All I have to say is

[EarlG]

16. To be clear

I'm not trying to make the point that only one "side" is responsible for violence, because clearly both Republicans and Democrats have been shot by crazies. But as far as I'm concerned, only one side has spent decades encouraging and cultivating the idea that the way to deal with government overreach is to commit gun violence against the government.

This nation was founded by people who stood up against tyranny and used violence to overthrow their previous rulers, so they could create their own government -- and we celebrate that. But violence is, and should always be, a last resort used for self defense. Over the past couple of decades -- you can see examples in my OP, but there are hundreds of other examples -- Republicans have mainstreamed the idea of violence against the government, right up to and including their attempt to essentially kill congresspeople and the vice president on January 6, 2021, which resulted in injuries to 140 police officers, and which Republicans later dismissed as a violence-free love fest committed by "tourists."

Presumably Republicans believed that the only fallout from all these years of encouraging people to see the government -- or other people in positions of power and authority -- as something worthy of shooting at if you disagree with them, would be that their "side" would shoot at our "side." But the problem with opening this Pandora's box of "might makes right" ideology is that we are all exposed to it.

Republicans have spent decades brainwashing Americans into believing that the simple solution to something you disagree with is to shoot at it. They've done this while also making it significantly easier for anyone to get their hands on powerful weapons of war. And now they're operating elements of the government in a manner which could genuinely be described as tyrannical -- masked agents roaming the streets without ID, kidnapping people and disappearing them into foreign torture prisons, ignoring court orders, dehumanization and blatant corruption in broad daylight blasted daily from the president on down... they're creating the exact conditions that they've spent decades telling people should be fought against with gun violence.

And then they have the gall to say, "Hey everyone, let's tone down the rhetoric."