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U.S. News: Obama-Kelley Meeting
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The SPLC: Big Bucks, the FRC, and Jimmy Carter
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Mark Levin Talks to the NRA
May 7, 2013 | 0 comments
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POLITICO: RUSH LIMBAUGH MAY PART WITH CUMULUS
May 5, 2013 | 13 comments
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The Problematic Frank Luntz’s Stockholm Syndrome
April 25, 2013 | 11 comments
The Spectacle Blog
The news out of Colorado this morning is dreadful.
A lone gunman walked into a theater in a North Aurora multiplex around midnight, where the newest Batman movie was being shown. Like the villain in the movie, Bane, the man had on a gas mask. He also had a gun. Opening up on the packed theater he has, as this is written, killed 14 people (updated from 12 by a just-in newscast) and wounded 50 others, according to news reports.
One hates to say this, but we have been here before — several times. As a kid I remember the horror of Charles Whitman, the University of Texas student who, on August 1, 1966, climbed to the clock tower of the university with a rifle and proceeded, sniper style, to kill 16 of his fellow students on the campus below before being taken out by police. Thirty-two others were wounded.
This followed by 17 days another mass murder, this one committed in Chicago by one Richard Speck. On July 14, 1966, Speck invaded a nurses dormitory wielding a knife, torturing, raping and finally murdering 8 young women in a scene of bloody carnage. Speck was captured and spent the rest of his life in prison, dying 25 years later in 1991.
What is about to happen for today and the next several days is now a well-worn pattern.
The President will speak (in this case, President Obama is now set to speak at 11:20 this morning). The left will seek to make an issue of this, as they did most recently with the shooting by a disturbed loner of then-Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords. There will be the usual shrieking about gun control. There will be mind-numbing discussions of whatever violence is in the Batman movie and isn’t our culture all to blame. Some conservative somewhere will be targeted for doing something if this guy has ever watched Fox, belonged to the NRA, listened to talk radio or picked up a book by Ayn Rand. And, of course, the 24-year old man who committed this latest act of horror — not all that far from the scene of the 1999 Columbine shootings where two high school kids killed 12 of their classmates and a teacher — will be psychoanalyzed to a fare thee well.
But the fact of the matter is, just as with the mass murders at the University of Texas and in that Chicago nurses dorm in 1966 (when, by the way, liberal Democrat Lyndon Johnson was in the White House) as with the 1999 Columbine murders during the Clinton presidency — the only person to blame is… the killer. Not the President. Not Romney. Not anybody else anywhere else but the guy who pulled the trigger. (Recall — after Oklahoma City Bill Clinton sought to blame Rush Limbaugh.)
Doubtless this tragedy will derail the presidential campaign from the news for a bit.
But in fact, in one sense it is entirely relevant.
Whomever this 24-year old triggerman turns out to be, whatever his motive, no matter what he has ever read or listened to or watched on TV or in the movies, he will in fact be the person responsible.
And in the endless rounds of discussion to be launched, discussing the failure of utopian sentiments and the need to restore personal responsibility should get some focus.
The time to make the doer of the deed responsible is here.
President Obama is caught in a political storm right this minute for trying to say of small business owners that “you didn’t build that, somebody else made that happen.” That is the anti-capitalist version of the argument the left has tried to make of tragic, murderous moments like the one today. The killer never bears 100% responsibility. Tim McVeigh didn’t blow up that federal building in Oklahoma, it was Rush Limbaugh. It was conservatives who shot Gabby Gifford, not the nut who pulled the trigger.
There was no Fox News in 1966, no talk radio, and no one blamed LBJ for Charles Whitman or Richard Speck. The persons to blame then — and now after all these decades — were Charles Whitman and Richard Speck.
What is relevant here is that part of what will be the usual blame-game is the issue of personal responsibility. The hard fact that liberalism and its fantasies notwithstanding, there is no such thing as Utopia. (Or Ameritopia, as Mark Levin has well documented in his bestseller.)
Human beings are imperfect by definition, the perfect society therefore by definition unachievable. There is, sadly, nothing that can ever be done to eliminate the possibility that a Charles Whitman or Richard Speck, or a Tim McVeigh of that Oklahoma City bombing infamy, or those two high school kids at Columbine will strike again. Herbert Hoover had nothing to do with the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. The reason the President of the United States — this one or any other — needs all that Secret Service protection is because there are now and always will be nuts out there, from Booth to Oswald and Hinckley.
Make book on it. As life moves on, something like this Colorado tragedy will happen again in some form or fashion.
Why? Because, tragically, the world is filled with imperfection — and always will be.
And to look at anyone else than the perpetrator on whom to pin responsibility for these shootings is to make the biggest human mistake of all.
Blaming somebody else.
Bob K| 7.20.12 @ 10:13AM
You forgot the Virginia Tech shooting.
PhilTheCapitalistPig| 7.20.12 @ 10:22AM
Bravo. Now THAT's perspective.
C. Vernon Crisler | 7.20.12 @ 10:23AM
Don't forget Paul Thugman. He'll viciously blame it on Republicans for creating a climate of viciousness..
Occam's Tool| 7.20.12 @ 5:23PM
Whitman had a brain tumor and was seeking psychiatric help. He is actually sad and tragic, not to be compared to some of these clowns.
RAM| 7.20.12 @ 10:23AM
When the media get hold of a domestic terrorist story they first assess how effectively they can pin it on their political/social opponents. If they decide that the terrorist is part of a group they love, the terrorist's affiliations are suppressed. If they decide that the terrorist is, or can be made out as, part of a group they hate, that becomes their endlessly repeated story.
Bob Grant| 7.20.12 @ 10:24AM
Eloquent as always.
I see the Mainstream Media didn't waste time showing their eagerness to politicize this tragedy.
If you didn't see or haven't read the dialog this morning between George Stephanapoulis and Brian Ross, it completely backs up your argument.
Complete irresponsibility from two alleged "professionals".
I would say they should be ashamed but I would be wasting my time.
Oldefarte| 7.20.12 @ 10:55AM
Jeffrey, I religiously read your every editorial and I thank you profusely for same, but with all due respect, you are incorrect IMHO. Of course the trigger man-perpetrator is responsible ultimately, but not initially or totally. Who is? Society in general, which has morphed from my innocence growing up in a small southern town in the '50's-60's, with its heroes wearing white hats, arresting the bad guys and singing cowboy songs at the end. Now Hollywood composed of liberal, domestic terrorists, radical extremists, nut jobs are so-called '''''creating'''''this filth, garbage, excrement on a daily 24-7 basis and infiltrating same into our TVs and movie theatres to indoctrinate/brainwash our vernerable children and their dumbars so-called parents that follow them into same locations ''''''stupidly'''''. WAKE UP, AMERICA! The Dark Knight? Is he the same one that creats this filth for propaganda purposes, that teaches-brainwashes our children in schools/colleges, that was elected on 11/4/08, that are within the halls of congress and refusing to lower the welfaric cost of government, that incites racial protests within Florica streets etc over a neighborhood confrontation, etc???????????????????????????
C'mon Man!| 7.20.12 @ 11:14AM
The way of the left - blame someone else for problems, take full credit for successes that belong to others.
And, distort all the facts along the way. Sad there are so many fools who believe them.
darcy| 7.20.12 @ 12:01PM
How about this: We return the Ten Commandments to our schools. Thou shalt not kill -- and learn what it means! That includes the demeaning of life through state-sanctioned unborn-child murder.
Ah, but a decent nation with a God-inspired respect for human life would too easily thwart the Progressive Project. Oh no, we mustn't endanger that.
Native American| 7.20.12 @ 1:39PM
Darcy,
Even back in the day, when those commandments were written, they really didn't work too well for the tribesmen that preached them.
Instead teach your children, take responsibility for your own life, and be the best possible person you can be. No golden carrot should ever be required to just be a decent human being.
Oldefarte| 7.20.12 @ 2:15PM
Wrong! They worked THEN and they worked until the radical-liberal left began their war on religion and morality, all for their own selfish political purposes. They worked in my day, when parents [not Steve and Steve either] took their children to church and tuaght them the moral way of the commandments [which as Natural Law were the basis for Man's Law, ie THOU SHALT NOT KILL = laws against MURDER]. No they worked until the liberal monkeys prevented their universal application, and then we got the COLORADOS occurring!!!!!!!
Native American| 7.20.12 @ 2:56PM
Most of what you have posted concerning this subject has been incorrect and downright offensive.
You are refusing to see the forest for the trees. Bad people have always been, they will always be, and capital letters or exclamation points will not make anyone with a brain believe that back in your day the world was full of sunshine and lollipops.
As for your bible, I do not believe that you would want to go into a religious discussion on this forum with me. As a matter of fact, being that I have read your book, along with the other books of major and minor religions in our history, I am positive that our discussion will end up with me further angering and inciting you.
Thou shalt not kill...unless it is against the Egyptians, witches, pagans, other tribesmen, during wartime, or a women you deem to be of an adulterous nature.
Let's not even bring up that television, video games, the internet, cable not being around back in your day, still produced vile humans that murdered, raped, and buried people in their crawlspaces.
No, Oldefart, let's not bring up that Christian men came from the old country and slaughtered this nations first people, or that Palestine and Israel (the good books favorite children) have never stopped killing each other, or that god fearing Christians have murdered many of innocent people for just about a 2,000 years.
Is there anything else you would like to discuss concerning how wonderful your people have followed your own rules?
Nick| 7.20.12 @ 4:03PM
Native American,
Hey, I'm a native American, too. I was born in Michigan.
While I agree with your main point that evil people have, and will, always be with us (read about the Bath School Massacre, here: http://www.trutv.com/library/c.....dex_1.html ), your understanding of the Bible (even if you have read it) and American history is severely lacking, I'm afraid.
Thou shalt not kill is a translation of Hebrew. Since, you listed some of the requirements for the death penalty recorded in the Torah, it should have been obvious to you that the 5th Commandment is referring to the taking of innocent human life.
Now, "this nations [sic] first people", as you refer to them, were responsible for plenty of their own slaughtering. Against themselves, as well as Europeans. (Are you not aware of the tens-of-thousands of human sacrifices committed by the Aztecs and Mayans?) There was a very good reason that the colonists called them savages.
We could argue about who started it, but, that would be pointless.
The idea that just because someone refers to themselves as Christian, they no longer commit sinful acts, is deeply flawed. It is because we are sinners that we worship Christ. I recently read a comment, on another blog, which summed this up nicely:
The Church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints!
God Bless!
Oldefarte| 7.20.12 @ 5:03PM
THOU SHALT NOT KILL means what it says, and there are no exceptions. Don't go to your biased instances of groups favored by yourself. If you are in fact NATIVE AMERICAN as you insinuate, do you deny that they have KILLED the white settlers of frontier days? Ever heard of General George Custer etc perhaps [of course we could discuss those Indian reservations now that are allowed tax-free casinoes providing enormous wealth to their NATIVE AMERICAN inhabitants to the exclusion of everyone else due to reparations couldn't we]?????? Want to talk MURDER? How about the Egyptians that commandeered the airplances and incenerated by jet fuel 3000+ innocent office workers on 9/11/01? Or the Arab Muslims that attacked and murdered the USS Cole sailors [or who attacked the Bulgarian bus loaded with Israel citizens recently] who were attempting to rescue Arab countries from the enslavement under their brutal dictators [and who are currently doing so in Syria as well]? No take your """""WHITE MAN WITH FORKED TONGUE""""" bullexcrement elsewhere, since it's not applicable to this argument-discussion of the increasing violence within our UNITED STATES OF AMERICA [and not foreign countries]. Oh and if you don't like this country of those FORKED-TONGUE WHITE MEN, might I suggest you relocate to another country and relieve the rest of us taxpayers of the financial burden of your Indian reservation loss of revenue to governments??????
Occam's Tool| 7.20.12 @ 5:27PM
Native American:
Jewish ghettos in the Pale of Settlement of Orthodox Jews had an extraordinarily low rate of alcoholism, rape, murder, child abuse, spousal abuse.
The difference between them and us was in the Culture they lived in. And that difference was in the Scripture and the Ten Commandments and the other 603 commandments, that made up the 613 commandments, and 6+3+1 have a numerical value of 10.
They were not the Rez. They valued learning.
Occam's Tool| 7.20.12 @ 5:29PM
And by the way, Native: both my kids are Mayans, I have worked with the Maori in New zealand and I currently work with Ojibwe. Shut up, he explained.
SeattleBill| 7.20.12 @ 12:57PM
You mentioned that the shooter is 24 years old. That means 24 years ago, he was an infant, and not inclined at all toward killing innocent people. Sometime in the decades between, he became so inclined.
Examining how this occurred is quite different from trying to blame today's tragedy on anyone other than the shooter. The shooter is to blame, and there's no more ta say about that.
But what about trying to prevent this sort of thing from happening? Doesn't that involve examining how an infant becomes a mass murderer in less than 24 years?
You said we can never achieve perfection, and I believe that's true. Can we get closer to perfection? Don't we have a personal responsibility to try to do so? Isn't that the way to honor the victims of this tragedy?
Personal responsibility means much more than just not doing terrible things. We are all in this together, and we all have a personal responsibility to try to build a better future for human civilization. Sometimes, this means having to deal with people whose views you find repugnant, but there's a constructive way to do that, and it's important to do it.
Seeking out causes and factors, in order to try to prevent future tragedies, is very different from assigning blame. Do you really not see the difference?
C. Vernon Crisler | 7.20.12 @ 1:36PM
I had someone at work this morning claim that if we had more health care, this wouldn't have happened. I did manage to get her to admit that that there are evil people in this world, and that no amount of health care could prevent evil acts of this type.
Oldefarte| 7.20.12 @ 2:18PM
Of course personal responsibility is the ultimate cause, but societal influences are incidentally to blame also. Instead of church attendance and moral upbringing, we now have an assault upon religion and morality. The results are rapes, murders, etc. It ain't Rocket Science!!!!!!
Hoost| 7.20.12 @ 4:08PM
Amen Bill. Sitting back and blaming this stuff on a single individual's bad decision is just lazy. Sure, the media tends to point fingers if not only to stir up controversy and draw in more page views and more ratings, but that doesn't mean causes and factors don't exist and that there's nothing wrong in our culture/society that we can endeavor to improve.
When I see things like a young kid on youtube playing a video game where he's some kind of dark lord and he's fighting a woman and then casually comments, "yeah, I raped that b**** cuz I'm a badass," and he's totally cool sharing that with the entire world I am shocked. My grandparents probably wouldn't even believe me if I told them stuff like that was commonplace. Maybe people think that's just our imperfect world in action, but I think the commonality of that type of despicable behavior among younger and younger age groups shows a specific kind of sociological degradation within a specific demographic. Is someone in particular, let's say video game makers, responsible for that degradation? No. Is it our responsibility to evaluate all the causes and factors involved and try to prevent it if it's damaging to our civilization? Yes.
Simon Templar| 7.20.12 @ 1:03PM
Once again, the real issue here is being lost in the blame game, defensiveness, and sidetracking issues.
The real issue here is the FACT that we now live in a society that has a state controlled media that is controlled and run by a Left progressive and statist elite that will lie, distort, smear, and libel anyone with complete impunity and arrogance. They dictate what is politically correct and what is not and misrepresent anything and everything they deem a threat to their agenda whether it is the political affiliation and motivation of a crazed killer or a citizen who defends himself in an attack on a routine neighborhood watch.
Perversion is promoted and celebrated while traditional values and patriotism is presented as offensive. The world is indeed filled with violence, senselessness, and tragedy and will always contain it even in a free and prosperous society as ours. The real evil here is the fact that we have a political faction and a colluding media establishment that will use these events to destroy our freedoms and destroy those that challenge and resist them.
Conservatives should not let them get away with the slander of the Tea Party nor the falsehoods that somehow conservative talk or talk shows have something to do with this event.
darcy| 7.20.12 @ 1:58PM
"[A]nd patriotism is presented as offensive." If that were all, it would be bad enough. But we have our own DHS secretary penning reports declaring "liberty lovers" as terrorists.
Simon Templar| 7.20.12 @ 4:21PM
You make my point, thank you, darcy! I am sure we can come up with dozens of more examples of just how the Left has turned the "culture" and society inside out, upside down.
Kingofthenet| 7.20.12 @ 1:08PM
The problem with the answer to the problem of a an 'EVIL' man with a gun is a 'Good' man with one, is YESTERDAY this guy was considered the 'Good' guy, he did nothing wrong. The problem REALLY is 1% of the population has serious undiagnosed mental illnesses, they get a gun today LEGALLY, lose their job tomorrow, kill their family the next day.Replace lose their job with have a Alcohol or Drug Problem, find their spouse cheating etc. First thing we need to ban is 'Assault Weapons' with High capacity clips. Why does ANYONE need one of those?
Native American| 7.20.12 @ 2:02PM
So your argument is really about banning assault weapons? And by high capacity clips, I'm assuming you mean semi automatic guns as well, correct?
Suppose this happens, do you forsee a perfect future without any incidents of violence since guns were the root of all evil? In your perfect world how would you stop a mentally ill person from picking up a bat, heading to a rest home and bashing elderly peoples heads in? Or another mentally ill person targeting a group of children only to choke them and bury them under his crawl space. Will you ban bats? Will you determine that hands are evil?
It is not the weapon that makes a man evil, it is what he does that makes him evil.
Ban guns all you want, those filled with hate, rage, jealousy and evil will still find ways to kill. I would rather have a gun and not need it, than to need one and not have one. Just in case your perfect utopia doesn't work and I can't get to my bow and arrow fast enough to protect my family from an 'innocent' thief with a 'guilty' knife.
AllAmericanAmerican| 7.20.12 @ 3:47PM
Doncha know, there were no murders or wars until guns were invented.
Nick| 7.20.12 @ 2:41PM
"The problem REALLY is 1% of the population has serious undiagnosed mental illnesses [...]." - KooK of the Net
No, the problem is that you don't realize that you are part of the that 1%, KooK!
"First thing we need to ban is [sic] 'Assault Weapons' with High capacity clips. Why does ANYONE need one of those?"
You don't even know what kind of weapon this disgusting murderer used, you ignorant moron. When will you lefties learn that these massacres have nothing to do with the style of the gun, or, how many rounds the weapon's magazine can hold?
But, I do feel the same towards bleeding hearts, like yourself, KooK:
First thing we need to ban are 'Liberal Blowhards' with internet access.
Simon Templar| 7.20.12 @ 4:17PM
"First thing we need to ban are 'Liberal Blowhards' with internet access."
I second that motion! That was very funny, Nick!
Skippy| 7.20.12 @ 4:48PM
Anytime a suicidal liberal mentions "high capacity clips" it becomes obvious they are oblivious to the most basic things about firearms.
Tom Kyba| 7.20.12 @ 1:51PM
And soon Jeffrey, some leftist will state that the reason you are pushing the idea of personal responsibility, is to deflect the true blame which is the conservative NRA gun culture blah blah blah.
Count on it.
Native American| 7.20.12 @ 2:08PM
They already are.
Isaiah 43:10| 7.21.12 @ 2:20AM
The senseless taking of lives and death in general, has caused pain and suffering to many. In addition to the loss of a loved one, finding comfort concerning loved ones who have died has escaped many. However, many have found comfort in the pages of God's word the Bible (2 Corinthians 1:3, 4). In God's word we find Jesus' promise that we can be reunited with our loved ones (John 5:28, 29). We are told why there is so much senseless violence today (2 Timothy 3:1-5) and why we die (Romans 5:12). Death is an enemy of all mankind, and the God of the Bible who identifies himself as Jehovah (Psalm 83:18) will end death forever (1 Corinthians 15:26, Revelation 21:3, 4). In the model prayer, also called the lord's prayer, Jesus taught his listeners to pray for God's Kingdom (Matthew 6:10). Learning the truth about the God of the Bible (Psalm 83:18, Revelation 4:11), God's Kingdom (Daniel 2:44), and the condition of those who have died (Ecclesiastes 9:5), is the start to finding true comfort concerning loved ones who are sleeping in death due to acts of senseless violence or natural causes (John 8:32, John 11:11).
Thom| 7.21.12 @ 11:19AM
Questions that never get seriously asked about events like this….
Why don’t people like this attack Police Stations? We call them “nut cases” yet in every case they act rational in regard to the obvious answer to that question. Why did no one resist? The answer to that question should have profound legal and moral consequences for the owners of that movie chain.
What is fundamentally different between this event and a uniformed Muslim Army officer doing the exact same thing and killing even more people on a military post(not that that matters here)? Did the “soldiers” said Muslim Army officer killed and wounded resist, return fire? Why not?
We create “killing fields” throughout our society by fiat laws and then are shocked that “nut cases” will take advantage of them (and us).
I seem to remember that sentiment being at the center of Bateman Begins….
There will always be “nut cases”…..