Has the "Violent Political Rhetoric" Panic Come to an End?
There's been a new development in the Andrew Joseph Dennehy case. If you don't remember who Dennehy is, read on:
The suspect accused of opening fire outside the Tulsa County Courthouse is not fit for trial, according to a mental health evaluator….
Dennehy told [psychologist Curtis] Grundy he feared Freemasons and the Illuminati, in conjunction with Satan, were trying to harm [him] and his parents. "They work for [Satan]," Dennehy was quoted in official competency evaluation documents.
As recently as a year ago, a conspiracy theorist opening fire at a government building would have inspired a wave of warnings about "violent political rhetoric." But Dennehy doesn't seem to have sparked the reaction inspired by, say, John Bedell. Is this just an outlier, or is it a sign that the media panic is over?
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I know that looked familiar. My ultra fundy mom made sure I had a complete set of Jack Chick comics when I was growing up...and she wonders why I'm a pagan now.
I'm legitimately surprised that the Pope wasn't listed as one of the demons.
I'm legitimately surprised that the Pope wasn't listed as one of the demons.
Come on, some things just go without saying.
I'm pretty sure he's the one on the far right.
The question is not whether the media is over the panic, the question is whether who he was afraid of, or shot, is possible to be politicized. If not, the media isn't interested. It's all very simple, Jesse.
Why is masturbation under "lust"?
And why isn't "political office" in that column? Or for that matter, why isn't in the "Addiction and Partying", "Murder", "Mind Illness" or most importantly the "The Unspeakable Demon" column?
Why is masturbation under "lust"?
Onan. Every act of masturbation is selfish.
I am so screwed!
No, if you were screwed, you wouldn't have to onanize.
That looks like the game board to the greatest Jeopardy! ever conceived.
"I'll take Unspeakable Demon for $2000, Alex."
Answer: This is designed to hinder Christians Only.
The media panic is over, because they want to be able to pass along the violent rhetoric of the Obama campaign when instructed to do so.
Its already begun, in fact:
In August, some Democratic strategists let leak to the press that Obama's top aides were looking at a massive character takedown of Romney in light of a deterring economy; "kill Romney" was a phrase used by one.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-50.....op;stories
^^This^^ I think we're looking at yet another instance of "It's okay when our side does it!"
In other news, water is wet and the sky is blue.
Joe Hallenbeck, call your office.
Along those lines: remember the soldier who (allegedly) killed the villagers in Afghanistan earlier this year? No connection made to Obama or his defense secretary unlike the connection of Abu Ghraib to Bush and Rumsfeld.
Admittedly, the Abu Ghraib issue was something far more institutional (i.e. a prison where abuses were occurring in such a manner that the superiors should've been aware). The villager massacre was more of a solo act from a depraved, shell-shocked individual.
True. But, as I recall AG, part of the narrative was that it was a result of the attitude and mentality being projected from the top. A parallel could have been that the soldier's massacre was motivated by the way the Obama administration used drones which killed hundreds of civilians and so influenced him to kill civilians.
Now, I don't believe Obama has any responsibility for the massacre. My point is that, whereas the media instantly jumped on AG as resulting from Bush and Rumsfeld, it made NO connection in the massacre case. But, of course, you could extend this: the suffering in New Orleans after Katrina was Bush's fault, the suffering in Colorado after the wildfires or in Missouri after tornadoes is just the natural result of disaster. I would say that the general reporting during a D administration is actually more accurate in that "shit happens" whereas during an R admin, it is always the president's fault.
Barack Obama doesn't care about white people!
Dennehy told [psychologist Curtis] Grundy he feared Freemasons and the Illuminati, in conjunction with Satan, were trying to harm [him] and his parents.
The problem is that he blamed somebody/something too outlandish. If he had claimed Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin told him to do it, I'm sure it would've revived the "violent political rhetoric" panic.
Bedell's theories are nearly as weird, and Jared Lee Loughner has this guy beat.
Yeah, but he didn't shoot the hot Congressional wife of an astronaut and whack a cute kid in the process.
Put that nice confluence of events together and the media scare machine will crank it all the way back up to 11 again.
Loughner obviously was going to get a lot of attention no matter what. But the only substantial surface difference between Bedell and this guy is that Bedell opened fire outside a major government building, not a courthouse. And there were other stories that became grist for the panic that involved venues far more obscure than this one.
Did this guy use bath salts? Cuz I'm pretty sure it was bath salts that made him do the cray cray bang bang.
Obviously not - no faces were chewed on.
Pshaw, everyone knows it is the CIA who control the Freemasons through the, they are in turn controled by the Boy Scouts who are controled by the Fnord Motor Co and they are all just a wing of the Gnomes of Zurich. That whole Illuminati story is just an elaborate hoax to misguide the guilable.
You left out Colonel Sanders, before he died.
Also, fried chicken.
Leroy you're stupid as hell.
FYI I was referencing this
You're right. I was thinking of The Pentavirate.
"I'll have the NRA attack to control the Fiendish Floridaters"
You just had to know the military was involved.
WHO TOLD?! Er, em...never mind, citizens, go back to your normal lives!
Hold on a second here - I thought Beelzebub was another name for the great Satan hisself. But this otherwise-helpful graphic lists him as Satan's "commanding general"; i.e., another individual altogther. What gives?
Beelzebub has had a long-strange trip. He started out as a Semitic deity, became a Christian demon (one of the 7 princes of Hell) then conflated with Lucifer after the notion of demonic hierarchy was seen as silly.
Did you mean Beelzebubbles? And what do you feed him?
Milk! Bloody milk!
Aha!
Lucifer is the highest of the fallen angels. Be'elzebub is up there with Belial and Azmodeus, I think. I don't know where Ba'al fits into all this, but these guys all have funky names and it gets confusing.
Yeah, but I killed Belial in Diablo some time ago, so he's no threat to anyone.
Does anyone ever really kill Belial?
He was an unbelievable pussy, too. Or maybe my barbarian is just too awesome. Level 30 and almost 400 base damage, fuck you.
Yeah, he was pretty easy for a demon lord. The bosses are always the worst. Too hard, and they're impossible, which is boring. Too easy, and they're boring. It's a delicate balance.
All the bosses have been trivial. The only times I've died are when I've been surrounded by hordes of low-level enemies and forgot to check my health bar. I guess that's the risk of building a damage dealer instead of a tank.
The bosses are cake. It's the elite pack that has waller, invulnerable, arcane laser beams, and vortex that is going to fuck up your barb.
Also, anything before inferno act 2 is cake.
Ba'al is just a generic word for "master" or "lord." It's a holdover from when Judaism was henotheistic rather than monotheistic (only supposed to worship one god as opposed to professing a belief that there is only one god.)
Most Semitic cities had a Ba'al. Jehovah was technically a Ba'al as well, although it is more of a term of abuse. Christian demonology picked out a ba'al and made it into The Ba'al.
"Beelzebub" started out as "Ba'al Zeb?b" or "The God (whose name is) Zeb?b."
Always use the definite article. It's never your Ba'al, it's the Ba'al.
Yeah well I'm taking my Ba'al and going home.
Groan!
As in bocce?
I didn't know you were Jewish, NutraSweet. Why didn't you invite me to your Bar Mitzvah?!?
He only drinks diet Manischevitz
Bat Mitzvah in SF's case.
If it gets me closer to banging Alison Brie like a loose screendoor in a hurricane, I'll have a second bris...
Ah, cool stuff.
What about Jubilex?
And what about Lolth? I mean I'm not too worried about her, but some of my best friends are Drow...
Jubilex should totally open a water-park!
Until you realize she is only 8 inches long and more suited to another kind of water sport.
I thought Ba'al was the Goa'uld who helped SG1 defeat the replicators and later took up residence in exile on earth?
Still Beelzebub is used interchangeably with Satan all the time.
Different Christians in the same denominations disagree about this stuff all the time.
There's a king in the Old Testament that's referred to as Satan. Was he a possessed king? Was he really Satan incarnate? Was the Bible speaking figuratively?
Who was Melchizedek?
...now there's a stumper.
The media panic last time had to do with the Tea Party.
The time before that it was about the militia movement.
I don't see a Tea Party or militia movement gaining momentum anywhere.
The challenger to Obama looks like the kind of Republican the liberal media understands. He represents the kind of opposition the liberal media likes--he's pretty much just like Obama as far as they're concerned.
So, no, no media panic this time. But as soon as an authentic movement that genuinely believes in the things liberals hate emerges--then, yeah, the media panic will be back on again, full blast.
Sure as the sun will rise tomorrow.
Precisely. Had Ron Paul earned the nomination (I know, parallel universes and all that jazz), this guy might have become a politicized figure.
Illuminati + Freemasons = Alex Jones which can be connected to Ron Paul fairly handily.
Who was in Taps with Tom Cruise, who was in A Few Good Men with...
Kevin Bacon!
Mmmmm Bacon!
It mostly ended with the rise of the OWS movement. It was somewhat difficult for leftists to screech about "violent political rhetoric", when assaults, rapes, and murders were being committed by OWS members literally everyday.
If only.
Word to the wise: The "Panic" is never over. They just move on to something else.
*Boom*
Case in point:
http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_n.....n=testblog
And them?