Yes, that is what exactly what they will say, if they haven’t already.
As I just said to M. Simon in an email, I find the uproar over what happened yesterday so predictable that I can barely stand it. I have seen the same type of opportunistic demagoguery in reaction to every shooting incident — from Oswald to Sirhan to James Earl Ray to Columbine to David Purdy to whoever — right on down to the latest loony tune asshole.
I loathe having to listen to these reactions, much less write about them.
It makes me detest the human mind.
But unfortunately, because of the way the human mind works (and as Kathy reminded me in a comment last night), had exactly this same guy shot Sarah Palin, many conservative activists* would be screaming that he’s “on the left.” WRONG. He’s not on anything — especially his meds.
But we will be told we need new laws.
Sigh.
As today is Sunday, maybe I should just admit that what happened yesterday was all my fault and join in the traditional national mantra:
Ever since [Oswald], it’ it’s been the same mantra.
Which means I should confess.
I killed the kids at Columbine, and my collective guns regularly murder hundreds of children in Philadelphia. I have murdered millions of unborn babies. I tortured Iraqis at Abu Ghraib! I pulled the tube from Terri Schiavo! I also clubbed the baby seals, and probably helped Richard Speck murder all those nurses in Chicago in 1966.
(Oh, yeah, I also owned and transported lots of slaves. Lots and lots of genocide was committed by the “we.” I am therefore guilty as charged!)
OK? Now that I have confessed again, can I just go on with my life?
Or will more laws be needed again?
* Some of this takes the form of retaliation. “You said he was on the right, so we’ll say he was on the left!”
AFTERTHOUGHT: My biggest worry is that this incident will be used as a pretext to eliminate the last vestiges of privacy in medical records.
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7 responses to ““MORE LAWS ARE NEEDED!””
When I was a kid there was a comic called “There Oughta Be a Law”, a concept I disliked, even for a comic. Unfortunately the whole country seems to have taken that concept to heart.
Because I know you wouldn’t want a link to him, below are quotes from Andrew Sullivan’s latest attack on Sarah Palin and The Tea Party:
One of the constants in Sarah Palin’s worldview is violence. You see it in her reality show where most wildlife is immediately identified as a threat to be guarded against or killed. You see it in her inflammatory language, and the ways in which she corrals supporters to sometimes shockingly violent threats. You see it even in completely innocuous Facebook postings on sports.
. The entire psychological structure of the “Tea Party” is rooted in the theme of patriotic armed revolt against an illegitimate tyrant. Violence and the rhetoric of violence is embedded within it. When you do that, someone somewhere will take you seriously.
It would be easy to just call Sullivan a tool, but he has become much more than that. His willingness to demonize the right places him firmly in the leftist camp. He is now in the same league as Michael Moore and Reverend Wright, a propagandist using his considerable skills to support the left.
I’m searching for a metaphor to say that his ideas, his blog, and his appearances on national television should be opposed – a metaphor that encourages intellectual action without a hint of violence – and the only one that fits is: it’s now open season on the son of a bitch.
So Andrew, call me a purveyor of violence when you know damn well exactly what I mean, since it’s a metaphor and nothing else, jackass.
Andrew Sullivan’s blaming of Sarah Palin for the actions of this lunatic makes about as much sense as Loughner’s thoughts about the “grammar” and the “currency.” I think he may have gone from being a mere horse’s ass to an unhinged nut.
Sullivan’s actions only make sense if you look into the man’s possible motives. Here is an excerpt from Gonzalo Lira writing about Paul Krugman’s identical response to the Arizona tragedy. Substitute Sullivan for Krugman and you get the motive:
This is an important quality, that we must understand about Krugman (Sullivan): His cowardliness.
See, a brave man–or at least a non-coward can realize he is mistaken, stand up and say, “I was wrong.” A coward, of course, cannot.
Krugman (Sullivan) wrote in his blog post about the Arizona killings: “Violent acts are what happen when you create a climate of hate.”
Why do you think he wrote that?
The answer’s easy: Since Krugman (Sullivan) cannot defeat his opponents on an intellectual level–because his policy prescriptions are demonstrably wrong, and he lacks the courage to face facts and change his position–Krugman (Sullivan) labels anyone disagreeing with his policy prescriptions as “creating a climate of hate”: Therefore, he justifies their silencing, because these people who disagree with him might be “violent”, might be “dangerous”.
So be forewarned: Krugman’s (Sullivan’s) agenda is to identify those who have rational arguments that successfully question his ideology as people who “create a climate of hate”. His strategy is to have those who disagree with him be identified with violence–and thereby create the excuse to have those people silenced.
I would add that Andrew Sullivan knows that he is wrong, and continues to purposely smear his political opponents. This puts him in the same category as arch-propagandist Joseph Goebbels.
Gonzalo Lira is at: http://thehourlyg.blogspot.com/
As Andrew Sullivan has veered to the left the past few years, he’s had to accommodate the antisemitism that goes with it. If you’ve kept track, he has been increasingly critical of Israel. Everything they do is wrong, and the Palestinians are always the victims. And who has been an unwavering supporter of Israel? Sarah Palin. She even wears an Israeli flag pinned to her lapel. So this incident is ready made for him. He gets to trash Palin while appearing to support a Jewish congresswoman who was almost assassinated. How convenient, and how abysmally dishonest of this little Cousin Jack.
Don’t expect the left to back down. With bigots like Sullivan leading the way, with a President who sat for 20 years in the church of a Jew hating pastor in Chicago, and with a brain dead media taking cues from them, this episode won’t fade away soon. While they are out to discredit the Tea Party, they despise Sarah Palin and her support of Israel more.
had exactly this same guy shot Sarah Palin, many conservative activists*
I think you know better than that. If this nutcase shot Sarah Palin, it would trigger a month long block party on the left. “Jared” would be the obligatory name for male children among those urban cognoscenti having children, Loughner would be invited to speak at half the commencement ceremonies in the country, and Soros and other lefty philanthropists would be endowing Jarod Loughner Chairs of Advanced Political Studies and universities. Micheal Moore, Jane Fonda, Bill Ayers, and other luminaries of the lefty intelligentsia would be proclaiming him a new national hero and demanding his birthday be made a national holiday.
More propaganda from Sullivan today:
A survey of the bloggy scene suggests a rigid, uniform, passionate position that this assassination has nothing whatsoever to do with violent rhetoric and political polarization. It is as if some loony had just randomly shot some schoolkids or ran into a mall killing strangers. If you are looking for reflectiveness, you won’t find it, in what strikes me as an ominous sign of a right-wing movement more willing to see its opponents gunned down than ever engage in introspection.
Goebbels couldn’t have done better than this to inflame passions.