From a reader

From a reader

Further to the coverage of the politicization of the shooting of Rep. Giffords, I saw the following quote in a Politics Daily piece:

The sheriff of Pima County, Clarence Dupnik, said "the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government" may have triggered Loughner's rampage. "There's reason to believe that this individual may have a mental issue and I think that people who are unbalanced are especially susceptible to vitriol," he said at a Tucson news conference.

In an indictment of Arizona's political culture, Dupnik described his state as ground zero for vitriol. "The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous," he said. "And unfortunately, Arizona, I think, has become sort of the capital. We have become the mecca for prejudice and bigotry." He said the country is no longer "the nice United States of America that most of us grew up in" and it's time for some "soul-searching."

It's odd that the notion of public vitriol and how it can trigger violence in unstable people is just coming up now. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area and for as long as I can remember there have been left wing protests in the streets of San Francisco, Berkeley, Oakland and other local cities. One of the most popular protest topics is Israel and the protesters here are allowed to say things that exceed any level of vitriol ever produced by a tea party gathering. The link below is just one example of the things that you see at a Bay Area liberal protest against Israel.

http://zombietime.com/gaza_war_protest/

So if we are now to moderate our passions and speech to ensure that unstable people aren't motivated to violence can I expect to see a ban on anti Israel protests in San Francisco?