Monday, January 10, 2011

6 Dead, 14 Wounded

And it looks to be the handiwork of yet another single nutjob looney-tune. I have so many things to say about this, but my first and foremost is that I feel the utmost sorrow for the families that lost loved ones in this senseless act. I cannot even imagine what the parents of that 9-year old girl are going through right now, and I fear mightily that the congresswoman having lived through being shot through the brain may not be a blessing, as I cannot imagine how she can ever have anything but a tortured, restricted existence that is a shadow of what her previous life was. I know that sounds harsh, but I can tell you right now that if I were in her position, having been shot through the brain and having the prospect of being a vegetable for the remainder of my natural existence – well, I’d rather be dead. The whole mess makes me sick to my stomach, and the fact that I am actively considering the fact that it might just be better for her to die than live with what will almost surely be total debilitation makes me even more sick – God damn reality, anyway.

I do have some commentary on a few of the events surrounding this tragedy. From the tippy-top:

1.) The main stream media has yet again shown their stripes. Nidal Hassan shoots a bunch of people at Fort Hood, after contacting the head of Al Qaeda and writing Islamic radical rant after Islamic radical rant, and we need to not jump to conclusions and can’t possibly know if this was an act of terror, or an act of a lone nutter who had never served a day in combat, yet had PTSD from treating so many people with PTSD (a medical condition that had never before been seen). Also, white people are going to commit horrible acts of violence against innocent muslims (which never happened, even after 9/11, but they can’t seem to give this up – it’s almost like they are hoping that someday it will happen).

On the other hand, a lone white guy shoots a congresswoman and many others, and it is obviously a tea-partier right-wing extremist before any facts are known, or if it is even known if the shooter really was a white guy or a tea party member (never mind that it actually looks like this guy is first and foremost a psycho nut-job, and second, if anything, a leftist. But a nutjob, regardless.) I remember clearly when the Nidal Hassan thing happened, that there was conjecture that it was a white extremist before the facts even came out. I don’t know how many more examples of this we need until we realize that the MSM is not out to give us the news and let us make our own decisions, but instead, to drive the narrative and instill opinion upon us all. Yeah, I know Fox News isn’t exactly unbiased, either, but as the lone red channel in a sea of blue, I’m glad as hell that they are there as a balancing act, rather than as an unbiased source.

2.) Predictably, Sarah Palin was blamed because she had a map with crosshairs on it, and said something about not retreating, but reloading (ignore the fact that in both contexts, she made very clear that she was speaking symbolically instead of literally). No-one said anything about Kos’s articles talking about targeting blue-dog congresspeople, and the fact that he, too, had a graphic with crosshairs, and that one of those crosshairs was over the critically-wounded congresswoman’s district. Also predictably, no-one seems to have come out and spoken the obvious truth, which is that political rhetoric has always been heated, and has always carried imagery of war and conquest and the vanquishing of one’s enemies – and that people have always understood this. Folks are not stupid enough to look at Sarah Palin’s map and think “Ooooh, CROSSHAIRS! I should kill me a congresscritter!” That is, unless they are psycho nutjobs. But there is just as much chance that his guy’s cat told him to kill the congresswoman, as he was urged to by the incendiary rhetoric of Kos or Palin, and any calls to censor rhetoric like that used by either is plain and simply ignorance and evil.

3.) I predict that if this guy had left-wing oriented reasons for doing the shooting, such as his being against the immigration or healthcare stances of this blue-dog democrat congress-woman, that it will be swept under the rug.

4.) There is some talk in right-wing extremist, and also left-wing anarchist circles about the congresswoman being a valid target because she had decided to take this position to bend the will of others into her vision of what they ought to be, and that such an act is abjectly evil. While I do not disagree that people in government tend to be power-hungry, evil, and with the vision of bending the wills of free men to their means, I do not think that this evil justifies the even greater evil of taking a life. There are only two reasons to take a life. Period.
A.) In defense of your own life;
B.) In defense of the life of another (innocent).
And yes, this means that I will not be persuaded to join any revolution prior to my life being threatened by the government. Sorry, folks, that is just the way the cookie crumbles. This congresswoman decided to go into what I’m sure she referred to as “public service” but is more aptly titled “public dictator” and for that, I think she is wrong-headed and wrong in act and theory. However, I will not subscribe to any thought process that causes “wrong” to become a capital crime. Until a person actively threatens my life, I merely disagree with her, and that is not a shooting offense.

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