As a true child of the 1970s (cue fringed leather vest and tie-dye), I had scheduled a wine and cheese party in Cambridge for last night. This turned out to be about 12 hours after an angry Democrat (“passionate progressive”) shot Republicans on a baseball field in Virginia (Wikipedia).
About 90 percent of the guests were staunch Hillary supporters, a few having transferred their allegiance from Bernie. (How did we end up with 10 percent Deplorables/Libertarians? For example, a commercial pilot was invited and she lives on a steady Fox News diet while waiting with her jet at various FBOs.)
One theme of the party a “slide show” (another 1970s staple) from my recent trip to Russia. Before the show, the Hillary supporters expressed confidence that Russia is a completely dysfunctional society, except when it comes to nefarious plans to destabilize the U.S., at which time the same Russians develop superhuman capabilities. What about the fact that we have a member of one political party shooting at politicians from an opposing party? That’s one aberrant individual and doesn’t say anything about U.S. culture. (By contrast, if an individual does something bad in Russia or China, that is generally proof of a systemic problem.) [Did the pictures and narration change anyone’s mind? I don’t think so, but a few expressed interest in visiting Moscow and seeing for themselves.]
What about the shooting per se? One Democrat had posted “So much for ‘there’s no crying in baseball’.” on Facebook shortly after the shooting. This had earned some “likes” and “smiley/laugh” emojis. Previously, many of the party attendees had agreed with an outlook in which Republicans were responsible for (1) destroying Planet Earth, and (2) between now and when the surface of Planet Earth bursts into flames, making the U.S. unlivable for women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA. Republicans were killing Americans on a daily basis by trying to slow the growth in health care spending (we’re at 18 percent of GDP, compared to 4.5 percent in Singapore, so obviously they haven’t been very effective!). Trump was Hilter reincarnated , except actually worse than Hitler because Trump had admitted to sexually assaulting helpless women, and, when done grabbing pussies, he would soon grab dictatorial powers. Most had posted on Facebook or “liked” expressions of variations of the above sentiments.
Quite a few of the Hillary supporters had actively “resisted” Trump and the Republicans by joining the Women’s March. So they heard Angela Davis call for “Resistance to the attacks on Muslims and on immigrants. … Resistance to state violence… Resistance on the ground” and Gloria Steinem mention that “collectively violence against females in the world has produced a world in which for the first time there are fewer females than males” (is this mostly because of sex-selective abortions? If so, why is Steinem also pro-abortion?). They heard Madonna talk about the “new age of tyranny,” that “The revolution starts here,” and that “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House…”.
Did any of the party-attendees draw a connection between talking about the need for a “revolution” and talking about the Republicans as running a “tyranny,” attacking citizens, attacking helpless immigrants, perpetrating violence against women, etc. and one of their fellow Democrats deciding to use a rifle rather than Facebook? Recall that Mao pointed out that “A revolution is not a dinner party, … A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.” If you alert 325 million people to the need to start a revolution against a tyranny, is it surprising that one would take action?
The answer turned out to be simple, for these Democrats. The only cause of the “passionate progressive” taking out a gun and shooting was the lack of appropriate laws against gun ownership by civilians.
Readers: What have you heard from Democrats? Has anyone said “Maybe comparing the Republicans to Nazis or demanding a ‘revolution’ wasn’t such a great idea after all?”
[Separately, I’m concerned about the long-term effects of this shooting. We’ve been developing a society in which senior government officials occupy a separate plane of existence from citizens (And often, literally, a separate “plane”, e.g., James Comey, after being fired as FBI director, was traveling on a Gulfstream G550 (about twice the weight of the regional jet that I used to fly… carrying 50 taxpayers)). So laws, regulations, and economic decisions made by Congress and top Administration members may not affect those people in the same way that the affect an average citizen. If members of Congress need to be kept in a security bubble they will be even more out of touch with the problems of the typical American.]
Related:
- Antonio Garcia Martinez: “Schrodinger’s shooter: simultaneously representative of all gun owners, but not representative at all of rabid anti-Trumpers.”
Angela Davis: responsible gun owner (a big part of the reason why we have metal detectors in front of every courthouse)
Simply, the donkey is going to win & it’s going to be by the bullet. Democrats don’t talk anymore of gun control. This is a revolution, people.
Even though the shooter was a “progressive” it’s still the right wing’s fault for creating a “climate of hate”, just like it was in Dallas (even though Oswald was a Communist) and just like it was with Congressperson Giffords (even though the shooter was a nutjob). If Republicans didn’t do horrible horrible things like pussy-grabbing then leftists wouldn’t be pushed over the edge into madness. If there were only Democrats it would all be sweetness and light, just like the relationship between Clinton and Sanders.
That Democrat supporters have been doing things like holding up the severed head of Trump and depicting him as Julius Caesar getting stabbed in a bloody way is just theater and would in no way provoke anyone unhinged. “I hope you can let this go” is obstruction of justice but “Who will rid me of this troublesome Trump” is just a rhetorical question and not a request for volunteers.
If you belong to the Spin Of The Week Club you now know that Crazy People With Assault Weapons is not the problem — Criticizing Crazy People In The White House is the problem.
#4, progress: a politically active lefty declared crazy. Free discussion reveals the truth.
Grab em by the pussy!
It’s time for truly responsible gun control: take guns away from all Democrats.
Gun violence in the US would drop by 90% overnight.
Gee, so much there is hard to believe. It’s hard to know where to begin.
(How did we end up with 10 percent Deplorables/Libertarians? For example, a commercial pilot was invited and she lives on a steady Fox News diet while waiting with her jet at various FBOs.)
Deplorable means recist and/or homophobic and/or anti-Semitic, etc. Which kinds of deplorables were present?
(By contrast, if an individual does something bad in Russia or China, that is generally proof of a systemic problem.)
This reminds of the fact that half the country would ascribe the event to pernicious Islam if the shooter had been Muslim. Meanwhile, we haven’t been told what religion the guy was. It’s that darn PC SJW MSM.
Republicans were killing Americans on a daily basis by trying to slow the growth in health care spending
Actually, Obamacare (bitterly opposed by the GOP) may have succeeded in slowing the growth of health care spending.
http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-obamacare-succeeding-20160621-snap-story.html
Madonna talk about the “new age of tyranny,” that “The revolution starts here,” and that “I have thought an awful lot of blowing up the White House…”.
It seems unlikely that a 66-year old guy from Illinois would see Madonna as a role model.
Trump was Hilter reincarnated , except actually worse than Hitler
It also seem highly unlikely that any of your guests hold this view.
Recall that Mao pointed out that “A revolution is not a dinner party, … A revolution is an insurrection, an act of violence by which one class overthrows another.”
I also doubt that more than a few percent of the American population is familiar with that quote. Furthermore, the word is frequently used in the English language in a way that does not imply violence. There was the sexual revolution back in the ’60s, for example.
The answer turned out to be simple, for these Democrats. The only cause of the “passionate progressive” taking out a gun and shooting was the lack of appropriate laws against gun ownership by civilians.
It doesn’t make sense logically so say that the lack of laws caused the guy to go and shoot people. A third or maybe even half the country has guns at home. Very few of them go around shooting baseball games. However, if such laws existed, the number of such shootings could be dramatically reduced. You just have to look up gun crime statistics in countries that we typically compare ourselves to – Canada, Britain, Germany, etc.
The problem is there so many guns floating around the country. It would be quite the challenge to confiscate them all at this point.
Sounds like you need a new set of friends.
i’d like to congratulate vince on missing the point.
no one thing triggered hodgkinson. it was the fact that the most pro-trump major media outlet, fox news, is 52% negative about trump (the rest are between 70-98% according to mit).
it’s the fact that non-news media are constantly saying “the gop wants to kill people with their healthcare bill.”
it’s saying that “””islamophobic””” language causes terrorism
it’s saying it’s ok to punch a nazi. who’s a nazi? orange hitler and his supporters led by the gop. after all, if someone is a member of the new nazi party (gop), wouldn’t you kill them if you had the chance?
“who’s a nazi?”
Parenthetically, I am wondering why Yale University does not offer “Nazism and Cultural Theory” course while providing education on Marxism and Marxist cultural theory (
http://whc.yale.edu/marxism-and-cultural-theory). One could also get a minor degree in “Marxist Studies” at UMN or UCR (http://catalog.ucr.edu/2003-04/mxst.html). Why not in “Nazis Studies” ?
Is it because the nazi ideology is responsible only for 20 million dead while the marxist ideology implementers managed to kill off close to 100 million (Russia and China combined) ? Not counting peanuts like Cambodia where Khmer Rouge managed to eliminate 50% of its population, an achievement on par with those of Gengiz Khan.
Al: “new set of friends” in Massachusetts = new set of Hillary supporters!
Update from today’s Facebook feed: “Why DO men harass women? Who knows. I mean, I guess I should care about their “reasons,” but honestly it just makes me wish all women would start carrying shivs. When I recall the various times this has happened to me (some were pretty much exactly as described in the first paragraph here), and when I recall watching it be done to other women and girls, I literally want stab someone.” (over a link to http://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/06/15/532977361/why-do-men-harass-women-new-study-sheds-light-on-motivations )
The author of the above is a tenured professor at a $70,000/year university.
Ivan #11:
Nazism killed well over 20 million and managed it in brief 12 years of power in one not very large country. Communism ruled for 70 years on most of Eurasia and some other countries. Nazism was just getting started. But I read Yale’s professor book that was someone sympathetic to ‘plight of nazis’ by relating half-truths and sometimes lies on historic background of event leading to WWII. So maybe Yale likes Nazism too.
dean:
Right wrt 70yrs, but if you look at the Great Leap Forward Famine alone, the Chinese communists managed to exterminate about 35 million people in just 3 years ! (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jan/01/china-great-famine-book-tombstone“https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine)
Clearly, marxist bloodthirsty cannibals were more efficient in mass murder area than their nazi counterparts. Is that why marxists of various shades enjoy so much respect in the academia ? I mean Varoufakis calls himself an “erratic Marxist”, UMN/UCR awards marxist study degrees, and calling yourself a marxist in a polite society seems to be OK. Would Varoufakis be as welcome in his economic mileux if he called himself an “erratic Nazi” ? I do not think so.
Vince: “Deplorable means recist and/or homophobic and/or anti-Semitic, etc. Which kinds of deplorables were present?” Under the theory that “If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem [or precipitate, as they used to say at MIT]” I think it is fair to call anyone who didn’t canvas for Hillary in the swing states a “Deplorable.”
“It seems unlikely that a 66-year old guy from Illinois would see Madonna as a role model.” Madonna is 58, according to The Google. So she’s actually perfect.
“I also doubt that more than a few percent of the American population is familiar with that quote. Furthermore, the word is frequently used in the English language in a way that does not imply violence. There was the sexual revolution back in the ’60s, for example.” The sexual revolution resulted in a tremendous amount of damage to American children. Adults whose first priority was having sex with multiple adult partners (and who therefore availed themselves of the no-fault divorce option, which in some cases also got them streams of cash from multiple sex partners) turned out not to be effective parents on average.
“However, if such laws existed, the number of such shootings could be dramatically reduced. You just have to look up gun crime statistics in countries that we typically compare ourselves to – Canada, Britain, Germany, etc.” These countries can build infrastructure projects for 1/5th or 1/6th what it costs us (see http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/23/where-the-second-avenue-subway-went-wrong ). Why not start by importing their laws for building infrastructure projects and see if we can do what they do in this area where there is no Constitutional issue?
“The problem is there so many guns floating around the country. It would be quite the challenge to confiscate them all at this point.” And as a non-gun-owner I naively thought that it might be the Second Amendment that would be an obstacle!
Judgment on much of the violence of the nazis is contingent on the Suvorov theory. The soviets were in fact massing for invasion, and this is why barbarossa went so well at first. An invasion posture is not defensible.
I have no idea if the suvorov stuff is true or not, but it if is the NSDAP saved france and the rest of western europe from soviet occupation.
bobbybobbob:
The “Icebreaker” is as silly an attempt at WWII revision as for example the claim that FDR knew beforehand about the imminent Perl Harbor attack and did nothing: https://www.antiwar.com/rep/flynn1.html
Maybe even sillier. David Glantz in “Stumbling Colossus: The Red Army on the Eve of World War” has a pretty good criticism of that theory. Nazi apologists in Germany like the book for obvious reasons.