The Gabrielle Giffords Shooting

I've not commented on this before because at the time I thought a discreet approach would be best. However almost a year on it's obvious the Whitehouse is too dim to work it out on it's own.

On January 8th 2011 an attempt was made to assassinate the Democrat Congresswoman for Arizona Gabrielle Giffords while she was meeting with constituents in Tuscon, Arizona. Although Ms Giffords survived, just, 19 other people were shot in the attempt and 6 of them were killed. The attack was carried out by Jared Lee Loughner a 22 year old man with severe psychological and emotional problems. We know about these problems because when Laughner applied to join the US military they psychologically screened him and rejected him on those grounds. Therefore it would have been all too easy for someone with access to military personnel records to identify Laughner's potential and sell him on the slightly insane idea that rather then being rejected by the military he's been selected for a Call of Duty style top secret, special operations unit. He just had to complete one final test before being sent for training. The fact that after completing that test Laughner instead found himself languishing in prison was what finally caused his mind to explode leaving him conveniently unfit to stand trial.

The purpose for carrying out the attack was the effect it had. It helped to change the aggressive and corrosive nature of political debate in the US at the time. This aided the Republicans more then it helped the Democrats because frankly the louder some of them speak the more obvious it becomes just how stupid they are. Take as an example an issue that was very contentious at the time - health care reform or "Obamacare." Having just taken control of the House of Representatives the Republicans were about to mount a campaign to have the policy overturned and their Tea Party wing are still in the process of mounting a Supreme Court challenge under the commerce clause (A1,S8,C3) of the US Constitution because they believe socialised medicine to be "Un-American."

The problem is that America already has socialised medicine, it's called Medicare and Medicaid. It's just that because no-one wants to be honest about what these programs are they're horrifically mis-manged and cost the taxpayer trillions of dollars a year. So by introducing compulsory health insurance the Obama administration is trying to wean Americans off these socialised programs and force them to take personal responsibility for their health care under a capitalist system. These are values that the Republicans claim to support as being the American way.

In an aggressive and corrosive political atmosphere where he who shouts loudest wins this argument is so simple that even the Democrats could have made it. But then the Giffords shooting happened, the political tone changed and the Democrats are losing that and all other arguments while the Republicans set about annihilating the US economy and no-one bats and eyelid.