According to evidence presented by law enforcement officials in court, Jared Lee Loughner planned the assassination of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-Arizona) well in advance

It wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that the Tucson shooter shared other causes and grievances of the right-extremist milieu—predominantly directed against the “unpatriotic” liberal and moderate enemies that do share their extreme ideas. For that, he did not have to attend actual meetings of so-called patriot or militia groups or even know any of those movements’ activists.

“The ubiquitous nature of the Internet means that not only threats but also hate speech and other inciteful speech is much more readily available to individuals than quite clearly it was 8 or 10 or 15 years ago.”

Was the attack, then, the insane act of a mad young man?

As far as I am concerned, the premeditated attack that killed six persons and wounding a dozen others was an act of terrorism by definition. Terrorism means after all the deliberate, politically motivated targeting of civilians or non-combatants.

Strange, that the chattering class has far less of a problem calling similar acts of violence inside the United States “terrorism,” when the perpetrators are identified as Muslim Americans.

But starting with the election of President Obama, the emergence of the Birther movement, the revitalization of the extremist patriot and militia movement, the threatening nature of the Tea Party advent during 2009 town hall meetings at the heights of the health care reform debate, and peaking again during last year’s bitter election campaign, right-wingers have been particularly extreme in the rhetoric of hate and division.

Although one would hope that Sarah Palin did not want to encourage real life attacks on the targets she pinpointed during the campaign, the fact is that she publicized a graphic that displayed gunsight-style crosshair targets on the districts of 20 Democrat politicians that supported Barack Obama’s healthcare reform, among them Representative Giffords. The idea was to “take out” those opposition candidates—in the next election. But placing the “hit list” side by side with Palin’s gun-blazing “Don’t retreat, reload” phrase, this stuff could be understood quite differently.

What happened in Tucson the other day should be a wake-up call for extremists of all colors and, more important, for the majority that tends to remain at the sidelines of political discourse.

It does not bode well that right-wingers have already began to push back against critics of their demagoguery and hate speech—and, of course, on their ridiculous interpretation of the right to bear arms based on the second amendment.

By now it the time for real American values to prevail.  Read more at www.reflectivepundit.com