Absolutely agree, David. And I'm a hard-ass about 2nd amendment rights.

There is a disconnect somewhere between law enforcement and mental health care. The cops knew about this guy for years. Apparently they even told people who had been threatened by him that the mental health professionals where on it.

After Virginia Tech, how the hell does this happen AGAIN?

David, you're an idiot.

That poor kid is mentally ill. The only responsibility for that is his own body chemistry.

I don't know yet whose responsibility is was to get him the help he so desperately needed.

So the Arizona shooting does not encourage you to think about the benefits of civility in discourse?

No. Why should it? There's no causal relationship.
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Moreover, I think I intervened often enough when David's language turned ugly.

Apologies. Must have missed it.
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Why is it so damn popular to point to other people, whenever you are criticized of something you did? General, not just you

It isn't and I didn't. I responded not to criticism. I responded to a lie. Two lies, actually. That 'right wing hate speech' was in some way responsible for the Tuscon shooting. And that etremists on the left are invisible.
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"It didn’t get a lot of comments,"

I am not blogging to get comments. This blog has 100x plus more readers than commenters.

I'm sorry I wasn't clear. I intended to convey that perhaps not many people had seen David's comment. That's all.

Part 2

Now Joerg your comment:

Americans from left and right are so proud of their democracy and free speech etc and want to spread it globally (or at least consider the US a role model for the world) etc, but the quality level of debate has been deteriorating in recent years.

In recent years? Are you serious? Here’s a brief history lesson.

“Before modern political times, the level of insult was far higher still. John Adams called Alexander Hamilton "the bastard brat of a Scotch peddler." In the early years of the republic, newspapers made no pretense at being even-handed. Many were funded by politicians and parties to unashamedly advance their interests.
Even George Washington, twice unanimously elected to the presidency, found himself slandered in the press. The Philadelphia Aurora, the leading Jeffersonian paper, referred to him sarcastically as "Saint Washington," accused him of overdrawing his salary, and compared him to Nero and "a common pickpocket." By the end of his second term, Washington, like Johnson 160 years later, was desperately tired of being "buffeted in the public prints by a set of infamous scribblers."
Thomas Jefferson in his term was regularly accused of fathering children by his slave Sarah Hemmings, often described in the papers as "dusky Sally." (Recent DNA evidence, in fact, gives considerable credence to the accusation. But in Jefferson's day, there was no evidence beyond gossip.)
Andrew Jackson was regularly called "King Andrew" and accused of seeking to establish a monarchy. He blamed the death of his beloved wife, Rachel, shortly after he was elected, on scandalmongers in the press who had accused her of bigamy. He described her in her epitaph as, "A being so gentle and so virtuous, slander might wound but could not dishonor." And he never forgave the insult.
Abraham Lincoln, in an 1863 political cartoon, was depicted as a monkey handing the Emancipation Proclamation to a minstrel-show stereotype of a black man.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703779704576073831200284192.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

Your comment: I think Sarah Palin's map with the crosshair icons is a disgrace! She has that map still on her Facebook page and more than 19,000 folks like it.

Sorry, but that jargon is common in American politics. So are maps with bulls eyes on them right along with accompanying ‘target’ jargon.

Here’s the Democratic Leadership Committee’s ‘bullseye’ map, titled “targeting strategy’ Dec 2004
http://www.dlc.org/ndol_ci.cfm?contentid=253055&kaid=127&subid=171

Here’s you again Joerg: What mainstream politicians in Europe use such language and imaginary?

Oh, well, allow me to introduce you to The German Diplomat From Hell. June 2005

http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/the_german_dipl.html

A few quotes:

- The gulag was better than Gitmo, since at least the Stalinist system offered its victims a trial of sorts.

- Nor was that all. Civil rights in the U.S., he said, were on a par with those of North Korea and rather behind what they had been in Europe in the Middle Ages. When I offered that, as a journalist, I had encountered no restrictions on press freedom, he cut me off. "That's because The Wall Street Journal takes its orders from the government."

By then we had sat down at the formal dining table, with our backs to Ground Zero a half-mile away and our eyes on the boats on the river below us. My wife and I made abortive attempts at ordinary conversation. We were met with non sequiturs: "The only people who appreciate American foreign policy are poodles." After further bizarre pronouncements, including a lecture on the illegality of the Holocaust under Nazi law
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And lest we forget, the loving treatment of George Bush’s America at the hands of German media

Germany’s Stern Magazine on Martin Luther King Jr. Day: Condoleezza Rice the "Voice of her Master"
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/01/germanys_stern_.html

Germany's Largest Trade Union: Portraying Americans as Blood Suckers "A Good Caricature"
http://medienkritik.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/germanys_larges.html

Given the political relationships forged between the German gov’t and the unions I think it’s fair to characterize the union leadership as German politicians.

Ok, Joerg, I’m done addressing your issues. For the time being.

And finally.

The attempt by the invisible extremists on the left to smear political opponents with the blood libel of complicity in murder serves NOT to raise the level of political discourse. It is the bald exploitation of the blood of the victims for political power.

It is morally repugnant and, simply, evil.

It's your blog. You can ban me.
But I won't shut up.

And I'm with Kevin: Words cannot express how little of a s**t I give about our image in the world

Only to the extent that they have an opportunity to understand. Whether or not we are 'liked' has become immaterial to me personally because I've seen so much gratuitous anti-Americanism that's based on projection, myth or simply used as a political weapon. I've noted a few examples upthread.

And Joerg, let's recap some American history in the hope you can be disabused that we ever 'prided' ourselves on 'civil discourse'.

1. I wouldn't expect you to know the details, but I trust you are aware we had a Civil War.

2. Ever hear of the Bonus Army War?

From History Net site:

As many as 20,000 former soldiers and their families had converged on Washington in the summer of 1932, the height of the Great Depression, to support Texas Congressman Wright Patman's bill to advance the bonus payment promised to World War I veterans. Congress had authorized the plan in 1924, intending to compensate the veterans for wages lost while serving in the military during the war. But payment was to be deferred until 1945. Just one year earlier, in 1931, Congress overrode a presidential veto on a bill to provide, as loans, half the amount due to the men. When the nation's economy worsened, the half-bonus loans were not enough, and the unemployed veterans now sought the balance in cash. Known as Bonus Marchers, they came in desperation from all across the nation, hopping freight trains, driving dilapidated jalopies or hitchhiking, intent on pressuring Congress to pass the legislation. The administration vehemently opposed the measure, believing it inflationary and impractical given the $2 billion annual budget deficit.
[ ]
Endeavoring to eliminate any doubt as to his motives, MacArthur next conducted an impromptu press conference — a job more appropriately left to civilian authorities. The conference allowed the general to expound on the claim that Reds had concocted the riot, the president's safety was at stake, and the government was threatened with insurrection. Describing the mob, MacArthur said: 'It was animated by the essence of revolution. They had come to the conclusion, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were about to take over in some arbitrary way either the direct control of the government or else to control it by indirect methods. It is my opinion that had the president let it go on another week the institutions of our government would have been very severely threatened.' It was a masterful performance. In praising the president and war secretary, MacArthur nearly absolved himself of responsibility — perhaps a calculated move.

Hoover watched the red glow of the bonfire at Anacostia Flats from a White House window
http://www.historynet.com/the-bonus-army-war-in-washington.htm

The MacArthur mentioned is Douglas "I Shall Return" MacArthur

3. Days of Rage ring a bell? Weatherunderground? They made a habit of blowing things up, in one case even a few of themselves in a 'work accident'. Killed a police officer in a botched armored car robbery. Or was it a bank robber?

"Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?"

Black Panthers. Symboniese Liberation Army.

Yeah, the '60s were FULL of civil discourse.

Which reminds me. Did they ever catch the person(s) responsible for firebombing Sarah Palin's church?

TEA BAGGERS?! Obama actually used that word? Seriously?

Wow.

(For European readers who may not be aware, it is a sexually perjorative term.)