Loughner, language and the Big Lie ~ By ILANA MERCER

Liberals contend that free, right-wing speech drove Loughner over the edge. I would counter thus: The perversion of speech – and the manifest discrepancy between words and what they stand for – is what encourages "madness" and mayhem in individuals like Loughner.

An inability to deal with incongruity does not imply an absence of mens rea (criminal intent). "Crazies" know right from wrong.

We are all equally exposed to the Big Lies pushed by the country's so-called cognoscenti. The political class has manufactured a parallel universe for us to inhabit. We are, however, all free to refuse to occupy it.

Just in case you weren't sure, one of the definitions of semantics is:

the branch of linguistics that deals with the study of meaning, changes in meaning, and the principles that govern the relationship between sentences or words and their meanings

~ Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition

Ilana Mercer tries to explain the relationship between Loughner's madness and his obsession with the government and the incongruity of semantics. In other words... I have no idea. But the column is interesting enough that it is worth reading.


Loughner, language and the Big Lie

ILANA MERCER

By Ilana Mercer

January 14, 2011 ~ 1:00 am Eastern

© 2011

"What is government if words have no meaning?" Jared Lee Loughner asked Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz., in 2007.

Loughner was attending a Giffords "Congress in Your Corner" get-together. The gracious congresswoman attempted to answer the youth's riddle. As we now know, no reply would have satisfied or stilled the mind of this obsessive individual.

Four years later, on Jan. 8, 2011, Loughner went on a rampage outside a Tucson grocery store, where the representative held a similar event. He killed six people and wounded 14, among whom was Gabrielle Giffords.

Loughner was both fixated on his representative's imagined failings, and preoccupied with language and its misuse. These elements combined and then combusted in his head.

As a writer who really loves the English language, I am intrigued by the intrusive, persistent thoughts about grammar and illiteracy to have plagued Loughner.

You see, as I mourn the senseless slaughter of my countrymen, I also grieve – with almost every book I pick up or Internet tract I read – the bastardization of the language.

Given time, the nation's mental-health mavens will confuse matters. They will likely assert, without any science, that misfiring neurotransmitters in the man's brain brought us to this point. It would appear, however, that what pushed Loughner into an abyss was the inability to "read" the world around him.

Words are symbols. They are used as agreed-upon conventions to make sense of the world. For Loughner, these constructs no longer corresponded to the things they are supposed to describe.

The magazine Mother Jones interviewed Bryce Tierney, a close friend of Loughner. Tierney confirmed "the fascination Loughner had with semantics and how the world is really nothing – [an] illusion." In addition, Loughner, said his pal, liked to insist (credibly) that government was "f---ing us over."

Perhaps, then, it was not speech per se that inflamed Loughner's febrile passions, but, rather, Orwellian speech; lies that belie reality.

The Big Lies.

READ FULL STORY at WorldNetDaily.com

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Weapons for the GOP punditocracy ~ By Ilana Mercer

Commentary from WorldNetDaily

By Ilana Mercer Posted: November 20, 2009 ~ 1:00 am Eastern © 2009 Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is advancing on the country with an $848 billion health-care bill in hand, which he hopes to bring to the Senate floor before he and cohorts go on holiday. Yet the swiftest arrow in the Republican punditocracy's Obamacare quiver remains this: If the government can't pull off the Cash For Clunkers scam, how will it handle health care? Or this: If government can't manage the gallery of the grotesque – Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security – how will it run a sixth of the economy? When all else fails to persuade, they galvanize the argument from Hitler. Taking their cues from Rush Limbaugh, it is not uncommon for Republican commentators to pair B. Hussein's health care with Hitler's hobby horses: smoking bans, abortions, euthanasia and eugenics. Hitler and the mismanagement by government of Medicare and Medicaid (but not of the military) – this is the Republican commentariat's repertoire of riffs. Anything but First Principles, with which the GOP has an oil-and-water relationship. Republicans are clearly more exhausted than engaged. The same goes for the targets of their message. If the polls are anything to go by, most Americans are unimpressed by anti-government rhetoric when emanating from former Bush acolytes. According to a CNN poll, "49 percent of those questioned would vote for the Democratic candidate in their congressional district, with 43 percent supporting the Republican." At an approval rate of 55 percent, Bush's successor is still beloved. [CLICK HERE TO READ MORE]

Missouri police state: Beware of people like … me - By Ilana Mercer

Ilana writes: A secret Missouri State police report, entitled "The Modern Militia Movement" and dated Feb. 20, 2009, is warning about subversives like … me. Apparently, this scribe has all the attributes of a militia member, and then some. read more | digg story

Addicted to that Rush - By ilana mercer

Desperate times call for desperate distractions. The Steele-Limbaugh spat fell into Obama's lap. The president is losing it, and he is now realizing that he is not the magic man he imagined he was. Democratic henchmen – Paul Begala, Stanley Greenberg, James Carville and Robert Gibbs – began picking a fight with Limbaugh. And it's good for the GOP.

read more | digg story

Manliness (not a miracle) on the Hudson - by ilana mercer

Missed by the purveyors of pop culture and political correctness was a story about the value of an endangered, and vital, virtue: manliness. Witnessed in that cockpit was old-fashioned manliness. The feminization and regulation of American society has meant that life-saving manliness is confined to the one last place not encroached on: The cockpit. read more | digg story

Palestinians: Eternal troublemakers - to Arabs, too - By Ilana mercer

"To liberals – a designation that encompasses most contemporary 'conservatives' – aggression signals oppression. The Palestinian plight is the fault of reckless leaders, Palestinian and Israeli. The liberal West honestly believes that bad leaders are what shackle backward peoples." read more | digg story, submitted by chamorah

'Take This, Mr. President, For Ramos And Compean,' - By Ilana Mercer

Their names are nowhere on the list of pardons and commutations George W. Bush has issued before saying adieu. They are the brave Border Patrol agents, Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean.

I've said it before: Bush would wrestle a crocodile for a criminal alien. Duly, for shooting a drug dealer in the derriere – in the process of defending their country and countrymen – Bush unleashed his bloodhound, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton, on the two patriotic patrolmen. The state's "rules of engagement" rule out any meaningful defense of American lives and property; they are rigged against America's defenders and favor her infiltrators. Sutton's legal strategy is what sickens: This U.S. attorney courted a criminal alien, granting him immunity in exchange for his testimony against the heroic law enforcement officers. As WND has reported, the men "have already served nearly two years in prison – mostly in solitary confinement." Without leniency, they'll remain locked-up for at least a decade longer. [Continue reading]

digg story, submitted by chamorah