Should Bush pardon Jim Atkisson as a national hero?

Question

Atkisson opened fire on the congregation of a Unitarian Church to express his hatred of Liberalism. Two died, seven more injured, five critically. Atkisson acted on the incessant anti-Liberal hate that spews from the right-wing media. He should be a hero to the Right. So, give him a pardon? The Presidential Medal of Freedom?

Answer 1

That's perfect!!  We must remember, the man was only upholding his precious Second Amendment rights.  

Edit to Kathy:  I guess you don't like it when your reasoning gets tossed back at you, huh?  I'm sure you DO blame all Muslims for the actions of a few.  

If you took this seriously, you're watching too much Fox News.

Answer 2

Just out of curiosity, using your line of thinking, should we condemn ALL Muslims because a handful of fanatics have chosen to interpret their religious texts into a call to violence and homicide?

Just wondering if you are consistent.

Edit: Bookish - Quite the contrary, if you read any of my MANY posts on terrorism and Islam, you will know that I have always defended peaceful Muslims. However, I have also pointed out to them that since a huge majority of terrorists are radicalized Muslims, the TRUE believers of their religion, need to be more vocal in speaking out against the few that are giving their religion a bad name. Want to tell me where I am wrong on that???

And if this question is somehow supposed to be Scourge's attempt at "humor," it totally escapes me. I fail to see how using a horrible crime such as what happened at the Unitarian Church could be considered fodder for amusement. If you do, maybe you SHOULD be watching more FOX News.

I thought Libs were supposed to be the compassionate caring crowd... If this is a sample of it, you can have it.

Answer 3

Um, no.  Even conservatives are appalled at the senseless killing of their fellow Americans.

Answer 4

Very good question I have to answer with no, I also really like the first answer in the same spirit. Very well done.

"The shooter had not worked since 2006 and apparently was on the verge of having his food stamps cut. According to reports he had previously worked as a truck driver and also had an associate’s degree in mechanical engineering. His former wife had once taken out a restraining order against him after he had threatened to kill her.

A longtime acquaintance described Adkisson as a loner who hated “blacks, g**s and anyone different from him.”

Another acquaintance described him as a Vietnam veteran who “was not treated well by the VA [Veterans Administration].” Adkisson, he said, told him he “couldn’t get a job and he didn’t make enough to live on.”

At Adkisson’s house police said they found books by right-wing media personalities, including Bill O’Reilly of Fox News as well as talk show hosts Michael Savage and Sean Hannity.

Shootings such as this latest one have become a frequent occurrence in the United States. Invariably the shooter is a disturbed, socially alienated individual, who feels a deep bitterness toward society at large. Often the targets of the violence appear to be randomly chosen.

The regularity of such psychopathic outbursts speaks to a diseased and dysfunctional society. The US is the most socially unequal of all the major industrial countries. In 2006, average pay of a CEO in the US was 364 times that of a typical worker.

The pressures facing ordinary working class and middle class people are being compounded by the mortgage crisis, along with soaring food and gasoline prices. Millions are affected.

The economic pressures that played a role in the decision by Adkisson to attack the church are significant. However, particularly disturbing is the pernicious role played by right-wing political ideology in motivating this horrific act.

In the coverage of the tragedy by the corporate media this element is either ignored, downplayed or dealt with superficially. Among more thoughtful segments of the population, however, the promotion by the establishment media of an atmosphere of intolerance, fear, paranoia and violence is evident.

Television and radio are more and more the mouthpieces of right-wing and chauvinist propaganda—Fox News, CNN’s Lou Dobbs, talk radio—while bigotry is tolerated and even sanctioned by the political establishment as a whole. Witness the eulogies to recently deceased North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms, a notorious racist.

Examples abound of what amount to little more than incitement to violence by right-wing media figures. “Shock jock” Michael Savage recently called autistic children “brats, morons and idiots” and once referred to a caller on his show as a “sodomite” who should “get AIDS and die.” Fox’s O’Reilly regularly demonizes homosexuals. On one broadcast he reported a bogus epidemic of violent L*****n gangs terrorizing neighborhoods and schools.

Of course, one can only imagine the reaction of the corporate media establishment if police had found copies of the Koran or pictures of Osama Bin Laden among Jim Adkisson’s possessions instead of the writings of O’Reilly & Co.

Under conditions of the domination of official public discourse by right-wing and extreme-right views—coupled with the collapse of the trade unions and the repudiation of social reformism by the Democratic Party—the pent-up anger and frustrations of unstable individuals is susceptible to being directed in a violent and reactionary direction.

Tragically, the absence of any progressive outlet for social discontent within the realm of official politics makes likely more such explosions of misguided rage."