Horrific tragedy underscores the level of imbalance present in....

[Aviation Pro]

...red state America. My original attraction to this story was the accident, but after reviewing the facts I can only come to the sad conclusion that conservative, red state men are psychologically unbalanced and are always on the verge of an emotional, and in this case, homocidal and suicidal meltdown. In spite of their claim as stronger in areas of logic - which goes hand in hand with their claim that they are stronger in areas of national security - they are the most illogic members of our society. The county that this psychotic, deranged man came from is Lawrence, Indiana which voted an astonishing 69% for the Bush/Cheney ticket in 2004.

Story here: http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/03/06/indiana.crash.ap/index.html

In-law: Child on plane screamed 'Mommy come get me!'
Story Highlights• In-law says pilot Eric Johnson had been harassing his ex-wife for months
• Pilot may have crashed plane carrying young daughter deliberately
• Police investigating case as homicide and suicide
• Crash happened about 20 miles south of Bloomington, Indiana

BEDFORD, Indiana (AP) -- "I've got her, and you're not going to get her."

Beth Johnson heard those words from her ex-husband Monday, shortly before he crashed his rented single-engine plane into his former mother-in-law's southern Indiana home, killing himself and the couple's 8-year-old daughter.

The mother-in-law, Vivian Pace, described the cell phone call Tuesday as investigators tried to determine why student pilot Eric Johnson strapped his daughter into the plane's passenger seat and apparently crashed the plane deliberately into the one-story house.

Pace said she has no doubt that the crash was intentional because Johnson had been harassing his ex-wife for months, including buying a house three doors down from hers.

[jollyreaper2112]

1. yah

I'm starting to view many Republicans as like wild animals or safety code violations. Sure, you can have a lot of poorly-constructed buildings that never suffer that catastrophic failure that gives inspectors nightmares, you need to have the proper alignment of several factors and a good dose of bad luck to get someone killed. But those events do happen. Look at Sigfried and Roy. Odds are they could have finished their lives without an accident with the tiger or they could have been killed early in their careers. It just so happend they rolled snake-eyes on that one night and the tiger spooked. How many times when driving is your attention taken off the road for just a split-second? How many times does that happen to be the worst possible moment for that to occur and a huge crash results?

With these Republicans and crazy people in general, you just have no idea when they're going to snap. I bet you there are probably a thousand for every one that goes off the deep end and kills people. How many active posters are on Free Republic and how many of them turned out to be killers? I know of the one who shot the judge and the other who sent death threats to liberal tv personalities. I know it's bad statistics to extrapolate from such a small sample set but I've yet to hear of a DUer killing anyone like that. The majority of Freepers haven't killed anyone. But of the political message board readers who have killed people or gone looney, all of them are Freepers.

[kegler14]

2. Blaming this tragedy on conservatives or Republicans

just makes no sense at all.

[leftofthedial]

4. while correlation is not causation

There is correlation

and where there's smoke . . .

[lectrobyte]

3. I used to think that fucked up murder suicide tragedy bullshit

cuts across party lines, and still think it does to a certain extent, but after reading this online book, which I recommend without reservation, I'm starting to think there may be bigger differences between Democrats and Republicans, at least in some cases.

http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~altemey/

[Marie26]

5. Let's not go there.

This tragedy is not a political issue. There's plenty of murders in "blue" states, too.

[Aviation Pro]

6. This is true....

...and there are Democrats in red states, but how many blue state tragedies have you heard where someone willfully murders their own daughter to get back at an ex-wife? Red state conservatives, from their ramblings on Jim Robinson's FreeRepublic, sound so tightly would that they are a hair's breadth away from snapping when their world's collapse.

[Marie26]

7. Maybe

DU'ers sound tightly wound too, for good reason, that doesn't mean they're criminals. There's plenty of examples of similar crimes happening in blue states. It's a tactic used by abusive partners, when they've lost control and the children are their only way left of hurting the ex-wife. And it's horrible, but it's not a political issue. It's a domestic violence issue.

[wicket]

11. It happened just 2 days ago here in Massachusetts

See my post below.

[MedleyMisty]

8. Yeah, why does it have to be regional?

There are conservatives and liberals everywhere. I don't understand the idea of picking one person and saying that he or she represents every single person who lives in the same zip code, town, county, state, region, country, whatever. People are individuals, even ones who live relatively near each other. Really, they are.

I mean, I don't even know my neighbors, much less visit them every day to make sure that we've all dyed our skin and hair the same color and are using the same color of contact lens and have the same opinions and the same movies and music and books and go to the same events.

[Turbineguy]

9. I'm thinking along the lines

that in the U.S. we use the Courts to solve too many of our problems. Instead of helping this man cope with the situation, he is driven to conclude that this action is a reasonable solution.

The jails are filled with people who should be in treatment of some kind.

[wicket]

10. I'm a northern yankee

There are plenty of monsters around here. Like this guy for instance, who burned himself & his 2 children to death in their car in the parking lot of his estranged wife's work this week:

For reasons that may never be known, Hipolito Ortiz pulled his two young children out of day care yesterday, drove them to the nearby parking lot of the factory where their mother worked, and then doused himself, his children, and the car with a flammable liquid and set all ablaze, police say.

It was not until Springfield firefighters extinguished the flames that they saw all three bodies. The corpses were blackened beyond recognition, a gruesome apparent murder-suicide that left Springfield officials and rescue workers distraught and struggling for answers.

"All the officers involved and the firefighters involved and the crime scene technicians have all got some pictures in their head that nobody would want," said Springfield Police Commisisoner Edward A. Flynn. "It was a bad scene."

Killed in the blaze were Genesis Ortiz, 6, and her 2-year-old brother, Adrian Ortiz. Their mother, Mayra Rivera, 29, was so distraught at the news that she was taken by firefighters to the emergency room at Baystate Medical Center, where she was reported in stable condition.

[Porcupine]

12. The tragedy of men's emotional breakdowns......

runs across party lines. I think it runs across every cultural line there is in america.

Men are encouraged to put their families financial "needs" above every other aspect of their lives with the promised reward of a secure family life with a loving wife and children. When either the family life breaks apart or their job disapears they sometimes literally do not know who they are. They see themselves as ceasing to exist; a dead person in a living body. They do weird things.

We have absolutely ZERO mechanisms to help men in this situation short of locking them up. Unless the man is willing to claim he is suicidal or homicidal in thinking he will get NO help. Once he does admit this his job security or ability to retain visitation with his kids may be endangered. So the guys are squeezed into an emotional corner.

Most guys wiggle their way out of this corner and back into a normal life. It helps if they have friends or a new relationship. Some guys walk away from their families and divorce themselves emotionally from their kids. We attack these men and call them deadbeats. Some men kill themselves; some men kill their ex and kids.

Despite the endless number of repeats of this cycle the proposed solutions tend to fall along the lines of more law enforcement. How exactly law enforcement is going to defray a person who already thinks he is dead is beyond me.

My older brother killed himself last summer after he lost his house to a bad relationship and his job shortly thereafter. As far as he was concerned he had nothing to live for as he wasn't a cash producing homeowner; a deadbeat. He was a lifelong liberal and social activist.

[Marie26]

13. That's a great post

I'm very sorry about your brother. Counseling needs too be more available to people who need it, but I think it also needs to be more socially acceptable for men to seek help for emotional problems.

[Porcupine]

16. The career obsession of US culture is cancerous...

it literally threatens the entire planet. We give our kids the option of obsessive careerism or loserdom. People on the bottom, for whatever reason, have homelessness always looming over their heads.

We are in the process of killing over 600,000 Iraqi's in order to keep driving SUV's at 70+ mph. We can't get out of that war and our political leaders are talking about starting another. Meanwhile US citizens literally freeze to death in the streets.

I think we have a national death wish.

[wicket]

14. I'm so sorry for your loss

:hug:

[Porcupine]

17. Thanks, take care of your family.....

they are easier to talk to when they're alive.

[wicket]

18. Amen to that

We buried my 10 year old cousin last year, he was like a little brother to me. I still can barely talk about it, but am seeing a professional to deal with loss issues.

Peace be with you and your family.

:hug:

[Beelzebud]

15. Oh what a crock of shit....