New world records for drivel and shameful dishonest nonsense have been set following the Tucson shootings.

As far as I can see, the only thing President Obama wants to ‘heal’ is his own dismal ratings, and his speech to some extent may have done that – for a while. But the Left talking-point propaganda claim as amplified by the BBC/Guardian and others on this side of the pond that ‘right-wing rhetoric’ somehow contributed to the shootings is beyond grotesque.

Take Paul Krugman, whose literate analysis of the problems facing the Eurozone is overshadowed by some of the outlandish nonsense he’s talked on this latest US shooting tragedy. Ann Althouse gives him the spanking he deserves:

Advocating violence is terrible, but it is also terrible to try to delegitimize vibrant criticism of the government, to have a biased view of where the least valuable speech is coming from, and to connect speech to violence when there is no connection. The truth is we should dismiss the massacre as the mere act of a deranged individual and go on as before. Why should we change because a madman shot people?

Ironically, saying that a massacre can change the course of American politics encourages massacres! Why would you put such a thought into the heads of madmen? Hell, sane men might put the pieces together and plan a massacre to disrupt the work of the politicians who won the last elections. We need to turn away from the bloody slaughter and go on as before.

And what about this bizarre piece by Simon Jenkins:

Freedom of speech, like freedom of traffic, can only be defined by the curbs and regulations that make it real…If American politics is now going the way of wounding, not healing, it needs the tonic of order.

It is the great paradox of democracy. Free speech cannot exist without chains.

What?

There may be the glimmer of a point in there somewhere. But whatever it is pales into insignificance when compared to the wider point, namely that we hear a lot about the dangers supposedly posed by rhetoric of the ‘toxic Right’ but nothing is said about the rhetoric of the toxic Left. 

The good news is that US talk radio is about the only force on the planet which consistently confronts the Toxic Left. President Obama wisely has decided not to side with the Toxic Leftists who want to use the ‘fairness doctrine’ to shut down this truculent rival voice.

Implications of the Tucson shootings? None.

The USA is a big country, and by the law of averages among 300 million people a small few may contemplate assassinating politicians, a small number of them may actually try to do so and a tiny number will succeed.  

If anything the fact that these episodes are so rare shows just how ‘civil’ US politics are for 99.999% of normal purposes as compared to most cultures in human history. A ghastly tragedy for those involved, of course, but as Ann Althouse says the country as a whole should not start panicking. 

The supposedly liberal ‘mainstream media’ in the USA in this case have disgraced themselves over this obvious point by ranting against Sarah Palin for no reason whatsoever, thereby merely accelerating their own much-deserved collapse.