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She was accused to incitement. Not of giving an order, not of pulling the trigger herself.
It's the same as people in the UK accusing Abu Hamza for his words.
It's an incorrect analogy IMHO. A lazy one too. Emphasises the ignorance of the person making that link.
Some of their actions have a similar totalitarian style though. But then that would apply to any totalitarian regime.
As for protected speech, in so far as there are something which you shouldn't ever say, that isn't something I believe in anyway.
You are trying to draw symmetrical comparisons, when my comparisons are analagous. Id est, you're taking my words too literally and failing to garner the full picture. I would invite you to step from the functionalist/structuralist mindset and view the situation through a gestalt outlet.
The point is that she is being accused (erroneously, I believe) of responsibility for this shooting, which places her in the same boat as being an accomplice. In turn, it lines up very well to what one could consider blood libel (no, it doesn't match like a photo copy, but it's certainly an artistic rendition of the original "masterpiece".)
Could you rephrase the last part?
Blood libel isn't about being an accomplice though, it's about deliberate murder.
Her accusers suggest that the rhetoric in the way she portrayed her views on the poster could be seen as incitement when linked to the shooting of Gifford. As you can see from this thread, I disagreed.
The blood libel is about Christians accusing Jews of the mass killing children, not being an accomplice. It's a terrible analogy for her to use. More so because she uses the analogy to claim the moral high ground and wears her Christianity as a badge of pride.
Yeah, the law should not dictate what we can and cannot say. Therefore is people want to refer to Bush as "Hitler" then they are free to do so, this is something which is unlikely to cause offence.
Should it cause offence then that is more a "tragic" outcome rather than a "moral" one. In other words an act where someone is ignorant of the possible implications rather than indifferent.
Again, you're looking to make a direct comparison when that's not what the link was. Much like when I described the situation in the other thread about the woman who was offended by my discussion with those two girls to draw a point -- the same is done by correlating the attacks on Sarah Palin as blood libel.
By portraying Sarah Palin as responsible for the shooting, they paint Jared Lee Loughner as Conservative/Tea Party. In doing so, that paints Conservativism/the Tea Party in blood to people who were already hostile toward them (see the video I posted earlier) and sows the seeds of agitation.
Why do you think Jews were accused of these things? For shits and giggles? No. Because they knew when the other party found out, there would be animosity and a reaction.
And therein lies the comparison. Purpose. Not details. Hence why I asked you to view it through gestalt eyes.
You don't think Bush might be a little offended? His family? Friends?
And my apologies, but I'm still a bit lost on what you're trying to get across to me in the last two sentences. What do you mean by tragic v. moral outcomes?
No, Palin is making that comparison. There is no other connotation to the phrase "blood libel" than the one I mentioned.
Context. If they are suggesting that he is responsible for a holocaust then yes, he should be offended. If they are accusing him of taking a totalitarian stance, then to a certain extent they are correct.
It's an ethical issue.
Tragic guilt is where something happens in spite or you actions to mitigate that outcome.
Moral guilt is where something happens as a direct consequence of your actions - either because of intent or indifference.
I do believe you're missing the point. It's obvious that she wasn't referring to liberals accusing Jews of murdering children. The point she was making, once again, was in the purpose of one party to accuse another of one thing to sow the seeds of agitation.
I'm glad you clarified this though:
Here, you seem to define my point above for me quite adequately. By contrasting the holocaust and totalititarianism, you can help me illustrate how the present situation is analogous to blood libel.
For the sake of simplicity, lets define the literal suggestion that he is responsible for the holocaust as A and the suggestion that he is totalitarian as B. Likewise, we will refer to literal blood libel as C.
You contrast that Bush and his family should be offended if the criteria for A is met. But because B is true, that's merely subjective. Now, I'm sure you can understand that referring to Bush as Hitler typically does not refer to A. Given the context, it is making the comparison of B and such is pretty obvious.
I think we can both agree on that, yes?
Okay, well, the same is applicable for C. See, when referring to blood libel, we can similarly conclude that it's not a direct comparison (C), much like alluding to Bush as Hitler is not a direct comparison (A). In both situations, we are meant to observe closely to see the parallels. Given the fact that it's obvious that Sarah Palin was not referring to literal blood libel, we can deduce D.
D being that she was drawing certain parallels, much the same way as referring to Bush as Hitler is drawing certain parallels (totalitarianism). It's not meant to be a literal comparison. I will use a visual aid to illustrate this.
This is the Mona Lisa. (1)
This is an artistic rendition of the original masterpiece. (2)
Now, if someone presented the last picture to you and asked you what it was, you would say "Mona Lisa", correct? Of course you would. Because that's what it is. It may not be the literal Mona Lisa that Leonardo Da Vinci painted, but it is still the Mona Lisa.
The same can be said about the dilemma we're currently discussing. You are attempting to say that only the original is the Mona Lisa and the rendition is nothing alike.
We acknowledge that they're not exactly the same. But it does not have to be exact for it to be relevant.
Chief - I think that you have missed what Palin was trying to do. She was allying the comments about her with those made about the Jews through the "Blood libel". Now either she didn't understand how offensive that connotation was, or she just didn't care. The analogy is bad because that accusations against her paled into insignificance against the use of Blood Libel to promote hatred of an entire religious sect rather than an individual.
The accusations weren't against the "Tea Party", they were against "Sarah Palin"