Jon Stewart struggled admirably with the funny on Monday's 'Daily Show': VIDEO

One of my biggest problems with this argument is that everyone is either “He’s just crazy” or “The conservatives’ rhetoric (specifically Palin’s) pushed him to it.” The issue is not black and white and these are not the only two options. Yes, he was certainly mentally ill, but that does not mean the violent rhetoric used on all sides in the political arena did not have an influence and, therefore, should not rethink their violent rhetoric. He may have been “crazy”, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t impacted by the world around him (in fact, mental illness can be caused by a variety of biological *and* environmental factors). Let’s not dismiss him as a lunatic and think that means we don’t have anything to learn from this. His actions weren’t unknowable, that’s dismissive and lazy rhetoric for claiming no one is responsible. As Stewart said, we live in a world full of complex relationships that may be difficult to grasp, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.

From the 1920s through the 1980s millions of people were murdered by Fascists espousing far right rhetoric, and communists espousing far left nonsense. Only a fool would fail to see the danger of tolerating government by radicalism. Please study the history of these insane events, feel the unbelievable pain and suffering caused. Then reflect. Is the US in danger of a working class left wing revolution?? Nonsense, we have little of a working class left. Our danger is from the right. Read about the Klu Klus Klan and what it accomplished in the 1920s and 30s. The Father Coughlin movement, McCarthyism in the late 40s and 50s. If a few voices from the left throw rocks at the Becks, Limbaughs, Palins, et al and get a bit of traction using the events of Arizona I’ll welcome it. The long history of black suppression, gay hating, women abusing, immigrant bashing, American exceptionalist jiingoism by the far right excuses for me some excess by the left. Give em hell Harry.

“Crazy”, “lunatic”, “psycho”, why do we always fail to see the reality of mental illness? The blame here falls on our society, a society that continues to ignore this devastating disease and how it affects it’s victims. Mental illness turns a good caring person into someone unrecognizable to their loved ones and shunned by society. This is a disease that time and time again takes the lives of innocent people through unexplainable violent acts. After every past horrific shooting the facts have come to light that the shooter was mentally ill. It is a devastating disease. Yet it is a DISEASE. In this age of advanced scientific medical knowledge, of well funded studies to find cures for our most life threatening diseases, we continue to ignore the most horribly destructive disease of all diseases: mental illness. John Stewart said, “wouldn’t it be a shame if we don’t take this opportunity to make sure that the world we are creating now won’t be shattered by another moment of lunacy.” If we want to stop moments of lunacy then we need to pay attention to mental illness and put as much effort into finding a cure for it as we do to other diseases such as cancer and aids. The shooter was a victim also. He and those he shot succumbed to the disease of mental illness. It’s as pure and simple as that. The reason this happened? A disease called mental illness did it. Cure this disease and there will be no more moments of lunancy.

THIS GUY IS GREAT,REAL HUMAN AND VERY FUNNY.

And I think you’ll find yourself even more impressed with Congresswoman Giffords and amazed at how much living some the deceased packed into lives that were cut way too short. And if there is real solace in this, I think it’s that for all the hyperbole and a vitriol that’s become a part of our political process, when the reality of that rhetoric, when actions match the disturbing nature of words, we haven’t lost our capacity to be horrified. And please, God, let us hope we never do. Let us hope we never become numb to what real horror, what the real blood of patriots looks like when it’s spilled. Maybe it helps us to remember to match our rhetoric with reality more often because the reality of dangerous rhetoric is I think, even those that speak
hyperbolically, I think all of them tonight would absolutely recoil and say, “Wow, you know, that is not the picture of what we were discussing, of what we were talking about.” And I have to remember that there’s a reality to that situation that we can’t approach verbally. Because someone or something will shatter our world again. And wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t take this opportunity and the loss of these incredible people and the pain that their loved ones are going through right now, wouldn’t it be a shame if we didn’t take that moment to make sure that the world that we are creating now, that will ultimately be shattered again by a moment of lunacy, wouldn’t it be a shame if that world wasn’t better than the one we previously lost? So how will we process tonight? Absolutely no idea.