The right wing talking point that is emerging from the Giffords shooting seems to be that there is no linkage between a mentally disturbed person's actions and right wing politics.
Really, this is irresponsible and unethical.
It could be that the model for this is the protestation by the Beatles and others, following the Manson killings, that there was no link between Manson's actions and the song lyrics in "Helter Skelter" that he proclaimed to be his inspiration.
The problem is that this isn't about idiosyncratic interpretation of things not meant to be taken in any way as a call to action.
There are calls to action that are repeated in various forms in various media until it is an echo chamber that is hard to miss.
I happen to have a close relative who has been bipolar ever since about the second year of high school, which was forty years ago.
Because people who have severe mental illness cannot operate effectively, their range of motion is pretty limited and they spend a lot of time listening to the radio, which is cheaper than TV.
Over the years I have heard a lot of excited talk about stuff heard on the radio, particularly the late night AM talk shows.
"If you want to know the truth, turn on several radios at once, and tune in to different stations where they are talking about things no one else will talk about," is what I have been told over the years. This includes right wing talk radio, because a lot of the talk on those shows is in the Revelations vein, and has a fantastical quality to it that appeals to people with paranoid delusions.
The line between pushing a paranoic version of reality in order to influence the political thinking of the more persuadable, and setting off people who are paranoid and delusional is more and more a grey zone.
Always in the past, people would promote Responsibility on the basis that the more excitable and less thoughtful among us could be given to rash action.
This is a clear case of how that works.
I think that Republicans have got to indicate that conservatives believe in Responsibility.
Otherwise they should be aggressively and constantly scolded for being irresponsible and outside the bounds of common decency and without real credibility. I hope everyone here takes this to letter to the editor columns, gets on talk radio, and pushes this point with as many people in as many places as possible. It cannot be stressed enough.
People who knowingly set off the mentally unstable are guilty of criminal conspiracy, if it can be shown that there was knowledge aforethought with sufficient proof in a court of law.
Just because there is a "nudge, nudge, wink, wink" rhetorical separation from actionable proof does not make it great ethics. Dogwhistling gets results and denying that it is dogwhistling should be exposed for what it is.