We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

The Uncertainty Principle in violence blame mechanics: further experimental confirmation

I wake up, I check the morning news.

Oh.

Six days ago, on July 8th, President Biden said, “it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye”.

In January 2011, a man called Jared Loughner tried to murder Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and did murder six others. The media rushed to blame his crime on a map put out by Sarah Palin’s campaign showing a map of the US with states that she regarded as political targets marked by crosshairs, with the names of those states’ Democratic representatives whom she hoped to unseat listed below. Loughner was a paranoid schizophrenic who held a longstanding – and bizarre – grudge against Giffords. There is no evidence he ever saw Palin’s map.

Perhaps it is time to dust off this old post:

The uncertainty principle in violence blame mechanics

Sometimes one is privileged to witness the discovery of a law of science.

Δl Δm > M

The variables l, m and M are defined in the link.

29 comments to The Uncertainty Principle in violence blame mechanics: further experimental confirmation

  • Clovis Sangrail

    @Natalie At the moment they aren’t even speculating about motive-just condemning the violent rhetoric and antipathy “on both sides”.

    On a separate note, having watched the video, I’m really impressed by Trump’s reaction time. He realises he’s been shot in the ear and drops to the floor of the podium in under 2 seconds – before the shooting is over and before the secret service cover him. That’s really quick for someone who’s not very well-trained.

  • Paul Marks

    Donald J. Trump has long been the American “Emanuel Goldstein” (Orwell’s “1984”) – with an endless campaign of hate (based on twisting his words, or just making them up) by the media – and the education system – the schools and universities (with a few honourable exceptions – such as Hillsdale in Michigan)

    It is very much like the “three minute hate men” (who inspired Orwell’s idea of “four minute hate” sessions in “1984”) – people employed by the Woodrow Wilson Administration to make short speeches to whip up hatred of Germans – when German Americans were then attacked, for example for praying in German, or speaking in German to dying relatives (yes it happened) the Wilson Administration pretended it was nothing to do with them.

    Yes the war was justified – Imperial Germany had launched a series of attacks not just on American shipping, but also INSIDE the United States (bombings and shootings) – but whipping up hatred of Germans-as-people (the German language and so on) was NOT justified.

    Nor is the campaign of lies and smears that the establishment have pushed for years against Donald J. Trump.

  • John

    https://x.com/RussLatino/status/1812284802814365868

    Courtesy of Mark Steyn. In the expectation this link won’t work forever here is what it says:-

    “I don’t condone violence but please get you (sic) some shooting lessons”.

    The writer is a field director for Mississippi congressman Bennie Thompson (who headed the Jan. 6th Commission & recently proposed legislation to remove Trump’s Secret Service detail), wishing Trump’s assassin had better aim on social media.

    A google search of Ms Marsaw did not reveal a single report of this despicable post. Now just imagine if a Republican had written something similar.

  • Discovered Joys

    So, if it was not already clear, they really are out to get him. The question is whether it is just one lone gunman or if he was just a foot soldier in a larger movement.

    It will be interesting to see how quickly Survivor Trump is de-newsed in the main stream media, although I expect that ‘that picture’ has changed the course of the Presidential election.

  • John

    I’d better qualify that. A search did not reveal a single mention by a mainstream news outlet.

  • Paul Marks

    It was not a lone comment – it was years of a vicious hate campaign.

    Endless “Hate Speech” from the very people who say they want to ban “Hate Speech”.

    Yes they should be allowed to say anything they like against Donald J. Trump – but he, and his supporters, should be allowed to reply in kind, so why is that New York Court “Gag Order” still in place?

    The courts are Kangaroo Courts – the judges, and the juries, are corrupt. We know this not just from the cases against Donald J. Trump, but also from the cases against many other people.

    Such as the people who were sent to prison (to be abused – indeed one was cut up with a knife) in Minnesota for the “murder” of someone who was NOT murdered – Mr George Floyd killed-himself with drugs.

    Or the person who was taken to New York (hundreds of miles from where he lived and worked) so a corrupt New York jury (not just a corrupt judge – a corrupt jury, that-is-the-point) could send him to prison for the “crime” of an internet meme – a meme he did not even invent (the “vote by text” joke was one of the few memes to be invented by the left).

    Or the vicious farce of the imprisonment and abuse of the J6 political prisoners – it is not only prosecutors and judges who are corrupt, it is the juries as well.

    Many years of “Progressive” education and media (including entertainment media) have had their effect – much of the population is corrupted, they are BAD PEOPLE.

    As Tim Pool points out – if he himself was on trial in a leftist area the jury would automatically find him guilty.

    It would matter what the charge was – cannibalism, burning the city of Rome in 64 AD, whatever, the verdict would be GUILTY.

    It would not matter what the evidence was, or what the arguments were, his real “crime” would be being Tim Pool (who the left regard both as “far right” and as a TRAITOR as he used to be a leftist).

    It is the same for an enemy of the left – there is no way they can get a trial from people (on a jury) who have been taught from their most early years to despise (to hate) Justice and to, instead, support “Social Justice”.

    The doctrine of “Social Justice” is the negation of Justice – it is not compatible with an honest legal system.

    Just as the philosophy of the left, their Moral Relativism and their subjective “Pragmatist” view against objective reality, objective truth, is a revolt against reason, and against the objective world.

    Would you like to drive across a bridge designed and built by modern leftists?

    Would you like to fly in an aircraft piloted by a leftist?

    How about have surgery undertaken by a leftist surgeon (filled with “equity” ideas – and, of course, with no knowledge of surgery)?

    Of course not.

    The same is true of a jury of leftists in a court of law.

    You are not going to get a honest trial from them.

  • So this 20 year old Antifa member who donated $15 to the Biden campaign, but is also (for some reason) a “Registered Republican” tried to shoot Trump from an exposed rooftop 130 metres from the candidate.

    Yeah. Someone’s lying.

    How fortunate that the “shooter” is now dead, so that he can’t be interviewed, tried and imprisoned.

    Totally not a patsy.

  • Snorri Godhi

    having watched the video, I’m really impressed by Trump’s reaction time. He realises he’s been shot in the ear and drops to the floor of the podium in under 2 seconds – before the shooting is over and before the secret service cover him. That’s really quick for someone who’s not very well-trained.

    Not to mention Trump’s age.
    Trump’s reaction time seemed kind of slow at 1st viewing, but pretty good after watching it again.
    But surely what will go down in history is his gesture of defiance when he got back up.

    About the Secret Service, i don’t know: the gunshots sounded like popping* to me.
    Of course, audio recordings can be deceptive, and i have no experience of hearing gunfire; but i’d give the Secret Service detail a pass if they were alarmed only when Trump ducked.

    * see also NBC’s take.

  • Clovis Sangrail

    @Snorri

    Trump’s reaction time seemed kind of slow at 1st viewing, but pretty good after watching it again.

    Yeah. This is thought reaction time, not autonomic/reflex. He had to think “What was that sound? Why does my ear feel odd? Oh my G*d, someone’s shooting at me, I’d better get down!” 1.5 seconds for that is excellent!

    … I’d give the Secret Service detail a pass if they were alarmed only when Trump ducked

    Me too, I just compared their time to Trump’s. He’s got more immediate information, but he’s not trained-they are.

    But surely what will go down in history is his gesture of defiance when he got back up.

    I couldn’t agree more, that was incredibly impressive.

  • About the Secret Service, i don’t know: the gunshots sounded like popping* to me.

    Of course, audio recordings can be deceptive, and i have no experience of hearing gunfire; but i’d give the Secret Service detail a pass if they were alarmed only when Trump ducked.

    If you watch the wider angle shot it looks like the Secret Service agent on the roof behind Trump started shooting just a fraction of a second before Trump got hit.

    Trumps weird head movement and then ducking upon getting hit on the ear probably saved his life. Not bad reactions for a man of his age.

  • The Wobbly Guy

    Well, all that rhetoric has consequences. They can’t keep saying Trump is Hitler, a dictator, blah blah blah, that he must be stopped at ALL COSTS, and not expect somebody to actually believe them.

    So somebody actually did what they inwardly hoped would happen.

    And now you see all these fake sympathies from the politicians and the media. Yeah right. So… you’re sympathising with a dictator now? Where’s the logical consistency then?

    Of course, it could all be squared away if one simply reasons that Trump was never as bad as these people claimed, and they knew it themselves, but drummed up such hyperbole because they felt the ends justified the means, and that they never expected to be called out on it anyway.

    Even now, you see plenty of idiots claiming that Trump was a warmonger and would wreck the US economy, when his four years in charge were the least eventful in quite a while… until covid hit.

  • Snorri Godhi

    John Galt:

    So this 20 year old Antifa member who donated $15 to the Biden campaign, but is also (for some reason) a “Registered Republican”

    A NeverTrumper, obviously!

  • @Snorri – More likely registered as a Republican to take part in their Primaries, voting “Any one but Trump”.

  • Alex deWynter

    Trump is apparently an extremely meddlesome priest.

  • Johnathan Pearce

    Like several others here, I was struck by Mr Trump’s speed of reaction. And that image of him, shouting “fight!”, fist raised.

    I’m not a Trump fan, but I can know courage when I see it. His comments later, asking for people to think if those killed and injured, and for Americans to unite, were exactly right.

    If you are Xi, Putin, the Iranian mullahs, having such a person in the WH isn’t what you want.

  • Runcie Balspune

    We are constantly fed a lie that “far right” or “right wing” are the epitome of politically motivated violence, yet the world can see, from this incident, to last week’s reactions to the French election, to the complete lack of violence towards left-wing politicians (but not right-wing) in UK elections, and going back to proto-Marxist outfits like antifa and blm, it is clearly not the right side of politics that are the obvious mob of pitchforks.

    And that’s not including the neverending internecine battles within the left.

  • Snorri Godhi

    Barely on-topic: I found the least-bad graphical representation of my views of the “political spectrum”.

  • staghounds

    The usual suspects are all now leading with pictures of Trump cowering, being protected or helped. No more standing defiant. This is some Dead Zone stuff.

  • bobby b

    Interesting tweet from last May:

    Jennifer Jacobs
    @JenniferJJacobs

    News: There’s a petition circulating inside the US Secret Service that flags concerns about “a number of recent Secret Service incidents indicative of inadequate training,” a double standard in disciplinary actions, and a vulnerability “to potential insider threats” that could pose a risk to US nat sec. It was first shared Monday, I’m told, and has 39 signatures so far. Aim is to call for a congressional investigation, petition says.

    11:59 AM · May 9, 2024
    ·
    1.7M Views

  • David

    A deW

    Trump is apparently an extremely meddlesome priest.

    If he misses out on the Presidency he could put the shooting on his application for Archbishop of Canterbury as job experience.

  • John

    Trump, who says he was shot in the ear at a Pennsylvania rally on Saturday, earlier called on Americans to “stand united”

    Another day another bbc article. Perhaps the proven liar Marianna Spring, head of their disinformation department, could check if his ear really was shot. After all, there’s obviously some doubt or else why would they use that particular phraseology?

  • decnine

    “If you watch the wider angle shot it looks like the Secret Service agent on the roof behind Trump started shooting just a fraction of a second before Trump got hit.

    Trumps weird head movement and then ducking upon getting hit on the ear probably saved his life. Not bad reactions for a man of his age.”

    Trump would have heard the SS agent’s shot before the bullet struck his ear. What he heard could well have primed his subsequent reaction.

  • Y. Knott

    “Not to mention Trump’s age.”

    Not to mention, Trump knows damn well he’s hated by the Left and the possibility of somebody trying this was not an “if”, it was a “when”. And two seconds’ reaction time to “it” finally happening is pretty good, when you consider he went from “Full MAGA” to “Somebody is finally trying to kill me!” and reloading the ‘whaddoIdonow?’script, is not bad for an old guy. That he responded correctly to the attempt suggests to me that he and his detail had talked it over several times, and likely rehearsed it too – the Secret Service aren’t dummies either, and they likely had a pretty good idea of the event’s risk profile. And the guy only got-off six or seven shots from a rifle designed for this job, before the sniper on the roof finished it – they were all on their toes. The tragedy is that an innocent bystander was killed, but if Trump was assassinated this would be a whole ‘nother lot worse.

    Trump’s raised-fist response was also likely rehearsed on his inner-politician’s scope – but getting his ear shot was only an inch from tragedy, and everybody (with a brain in their head) knows it. That he went to not just this, but several other outdoor venues to campaign, says all it need to. Trump has a place in my estimation alongside Maggie Thatcher berating a fellow-pol to quit moaning during that possible IRA attack. You GO, Dude!

  • Fraser Orr

    @decnine
    Trump would have heard the SS agent’s shot before the bullet struck his ear. What he heard could well have primed his subsequent reaction.

    That does not at all look what happened. He felt the bullet graze his ear put his hand up to feel and saw blood. You could almost seem the wheels turning in his brain. “Blood. Holy shit someone is shooting, hit the deck Donald”. Less than two seconds. He reacted faster than his security detail. It was very impressive, not just for a “man of his age”, or a man untrained in combat, but simply for anyone at all.

    He said he tried to get back to the microphone to speak to the crowd, like Teddy Roosevelt. Given that a man had just died behind him perhaps that would not have been appropriate and certainly would have been very risky, but again is says a LOT about the guy. And that photo, OMG, in a moment you know he set it up. Like I say, that photo is worth a billion dollars in advertising.

    If I were the Republicans I’d have a commercial ready to go: “This is Trump walking down the stairs after he got shot. This is Biden falling down the stairs after missing his nap.” You can imagine the visuals.

  • Paul Marks

    It is clear that President Trump is a brave man – and it is also clear that he really does want to make America Great Again. The establishment HATE America (they really do) – they do not want to make America great again, they want to destroy America, to put it under the rule of people like themselves, in the “international community” (they are very open about this objective – no real independence at all).

    What President Trump needs is knowledge – courage and good intentions are vital (the establishment have neither – they are cowardly and their intentions are totally evil, they do harm because they want to harm – it is their objective to do harm), but they are NOT enough on their own.

    Being a businessman does NOT give a person a knowledge of economics (they are different subjects) – and somehow knowledge of the fundamental principles of economics (for example that Credit Money, and Credit Bubble finance, is an evil and that Collective Bargaining leads to unemployment) must be got into President Trump and future Vice President J.D. Vance.

    I repeat – courage and good intentions are both vital, but they are not enough on their own.

  • Fraser Orr

    @Paul it is worth pointing out that Trump got very, very rich by exploiting the credit money system that you talk about a lot here. Trump is a mixed bag, but he is way better than Biden.

    I think though we are going to see a very different Trump going forward.

  • bobby b

    Paul M: “I repeat – courage and good intentions are both vital, but they are not enough on their own.”

    They are more than we’ve had before, so I count this as a huge improvement.

  • Y. Knott

    “The establishment HATE America (they really do)…”

    – Fact. Yesterday I watched a lovely video – a bunch of climate protesters invaded the stage at a Ted Cruz rally and started disruptively chanting CAGW slogans; Cruz took them to the woodshed pretty authoritatively, and started asking pointed questions (MSN link – sorry…) about climate change; a few of them were dumb enough to answer his questions and it was clear they knew nothing at all about the topic (which he pointed out, natch); the rest just kept mindlessly mouthing slogans, and they were eventually arrested.

    I lump climate protesters in the same ignorant “Muh Feelz” category as Palestine protesters; and sadly, there’s no point telling them the facts of the matter – they don’t wanna’ know.

  • Kirk

    Runcie Balspune said:

    We are constantly fed a lie that “far right” or “right wing” are the epitome of politically motivated violence, yet the world can see, from this incident, to last week’s reactions to the French election, to the complete lack of violence towards left-wing politicians (but not right-wing) in UK elections, and going back to proto-Marxist outfits like antifa and blm, it is clearly not the right side of politics that are the obvious mob of pitchforks.

    And that’s not including the neverending internecine battles within the left.

    Here’s the conceptual issue with this that you’ve fallen into, just like about everyone else: The “left” has created this bugbear “Extreme right-wing” thing out of the whole cloth. There really is no such thing; look at their favorite term for such fantasy-folk: Nazi.

    Uhmmmm… Have we all forgotten that the Nazis were the National Socialist Worker’s Party? Anyone had a read-through of their party platform and policies, of late? D’ya see anything in there that you might term “right-wing”, except maybe the nationalist bits and bobs? Same with the KKK… The reality is that the “extreme right-wing” they’re railing against is really only ever so slightly to the right of their own positions, to the point that they all share many of the same idiotic economic ideas.

    The so-called “right wing” that most of us discuss these days isn’t really “right wing” so much as it’s another variety of left-wing that’s not extreme enough for the loons. A real “Right Wing” would have a totally different set of beliefs and party platform policies, not the somewhat-less leftism we’re seeing today.

    Ferchrissakes… The current Republican Party is about as conservative as a 1960 Democrat. If JFK were alive and running today, he’d have to be a Republican, because his tax and trade policies would have him read out of the Democratic party before he got done giving his first stump speech.

    There is no real “right-wing” conservative element out there; it’s just the shadow cast by the fantasies of the left, because they really won the argument back a few generations, and they’re just using the corpse of their old opposition as a target.

    It’s like with Fox News. I heard for years about how “right-wing” they were, and whenever I watched them, it was like “These people are just MSNBC with a slightly different take on the optics…” None of the stories they reported were different; they were all framed the same way, from the same perspective. They’re a fraud, and they’re actually about as “conservative” as Benito Mussolini, circa 1919.

    Stop and think: When was the last time you saw anyone really espousing or speaking for a truly “right-wing conservative” anything? Is anyone out there agitating for doing away with the entire premise of the modern state? Which is, frankly, what any real conservative should be doing. The whole thing, from the Fed to the judiciary, is corrupt and very plainly dysfunctional. Why is nobody out there calling a spade a spade, and questioning the very propositions all this bullshit is based on?

    Fox News, conservative? LOL… Not a bit. They’re just liberal left-wing nutters with extra steps.

    A real “right-wing conservative” would probably be advocating for things like shutting down prisons by enacting automatic capital punishments for violent crime.

Leave a Reply

You can use these HTML tags

<a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>