Guns don't kill people, but maybe to be on the safe side you should try not to live too near Jeff Goldstein.
Brilliant work as usual, Roy. I have nothing clever to say. Everybody should read it for a real roundup of the crazy on this issue. it's truly disturbing.
Can't imagine what your VV comments section is going to look like once this gets linked. Lots of the "guns don't kill people and I will fucking shoot you in the face if you keep saying that" type I imagine.
I truly wonder how they'd react if the defenseless targets of a gun-wielding maniac were fully right-wing: a Vacation Bible School; a local Chamber of Commerce meeting; a talk-radio personality whose bodyguards were busy finding a rentboy. I mean after blaming union thuggery or liberal incivility or multiculturalism or immigrants. Would they call the victims martyrs for the cause of gun liberties? ("They would've wanted us to continue fighting for our freedoms.") Would they rush out and buy more guns to "defend themselves better"? (At least one trigger per finger just to be sure.) For once, their kind would actually be honest-to-God victims. Would it change their minds that guns do kill people?
I'm just incredibly depressed by the voice column this week. Normally I can laugh at these fools, but this is something else. it's pathological. they're sick, sick people who have lost touch with basic humanity.I despair they'll ever find it again. they aren't just douchebag bloggers and pundits. they influence relatives, friends. I had to unfollow like a dozen facebook and twitter friends because i just couldn't take it this time. In the face of horror, all they can see is their own penises being taken away.
I remember a talk radio host being assassinated, but sadly it was Alan Berg instead of someone who deserved it. Probably just made the wingnuts even more obnoxious afterwards.
Looks like the gun and ammo manufacturers finally found their ultimate consumer. In retrospect we were naive not to realize it was young schoolchildren. Unfortunately, that still could be overly optimistic. I mean, what's a gun lover to so after Newtown? How can the zealous weapons enthusiast top that? Might be time to lock down the maternity wards and those rooms where they keep newborns.
Well yeah. I was kind of afraid to read this VV column, because the enormity of this thing really hit me this morning when I was reading the names and the ages of the victims. And I'd like to think that even the most fanatical among us would take a few moments of silence before they made all this horrible noise to shut down the gun control debate. But of course they didn't. They only have one mode.
I find it difficult to read a lot of the VV columns. I mean, Roy's writing is great, but it's just... there's so much of the original crazy people talking in it, and that's not good for my blood pressure.
I'm just... I'm not even going to try, this time. I might simulate it by reading the comments here, and every so often saying "More guns!", "More Jesus!", and punching myself in the head.
reports are in that the shooter's mother was stockpiling guns because she felt the nation was going to collapse, and her son was homeschooled. So...... make of that what you will.
This triple-dipped idiot was parroting the party line on the Opinion page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday; i.e., guns don't kill people, loose morals do.
Proving, once again, that "An armed society is a polite society" is not the point with these people and their spittle-and gunpowder-flecked screaming.
He [ Reynolds] offered in support of his argument a quote from William Burroughs, who shot his wife to death while playing William Tell.
Wow, Glen pulled a real Goldberg there. But I guess this means the Right Wing Culture Brigade is finally going through their Beat phase. (No one tell him that Burroughs, Ginsburg and Kerouac were all gay, at least until one of them tries to use Howl as an argument against gay marriage).
"No God -- no teachings about right or wrong, and we end up with young people who have no fear of God or of violating His commands..."
For most humans, being revolted by senseless killing requires no effort or interference at all.
Try to explain intrinsic reward to an authoritarian religious fundamentalist. It doesn't put points on the scoreboard, doesn't move them up in the ranks to a higher perch, real or imagined, from which they can objectify and judge everyone "beneath them" in the games in their heads. They actually belief that they're using the same rules as their ineffable "God" to keep everybody's score. "God hates fags."
This photo got me. It's Adam Lanza pictured with his high school Technology Club. You can spot him immediately. He's the one who looks utterly lost, alienated (but from what?), and forlorn. (And he was. The Salon article describes him as completely friendless.) I'm sure that people who knew him even tangentially felt sorry for him, as I probably would have back then. But from every description, he is also the last kid on earth who should have a paranoid, gun nut mother who stockpiles military weaponry taking him to shooting ranges (and according to today's NY Times, living in an area filled with gun nuts just like Mom).
In all seriousness, Goldstein is a scary guy, and not in the way he'd like. He's obviously bright, but he's completely in thrall to his narcissistic delusion of being some kind of über-libertarian outlaw -- he signs his latest gun paean post molon labe -- and his nonsensical paranoia about pretty much everything. (Were it not for the latter, you'd expect him to eventually have a John Cole/Charles Johnson-style epiphany and wake up with one helluva wingnut hangover.) When he decided to become a gun nut to "protect" his family, he didn't just get a pistol for the nightstand, he went Full Metal Jackoff, arming himself and the missus with high-velocity tactical weaponry, scopes, lasers and other dress-ups for these ultimate military action dolls, taking the whole family to the shooting range, and engaging in the endless comparative velocity/kill power discussions of his weapon choices that come with membership in the Fantasy Nutball League.
Here's hoping that Goldstein's name doesn't appear in accounts of the next Colorado massacre, or that after years of soaking in Dad's looniness, Junior doesn't join the Technology Club for some sane human contact.
And so it has ever been with these people. There is nothing, literally no even so horrific, as to make them pause and rethink. Like tax cuts for the wealthy and making the poor suffer, the solutions to the problems never change no matter what the problems might be. So, the answer to senseless gun violence MUST be more guns.
Over at the VV, Joanofargghh helpfully informs us that "The ONLY thing that MURDERS people is intent." Thanks for that Argghh, but of course, intent has a much easier time of it if it's backed up by serious firepower. Unfortunately, the gun nuts will be more likely to stigmatize people with Asbergers than they will guns.
Cars can kill people too. Especially top super cars and strange vehicles. We can't ban all cars, but I think it's time we banned the concealable ones. Even those small enough to drive through schoolhouse doors.
Say what you will about homeschooling, but if your child is taught at home, he's not going to be shot there by some disgruntled school employee, student, or parent.
If one is under the age of twelve, the people most likely to murder you are...wait for it...your own parents.
I've been giving some thought to memorizing a few of the names of the victims, so I can pipe up the next time some asshat uses the phrase died for out freedoms. Or would that be politicizing the issue?
I think the lectures would be along the lines of people who don't own guns are the real issue, e.g., if all the little children and the teachers had guns this wouldn't have happened. I believe there was a recent bill introduced in Vermont(?) that non-gun owners should pay a fee/tax because they're the ones who need extra protection from the police.
You ever get depressed when you see that yet another artist or other person that you've admired has died and you start thinking about all the talentless hacks that are still breathing? Multiply that by about 100 and you get my mood after seeing a photo montage that someone posted to Facebook of the kids who were killed and then seeing the logorrhea of the likes of Vox Day... and Mike Fucking Huckabee, whom the GOP voters of several states in the 2008 primary thought should be president.
i worked a campaign earlier this year where gun control ended up being an issue - one manufactured entirely by a deep-pocketed local group which prides itself on saying that the nra is too liberal.
it was one of the most maddening, least rewarding things i've ever done, and i heard from way too many people doing their very best to fit the stereotype of a paranoid, rural gun enthusiast. i tremble when i consider our collective ability to continue shitting this particular part of the bed.
I despair: I think that if we were, collectively, the sort of people who believed that we could have reasonable gun control laws and still be free, we wouldn't need them.
Regarding Mike Fucking Huckabee: There was a school shooting in Arkansas while he was governor, so apparently God wasn't appeased by having a huckster former Baptist minister in the Governor's Mansion at the time. Surprisingly, at the time Huckabee didn't respond with an "I told you so" as he has in this case - probably due to the certain knowledge that such a statement would practically guarantee loss of his position in the next election.
No, what he did instead was rush into print a book capitalizing on the tragedy. Kids Who Kill was published mere months after the young victims and their teachers were laid to rest. On the cover, Huckabee prominently pimped his office, knowing that it would pump up book sales. When asked if he planned to donate the proceeds from sale of the book to the victims' fund, he became petulant, accusing those asking of attacking him politically, and then said that he was going to keep the profits for himself, because "I have kids I have to put through college." He not only didn't donate the proceeds, he didn't even donate a portion of the proceeds. One could surmise that the Westside Middle School massacre was a welcome event for him, heaven-sent, even, because thanks to his position as a "public servant," he profited tidily from the murder of those kids and teachers.
During the interval between the school shooting and the publication of his book, his son was kicked out of Boy Scouts for torturing and killing a stray dog. The sick joke making the rounds when he published his book was that it should have been titled When Kids Kill Dogs.
Next time you hear Huckabee open his trap about the causes of this type of tragedy, keep in mind that for him, these things are not unwelcome events, but merely another opportunity for profit.
It was both chilling and incredibly depressing when I realized that some people want to play real-life Cowboys and Indians so badly they will manufacture rebellious Native Americans--or a suitable dusky-skinned stand-in. Or did you think all the protestations over welfare, busing, and the like were about the money?
Knowing that there are people calling themselves "Americans" while deliberately trying to create a violent underclass against whom they can demonstrate their manliness.....stomach-turning doesn't begin to describe it.
Are you kidding? Kenneth Gladney was a martyr for skinning his knee. Breitbart was a martyr for exploding from his own mishegas. The question is how they'd respond if the schoolroom shot up contained one of their children.
my own experience was roundabout and weird, but at bottom it was illustrative of the problem of money in politics and the power it has has to sell the most irrational, baseless kinds of fear.
Oh, and then there's the heroic Steven Crowder, bravely standing up to union thugs in Michigan and getting punched. Except that a less heavily edited version of the video shows that Crowder pushed that union guy to the ground first, and then the guy came up swinging. Shorter Crowder: "Maaawm... he hit me back!!!".
No kidding, the only thing keeping that person from committing a similar crime is fear of God's punishment? No belief in intrinsic value of human life, or sense of justice, or love of fellow man, or anything?
Look at all the normal boys around him, they all have at least slight smiles on their faces, they're engaged with the camera, they all know what they're supposed to do. They are aware of each other, too, some even making physical contact, others leaning or standing inside others' "personal space." A brushed elbow or bumped shoulder wouldn't even register, much less cause any distress.
Meanwhile Adam is a staring, confused-looking rabbit. He looks like he doesn't have a clue about what to do, like he doesn't know what's normal behavior within a group getting a picture taken. His personal space is open all around. It's clear he either doesn't want to be accidentally touched or the others are actively avoiding touching him. Or both. The reports of autism spectrum difficulties make more sense to me now.
That hat. The SHIRT. Is it just 4 sizes too big? Or 6? It almost hangs to his knees. It looks like he's....HIDING.
If he had a goofy smile, red shirt and white pants, he'd look just like Gilligan. Guess he'd fit right in on the bizarro Gilligan's Island we were discussing in that other thread.
I actually met a woman who asked me, since I don't always believe in God, what stops me from killing people I don't like? I was astonished. Prison, I said, for starters, and there's no one I dislike enough to end their life and make miserable their entire circle of family and friends... I asked if there was anyone she disliked that much and she snorted, Of course! We all have those people in mind! She prides herself on being a church-goer and when she loses her keys around the house she sincerely credits an angel for helping her find them -- and so on. And she thinks she's a good person. But... she has a kill list? Eesh.
Ace of Spades is really breaking new land-speed records for stupidity and dishonesty. He says "in China, a man showed up with murderous intent and armed himself with just a knife. True, he didn't kill as many people as the gun-wielding maniac (or maniacs) in Connecticut did. I suppose that will be the lesson the left draws from this." Um, adoy, YES, that is a lesson EVERYONE can draw. Especially considering that not only did the Chinese attacker not kill "as many" people, he killed ZERO people. Jebus, can't these assholes just be honest for a minute? Their dishonesty approaches psychosis.
The kid on the left up front looks like my youngest brother back in the day. He'd have fit right in with a "Technology Club;" he's finishing his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering right now. I don't think he owns any guns.
Of course, another question to ponder here is how all of the usual rightwing suspects Roy read (so we don't have to) can justify their claims of being "pro-life" when they're advocating for ever-easier access to the tools of mass murder.
But I guess we must remember that for conservatives, life begins at conception and ends at birth, as Barney Frank noted.
Honestly, I surprised a rightblogger brought up the Bath School disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster) since, at least from the short summary, the perpetrator sounds like your standard cranky RW loon "going Galt".
I'm getting that lecture right now as I read the comments sections at CBS local site and other fantastical joints. The most persuasive comment posted there? "Libtards, try posting a Gun-Free Zone sign on your front lawn and see if you don't get robbed." Another commenter says he sprinkles used bullet casings around his mother's house as a warning. Oof, it really takes a certain mentality to imagine the world is full of people who are hellbent on taking your TV and only hesitate because they're afraid you might shoot them in the face.
I believe when they came for Jesus he made the disciples put down their knives, and healed the ear of the home-invading centurion. Is it wrong of me to assume a lot of these "castle law" types are big fans of the Jesus and the moral values he quite literally died for? How the hell they square that one?
No need to square anything--as Jesus' General said during the reign of Bush, conservatives simply rewrote the New Testament to eliminate all the wussy parts about healing the sick, helping the poor and so on. They managed to edit the entire thing down to Jesus hates gays and would have used an AK-47 to clear the temple of anyone NOT engaged in money changing.
Incoming from Jane Galt: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/newsweek-wins-worst-newtown-reaction-award.html
Well, at least it's not a Sensible Free Market position. I'm not sure they teach self-sacrifice of any kind at the U of C biz school, much less literally training yourself to be cannon fodder in the service of your fellow humans.
I'm sure McArdle will join you in your fatal rush towards an AR-15, provided she's not suffering from gastritis at the time.
I particularly like the menace inherent in the "everyone should be carrying" school. Everyone paranoid and afraid of the person next to them because they are potential threats to life and limb. You worry about speech, you worry about assembly, you worry about accidentally bumping into them. Add to that the revenge fantasies these assholes marinate in and we instantly become a nation of George Zimmermans, quick-triggered, self-important idiots just itching to do justice.
Perhaps instead of stocking up on weapons and leaving little anti-social warnings everywhere; they could invest in burglar bars, solid doors with deadbolts, and an alarm.
Religious authoritarians are genuinely mystified by the concept of having morals that AREN'T imposed by an external parent figure that dispenses punishment or reward. They cannot grasp this idea, and so the concept of an atheist alarms them, as without an authority they fear you snapping and killing people they way they dearly wish to daily.
or maybe they could actively work to make their communities better, more equal, and more just, instead of masturbating to shooting people in the face and sprinking mom's lawn with gun shells.
Worse--she thinks we ought to be training six-year-olds to do that. Oh, no, anything but regulate the actual source of the problem. That would be Statism....
But, let's put it this way--Tina Brown is way dumber than Goldberg and MeMeMeMeMeMeMegan put together, just for hiring her, if only because McArdle is going to cost her a lot of money, not to mention what little prestige Brown's outfit has left.
What is she saying? "There is nothing we can do about mass shootings like this, and since they are going to keep happening year after year, we need to train our kids to rush into the mouths of rapidly firing guns like some kind of re-enactment of Pickett's Charge?"
YOU do it, Meagre. I want to see you in the vanguard, waving your officer's sword and urging those six-year-olds "FORWARRRRRD!"
There aren't words bad enough for her. Cruel, deranged, witless.... none of them come up to the mark.
I've been waiting for one of them to demand that the parents of the dead children apologize for failing to home school, thus putting everyone's gun rights at risk. Y'know - like when the guy Cheney shot in the face apologized to Cheney for getting shot in the face. Guns don't kill people, people getting in the way of guns kill people.
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Guns don't kill people, but maybe to be on the safe side you should try not to live too near Jeff Goldstein.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant work as usual, Roy. I have nothing clever to say. Everybody should read it for a real roundup of the crazy on this issue. it's truly disturbing.
Can't imagine what your VV comments section is going to look like once this gets linked. Lots of the "guns don't kill people and I will fucking shoot you in the face if you keep saying that" type I imagine.
World Top Expensive Cars, Top Most Speed Cars, Top Super Cars and Strange Vehicles.
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I truly wonder how they'd react if the defenseless targets of a gun-wielding maniac were fully right-wing: a Vacation Bible School; a local Chamber of Commerce meeting; a talk-radio personality whose bodyguards were busy finding a rentboy. I mean after blaming union thuggery or liberal incivility or multiculturalism or immigrants. Would they call the victims martyrs for the cause of gun liberties? ("They would've wanted us to continue fighting for our freedoms.") Would they rush out and buy more guns to "defend themselves better"? (At least one trigger per finger just to be sure.) For once, their kind would actually be honest-to-God victims. Would it change their minds that guns do kill people?
ReplyDeleteI'm just incredibly depressed by the voice column this week. Normally I can laugh at these fools, but this is something else. it's pathological. they're sick, sick people who have lost touch with basic humanity.I despair they'll ever find it again. they aren't just douchebag bloggers and pundits. they influence relatives, friends. I had to unfollow like a dozen facebook and twitter friends because i just couldn't take it this time. In the face of horror, all they can see is their own penises being taken away.
ReplyDeleteI remember a talk radio host being assassinated, but sadly it was Alan Berg instead of someone who deserved it. Probably just made the wingnuts even more obnoxious afterwards.
ReplyDeleteLooks like the gun and ammo manufacturers finally found their ultimate consumer. In retrospect we were naive not to realize it was young schoolchildren. Unfortunately, that still could be overly optimistic. I mean, what's a gun lover to so after Newtown? How can the zealous weapons enthusiast top that? Might be time to lock down the maternity wards and those rooms where they keep newborns.
ReplyDeleteWell yeah. I was kind of afraid to read this VV column, because the enormity of this thing really hit me this morning when I was reading the names and the ages of the victims. And I'd like to think that even the most fanatical among us would take a few moments of silence before they made all this horrible noise to shut down the gun control debate. But of course they didn't. They only have one mode.
ReplyDelete"For once, act like human beings," lectured Clarice Feldman of American Thinker.
ReplyDelete"Pot meet kettle" doesn't even begin to cover it.
Boys' penis substitute toys trump kids' lives every time. What could they fantasize about if they didn't have their rods?
ReplyDeleteI find it difficult to read a lot of the VV columns. I mean, Roy's writing is great, but it's just... there's so much of the original crazy people talking in it, and that's not good for my blood pressure.
ReplyDeleteI'm just... I'm not even going to try, this time. I might simulate it by reading the comments here, and every so often saying "More guns!", "More Jesus!", and punching myself in the head.
reports are in that the shooter's mother was stockpiling guns because she felt the nation was going to collapse, and her son was homeschooled. So...... make of that what you will.
ReplyDeleteThis triple-dipped idiot was parroting the party line on the Opinion page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution yesterday; i.e., guns don't kill people, loose morals do.
ReplyDeleteProving, once again, that "An armed society is a polite society" is not the point with these people and their spittle-and gunpowder-flecked screaming.
Going to church didn't help Dr. George Tiller (but in their minds, he was a baby killer and so there, no backsies)
ReplyDeleteHe also went to a liberal church, so he deserved it. Just like the Unitarians and Sikhs.
ReplyDeletePaducah, KY high school prayer group in 1997 didn't slow them down a bit.
ReplyDeleteIt only happened because society excluded God from the homeschools.
ReplyDeleteHe [ Reynolds] offered in support of his argument a quote from William Burroughs, who shot his wife to death while playing William Tell.
ReplyDeleteWow, Glen pulled a real Goldberg there. But I guess this means the Right Wing Culture Brigade is finally going through their Beat phase. (No one tell him that Burroughs, Ginsburg and Kerouac were all gay, at least until one of them tries to use Howl as an argument against gay marriage).
Yeah, Roy, they do say anything but guns is the problem.
ReplyDeleteIn the meantime, we have twenty new frightfully young, tiny witnesses to what guns do in the hands of people just as insane as these miserable shits.
"No God -- no teachings about right or wrong, and we end up with young people who have no fear of God or of violating His commands..."
ReplyDeleteFor most humans, being revolted by senseless killing requires no effort or interference at all.
Try to explain intrinsic reward to an authoritarian religious fundamentalist. It doesn't put points on the scoreboard, doesn't move them up in the ranks to a higher perch, real or imagined, from which they can objectify and judge everyone "beneath them" in the games in their heads. They actually belief that they're using the same rules as their ineffable "God" to keep everybody's score. "God hates fags."
It's all so ill.
Guns don't kill people, people with guns kill people.
ReplyDeleteMore pathetic manhood substitutes for men who fear the opinions of others. How strangely appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThis photo got me. It's Adam Lanza pictured with his high school Technology Club. You can spot him immediately. He's the one who looks utterly lost, alienated (but from what?), and forlorn. (And he was. The Salon article describes him as completely friendless.) I'm sure that people who knew him even tangentially felt sorry for him, as I probably would have back then. But from every description, he is also the last kid on earth who should have a paranoid, gun nut mother who stockpiles military weaponry taking him to shooting ranges (and according to today's NY Times, living in an area filled with gun nuts just like Mom).
ReplyDeleteIn all seriousness, Goldstein is a scary guy, and not in the way he'd like. He's obviously bright, but he's completely in thrall to his narcissistic delusion of being some kind of über-libertarian outlaw -- he signs his latest gun paean post molon labe -- and his nonsensical paranoia about pretty much everything. (Were it not for the latter, you'd expect him to eventually have a John Cole/Charles Johnson-style epiphany and wake up with one helluva wingnut hangover.) When he decided to become a gun nut to "protect" his family, he didn't just get a pistol for the nightstand, he went Full Metal Jackoff, arming himself and the missus with high-velocity tactical weaponry, scopes, lasers and other dress-ups for these ultimate military action dolls, taking the whole family to the shooting range, and engaging in the endless comparative velocity/kill power discussions of his weapon choices that come with membership in the Fantasy Nutball League.
Here's hoping that Goldstein's name doesn't appear in accounts of the next Colorado massacre, or that after years of soaking in Dad's looniness, Junior doesn't join the Technology Club for some sane human contact.
A bloodbath at the NRA convention might give them pause.
ReplyDeleteHa ha, who am I kidding? They'd just declare it was because the NRA was such a bunch of libruls who needed to pack more guuuuns.
And so it has ever been with these people. There is nothing, literally no even so horrific, as to make them pause and rethink. Like tax cuts for the wealthy and making the poor suffer, the solutions to the problems never change no matter what the problems might be. So, the answer to senseless gun violence MUST be more guns.
ReplyDeleteOver at the VV, Joanofargghh helpfully informs us that "The ONLY thing that MURDERS people is intent." Thanks for that Argghh, but of course, intent has a much easier time of it if it's backed up by serious firepower. Unfortunately, the gun nuts will be more likely to stigmatize people with Asbergers than they will guns.
ReplyDeleteCars can kill people too. Especially top super cars and strange vehicles. We can't ban all cars, but I think it's time we banned the concealable ones. Even those small enough to drive through schoolhouse doors.
ReplyDeletei saw the least minds of my generation
ReplyDeletedestroyed by madness
sugar-high, hysterical, never nude
dragging themselves through the nro's comment section at dawn....
I was particularly taken by the Vox Day quote:
ReplyDeleteSay what you will about homeschooling, but if your child
is taught at home, he's not going to be shot there by some disgruntled
school employee, student, or parent.
If one is under the age of twelve, the people most likely to murder you are...wait for it...your own parents.
We'd get loud angry lectures on how the real issue is the murderous desire of liberals and therefore guns are not the issue, liberal people are.
ReplyDeleteI've been giving some thought to memorizing a few of the names of the victims, so I can pipe up the next time some asshat uses the phrase died for out freedoms. Or would that be politicizing the issue?
ReplyDeleteOf course it would. Asking someone to stop punching you is politicizing the assault.
ReplyDeletethe blame lies with glenn beck?
ReplyDeleteI think the lectures would be along the lines of people who don't own guns are the real issue, e.g., if all the little children and the teachers had guns this wouldn't have happened. I believe there was a recent bill introduced in Vermont(?) that non-gun owners should pay a fee/tax because they're the ones who need extra protection from the police.
ReplyDeleteYou ever get depressed when you see that yet another artist or other person that you've admired has died and you start thinking about all the talentless hacks that are still breathing? Multiply that by about 100 and you get my mood after seeing a photo montage that someone posted to Facebook of the kids who were killed and then seeing the logorrhea of the likes of Vox Day... and Mike Fucking Huckabee, whom the GOP voters of several states in the 2008 primary thought should be president.
ReplyDeletei worked a campaign earlier this year where gun control ended up being an issue - one manufactured entirely by a deep-pocketed local group which prides itself on saying that the nra is too liberal.
ReplyDeleteit was one of the most maddening, least rewarding things i've ever done, and i heard from way too many people doing their very best to fit the stereotype of a paranoid, rural gun enthusiast. i tremble when i consider our collective ability to continue shitting this particular part of the bed.
Sorry Roy; not clicking the link this time. I have no interest in what right wing assholes think about this. Fuck 'em.
ReplyDeleteHow about "watering the Tree of Liberty with the blood of six-year-olds who aren't my kids".
ReplyDeleteI despair: I think that if we were, collectively, the sort of people who believed that we could have reasonable gun control laws and still be free, we wouldn't need them.
ReplyDeleteAnd the son went to Catholic elementary school.
ReplyDelete"Sportsman of the Year"
ReplyDeleteRegarding Mike Fucking Huckabee: There was a school shooting in Arkansas while he was governor, so apparently God wasn't appeased by having a huckster former Baptist minister in the Governor's Mansion at the time. Surprisingly, at the time Huckabee didn't respond with an "I told you so" as he has in this case - probably due to the certain knowledge that such a statement would practically guarantee loss of his position in the next election.
ReplyDeleteNo, what he did instead was rush into print a book capitalizing on the tragedy. Kids Who Kill was published mere months after the young victims and their teachers were laid to rest. On the cover, Huckabee prominently pimped his office, knowing that it would pump up book sales. When asked if he planned to donate the proceeds from sale of the book to the victims' fund, he became petulant, accusing those asking of attacking him politically, and then said that he was going to keep the profits for himself, because "I have kids I have to put through college." He not only didn't donate the proceeds, he didn't even donate a portion of the proceeds. One could surmise that the Westside Middle School massacre was a welcome event for him, heaven-sent, even, because thanks to his position as a "public servant," he profited tidily from the murder of those kids and teachers.
During the interval between the school shooting and the publication of his book, his son was kicked out of Boy Scouts for torturing and killing a stray dog. The sick joke making the rounds when he published his book was that it should have been titled When Kids Kill Dogs.
Next time you hear Huckabee open his trap about the causes of this type of tragedy, keep in mind that for him, these things are not unwelcome events, but merely another opportunity for profit.
It was both chilling and incredibly depressing when I realized that some people want to play real-life Cowboys and Indians so badly they will manufacture rebellious Native Americans--or a suitable dusky-skinned stand-in. Or did you think all the protestations over welfare, busing, and the like were about the money?
ReplyDeleteKnowing that there are people calling themselves "Americans" while deliberately trying to create a violent underclass against whom they can demonstrate their manliness.....stomach-turning doesn't begin to describe it.
"Would they call the victims martyrs..."
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? Kenneth Gladney was a martyr for skinning his knee. Breitbart was a martyr for exploding from his own mishegas. The question is how they'd respond if the schoolroom shot up contained one of their children.
my own experience was roundabout and weird, but at bottom it was illustrative of the problem of money in politics and the power it has has to sell the most irrational, baseless kinds of fear.
ReplyDeleteOh, and then there's the heroic Steven Crowder, bravely standing up to union thugs in Michigan and getting punched. Except that a less heavily edited version of the video shows that Crowder pushed that union guy to the ground first, and then the guy came up swinging. Shorter Crowder: "Maaawm... he hit me back!!!".
ReplyDeleteYou gotta hand it to these spambots, they know where to go. When it saw "guns", it was either gonna try and pitch us cars or viagra.
ReplyDeleteNo kidding, the only thing keeping that person from committing a similar crime is fear of God's punishment? No belief in intrinsic value of human life, or sense of justice, or love of fellow man, or anything?
ReplyDeleteOmigaud, that kid is just...just....
ReplyDeleteLook at all the normal boys around him, they all have at least slight smiles on their faces, they're engaged with the camera, they all know what they're supposed to do. They are aware of each other, too, some even making physical contact, others leaning or standing inside others' "personal space." A brushed elbow or bumped shoulder wouldn't even register, much less cause any distress.
Meanwhile Adam is a staring, confused-looking rabbit. He looks like he doesn't have a clue about what to do, like he doesn't know what's normal behavior within a group getting a picture taken. His personal space is open all around. It's clear he either doesn't want to be accidentally touched or the others are actively avoiding touching him. Or both. The reports of autism spectrum difficulties make more sense to me now.
That hat. The SHIRT. Is it just 4 sizes too big? Or 6? It almost hangs to his knees. It looks like he's....HIDING.
If he had a goofy smile, red shirt and white pants, he'd look just like Gilligan. Guess he'd fit right in on the bizarro Gilligan's Island we were discussing in that other thread.
ReplyDeleteI actually met a woman who asked me, since I don't always believe in God, what stops me from killing people I don't like? I was astonished. Prison, I said, for starters, and there's no one I dislike enough to end their life and make miserable their entire circle of family and friends... I asked if there was anyone she disliked that much and she snorted, Of course! We all have those people in mind! She prides herself on being a church-goer and when she loses her keys around the house she sincerely credits an angel for helping her find them -- and so on. And she thinks she's a good person. But... she has a kill list? Eesh.
ReplyDeleteThis year we found out the Democrats can win without the KKK. Maybe in '14 we'll find we can win without the NRA.
ReplyDeleteAce of Spades is really breaking new land-speed records for stupidity and dishonesty. He says "in China, a man showed up with murderous intent and armed himself with just a knife. True, he didn't kill as many people as the gun-wielding maniac (or maniacs) in Connecticut did. I suppose that will be the lesson the left draws from this." Um, adoy, YES, that is a lesson EVERYONE can draw. Especially considering that not only did the Chinese attacker not kill "as many" people, he killed ZERO people. Jebus, can't these assholes just be honest for a minute? Their dishonesty approaches psychosis.
ReplyDeleteThe kid on the left up front looks like my youngest brother back in the day. He'd have fit right in with a "Technology Club;" he's finishing his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering right now. I don't think he owns any guns.
ReplyDeleteThrow in a few "you're not the boss of me's!" too.
ReplyDeleteRomero nailed it in "Dawn of the Dead" 35 years ago.
ReplyDeleteOf course, another question to ponder here is how all of the usual rightwing suspects Roy read (so we don't have to) can justify their claims of being "pro-life" when they're advocating for ever-easier access to the tools of mass murder.
ReplyDeleteBut I guess we must remember that for conservatives, life begins at conception and ends at birth, as Barney Frank noted.
Not a question worth pondering, Derelict. Consistency is anathema to these fuckwads.
ReplyDeleteHonestly, I surprised a rightblogger brought up the Bath School disaster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster) since, at least from the short summary, the perpetrator sounds like your standard cranky RW loon "going Galt".
ReplyDeleteUgh, formatting ate that link. Correct one:
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster
. . .keep in mind that for him, these things are not unwelcome events, but merely another opportunity for pardoning cop killers.
ReplyDeleteFixed.
Up next: rightbloggers proclaim the Newtown massacre proves the nation is collapsing, justifying mother's stockpile.
ReplyDeleteI'm getting that lecture right now as I read the comments sections at CBS local site and other fantastical joints. The most persuasive comment posted there? "Libtards, try posting a Gun-Free Zone sign on your front lawn and see if you don't get robbed." Another commenter says he sprinkles used bullet casings around his mother's house as a warning. Oof, it really takes a certain mentality to imagine the world is full of people who are hellbent on taking your TV and only hesitate because they're afraid you might shoot them in the face.
ReplyDeleteI believe when they came for Jesus he made the disciples put down their knives, and healed the ear of the home-invading centurion. Is it wrong of me to assume a lot of these "castle law" types are big fans of the Jesus and the moral values he quite literally died for? How the hell they square that one?
ReplyDeleteThe only thing worse than being gunned down by Crazy McCockslapper is having to listen to his pseudo-academic prattle beforehand.
ReplyDeleteNo need to square anything--as Jesus' General said during the reign of Bush, conservatives simply rewrote the New Testament to eliminate all the wussy parts about healing the sick, helping the poor and so on. They managed to edit the entire thing down to Jesus hates gays and would have used an AK-47 to clear the temple of anyone NOT engaged in money changing.
ReplyDeleteOh he'll kill again
ReplyDeletethat Gilligan
they he should of let him be
And like a postal clerk
I'll go beserk
if you don't stop teasing me
Yeah, Jeebus didn't do much to stop that guy, did He?
ReplyDeleteIncoming from Jane Galt: http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2012/12/newsweek-wins-worst-newtown-reaction-award.html
ReplyDeleteWell, at least it's not a Sensible Free Market position. I'm not sure they teach self-sacrifice of any kind at the U of C biz school, much less literally training yourself to be cannon fodder in the service of your fellow humans.
I'm sure McArdle will join you in your fatal rush towards an AR-15, provided she's not suffering from gastritis at the time.
I particularly like the menace inherent in the "everyone should be carrying" school. Everyone paranoid and afraid of the person next to them because they are potential threats to life and limb. You worry about speech, you worry about assembly, you worry about accidentally bumping into them. Add to that the revenge fantasies these assholes marinate in and we instantly become a nation of George Zimmermans, quick-triggered, self-important idiots just itching to do justice.
ReplyDeletePerhaps instead of stocking up on weapons and leaving little anti-social warnings everywhere; they could invest in burglar bars, solid doors with deadbolts, and an alarm.
ReplyDeleteReligious authoritarians are genuinely mystified by the concept of having morals that AREN'T imposed by an external parent figure that dispenses punishment or reward. They cannot grasp this idea, and so the concept of an atheist alarms them, as without an authority they fear you snapping and killing people they way they dearly wish to daily.
ReplyDeleteand the other doomsday preppers. Yes. Her apocalypse came a little early.
ReplyDeleteif i ever wanted - needed - a comment from aimai, this would be that thread.
ReplyDeleteJebus, McArdle says gang rush the shooter. She doesn't know if will work but it's better than having laws that the NRA will be cwoss about.
ReplyDeletehell, he's so long-winded, you might die of old age before he manfully shoots you
ReplyDeleteyou'd think Vox Day would know that, sine he has yet to turn 13
ReplyDeleteor tax cuts for the rich
ReplyDeleteRegulate semi-auto weapons just as tightly as full-auto weapons are regulated now.
ReplyDeleteor maybe they could actively work to make their communities better, more equal, and more just, instead of masturbating to shooting people in the face and sprinking mom's lawn with gun shells.
ReplyDeleteThat must be lots of fun when it's time to mow the lawn.
ReplyDeleteWhat a fucking disgusting excuse for a human being.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea, Megan. We should all run directly toward the psycho with a semi-automatic rifle. Yee-hah!
ReplyDeleteIf she was preparing for the end of the world, she succeeded.
ReplyDeleteWorse--she thinks we ought to be training six-year-olds to do that. Oh, no, anything but regulate the actual source of the problem. That would be Statism....
ReplyDeleteBut, let's put it this way--Tina Brown is way dumber than Goldberg and MeMeMeMeMeMeMegan put together, just for hiring her, if only because McArdle is going to cost her a lot of money, not to mention what little prestige Brown's outfit has left.
Best thing yet on right wing gibberish. Excellent work. But I feel glum and discouraged anyway.
ReplyDelete"Gang rush" the shooter? After you, Megan. After you.
ReplyDeleteThis woman is insane. IN. SANE.
ReplyDeleteWhat is she saying? "There is nothing we can do about mass shootings like this, and since they are going to keep happening year after year, we need to train our kids to rush into the mouths of rapidly firing guns like some kind of re-enactment of Pickett's Charge?"
YOU do it, Meagre. I want to see you in the vanguard, waving your officer's sword and urging those six-year-olds "FORWARRRRRD!"
There aren't words bad enough for her. Cruel, deranged, witless.... none of them come up to the mark.
Makes one wonder what her advice would be for kids exposed to the playground perv's flashing.
ReplyDeleteHow about exposure to environmental toxins? More DDT, kids! Sprinkle it right on your cornflakes!
ReplyDeleteGuns don't kill people; following Megan McArdle's advice kills people.
ReplyDeleteI've been waiting for one of them to demand that the parents of the dead children apologize for failing to home school, thus putting everyone's gun rights at risk. Y'know - like when the guy Cheney shot in the face apologized to Cheney for getting shot in the face. Guns don't kill people, people getting in the way of guns kill people.
ReplyDeletedex, I suspect she's too bummed out to comment, but I feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteJane Galt advises self-sacrifice! For other people.
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Yeah, but that doesn't count, because in Wingnutland your kids are your property, and you as paterfamilias get to dispose of them as you like.
ReplyDelete