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Special Report
The Victim and His Victims
Liberals blame everyone except the criminals.
The deranged man had been steadily going downhill. His bizarre anti-social behavior and angry outbursts had caused him to be suspended from college classes. He spiraled downward into a vortex of madness and nursed a weird political grievance until finally he went on a murderous rampage with a 9-mm semi-automatic pistol, killing six people and wounding more than a dozen others.
But nobody blamed Sarah Palin or the Tea Party for this bloody crime, because it was December 1993, and the deranged gunman was Colin Ferguson. And his killing spree didn’t happen in Arizona, but on New York’s Long Island Railroad, where he opened fire in a train full of rush-hour commuters.
The remarkable parallels between Ferguson’s mass murder and Saturday’s shootings in Tucson include not only the choice of weapons and the number of victims killed, but also the fact that in both cases, liberals downplayed the idiosyncratic motives of the gunmen and immediately seized upon both crimes to advance their political agenda.
Liberals predictably used Ferguson’s murders to promote gun-control legislation. Just days before the Long Island Railroad massacre, President Clinton had signed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act, requiring background checks on firearm purchasers. Of course, Ferguson had already bought his 9-mm Ruger pistol during a visit to California, where state law required a 15-day waiting period. And despite his increasingly paranoid behavior, there was evidently nothing in Ferguson’s record that would have prevented him from buying a gun. Several months later, Congress passed and Clinton signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994, which prohibited the manufacture or import of certain semi-automatic weapons — wrongly described as “assault weapons” — as “high capacity” ammunition magazines. It has often been wrongly asserted that the so-called “assault weapons ban” outlawed these weapons and magazines, but it did not. Existing weapons and magazines of the prohibited type, already owned by many thousands of Americans, remained perfectly legal; it simply became illegal to manufacture such items in the U.S. or import them from overseas. Collectors who stocked up on the banned weapons and magazines before the Clinton-era law went into effect were able to reap handsome profits in the re-sale market during the 10 years before the law expired in 2004.
In the aftermath of the Tucson shooting — where accused killer Jared Lee Loughner used a 30-round magazine in his 9-mm Glock pistol — liberal pundits and reporters recycled the mistaken claim that the 1994 law had “banned” high-capacity magazines. (Blogger Bob Owens has endeavored to correct this misinformation, but has not been overwhelmed by phone calls from network TV producers who evidently prefer to rely on “experts” who get the facts all wrong.) Democrat Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, whose husband was killed in Ferguson’s rampage, has been making the media rounds urging a new federal law to limit ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. But it’s more likely the new GOP majority in the House will re-introduce the Volstead Act rather than to anger the millions of Second Amendment-loving Americans who delivered the overwhelming Republican mandate in November.
Even most Democrats, having recognized the political liability of advocating gun-control laws, are unlikely to support new restrictions. Perhaps this is merely a matter of electoral expediency, or perhaps Democrats have come to share the American majority’s opinion that guns don’t kill people, oppressed “victims of society” kill people.
Colin Ferguson certainly believed himself to be an oppressed victim. Having immigrated to New York from Jamaica in 1982 at age 24, Ferguson was unable to find a job that suited his taste and spent much of the next decade unemployed. He filed a workman’s compensation claim against one company that hired him, enrolled in community college and began to exhibit an increasingly virulent hatred of white people. During one college lecture he reportedly shouted, “Kill the white people!” Unlike Al Sharpton, however, Ferguson’s vicious race-mongering didn’t lead to a Democratic presidential campaign and frequent appearances as a “civil rights” commentator on cable news networks. Instead, it led him to isolation and madness. (Neighbors complained they could hear Ferguson in his room at night yelling about killing white people, but no one seems to have thought to call the police; perhaps they thought Ferguson was practicing for a career as a rapper.) After Ferguson killed six people — five whites and an Asian — and wounded 19, he was at first represented by radical lawyers William Kunstler and Ron Koby. They wanted to defend their client on the basis of the innovative “black rage” theory that America’s endemic racism was more to blame than the guy who pulled the trigger. Ferguson had the judge remove Kunstler and Koby from the case, instead acting as his own attorney — cross-examining the surviving people he’d shot — and in the end was found guilty and sentenced to more than 300 years in prison.
Jared Lee Loughner, age 22, is not a Jamaican immigrant and so the “black rage” defense clearly won’t work for him, although his dangerous derangement developed in a similar fashion. As with Ferguson, Loughner had been exhibiting symptoms of insanity for years before he finally committed mass murder. He had a history of teenage drug and alcohol abuse, and a high-school classmate recalled him as a “political radical” of the “left wing” variety. Loughner became obsessed with “mind control” and weird theories of language. In community college classes, his bizarre behavior and nonsensical interruptions so frightened his teachers and classmates that he was banned from campus.
Once upon a time, someone so manifestly insane would have been locked up in the loony bin, but in the 1970s, liberals crusaded for the deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. A series of federal court rulings made it impermissible to commit patients to involuntary treatment unless it could be proven they were a threat to the safety of themselves or others, a legal standard that may have been difficult to meet in Loughner’s case. And no one seems to have realized that Loughner’s craziness and his avowed contempt for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords — whom he’d met at a 2007 public forum — might prove a deadly combination before he finally opened fire Saturday in the parking lot of a Tucson grocery store.
Liberals didn’t wait to learn about Loughner’s madness or his grudge against Giffords before attempting to politicize the gunman’s crime. In fact, the suspect hadn’t even been named before liberal bloggers Matthew Yglesias and Markos Moulitsas declared that Sarah Palin was to blame for the Arizona shootings. Even after news accounts exposed the reality of “left wing” Loughner’s insanity — he wasn’t a Tea Partier or a Republican and didn’t even bother to vote in 2010 — still liberals insisted that somehow, the rhetoric of conservatives had created what New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called a “climate of hate.” Of course, this alleged climate was no more to blame for Loughner’s crime than the Kunstler-Kuby “black rage” theory, but liberals weren’t going to let facts stand in their way. Conservatives who refused to play along with this blame game were accused of being “defensive,” as if it were some evidence of a guilty conscience to deny what Glenn Reynolds rightly called “blood libel.”
The liberal response to the Tucson massacre was as irrational as Loughner’s own crackpot ideas of “mind control.” You could watch the madness unfold hour by hour on MSNBC, the official network of liberalism. Monday afternoon, the network’s perpetually angry Ed Schultz spent the first segment of his show denouncing various conservatives for their irresponsible, violence-inducing rhetoric, before introducing his guest that noted arbiter of civil discourse, Al Sharpton. Schultz’s ratings are so low they can barely be measured by the Nielsen system, but when it comes to unintentional irony, the meter was off the chart Monday.
Liberals who have crusaded to keep madmen running loose in America have also campaigned to abolish the death penalty, so that innocent victims can be killed, but their killers can’t. Liberals have also advanced an absolutist theory of First Amendment rights that protects pornographers, Marxist revolutionaries, and Islamic clerics who advocate jihad. The only speech that liberals ever want to restrict is the speech of those who point out the errors of liberalism. Any conservative would be denounced for “hate speech” if he borrowed the words of President Obama’s former pastor and declared that what happened in Tucson on Saturday was liberalism’s “chickens coming home to roost.” But liberals can’t gain any political advantage by blaming Jared Loughner and they never accept any responsibility themselves, so liberalism’s eternal hunt for scapegoats will continue.
About the Author
Robert Stacy McCain is co-author (with Lynn Vincent) of Donkey Cons: Sex, Crime, and Corruption in the Democratic Party (Nelson Current). He blogs at The Other McCain.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (109) | Leave a comment
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hugh bnyn| 1.12.11 @ 6:28AM
----and speaking of pop culture, the Luciferian
and the horror shows that fill our media
---WHEN is that dialogue about Freemasonry's
VAST violation of the seperation of Church and State going to begin???
daddio| 1.12.11 @ 9:19AM
OK-I'll bite. What does Freemasonry have to do with any of this?
Bill| 1.12.11 @ 1:24PM
It's obvious, silly: they have a big "G" in their seal. Both "God" and "Government" start with the letter "G." I mean jeez, it's so obvious...
Stammon| 1.12.11 @ 9:38AM
Tinfoil hats @ 2 cents a dozen.
Dixie Pixie| 1.12.11 @ 11:16AM
Do you have any in golden anodized aluminum with the tiny tinkling bells mounted around the rim.
I think they would be a big hit with the National Writers Union and the Syndicated Writers.
Why with the proper marketing the golden aluminum hats could become the latest fashion trend among the progressive avant guard such as Paul Krugman, Keith Olbermann and the staff of the NYT.
Hugh is convinced the Freemasons are using mind control beams to control debate on the vital issues of the day. The above writers would be the natural targets and it would explain their erratic and irrational behavior. Why not use the theory for cheap laughs.
Uncle Fester| 1.12.11 @ 11:39AM
I'm glad you think it's funny, Dixie! It's people like you and your right wing nuts like Stammon who want to horde all the tin-foil hats and charge these outrageous prices! Tin foil hats have gone up 50% during the Bush years! That's because him and his Big Tin Foil Hat friends are greedy bastards! And now YOU want to make fancy schmancy aluminum hats that will cost even more!
Thank the Earth goddess for ObamaCare! Your monopoly is ending and you and your friends are going nuts with hate speech that made me shoot all those people! Right Wing Nazis like your friend, Eric Cartman , wants to "take ObamaCar apart bit by bit" pricing tinfoil hats out of reach fo rpeopl elik eme! And I won't put up with it> Decent people like Keith Olberman will make sure I get my . . .
Eric Cartman: Dude.
Uncle Fester: What do YOU want, Eric?!
EC: You can have all the free tin foil hats you want. I'll make them for you.
UF: Really?
EC: Really.
UF: Have I ever told you about my years B.C.E and A.D.E. theory?
EC: Yes, we all know about them. Ya know, there is one guy who wants to take away ALL the tin foil hats.
UF: WHO?!
EC: This sheriff. You may know him. Sheriff Dupnik? He's teh sheriff from where you live. He's anti-tin-foil hat to the extreme! He's the reason you never got your tin-foil hat.
UF: He needs to be dealt with.
EC: I'll get you his address and a picture of him later. Let's go get you that hat, okay?
UF: Okay! You know, there aren't a lot of conscious dreamers like us, Eric. Not many people can dream and live to see the A.D.E. years.
EC: Yes, I know. Here, hold my bong. Want some of this? We'll be there in a while, dude.
Dixie Pixie| 1.12.11 @ 12:55PM
Chill out Uncle Fester.
I am just trying to expand the market segment for"Faraday Shielded Prestigious Haberdashery".
Someone had to something to protect the most vincible people from the governmental infliction of control by broadband.
Tin Foil Hats are so 20th Century.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 1:50PM
Superbly funny.
For the serious law behind the reason we can't medicate violent insane people like the Arizona shooter, look up the following California Case: Riese versus St. Mary's. The ACLU was the plaintiff attorney.
JF| 1.13.11 @ 12:18PM
Tinfoil - aluminum - how earth-unfriendly can you get? How about using some sustainable materials - hemp, for instance. That would make it a multitasking plant (smoke it and wear it to guard against the freemasons.)
Dixie Pixie| 1.13.11 @ 6:11PM
Greetings JF
You really need to come up to speed on "Tin Foil Hat Technology".
See:::: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tin_foil_hat
Hemp won't work.
A conductive surface is required for actual usage.
Eric Cartman| 1.12.11 @ 9:59AM
hugh! Will the A.D.E. years begin if the B.C. E. years never stop? We need dreamers like you and better grammar! Thank you!
duck| 1.13.11 @ 2:51PM
Actually, a new time frame is about to be launched. It will be known as BO and AO.. Before Obama and After Obama..... Soon, century zero will begin and all previous history will be rewritten to more completely reflect how perfect the left truly believes thay are.
MikeD| 1.12.11 @ 1:27PM
Nothing! To these 'wingnuts' no logic is possible.
beebop| 1.12.11 @ 6:51AM
Just a few things because they have probably been said better and else where here before now:
1. If it was the "talk" prior to the November elections, why wait 2 months to act on your rage? I don't know what Gifford's schedule was during that period, but part of it must have been in Tucson. Yes, the "Congress on your Corner" was an open air forum and easy to make her a target, but I think we all admit, he was not rational.
2. What about all of the hand wringing about the anniversary of John Lennon's death as a nearer "cause?" I clicked through no fewer than three "specials" on that tragedy and who among us would have known the name "mark david chapman" without that event?
3. Murder by cop?
4. How come all of a sudden we are not hearing any discussion of the anti semite aspects of his background? Perhaps because it doesn't FIT what the mainstream media is trying to peddle?
5. They will drive the lunatic fring to further action. They apparently want to.
I find his parents lack of action totally dispiriting. They apparently didn't care enough about their son to have his best interests at heart. They enabled, cossetted and ignored his bizarre behavior. Did they project into the future and not see that it would end badly for him? Think about the differences in the 2 20-somethings in this story .... one shoots 31 rounds into a crowd and the other rushes TOWARD the gunfire in hopes of saving lives and/or lessening suffering. Only two years separate the gunman from Daniel Hernandez. So. It comes down to the way you were raised. Daniel had good, decent parenting and the shooter whose name I will not use didn't. It is that simple.
DG in GA| 1.12.11 @ 12:36PM
Please don't be so quick to blame the parents here. We don't really know anything about them. Bad parenting is not usually the cause of the kind of mental illness we appear to be seeing in Jared Loughner. Paranoid Schizophrenia is a mental disease that usually presents itself in late adolescence/young adulthood. Once the "child" is 18, there is very little the parents can do to force their kid into treatment. And NOBODY resists treatment like someone who is mentally ill. THE ill person insists THEY are correct and the rest of the world is wrong. The legal system does not allow for involuntary commitment unless you can PROVE the individual is a danger to himself or others. And apparently, verbal threats against talk show hosts, bloggers, etc., do NOT qualify as evidence. Nor does the establishment of a hoodoo shrine in the yard. We can thank the liberals and the ACLU for making it virtually impossible to force treatment on a mentally ill person until they act out - at which point it's usually too late.
Even if we as parents CAN get the mentally ill individual into treatment, as soon as the docs have that person sufficiently medicated they are released - again, thank you, ACLU. And it has been shown time and time again that once released, the ill person goes OFF his meds, because they make him feel "funny." Which brings back the bizarre behavior, rantings, etc. Why do you think there are so many homeless people wandering around, self-medicating with booze and street drugs? They need to be hospitalized and medicated, but we as a society can't do a thing about it. Thank you ACLU.
Dai Alanye | 1.12.11 @ 1:19PM
Guardianship by a responsible person is probably the best present-day answer to control of uncooperative schizophrenics. An enlightened judge (and probably a good lawyer) is necessary to achieve this. Guardianship must include the ability and wiilingless to recommend institutionalization when needed.
JF| 1.13.11 @ 12:21PM
And to get to an enlightened judge, one must have competent action by law enforcement or social services. Once again, this leads back to the esteemed Sheriff Dupnik, who dropped the ball on several occasions with Loughner.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 1:52PM
Thank you for saying what I wanted to say so eloquently, DG. Again folks: Riese versus St. Mary's.
Dan Phillips| 1.12.11 @ 3:20PM
DG in GA, thanks for your comments about the parents. But to clarify something, commitment laws differ by state, but since I live in GA also, I can speak for my own state. In GA it would not be hard to have someone briefly hospitalized and evaluated if they have a mental illness and there is credible evidence they are a threat to someone, such as they had made verbal threats. The problem is more with long term treatment. Once the accute threat passes and the patient is ready for discharge, it is the long term treatment that is a problem. There is no simple way to, for example, court order compliance with medications.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 4:59PM
One can order it for 6 months to a year---compliance, that is, but it is impossible to monitor unless the patient is on long acting Depots such as Haldol Decanoate, Prolixin Decanoate, or Invega Sustenna.
Dan Phillips| 1.12.11 @ 11:26PM
What state are you in Occam?
Occam's Tool| 1.13.11 @ 1:38AM
MN. I have also practiced in CA, AL, KY, NM, and overseas in NZ.
I concur with you---long term treatment is a problem---even though it has been shown to be cost effective and efficient---study of New York Commitment programs has been published recently. I'll check this tomorrow---ask me and I will find the reference.
beebop| 1.12.11 @ 6:34PM
I think that we live too much in a world where everyone is a "winner," there are no "losers," and "you are GREAT just the way you are." The reason we are no longer as admired as we once were is that we have abdicated the greatness of our people. No one needs to aspire to anything. They can use drugs, leave behind a family of nine children and then BAM!!! holding a sign on a street corner, they are a CELEBRITY. We are the everyone gets 15 minutes crowd.
Our values are crass. We are crass. But. I still stand by the belief that our families -- parents, brothers (think Ted Kaczynski's brother), sisters, and the extended family of roommates in a college dorm, etc. are the safety net that is responsible (and I am using the word more in the sense of having an [soceital] obligation to do something as part of a job or role rather than being the cause for the blame or credit for something) for those among us not capable of doing it for ourselves. We need to raise each other up. Now more than ever.
MikeD| 1.12.11 @ 1:42PM
Once upon a time in the kingdom of Pennsylvania there was a hospital where mentally and emotionally troubled people lived. It was called Pennhurst, and it sat beside the little river called the Schuykill, just north of the city of Brotherly Love. At the same time, there were people with friends and relatives in that hospital who formed a club called PARC, which stood for: "PENNSYLVANIA ASSOCIATION FOR RETARDED CITIZENS. They wanted to make things better for the patients in Pennhurst who were there because they were considered, among other things, a danger to themselves and others.
In the kingdom at the same time was an electric company making plans to build a nuclear power plant near the village of Limerick. The only problem was that the river was too small to provide enough water to cool the nuclear plant; and the only place a dam could be built was the place by the river where the hospital named Pennhurst stood.
The kingdom was ruled in those days by the line of dems who controlled much of the state with the other clan the reps. Members of the clans saw that there was money to be made if the land for the dam could be purchased before anybody knew how much it was needed for the dam.
So, lo and behold, the dems and reps joined the PARCs to file a lawsuit claiming that keeping the poor bewildered patients in Pennhurst was depriving them of their rights. After a suitable time, the wise judges agreed, and Pennhurst was sold to the group who then sold it to the electric company at a huge profit so the dam could be built.
And it came to pass that all the patients were set free to live on their own on the streets and in flop houses where they were beaten and their possessions stolen. But, now that it was all over, other states saw that they must set their patients free too, and it was done. In no time at all, there were thousands of former patients living on the streets where Mitch Snyder found them and made lots of money on them until his lies were uncovered and he killed himself in sorrow.
Years later, the story got out, and the dems and reps were discovered selling patient's lives for gold and silver, and many were arrested and convicted. Then, one day, one of the ringleaders went on television to meet the press and tell his story. But, instead of telling the story, he lifted a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. And all the people were horrified. And that's why sick people walk around without help; because short minded people saw gain where they should have seen pain.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 10:23PM
Yes, MikeD, you are correct. Then two things happened to make it worse---the outpatient clinics/programs were underfunded, and Riese Versus St. Mary's.
beebop| 1.12.11 @ 6:51AM
Just a few things because they have probably been said better and else where here before now:
1. If it was the "talk" prior to the November elections, why wait 2 months to act on your rage? I don't know what Gifford's schedule was during that period, but part of it must have been in Tucson. Yes, the "Congress on your Corner" was an open air forum and easy to make her a target, but I think we all admit, he was not rational.
2. What about all of the hand wringing about the anniversary of John Lennon's death as a nearer "cause?" I clicked through no fewer than three "specials" on that tragedy and who among us would have known the name "mark david chapman" without that event?
3. Murder by cop?
4. How come all of a sudden we are not hearing any discussion of the anti semite aspects of his background? Perhaps because it doesn't FIT what the mainstream media is trying to peddle?
5. They will drive the lunatic fring to further action. They apparently want to.
I find his parents lack of action totally dispiriting. They apparently didn't care enough about their son to have his best interests at heart. They enabled, cossetted and ignored his bizarre behavior. Did they project into the future and not see that it would end badly for him? Think about the differences in the 2 20-somethings in this story .... one shoots 31 rounds into a crowd and the other rushes TOWARD the gunfire in hopes of saving lives and/or lessening suffering. Only two years separate the gunman from Daniel Hernandez. So. It comes down to the way you were raised. Daniel had good, decent parenting and the shooter whose name I will not use didn't. It is that simple.
Appleby| 1.12.11 @ 7:07AM
The media encourage theatrical craziness by rushing to the scene of any crime, especially one involving *children* (anybody under 26) involved in murderous rampage, and focusing on hysterical girls -- emphasizing the deployment of *grief counselors*, government employees who encourage students to let out their inner Sunset Boulevard for the intrusive eye of the camera.
When the highest aspiration of Generation Me is 30 seconds on YouTube, and the best way to get there is wretched excess, murderous public rampages and the resulting hysterical screaming by all and sundry will become more and more frequent. If you encourage this kind of thing, you are bound to get more of it.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 10:28PM
Something to consider while everyone is hopping---a free article: CNS Spectr. 2009 Jan;14(1 Suppl 1):44-51.
Can posttraumatic stress disorder be prevented?
Zohar J, Sonnino R, Juven-Wetzler A, Cohen H.
Division of Psychiatry, Chaim Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer, Israel. jzohar@post.tau.ac.il
Abstract
After trauma, it is often possible to prevent, or at least reduce the effect of, certain medical sequelae if intervention occurs within a particular time period: "the golden hour(s)". The possibility of a similar window of opportunity in posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is discussed here. The essence of acute distress management should be to help contain and attenuate emotional reaction, and to encourage a return to full function and activity. Early intervention at this point could prevent the subsequent development of PTSD. Preclinical and clinical data suggest that amnesia of the traumatic event is associated with a decreased prevalence of PTSD, and that debriefing is not necessarily beneficial. Randomized, placebo-controlled studies are needed in order to examine what psychological and/or pharmacological interventions should or should not be made during the "golden hours" following trauma.
Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 1.12.11 @ 7:09AM
Great article! Under liberalism we are all victims, including the liberals.
Louis Jenkins| 1.12.11 @ 7:55AM
How about trying for Murder 1? This guy is no more lunie than the boy or girl next door. Enough coddling the perp! Instead it is more convenient to accuse Rush or Sarah of the crime, and get some air time. Sheriff Dupnick (splg), were's your responsibility? Seems several people have complained to your dept. about the boy. Give him a fair trial, then time to make peace with his god, whatever that maybe, and then take him out back and give him a short drop.
daddio| 1.12.11 @ 9:26AM
I agree-he has to be held accountable for his actions whether he is insane or not. You don't hate the dog for being rabid, you just make sure he cannot bite anyone any more. While I do not agree with the death penalty, I do believe he needs to be sent up the river for a very long time.
VBMax| 1.12.11 @ 10:43AM
Murder of innocents is always an insane act. That doesn't mean the perpetrators shouldn't be held accountable. Every adult human being should be responsible for his actions no matter his state of mind. Treating them like patients is not useful. We have allowed our justice system to determine who is guilty and should be punished by listening to the opinions of mental health professionals who oftentimes excuse criminal behavior in the name of "mental illness".
John Navratil| 1.12.11 @ 3:41PM
VBMax,
"Murder of innocents is always an insane act."
I sympathize with this statement, but cannot agree with it. It is tempting to ascribe a lack of reason or judgement to anyone who would do such a thing. But to do so denies evil. Are kidnappers insane? Are hit-men insane?
The law, and I think rightly so, assumes murderers are sane. The action is a almost always a product of a reasoning mind - if I kill Mom and Dad, I get the insurance - if I kill the witness, I won't go to prison - if I kill this drug dealer, I don't have to pay for these drugs.
Loughner certainly appears to be insane. More capable men than I will make that determination. If this is the case, he may be found not guilty of this crime only by reason of insanity, the result of which is indefinite confinement for treatment until he is no longer insane. Ask John Hinckley, Jr.how long that can be.
VBMax| 1.12.11 @ 5:46PM
John,
We probably differ on definition.
Insanity: The inability to control ones evil impulses.
You, most likely, are using a legal or clinical definition?
John Navratil| 1.12.11 @ 7:52PM
VBMax,
Indeed we are using two definitions. I use the definition of insanity as a psychosis - delusional, hallucinatory, deranged, demented - which impinges on the ability to discern right from wrong. There are many people who suffer from these psychoses who are not evil, and many who are evil but not psychotic. Conflating the two makes it more difficult to discuss the Tucson events as well as many others.
Cheers!
Nunya| 1.12.11 @ 2:23PM
Daddio, I disagree entirely. One doesn't hate the dog for being rabid, but they put the dog to sleep. They don't put the dog in solitary where he can't bite anyone or anything else, they kill the dog. Sorry (and I love dogs).
In my opinion, one who kills with malice aforethought has given up their right to life. I would go so far as to say one who attempts to kill (or leaves someone as dead) with malice aforethought has also given up their right to life. It is not cruel and I don't want someone tortured, but one can never be sure that a person of this nature will never kill again. It's not punishment to the killer, it's for the safety of all of the rest of us. Same as the dog.
MikeD| 1.16.11 @ 9:50PM
Pretty soon the loonies in Hollywood will decide he's a victim and the "Free The A$$HOLE" movement will begin, probably in the bowels of Hollywood...it will be BOWEL MOVEMENT, which is totally appropriate for the load of crap the lefties have been throwing at us for years.
Red Phillips | 1.12.11 @ 3:39PM
LJ, are you really being serious? JLL is OBVIOUSLY much more "lunie" than the boy or girl next door. Anyone even remotely following this case can see that. You don't have to be a professional to figure that out. Lay people, such as the author of this article, can see it.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 9:20PM
The lovely thing about the insanity set up is that it gets people under the wing of a forensic hospital forever---the time is indefinite.
c. j. acworth| 1.12.11 @ 8:02AM
The introduction of gun-control legislation is nothing more than an empty gesture by the libs in congress. An "air kiss" to their base, as Bawney Fwank would put it. I find it telling that even with total control of the reigns of government for the last two years, no serious gun control measures were rammed through or even proposed.
jeffk| 1.12.11 @ 8:11AM
This is great stuff but your preaching to the choir here. I just wish that an article like this would appear in a liberal publication like the NY Times. It might do its misguided readers good.
JKS| 1.12.11 @ 1:21PM
You miswrote '...it might do its misguided readers good.' when you made readers plural...
winterhawk| 1.12.11 @ 8:26AM
That is their only reason to exist. Blame everyone else. Do not accept any blame or responsibility. May have been something alinsky said.
DaveS| 1.12.11 @ 8:51AM
Let's hope Arizona makes him accountable for his actions. And please, dear USCC bishops of mine: please do not stand in the way of his punishment.
wonderful4 | 1.12.11 @ 9:24AM
Karma does not accept reservations by karma bite. Who would do anything to that. To let the karma drop.
hardcard| 1.12.11 @ 9:26AM
Great article!!! 100% on the mark. I think a few of the above posters need some electro-therapy and thorezine.
Brian Mc| 1.12.11 @ 9:28AM
In an effort to not allow any good 'crisis' to go unnoticed, let alone acted upon, there was a retired secret service agent on the radio this a.m. demanding that ALL who attempt to purchase a firearm should have their heads examined...literally. A psyche 'test' for all to prove their mental innocence is what he is encouraging. This thinking is that we are all guilty until we prove our innocence?
An obvious liberal knee-jerk reaction that would demand that we the people jump through more and more hoops in order to exercise our rights. My question would be this: why were these documents pertaining to the monster's mental unsteadiness not given the light of day when pertaining to the background check we all must adhere to when attempting to enter the firearms marketplace?
My heartfelt prayers go out to the victims and I wonder how many of them would still be with us if there had been a CCW permit in the crowd...one decent individual who could have 'stopped' the monster in his demented tracks. All water under the bridge, I'm afraid, and the ramifications from his actions are just now seeing the light of day.
Charie| 1.13.11 @ 6:00PM
There was. I heard him say he had his hand on his gun but because there were so many people around he was afraid he'd hit them instead of the perp. He was one of those who wrestled Loughner to the ground.
Michael L. Hauschild| 1.12.11 @ 9:29AM
Go read what Palin stated this morning.
DRed| 1.12.11 @ 11:53AM
Somebody needs to explain to her what 'blood libel' actually means.
John Navratil| 1.12.11 @ 3:52PM
DRed,
The defamation of Jews is the historical definition, and Jonah Goldberg makes the point that this isn't an ideal used of the term - freighted as it is.
With respect for Mr. Goldberg and meaning no slight to Jewish history, I don't find the term misapplied. On the case of the Jews, it was the calumny of accusing them of using non-Jews blood in religious rituals. In this case, the blood is real, the calumny is real and the meaning is well understood without trivializing Jewish history.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 4:57PM
I'm a Jewish guy. What the Libs are doing is accusing her of complicity in murder. That is a blood libel. True, it's not grinding Christian blood into matzoh as per Tim*'s delusions, but it is close enough.
RCV| 1.12.11 @ 5:23PM
I thought her statement was well done, but omitting the blood libel reference would have been smart. And with all due respect to Ms. Palin, the timing was terrible. Today should have been only about the victims.
Occam's Tool| 1.12.11 @ 9:24PM
RCV, you are right about the timing, but when Nobel Prize winners go blaming you for complicity to murder without a shred of evidence, you have to defend yourself. I wish Krugman had shown half of the prudence he showed Nidal Hasan.
Todd S| 1.12.11 @ 11:31PM
Like it was just about the victims at the Memorial with the hooting and hollering? University of Arizona should hang their head in shame after that disgusting display. And Obama going well over 30 minutes seems like he wants to make it about himself as well as the victims. I think my take on Paul Krugman last week with you stands vindicated, he is indeed an evil Marxist little troll.
RCV| 1.13.11 @ 12:23PM
One other nit, Occam, since we're analyzing her speech, for someone who repeatedly mocks the President for his reliance on a teleprompter, watching her teleprompter reflected in her glasses throughout the speech was a technological boner on her staff's part.
Charie| 1.13.11 @ 6:02PM
You're positive it was a teleprompter.
Occam's Tool| 1.16.11 @ 10:30PM
No argument on teleprompter. I stick to the content.
VBMax| 1.12.11 @ 5:50PM
Being a Jew as well, I found her statement regarding blood libel to be totally appropriate.
Peter| 1.12.11 @ 10:17AM
I am surprised more comparisons are not made to Patric Purdy, the Stockton schoolyard killer.
His violent and unstable behavior was ignored by the authorities until it was too late. The California AG turned that fiasco into a political win by crusading for an Assault Weapons ban.
Petronius| 1.12.11 @ 10:52AM
Liberals demand there should be no limits on personal behavior, ergo, we must control circumstances. They say it's acceptable for this trid to attempt to kill people, so procurement and possession of firearms by any and all must be prohibited. Senseless is as senseless does and will keep doing until the majority of people embrace what was discarded by academia half a century ago. It's called Objective Truth.
All talk about the devil, voices in his head, political predispositions of radio hosts, Sarah Palin's animus and existence, literal interpretation of the Constitution along with the Tea Party's promotion thereof are off the table.
We have before us an ignorant, indolent, incompetent, dysfunctional overgrown infant who took half a dozen lives because the world is not as he would have it. Add to it that lacking employment, where did he accumulate enough cash to buy a $700 sidearm? His parents said, "they can't understand it." Well, they bloody well should have before reproducing as it's their job to acculturate their child to society at large. We used to call that normalization, but the Liberals repealed that too. Much as I would like to indict all them for murder along with the actual perp, I'm not a determinist.
That is all.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.11 @ 1:44AM
One little quibble---he may be insane by the clinical definition. However, he is unlikely to be so by forensic psychiatric definition. No impulse drove him---he was PLANNING this. And his ability to tell right from wrong based on his writings and actions, was intact. I, myself, have a very high threshhold before I consider an insanity defense because in my experience (over 17 years in practice post residency), most people can tell right from wrong even when badly delusional or in the presence of incapacitating voices.
RCV| 1.13.11 @ 12:25PM
Any insanity defense would fail in his case. His writings clearly indicate an awareness of the wrongness of his deed by society's standards (the use of the word "assassination" in his note). His lawyer will only use the defense to try to save him from the death penalty.
duck| 1.13.11 @ 3:11PM
"most people can tell right from wrong even when badly delusional or in the presence of incapacitating voices"
You must have talked to a lot of liberals in your time.........
Occam's Tool| 1.16.11 @ 10:32PM
Dear Duck,
I went to college....
but seriously, "insanity" requires quite a bit beyond the normal definition of psychosis. I know a lot of very decent human beings with psychotic depression or schizophrenia who would never desire to do something like this.
Redstateboy| 1.12.11 @ 10:56AM
last paragraph completely nailed it.
Mike| 1.12.11 @ 11:42AM
The anxiety on the right caused by the events in Tucson is evident. The totality of the right wing media has sprung into action, defining the event as nothing more than the result of the actions of one terribly sick individual and fending off the accusations from the left that there is more to the story.
Personally, I don't think the accusations from the left have been particularly well focused. But I think are those on the right who are now worried about defending three ideas advanced by Ronald Reagan that the more extreme on the right have made indefensible.
1. Its your money. True and, lets be honest, nobody likes to pay taxes. However, one responsibility of citizenship is paying taxes. There is plenty of room for legitimate debate about how much we pay and for what. The problem is the fact that Reagan's dictum has been linked with voodoo economic theory so that in the minds of some on the right it is your patriotic duty not to pay taxes. In fact, they believe (truly believe), that if you pay fewer taxes revenue will magically flow into the federal coffers and all will be well.
2. The welfare queen driving the Cadillac. Today, Reagan could very well have talked about the illegal immigrant in the emergency room. Are there some among us who rip off the system? Yes. Are they as numerous as those on the right believe. I doubt it. The racism is evident. Remember, that following the Civil Rights Act, the GOP appropriated the racists in the Democratic Party and have retained them ever since. But something else is happening here that is truly disconcerting. People collecting unemployment insurance and those collecting social security (after paying into the system for years) are subtly being transformed into the new welfare queens, wasters of tax payer money.
3. Government is the problem, not the solution. Okay, we all understand the dynamics of bureaucracies and the need to check their unwarranted growth. But this is entirely different from the virulent hatred of government manifested by some on the right.
Strip away all the fancy talk about the Constitution, all the fancy talk about patriotism and all of the gibberish about economics and we are left two all too common human failings: greed and racism.
Interested Conservative| 1.12.11 @ 11:58AM
Re-read and edit, as needed, before hitting the submit button.
Brian Mc| 1.12.11 @ 12:01PM
Would you then, agree that the seventeenth amendment is the product of greed? "Here, we're just gonna take from the rich..." "Sounds like a 'fair' tax to me"! Make those rich bastards pay...sounds like greed to me. Thou shalt not covet...and all that!
Clint| 1.12.11 @ 12:31PM
"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."
Ronald Reagan
George True| 1.12.11 @ 5:20PM
You have got your "facts" wrong at so many different levels it is difficult to know where to begin.
First, it is not that the accusations from the left in the aftermath of this horrendous event, it is that the accusations are fraudulent in their entirety, as they have no basis in fact or in truth.
It IS our money that we earn. It does NOT belong to the government, not any part of it. We voluntarily part with part of it as our responsibility as citizens. However, the majority of people agree that the government has grown so large that it is now extracting a substantially bigger percentage of our earnings than it has a right to expect.
Next, the Laffer Durve proves in theory and past conservative fiscal policy has proved in reality that there is an ideal percentage that produces the maximum revenue to the treasury. And once that percentage is exceeded, it actually REDUCES treasury receipts. The government has far exceeded that ideal percentage in recent history.
I am personally acquainted with many welfare recipients, either in the form of Medicaid, Social Security disability, food stamps, or all of the above. The great majority of people I have met who are on SSDI are not really disabled. They could actually work, but they have gamed the system because they prefer not to have to struggle in the job market like the rest of us. I personally know people who make off the books income detailing cars, buying and selling used furniture, doing mobile auto mechanic work, etc while collecting a monthly disability check of from $700 to $1300 a month. In addition, the get free medical care through Medicare and/or Medicaid, and free food through food stamps. Combined with their cash income from off the books part time work, many of them have a more comfortable and more stress-free lifestyle than many people I know who work for a living.
When we have reached a point where as much as 8-9% of the working age population in many states are on SSDI, and a shocking 14% of the entire population is on food stamps, ther is something very,very wrong with the entire system.
Government most assuredly IS the problem. Government has caused the current depression through their sad devotion to the failed and thoroughly discredited Keynesian theory of economics. They have caused much personal financial devastation and tragedy as a result. Government continues to keep our economy in an economic straitjacket through the imposition of the highest corporate taxes and the highest capital gains taxes in the world, coupled with graduated income tax rates on productive workers and job creators that are far in excess of the ideal percentage cited in the aforementioned Laffer curve. As a result, the logical and appropriate response is a vigorous and vehement denunciation of such destructive government policies, and a grass roots movement (ie-tea party) to overturn them. Your denunciation of such as "virulent" is, in and of itself, virulent and fraudulent.
Finally, the REAL greed that is at work here is on the part of the government bureaucracies and their employees, and those who receive unearned benefits from the government that they have not earned or are not entitled to. And racism has not a thing in the world to do with any of this.
charie| 1.13.11 @ 6:17PM
So the Constitution is just fancy talk? Patriotism is fancy talk?
Well, I think your talk about greed and racism is lying hate talk about conservatives.
You aren't going to believe that anymore than I'm going to believe anything you have said.
However, you can take this to the bank. People like you who think there should be no stop to the spending and taxes loaded onto the backs of the middle and upper middle class in this country are the bigger part of the problem with our economic problems right now.
Democrats protest that they're all for the middle class now (but not too long ago they left us out there swinging in the wind with their insane taxing) and it's all a lie because as leftwing as the Democrat Party has become they're only a few steps away from Communism and Communists have always despised the middle class (bourgeoisie) and always try to do away with them because they're the standard-bearers of morality.
MikeD| 1.16.11 @ 10:16PM
Anybody who resorts to accusations of 'racism' instantly loses all credibility and betrays their innate failings. They are either incredibly stupid; evil; or, themselves, the REAL racists. I wonder how you, and the 'racists' in the Congressional Black Caucus would react to the establishment of a WHITE CONGRESSIONAL CAUCUS? I'll tell you: They'd scream and cry and spit and drool! Yet, Caucasians are rapidly becoming a minority if the idiotic, race-driven cretins on the left persist in dividing us all up into sub-groups like Hispanics, who are absolutely Caucasions.
For your information, and the enlightenment of the Black racists in congress and the media and academia, we are all of one race; the HUMAN RACE. Any division within that race is an artifical construct aimed at 'Balkanizing' us and dividing us so one group can achieve some sort of advantage over the others. It's not racism, it's GREED AND ENVY.
Clint| 1.12.11 @ 12:00PM
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it. Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to dismember or overthrow it."
Abraham Lincoln, First Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C., March 4, 1861
Redstateboy| 1.12.11 @ 12:08PM
The only speech that liberals ever want to restrict is the speech of those who point out the errors of liberalism.
Bingo!
Richard Baker| 1.12.11 @ 12:21PM
We must remember that this killer is INSANE. Any justification, explanation, or excuse which doesn't consider this salient point is as nuts as he is. Because of misguided sentiments, he, and many others like him, are set loose upon the rest of us only awaiting that spark inside to ignite.
Dave| 1.12.11 @ 1:02PM
Spot on!
MacDaddy| 1.12.11 @ 12:25PM
"Liberals have also advanced an absolutist theory of First Amendment rights that protects pornographers, Marxist revolutionaries, and Islamic clerics who advocate jihad. The only speech that liberals ever want to restrict is the speech of those who point out the errors of liberalism. " Truer words were never written. Plus 10!
Jullou| 1.12.11 @ 2:55PM
The ratings of the leftist media will certainly plummet after this pathetic attempt to topple conservatives.
Hey, leftists, you don't get to rule anymore. Get it?
Redstateboy| 1.12.11 @ 3:46PM
If the Left ever had a "finest hour" ???
This event proved to be farthest from it.
Pat| 1.12.11 @ 4:55PM
In situation comedies, a dearly loved plot line has the wife furious with her husband - because he left his smelly socks on the bathroom floor - or so the clueless boob thinks his discarded socks are what set her off this time. But she’s not really angry about his ripe socks, she’s upset about something else – and her husband needs to rev up his brain and guess which of his latest transgressions is fueling this emotional crisis. And here real life is definitely imitating art – assuming television comedies can be considered art. The Left could care less about Tucson, they know Rush or Sarah aren’t at fault – but Conservatives are expected to guess what’s really bothering our hysterical Liberals and their boy toys within the media.
Now Paul Krugman of the New York Times or Michael Daly of the New York Daily News may have forgotten to renew their “man” cards but the feminine side they’re currently displaying while writing about the Tucson shooting is rooted in recent events. Last election, their team was thoroughly trounced, the American electorate gave them and their cherished ideals a big middle finger and now the Republicans are talking about not raising taxes, cutting federal spending and confining ObamaCare to dispensing only band-aids and Tylenol rather than controlling every aspect of our healthcare industry. The Left has much to be angry about, none of this was supposed to happen so they’re upset, given to secret crying jags and suffering those familiar pangs of being under appreciated – day-long shopping sprees and those little Godiva chocolates won’t serve to banish such poignant feelings of inadequacy.
Even their favorite Caped Crusader within the White House is going soft on Liberalism, it’s like he desperately wants to re-elected rather than doing the right or rather - the Left – thing. And when folks who believe “it’s always about Me” become emotional there is little room for objective reasoning – or genuine compassion either.
What’s worse is this situation won’t be happily resolved before the final auto insurance commercial airs. The Tea Party folks aren’t going away any time soon, the Left’s beloved Big Government dream is under daily attack from the Right and their self-esteem is at an all time low. Us Conservatives know what is really upsetting you Lefties at this moment in time – what a shame and, Hey, try one of these adorably wrapped little chocolates, maybe you’ll feel better – or then again, maybe not.
jstwndring| 1.12.11 @ 7:17PM
Keep it up Dims! Tell everyone who you really are! We on the political right, thank you! Profusely! You gave the House back to us in November, and, if you keep this level of lunacy up for two more years, you'll give us the Senate and Presidency back in 2012! Yeah, baby!
Nick| 1.12.11 @ 7:52PM
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Loughner posted online that college women like to be sexually assaulted.
So, I guess he was a fan of Bill Clinton.
beebop| 1.12.11 @ 8:09PM
Keep it classy there, Nick.
I guess your finger nails are well burnished due to the fact that your hands drag on the ground ....
Nick| 1.13.11 @ 12:08AM
Are you also a fan of Bubba the pervert, Beebop?
Tina Trent | 1.12.11 @ 10:47PM
The comparison to Ferguson is genius -- another madman whose madness was exploited by people with no medical explanations for their behavior.
insomniac| 1.13.11 @ 12:39AM
Our California Cretin, Nancy Pelosi, called it "A Tragic Accident". President Obama implied the entire nation shares the blame - - it's that @#$%!
rhetoric that is stirring up the lunatics.
We have a choice here. Speak No Evil and everyone take a Quaalude every four hours.
Or, make sure we elect a new president - not like the last time when Independents thought we needed a change and - yes, a lot of TAS readers cast a "get even" vote as payback for nominating McCain.
Oh, to give Independents their due. We did get change.
Today I got in the mail from my Physician's Group notification that they will be levying an annual $75 charge for paperwork not covered by insurance - request for work absences, pre-authorizations, disability forms, etc.
Unless I fall into the "etc." group, I should not be paying $75 for one Medicare claim and one secondary. I go to the doctor once a year for a physical. I don't work so I am never absent. My insurance does not call for pre-authorizations, and I cannot be disabled from work I do not do.
I have to believe the $75 he wants from me is to cover some other patient whose hobby is going to the doctor for every hangnail or detached eyelash and spends most of the year languishing at home, collecting Extended Illness pay or State Disability.
My deceased husband got the same form letter. The doctor who sent it admitted him to the hospital. Perhaps the need the money to purge their files.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.11 @ 1:48AM
Ma'am, you would be partially correct. What I did in my private practice to avoid this onerous crap was state that I would only fill them out in the presence of the patient during their normal medication visit.
In addition, however,you would be surprised at the amount of time your MD takes to get testing approved. The torture of MDs by insurance companies is a major reason they have no friends among doctors. It is only people like me, who have experienced NHS first hand, you realize that our insurers are actually the LESSER of two evils.
insomniac| 1.13.11 @ 12:52AM
Back in 1993 on that subway train were there any congress members?
In 1993 - I am not sure - did we have 24 hour cable news cycle in which they chose to suspend the news while they regurgitated the same (often erroneous) "facts"?
I don't recall any lawmakers on campus at Texas University when a deranged person went up in a tower and took out a sizeable chunk of the student body below. But that was when only Huntley and Brinkley and Cronkite might have mentioned it.
And a post script - - regarding the above gripe about new policy of doctor - if the question is , "Why don't you change doctors?" The answer is, you could go through every telephone directory in the state of California and call each doctor and each would say, ":"We are not taking any new Medicare patients." That is why.
Occam's Tool| 1.13.11 @ 1:52AM
And why should MDs accept new Medicare patients? The pay is mediocre, the paperwork onerous, and the threat of government audit/prosecution is always there in the background.
For example, I was told that I could not fail to bill my indigent patients with Medicare (accepting the Medicare as payment in full) because my Billing had to be one size fits all or face prosecution. Medicare has apparently changed this policy following the Urbana, Illinois Carle Clinic fiasco, but I'm sure they've come up with something more stupid.
chuck jim fox| 1.13.11 @ 2:27AM
I have some memory of an article maybe from AmSpec after the train massacre relating that the local Harlem radio station was deluged with calls from people cheering Ferguson and wishing the callers could have been on the train with him to help kill some more whities. After the Texas Tower massacre there was a brief mantra from 60 lefties that Whitman and LBJ were both murderers from Texas, and Whitman was a murderous ex- Marine besides. Is little Christina now going to become the icon for the current administration to get its policies through Congress?
chuck jim fox| 1.13.11 @ 2:30AM
"1960s lefties, not 60 lefties."
RCV| 1.13.11 @ 12:27PM
or "1960s leftists". Sandy Koufax was my favorite "60s leftie".
Occam's Tool| 1.16.11 @ 10:34PM
Yeah, RCV, I liked Sandy, too. However, Teddy Ballgame played until 1961.
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Aqua Buddha| 1.13.11 @ 12:28PM
Thanks for reminding us about the Colin Ferguson case from 1993. Clearly, liberal insanity didn't start yesterday. If they have trials in hell, William Kunstler will be defending Satan itself.
Melissa| 1.13.11 @ 1:33PM
The ACLU is the hair, on the wart, on the butt of society. A plague against humanity and all that is good, right and pure in the world.
duck| 1.16.11 @ 5:02PM
If one reads the original ACLU charter, one would find that the ACLU was organized by socialist/communists with the express purpose of using the laws of the United States against the US in order to bring the US down and promote socialism.
If you don't believe me, Google "ACLU socialism" and read the many hits that come up. Quite a few sites do have the original charter and statements by it's founders.
I wrote to the ACLU and requested a copy of their original charter some time ago. They refused stating that for all intents and purposes, they were a private organization and as such, any and all data pertaining to the operation of the ACLU does not have to be publicly disclosed.
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Barry| 1.13.11 @ 2:19PM
A website SOLEY based on how Sarah Palin and older white middle class people are victims, certainly knows a thing or two about victimization.
Indeed, the constant refrain here in the wake of 6 people dead in a political assasination attempt is how Sarah is the victim. Sarah! Huh? How about the 6 year old child? How about the 79 year old women? Cause THEY are the victims. Not Loughner. Not Palin.
So, while I respect your role AS as the expert in victim hood, maybe you might want to actually focus on society can avoid REAL victims in the future and not strawman victims like Loughner or paranoid victims like Palin.
Charie| 1.13.11 @ 6:26PM
Barry, I suppose you really can't control yourself.
insomniac| 1.14.11 @ 2:51AM
Occam's tool -Yes, I might be surprised, had I not worked in Admitting in a hospital in Santa Barbara, also worked 4 years in a private practice doctor's office, watching his office staff burgeon as form-filling became a task comparable to sorting confetti in a wind tunnel.
I wound up my working years as medical assistant/secretary to the Senior Flight Surgeon of a major airline with 4 doctors on staff. The avalanche of paperwork that hit my in box daily gave me a pretty good understanding. Illness, non-industrial injuries, industrial injuries, triggering enough paperwork to fell a forest. It also made me able to compare my own practically non-existent need for/reliance on medical care compared to folks who are plagued by ills or who are just studious valetudinarians.
Occam's tool - how many readers know what that means? I do. Maybe I will adopt "Ocnus" as my name. I make about as much head-way in attempting to make my point, as Poor" Oc" ever did at what he was doing. My point, to belabor it,, is that I am causing no doctor, no how, no paperwork - and I am being asked to underwrite those who do. I think an equitable arrangement would be for the doctor to charge a straight fee on an indvidual basis and then complete it, rather than allow it it languish on his desk for weeks while he entertains "Detail" men and women on the fly , as patients celebrate another birthday sitting on the end of an exam table, waiting.
I happened to have clashed with one at my annual physical. First she was blocking the receptionist window - then tried unsuccessfully to slip through the door when a patient was being admitted. Finally did when I was being taken in. Now, this may seem like a small thing to you, Occam-guy, but my time is worth something to me. My door was open and I saw she had snagged my Dr. Twenty seven minutes later he appeared to chat me through my physical - which is literally what an annual px has come to be. Slap on the Judas cuff and the rest, which is about 12 minutes on the clock is verbal. I jokingly asked him if he would like to reimburse me for the 27 minutes I cooled my heels and suggested he might get Muscle Myrtie from Merck or wherever she came from to share it- looked like she could bench press a Volkswagen and being a bantam weight, myself, I didn't take her on. Doc's answer, mumbled - "I gotta have my girl be more careful who she lets through the door." I said, "Are we talking about the blowsy blond or me?"
insominac| 1.14.11 @ 4:05AM
Regarding Medicare - New patients. Occam - I could not agree with you more - I don't want to be a patient, any more than a young doctor hoping to pay his student loans sometime in the next 30 years, wants me for a patient.
I am not looking for another doctor - rarely see the one I have. If I had a grandson who contemplated studying medicine, I would send him straight to you for a psychiatric evaluation. Veterinarian, OK, but nothing involving billing the government.
I never had a Medicare claim until I was 72 and stepped on a piece of tanbark that had washed onto my sidewalk in the rain - broke an ankle. But not my hip, as most old ladies do.
And at 83, am not completely senile. I can look at the charges and reimbursements on a Medicare Advice of Payment statement and see what 80% of an "allowable" fee is and what the doctor finally gets after billing my secondary. And a glance at he dates tells me how long he waited for payment. A bit longer than I would wait, as a triple booked patient to be seen. And I have a very good memory for what office visits cost before mal-practice insurance and insurance billing took on the Labors of Hercules aspect.
But I can tell you this - just ever double pay your doctor! - that is, pay an outstanding bill you think you owe. Then when your insurance finally coughs it up the exact amount and you take your canceled check in to the office and show them the highlighted amount on the Medicare - - and you gently remind the doctor you paid the amount and so did yor insurance -well, that is when the defecation hits the oscillation - - that is when you see the razor sharpness of their billing department "We will check into it." Several times in the intervening year, the billing clerk - who resembled Aunt Pitty Pat in GWTW, would peek through her window and say, "We're still working on it. . ." I twice told the benighted soul to just forget it.
After a full year "investigating" my husband's considerable history of charges and payment. When they finally concluded their inquiry, they discovered they owed us a lot more money than I had inquired about. God knows what an office visit would cost if doctors had competent help and paid them for it.
I have one friend my age who claims to have everything "imaginable" wrong with her. I think, "You got that right, babe - Imaginable." If we had a Mrs. Medicare Contest, she would win it.
Odd, the things that old folks take pride in. A
guided tour up their alimentary canal - the artistic perfection of their denture plates - how many prescriptions they take. I hope I never get old..
Occam's Tool| 1.16.11 @ 10:38PM
The only thing I can say is that Medicare might not allow the MD to individually bill people---they ARE deranged. Otherwise, sure, bill the individual.
Me, I always thought making them have to get their forms filled out during their exam was best. Fortunately, I do very little of that now. I'm a hospitalist.
Adidas | 8.11.11 @ 5:42AM
is good
العاب | 4.10.12 @ 12:53PM
thanx