In response to a family member’s comments on Facebook the day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot

Whether or not this particular shooter had political motives derived in whole or part from right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories, such violence is a perfectly predictable outcome when people believe their government is out to kill them via death panel, take away their liberties, their money, their country and all other manner of tea party and Fox News irrationality.

People will do what authorities want them to do or what they perceive their peers would do (and what would someone believe if he or she watches Fox News and hears about succession, second amendment remedies, hit lists, etc.?).

Decades-old experiments from Milgram and Zimbardo are illustrative, and several other recent incidents have been demonstrably fueled by right-wing rhetoric. Whether such rhetoric should be “blamed” for this specific incident is immaterial to the larger issue that such acts are the reasonably foreseeable outcome from such errant propaganda.

Here are references for recent incidents and the psychology at work. Not new.

http://mediamatters.org/research/201010110002
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/us/19crash.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
http://mitworld.mit.edu/video/459
http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html