Still jotting thoughts. We know it is common in times of war to dehumanize our enemy. "Japs", "Gook", "Savages". I am guessing (as I have been very fortunate, not to be in this position) it is somewhat easier to deal with taking out life if that life is less then human.
Is it possible, that while Laughner was not influenced directly by cross hairs or speaking of watering the tree of liberty with blood, that our opponent is not merely wrong but evil, Un-American and tyrannical and the conspiratorial talk of Obama and his Democrats trying to undermine America allowed him a similiar sense of less than human. Is this the atmospherics that are being discussed. Is it possible that a person who is struggling with reality may more easily convince himself that such an action is reasonable. I don't pretend to know the answer.
A couple of other random thoughts.
Does the fact that his target was specifically a politician and a sitting member of the House of Representatives make it "political" by default?
Does the atmosphere of heavy metal, rap etc contribute to the radicalizing of the disturb can you argue that music does and pundits and politicians don't or vice versa.
Last thing for now. Even if you are convinced that absolutely nothing said or done over the past 2 and half years contributed to this attack, isn't appropriate to take a look and see if your actions and speech are acceptable. Does this not call for a time for self-reflection instead of knee-jerk defensiveness.
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