Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut said, “Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing — again.”
It’s clear what was meant, but rightwing media outlets are spinning the comment to mean:
“Dem senator criticizes post-shooting ‘prayers.'”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) says people who pray for the victims of shootings should be asking for forgiveness for their inaction. […]
Others are more direct, calling Murphy’s comments “offensive” or showing disrespect toward religion. Personally, I don’t think it demeans those offering prayers to say that “prayers are not enough.”
Donald Trump retweeted comments about the shooting in San Bernardino that indicated his poll numbers will rise again, that every time a tragedy involving Muslims arises it is good for Trump’s poll numbers.
That’s Trump acknowledging that bigoted responses to shooting incidents are good for his poll numbers. I think I prefer the prayers to that. Sheesh.
arminius008says
It is a shame the Republicans don’t have the courage to ban all Muslim immigration — that might start to help deal with the problem!
[Banning is a good solution to some problems. Bye. –pzm]
Nerd of Redhead, Dances OM Trollssays
It is a shame the Republicans don’t have the courage to ban all Muslim immigration
Your bigotry is showing. Shut the fuck up.
slithey tove (twas brillig (stevem))says
True: it is NOT comforting to see those “people” offer prayers for the victims and their families, while refusing to do little else, and enabling propagation of the killers implements of destruction.
Thank you Sen. Murphy for being eloquent.
–
argh. even when I was a kid, I never got comfort from “I’ll pray for you”, to which I would silently reply, “good for you, but…”
Recently had to silently cope with many “I prayed for you”, after an accident I was in.
When will everyone realize that prayers are a personal coping method, but are ineffective at helping anybody else. It is only ‘confirmation bias’ that reinforces their belief. “oh, you’re better now? I prayed for you! (therefore prayer works QED)”, totally disregarding the cases where the patient did not get better.
stillacrazycanucksays
@7. I hope I am correct in reading arminius as attempting sarcasm, tone-deaf tho the attempt may be. If not, then I echo your sentiments.
Hey arminius! If banning Muslims is an appropriate response to this shooting, can we kick out all you anti-choicers as a response to the Planned Parenthood shooting?
All of us are deeply concerned that this is yet another manifestation of terrorism, radical Islamic terrorism here at home. Coming on the wake of the terror attack in Paris, this horrific murder underscores that we are at a time of war. Whether or not the current administration realizes it or is willing to acknowledge it, our enemies are at war with us.
So that’s doing something more than praying, that’s categorizing the incident as radical Islamic terrorism before we know what the motive was.
In speaking about the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting, Cruz had brought up the possibility that the gunman was a “transgendered leftist activist,” which Cruz explained as his attempt to make “the point that we don’t know all the details.”
Hey, Cruz, we don’t know all the details in the San Bernadino shooting.
consciousness razorsays
arminius008, I’m sure they have the “courage” to pray for it, which does indeed have all the marvelous effects we could expect. Well, not “we,” so much as those of us who aren’t hate-fueled religious fanatics.
The Doctors for America organization has joined with some Congress members to do something more than praying. They are demanding that the Dickey Amendment be repealed. That 20-year-old amendment bans any federally-funded scientific research on gun violence.
[…] This ban, supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), has effectively silenced researchers at both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) for conducting any comprehensive studies on what causes violence — and what can be done to prevent it — since 1996. As expected, it’s left public health experts and policymakers with little to lean on as they attempt to craft new legislation to help quell the fatal trend.
At Wednesday’s press conference, led by Doctors for America, doctors presented a petition signed by more than 2,000 physicians in all 50 states requesting an end to the restriction. […]
@7. I hope I am correct in reading arminius as attempting sarcasm, tone-deaf tho the attempt may be. If not, then I echo your sentiments.
That’s incorrect. Just another Christian bigot. The pseudonym is I guess a reference to Arminianism.
tbtabbysays
I think it’s time to ask all the right-wing Second Amendment fetishists what it would take to make them support gun control. Is there ANYTHING, anything AT ALL, that would make them realize that stopping a crazed misanthrope from getting an assault rifle would be a better way to stop a shooting than pretending life is like an action movie? If not, you must realize that you don’t really CARE about stopping these shootings, because if you will never accept stricter gun control under any circumstances, then you wouldn’t accept it even if it turned out to be a good idea. You would rather let a hundred Sandy Hook shootings happen than give up even one of your stinking guns.
quotetheunquotesays
You would rather let a hundred Sandy Hook shootings happen than give up even one of your stinking guns.
tbtabby:
I believe that is the general idea behind “you can have my gun when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands,” yes. Human lives are one thing; but constitutional rights, now, those are sacred!
I am still waiting for an argument that is not “SECOND AMENDMENT CONSTITUTION” that explains why weapons, *any* weapon, should be easier and faster to access than a license for driving a vehicle.
I have yet to hear one.
Saadsays
arminius008, #6
It is a shame the Republicans don’t have the courage to ban all Muslim immigration — that might start to help deal with the problem!
Good. Good.
Let that Christian pro-life morality out.
Saadsays
robro, #3
Thanks! Didn’t know his cartoon was on there.
nomadiqsays
@15
The only thing that would make these arseholes support gun control is if they stopped getting checks from the NRA. Then maybe their ‘good Christian values’ would be allowed to mean something. Unfortunately the house is full of corrupt lackeys.
The mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, is the deadliest in the US since a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012.
“We have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” Barack Obama said on Wednesday.
Data compiled by the crowd-sourced website ShootingTracker.com reveals a shocking human toll: there is a mass shooting — defined as four or more people shot in one incident — nearly every day.
There is then a graphic showing all(?) of those 1,052 mass shootings (1,347 people dead and another 3,817 injured).
Igor Volsky, contributing editor to Think Progress, criticizes lawmakers who ‘think and pray’ after gun violence but don’t take action to help prevent further mass shootings.
This segment provides details regarding how much money some conservative lawmakers receive from the NRA. This is sort of a followup to nomadiq @20
I say this, if you want to line up with terrorists and try to take God away, you’re not on the right side. That’s all I’d have to say to those politicians who want to tell you to stop praying. Just don’t.
That’s Fox News’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck making “prayer shaming” a thing.
The wrongheaded idea that anyone is telling people to stop praying is now a major meme on rightwing media. Conveniently, this distracts from the real issue of mass shootings in the USA.
busterggisays
Ain’t it crazy how the ‘famly values’ people have nothing to suggest for solving the problem.
[…]”It is good to think and pray,” Volsky said. “But these folks only want to think and pray. And the NRA only pays them to only think and pray about gun violence and not to do anything else about it. You know they spend some thirty million dollars in the 2014 election independent expenditures, making sure that all certain lawmakers do is think and pray and nothing else. I am all for thinking and for praying and for having these very serious moments where we reflect on what happened, where we remember the victims. But I think the country is ready for action, for actually something to be done, not just the thinking and the praying.”[…]
NRA dumped $922K into McConnell’s re-elect bid, […]
[Speaker Ryan] got $2,000 from NRA during 2014 cycle to keep #SanBernadino victims in his prayers and little else […]
[Senator Ron Johnson] “benefitted from more than $1.3 MILLION from gun rights groups”[…]
I would appreciate it if all the right-wing trolls would just fuck off for a while. I’ve got two more papers to grade before all my piles and stacks and heaps are finally done. For a few days.
robrosays
The Daily News front page headline is good: “God Isn’t Fixing This”.
And over at HuffyPuffy: “Another Mass Shooting, Another Deluge of Tweeted Prayers”
I think the “tweeted prayers” is particularly astute…and particularly for HuffPo…because it reflects the level of sincerity we’re getting from these politicians.
busterggi @25 — “Ain’t it crazy how the ‘family values’ people have nothing to suggest for solving the problem.” Oh yes they do. Prayer.
Snort. The States is terrifying to live in now, fuck, I’d like to be able to pick up and leave. Every other person, seems like, wandering about with guns and more than happy to start killing, individual states going open carry, the political landscape mostly religious fanatics with delusions of fascist grandeur stuffed in a clown car, bigotry and hate being yelled from all corners.
[…] Co-host Steve Doocy had a copy of the paper [Daily News] and held it up, repeatedly, saying “if God won’t fix this, we need more [gun] laws.” GOP presidential hopeful Carly Fiorina agreed, saying “it’s stunning to me — this is an example of how afraid the left-wing is of our values.” […]
Doocy and Hasselbeck agreed, with Doocy holding up the Daily News cover again and saying, “on the cover of the Daily News they have politicized this already. […]
As proof of the efficacy of prayer — or the political expediency of it, at least — Doocy offered a text sent to the father of a woman trapped by the San Bernardino shooters: “Shooting at my work, people shot. In the office waiting for cops. Pray for us.”
“He said his daughter in there,” Hasselbeck noted, “texting him at the time, ‘pray for us.’ […]
Man, I’m still worried about my family. They weren’t in any danger from the shooting, but I don’t want to hear about someone throwing a brick at them because of the shooting.
JPsays
Who wants to come to a party at the University of Michigan psychiatric ward? Everybody’s invited.
Bob Fostersays
I just read something very troubling about gun violence on another website that went something like this: Both Sides Do It. They used the example of the Planned Parenthood shooting as an example of right-wing violence/ terrorism and then said that what happened in San Bernardino was an example of the ‘other’ side’s violence, apparently meaning liberals or people on the left of the political spectrum. WTF? How the hell is anything I’ve ever said or done supportive of Islamic terrorism (assuming that’s what happened in San Bernardino). I don’t get the equivalence. Are they now saying that liberals or atheists or rooting for ISIS? If the are, screw ’em and everyone like them.
jrkrideausays
Given the number of nutters on the outside it may be the sanest/safest place in the USA.
Any free food?
devlynhsays
I might have already posted this elsewhere but …
Never let it be said that the republicans weren’t doing the least they could do. Quite possible less.
anthrosciguysays
I don’t get the equivalence. Are they now saying that liberals or atheists or rooting for ISIS?
Yes, that is precisely what they’re saying and they’ve been saying this for quite some time. And no, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
Snoofsays
anthrosciguy @ 36
It makes perfect sense if you assume there’s only two sides, Good and Bad [1], and everybody who isn’t Good is necessarily Bad. So atheist liberals are essentially the same as theocratic authoritarians[2], because they’re both Bad. Huge amounts of ink has been spent justifying this reasoning: just look at all the articles about “Why atheism is really Satanic” or “Why liberals are actually fascists”.
[1] Or Green and Purple, if you like. The labels are just markers of affiliation, there’s no actual moral component to them. That’s why a Good person who calmly advocates genocide is “just saying what everyone’s thinking” while a Bad person who loses their temper at a police officer is a violent criminal deserving of death.
[2] Non-Christian theocratic authoritarians, that is.
meshsays
busterggi @ 25
Ain’t it crazy how the ‘famly values’ people have nothing to suggest for solving the problem.
Even the politicians proudly declare their intentions to do sweet FA. Apparently Republicans think that the only purpose of having politicians is to have an assembly poised to gesture submissively and beg someone else to manage national problems.
anchorsays
Snoof: You realize, I trust, that your flagrant use of the word ‘liberal’ automatically indicates the depth of your intellect, yes?
The argument you offer is enhanced by liberal application of the term “liberal’?
You know, as in liberal, liberal, and liberal?
How about liberal?
Horrible, Liberal!!! Liberal!
Liberal???
Oh, odious liberal.
Ah, amongst lots of ‘liberals’ (as you define) one must admit you have a liberal amount of gumption! Letting them liberals know they’re liberals will really kick them in the ass.
Right? Keeping them on their toes are you?
Are you really that fucking stupid?
Or, perchance, are you just another of the legions of idiotic card-carrying word-generator twerps that have been indoctrinated into insanity by assholes like Rush Limbaugh over the last 20+ years that unequivocally turned you all into abject imbeciles incapable of independent thought?
You know, because liberals, right?
Liberals!
Make very sure you remember that word.
Its very important. Its an automatic argument. An automatic denunciation. Apply it LIBERALLY, as a convenient qualifier anywhere.
You know what’s really hilarious? You are barking at people who do not particularly or primarily consider themselves as ‘liberal’. We don’t much need or care to wonder what you are, but we know this much FROM YOUR FREQUENT USE OF AN UTTERLY IRRELEVANT INVECTIVE: Its an automatic declaration marking the sum total of your capacity for independent thinking. We automatically gather that you are definitely situated deep in stupid territory.
Key words: liberal, Liberal, LIBERAL, liberal, Liberals, LIBERALS and STINKING DIRTY ASSHOLES (who are incapable of dreaming up an argument that actually makes any sense, you stupid fuck).
anchorsays
previous post via anthrosciguy, and several others upstream who vomit liberally forth on liberal as if it is an authentic species of something.
Snoofsays
Anchor @ 39
Uh… what? I genuinely don’t understand what you’re getting at. I’m not using liberal as a slur, if that’s what you mean, and I’m not saying that the modern US left wing has anything politically or philosophically in common with ISIS, nor do I believe they’re in any way on the same “side”.
My post at 37 was a description of the (false!) dichotomy that shows up in a lot of political discourse, especially that of strongly authoritarian groups like, say, the Dominionist movement and the current crop of US Republican presidential candidates. It’s not a position I subscribe to by any means. I apologise if I communicated poorly.
leophoreosays
I understood what you meant snoof I think anchor is the one that should fuck off or learn to read properly
Anrisays
I’m with Snoof on this – anchor, could you re-state your point a touch more clearly?
Perfect.
I love Mike Lukovich. So many of his cartoons are on point. He’s the main reason I read my city paper nowadays.
That and the how much hurt fee-fees and rage he generates in the readers’ opinion section from from the bigots down here.
Saad: You could read him on GoComics instead of AJC and get a different commentariat. And yes, yesterday’s version was pretty spot on about guns, too.
Senator Chris Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut said, “Your ‘thoughts’ should be about steps to take to stop this carnage. Your ‘prayers’ should be for forgiveness if you do nothing — again.”
It’s clear what was meant, but rightwing media outlets are spinning the comment to mean:
“Dem senator criticizes post-shooting ‘prayers.'”
The Hill link
Others are more direct, calling Murphy’s comments “offensive” or showing disrespect toward religion. Personally, I don’t think it demeans those offering prayers to say that “prayers are not enough.”
Donald Trump retweeted comments about the shooting in San Bernardino that indicated his poll numbers will rise again, that every time a tragedy involving Muslims arises it is good for Trump’s poll numbers.
That’s Trump acknowledging that bigoted responses to shooting incidents are good for his poll numbers. I think I prefer the prayers to that. Sheesh.
It is a shame the Republicans don’t have the courage to ban all Muslim immigration — that might start to help deal with the problem!
[Banning is a good solution to some problems. Bye. –pzm]
Your bigotry is showing. Shut the fuck up.
True: it is NOT comforting to see those “people” offer prayers for the victims and their families, while refusing to do little else, and enabling propagation of the killers implements of destruction.
Thank you Sen. Murphy for being eloquent.
–
argh. even when I was a kid, I never got comfort from “I’ll pray for you”, to which I would silently reply, “good for you, but…”
Recently had to silently cope with many “I prayed for you”, after an accident I was in.
When will everyone realize that prayers are a personal coping method, but are ineffective at helping anybody else. It is only ‘confirmation bias’ that reinforces their belief. “oh, you’re better now? I prayed for you! (therefore prayer works QED)”, totally disregarding the cases where the patient did not get better.
@7. I hope I am correct in reading arminius as attempting sarcasm, tone-deaf tho the attempt may be. If not, then I echo your sentiments.
@stillacrazycanuck
Unfortunately arminius has been to other threads and shown themselves as a pretty rabid right-winger:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/11/29/utterly-demented/comment-page-1/#comment-986725
Hey arminius! If banning Muslims is an appropriate response to this shooting, can we kick out all you anti-choicers as a response to the Planned Parenthood shooting?
From Senator Ted Cruz:
So that’s doing something more than praying, that’s categorizing the incident as radical Islamic terrorism before we know what the motive was.
In speaking about the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooting, Cruz had brought up the possibility that the gunman was a “transgendered leftist activist,” which Cruz explained as his attempt to make “the point that we don’t know all the details.”
Hey, Cruz, we don’t know all the details in the San Bernadino shooting.
arminius008, I’m sure they have the “courage” to pray for it, which does indeed have all the marvelous effects we could expect. Well, not “we,” so much as those of us who aren’t hate-fueled religious fanatics.
The Doctors for America organization has joined with some Congress members to do something more than praying. They are demanding that the Dickey Amendment be repealed. That 20-year-old amendment bans any federally-funded scientific research on gun violence.
Think Progress link
That’s incorrect. Just another Christian bigot. The pseudonym is I guess a reference to Arminianism.
I think it’s time to ask all the right-wing Second Amendment fetishists what it would take to make them support gun control. Is there ANYTHING, anything AT ALL, that would make them realize that stopping a crazed misanthrope from getting an assault rifle would be a better way to stop a shooting than pretending life is like an action movie? If not, you must realize that you don’t really CARE about stopping these shootings, because if you will never accept stricter gun control under any circumstances, then you wouldn’t accept it even if it turned out to be a good idea. You would rather let a hundred Sandy Hook shootings happen than give up even one of your stinking guns.
tbtabby:
I believe that is the general idea behind “you can have my gun when you can pry it from my cold, dead hands,” yes. Human lives are one thing; but constitutional rights, now, those are sacred!
I am still waiting for an argument that is not “SECOND AMENDMENT CONSTITUTION” that explains why weapons, *any* weapon, should be easier and faster to access than a license for driving a vehicle.
I have yet to hear one.
arminius008, #6
Good. Good.
Let that Christian pro-life morality out.
robro, #3
Thanks! Didn’t know his cartoon was on there.
@15
The only thing that would make these arseholes support gun control is if they stopped getting checks from the NRA. Then maybe their ‘good Christian values’ would be allowed to mean something. Unfortunately the house is full of corrupt lackeys.
Busy day for the Banhammer.
1,052 mass shootings in 1,066 days: this is what America’s gun crisis looks like:
There is then a graphic showing all(?) of those 1,052 mass shootings (1,347 people dead and another 3,817 injured).
Chris Hayes covered the “what’s the matter with thoughts and prayers” issue.
http://www.msnbc.com/all-in/watch/whats-the-matter-with-thoughts-and-prayers–578400836001
Igor Volsky, contributing editor to Think Progress, criticizes lawmakers who ‘think and pray’ after gun violence but don’t take action to help prevent further mass shootings.
This segment provides details regarding how much money some conservative lawmakers receive from the NRA. This is sort of a followup to nomadiq @20
Conservative media are also on the case:
That’s Fox News’s Elizabeth Hasselbeck making “prayer shaming” a thing.
The wrongheaded idea that anyone is telling people to stop praying is now a major meme on rightwing media. Conveniently, this distracts from the real issue of mass shootings in the USA.
Ain’t it crazy how the ‘famly values’ people have nothing to suggest for solving the problem.
This is a followup to comment 23.
Link
I would appreciate it if all the right-wing trolls would just fuck off for a while. I’ve got two more papers to grade before all my piles and stacks and heaps are finally done. For a few days.
The Daily News front page headline is good: “God Isn’t Fixing This”.
And over at HuffyPuffy: “Another Mass Shooting, Another Deluge of Tweeted Prayers”
I think the “tweeted prayers” is particularly astute…and particularly for HuffPo…because it reflects the level of sincerity we’re getting from these politicians.
busterggi @25 — “Ain’t it crazy how the ‘family values’ people have nothing to suggest for solving the problem.” Oh yes they do. Prayer.
Snort. The States is terrifying to live in now, fuck, I’d like to be able to pick up and leave. Every other person, seems like, wandering about with guns and more than happy to start killing, individual states going open carry, the political landscape mostly religious fanatics with delusions of fascist grandeur stuffed in a clown car, bigotry and hate being yelled from all corners.
This is a followup to comment 24.
More bonkers propaganda from Fox News:
Salon link
Man, I’m still worried about my family. They weren’t in any danger from the shooting, but I don’t want to hear about someone throwing a brick at them because of the shooting.
Who wants to come to a party at the University of Michigan psychiatric ward? Everybody’s invited.
I just read something very troubling about gun violence on another website that went something like this: Both Sides Do It. They used the example of the Planned Parenthood shooting as an example of right-wing violence/ terrorism and then said that what happened in San Bernardino was an example of the ‘other’ side’s violence, apparently meaning liberals or people on the left of the political spectrum. WTF? How the hell is anything I’ve ever said or done supportive of Islamic terrorism (assuming that’s what happened in San Bernardino). I don’t get the equivalence. Are they now saying that liberals or atheists or rooting for ISIS? If the are, screw ’em and everyone like them.
Given the number of nutters on the outside it may be the sanest/safest place in the USA.
Any free food?
I might have already posted this elsewhere but …
Never let it be said that the republicans weren’t doing the least they could do. Quite possible less.
Yes, that is precisely what they’re saying and they’ve been saying this for quite some time. And no, it doesn’t make a lick of sense.
anthrosciguy @ 36
It makes perfect sense if you assume there’s only two sides, Good and Bad [1], and everybody who isn’t Good is necessarily Bad. So atheist liberals are essentially the same as theocratic authoritarians[2], because they’re both Bad. Huge amounts of ink has been spent justifying this reasoning: just look at all the articles about “Why atheism is really Satanic” or “Why liberals are actually fascists”.
[1] Or Green and Purple, if you like. The labels are just markers of affiliation, there’s no actual moral component to them. That’s why a Good person who calmly advocates genocide is “just saying what everyone’s thinking” while a Bad person who loses their temper at a police officer is a violent criminal deserving of death.
[2] Non-Christian theocratic authoritarians, that is.
busterggi @ 25
Even the politicians proudly declare their intentions to do sweet FA. Apparently Republicans think that the only purpose of having politicians is to have an assembly poised to gesture submissively and beg someone else to manage national problems.
Snoof: You realize, I trust, that your flagrant use of the word ‘liberal’ automatically indicates the depth of your intellect, yes?
The argument you offer is enhanced by liberal application of the term “liberal’?
You know, as in liberal, liberal, and liberal?
How about liberal?
Horrible, Liberal!!! Liberal!
Liberal???
Oh, odious liberal.
Ah, amongst lots of ‘liberals’ (as you define) one must admit you have a liberal amount of gumption! Letting them liberals know they’re liberals will really kick them in the ass.
Right? Keeping them on their toes are you?
Are you really that fucking stupid?
Or, perchance, are you just another of the legions of idiotic card-carrying word-generator twerps that have been indoctrinated into insanity by assholes like Rush Limbaugh over the last 20+ years that unequivocally turned you all into abject imbeciles incapable of independent thought?
You know, because liberals, right?
Liberals!
Make very sure you remember that word.
Its very important. Its an automatic argument. An automatic denunciation. Apply it LIBERALLY, as a convenient qualifier anywhere.
You know what’s really hilarious? You are barking at people who do not particularly or primarily consider themselves as ‘liberal’. We don’t much need or care to wonder what you are, but we know this much FROM YOUR FREQUENT USE OF AN UTTERLY IRRELEVANT INVECTIVE: Its an automatic declaration marking the sum total of your capacity for independent thinking. We automatically gather that you are definitely situated deep in stupid territory.
Key words: liberal, Liberal, LIBERAL, liberal, Liberals, LIBERALS and STINKING DIRTY ASSHOLES (who are incapable of dreaming up an argument that actually makes any sense, you stupid fuck).
previous post via anthrosciguy, and several others upstream who vomit liberally forth on liberal as if it is an authentic species of something.
Anchor @ 39
Uh… what? I genuinely don’t understand what you’re getting at. I’m not using liberal as a slur, if that’s what you mean, and I’m not saying that the modern US left wing has anything politically or philosophically in common with ISIS, nor do I believe they’re in any way on the same “side”.
My post at 37 was a description of the (false!) dichotomy that shows up in a lot of political discourse, especially that of strongly authoritarian groups like, say, the Dominionist movement and the current crop of US Republican presidential candidates. It’s not a position I subscribe to by any means. I apologise if I communicated poorly.
I understood what you meant snoof I think anchor is the one that should fuck off or learn to read properly
I’m with Snoof on this – anchor, could you re-state your point a touch more clearly?
In the meantime Australia enjoys another peaceful day under oppressive gun control regime.