Shooting

While everyone appears to have an opinion on what drove Jared Loughner to want to kill Congresswoman Gifford, we just don't know at this point what his motivations were.

Having said that, it does not seem surprising that the rhetoric of the last two years would lead to an incident like this. There has been a lot of focus on Palin's "Reload" statement and the maps with crosshairs on them, but to me the dangerous part has been much broader.

For the last two years especially, but really for a lot longer, politicians and pundits on the right have said outright and repeatedly that liberal politics was "destroying America". They have portrayed their "mission" as saving America in a battle for its very existence.

Tea party people shout "I want my country back" and invoke Goldwater's "extremism in defence of liberty is no vice" quote, Glenn Beck makes up conspiracies involving the President, George Soros, Chevron, and any number of other "liberal" groups, Birthers deny Obama's nationality in spite of undeniable evidence to the contrary (in fact the better the evidence, the more it proves how pervasive the conspiracy is), Jonah Goldberg says that all liberals are really just fascists, etc, etc.

When one side demonizes its opponents in this manner, it is hardly surprising that someone, mentally ill or not, would believe that conservative v. liberal represents a battle for the nation.