most important thing to them, and that to me is sick. You know that they were rubbing hands together. You know that they were e-mailing and calling each other on the phone saying, "Ah-ha, this might be the one. This might be the one where we can officially tie it to these guys and shut them up and shut 'em down." They want you to believe that sadness was on the order of the day, and I'm sure it was, but... they couldn't help themselves. They just couldn't help themselves. [Emphasis added.]

Not surprisingly, Limbaugh was short on the details of exactly how Democrats would go about utilizing this event for their own political ends. But thankfully, there is such a thing as daily news to pin facts to the allegations made by the pill-popping millionaires on the right who see nothing but conspiracies in every gesture of every Democrat in the country.

According to The Hill, the first freedom attacked by the left is the right to use violent language against elected officials. After waiting more than a decade for a right-wing nut to shoot a bullet through the brain of a politically moderate member of Congress, Democrats finally had the opportunity to go for the jugular of America's constitutionally protected political liberties. So what did they do?

They proposed a bill – like socialistic opportunists will – that would make it a federal offense to use language or symbols that threaten or incite violence against a member of Congress or a federal official – a protection, it should be noted, that is already provided to the president.

The alleged aim of this proposed legislation is to quell the violent language that has become so common in American politics, but below the surface it's pretty obvious that Democrats are targeting right-wingers, Tea Partiers, and extremist conservatives in general – "to shut them up and shut 'em down," just as Limbaugh predicted.

The second "political freedom" Democrats are seeking to revoke is the right to carry high-capacity magazines like the one used by the Tucson shooter this weekend. This law actually isn't new; it was in place for a decade but expired in 2004. After seeing one man gun down twenty people in a matter of seconds with a clip that would have been illegal six years ago, Democratic lawmakers in D.C. thought it might be timely to re-implement the ban.

"The only reason to have 33 bullets loaded in a handgun is to kill a lot of people very quickly," Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.) said in a statement Monday, according to The Hill. "Before 2004, these ammunition clips were banned, and they must be banned again."

What they're really doing is taking our guns away, and Republicans will see to it that this doesn't happen – as they did in 2008 when Democrats proposed a reauthorization bill. It died in committee.

And lastly, what Democrat-imposed unraveling of the Constitution would be complete without the infringement on First Amendment rights?

According to several news reports, the Arizona state legislature is giving the federal judicial system the finger by going against an appeals court ruling last year that upheld the First Amendment rights of church members in Kansas who had taken to protesting funerals of military service members.

The congregants of Westboro Baptist Church believe any unnatural death is the manifestation of God's wrath against American society for its tolerance of homosexuality. They planned to protest the funeral of 9-year-old Christina Green, one of the six victims of Saturday's shooting, but will be unable to now, as the state legislature has barred Westboro from coming within 300 feet of the funeral.

God sent a "soldier veteran" to Tucson on Saturday, Rev. Fred Phelps said in a YouTube.com video posted after the shooting. "Congresswoman [Gabrielle] Giffords, an avid supporter of sin and baby killing, was shot for that mischief... God avenged himself on you today, by a marvelous work in Tucson. He sits in the heavens and laughs at you and your affliction. Westboro prays for more shooters, more violent veterans, and more dead. Praise god for his righteous judgments in his Earth. Amen."

It is truly sickening... how far Democrats are willing to go in order to push their agenda down the throats of America's patriots.

This is what "democracy" is all about for liberals – violating "political freedoms" by denying people the right to threaten an elected official, banning assault weapon magazines, and stomping on the First Amendment rights of church-going Kansans who want to picket the funerals of victims killed in a failed political assassination.

This is what Democrats do when they lose midterm elections – they upend the Constitution and attempt to unravel the very fabric of this country in order to "revitalize their political fortunes" by capitalizing on tragedy.

Probably most of the nation can agree with Limbaugh when he says, "to me that is sick."