Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel famously used that phrase in the early days of the Obama administration and it underscores a fundamental facet of fascism brought to life by Benito Musollini: everything is political. “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.” Today, I had a realization about why the politics after the Parkland shooting have been so vicious.
1. Democratic fund raising. It has been widely reported that the Stupid Party has out-raised the Evil Party by $40 Million. The Dems are in a hole for the midterm elections. Gun Control is like catnip to the party base and by getting Bloomberg and/or Soros to fund a few bus rides for kids, they can turn on the money faucet from the base. Did those donors not notice that when the Democrats had complete control of everything, they still didn't try for gun control laws? How is Parkland different from Sandy Hook in the big picture, so that now it's time to ban all the things? They didn't push gun control when Obama was in office because Democratic leaders knew that gun control votes hurt them in the past.
2. The old line media is dying and this is a grasp to get back the power that they've had before. They can still massively influence opinion because people believe them. The mainstream media convinced the vast majority of people that Trump's tax cuts would do nothing for them, a direct lie now being shown as a lie, but they still had the power to convince them. Other than Gell-Mann amnesia, I have no idea why it works. Media will probably never re-attain the zenith of their power from the mid-60s, such as when Walter Crankcase could convince the nation we got our asses beat in the Tet Offensive, the opposite of the real situation.
There are no words for the horror that group of students went through, but they are completely wrong in their response.
This whole shooting incident is nothing but serial government failures for years. Time after time, people "saw something and said something" but the government side did nothing. The schools could have had the killer arrested while still a student, but didn't. A state psychologist said the student, who had just cut himself with a sharp object in a live broadcast online, was assessed as not a threat to anyone. Since when is slicing yourself considered normal? The county Sheriff lied about crime in county schools to make his office look good - and it's not just Broward county, it's widespread (H/T Gunslinger's Journal). Sheriff's officers were at the shooter's house over 35 times and did nothing to head this off. The FBI was supposed to respond to him being reported and didn't. Finally, the last line of defense, the school resource officer charged with responding in just this sort of incident ran and hid while the students and staff he was supposed to be protecting were gunned down.
So faced with year after year, failure after failure, lie after incompetency, suddenly the answer is to give more power to all levels of government that got it wrong at every single step of the way? I can understand this defective thinking with 15 to 18 year old kids, who aren't generally known for their maturity and judgement (which is why we make it hard for them to buy a car or enter into legal contracts in general), but I'd hope for better out of the adults paying the kids' way.
It appears that Florida - in the last days of the 2018 legislative session - is going to try to ram some new laws through. Because we all know that with 20,000 anti-gun laws, one more law or one different word is suddenly going to cause all the psycho killers to say, "By golly, you're right! I don't want the fame and glory of killing my classmates! I want to get a job flipping burgers at White Castle!" One bill (7022) will raise the age to purchase any gun to 21, institute a 3 day waiting period (Broward county has a 5 day waiting period now) and ban bump stocks. I'm sure you couldn't measure positive outcomes from this with an electron microscope.
(bill 7022, screen cap from Gun Free Zone)
2000 years ago, the Greek stoic philosopher Epictetus wrote "When men are
good, laws are meaningless; when men are bad, laws are worthless" (as I
always heard it). You will never get rid of killers because it doesn't
matter what law you pass, criminals don't follow laws. Laws only affect people who follow laws. Psychos plan these operations for a long time. The only
thing proven to stop psycho killers is a rapid armed response.
Well put!
ReplyDeletePlease note that there were FOUR armed "Law Enforcement" officers outside the school while Cruz committed the murders. SRO Peterson, and three other Coral Springs police who have not yet been identified by name. ALL FOUR OF THEM had drawn their service weapons, but NOT EVEN ONE OF THEM went into the school to protect the students and teachers. Instead, they cowered behind their cruisers until after the shooting stopped and other "Law Enforcement" arrived.
ReplyDeleteThis is why I thank God every time another "Law Enforcement" officer burns in hell where they belong. REGARDLESS of how that happens.
The stench is overwhelming. And it smells like pig.
Don't know if you saw it, but there's a war brewing between the Coral Springs PD and the Broward SO. The Coral Springs guys are saying they did all the risky work.
DeleteMeanwhile the links in the paragraph starting with This whole shooting incident is nothing but serial government failures for years. barely hint at the corruption in the Broward Sheriff's Office (and Miami-Date County).
I believe this is a good time to hammer the Republicans in favor of gun control with the fact that George H.W. Bush lost millions of votes (on his attempt to get re-elected as President) because he betrayed us by supporting gun control in spite of claiming to support the Second Amendment (as a "Life" member of the NRA).
ReplyDeleteWe need to contact the Republicans coming up for re-election and make them aware they will fail also if they support new gun control legislation. I used the "Take Action" function at Gun Owners of America and reminded my senators of this fact. Email or a call to your senators reminding them what happens to sell-outs/RINOs. It might not help, but you'll never know if you don't try.
My senators are Marco Rubio and Bill Nelson. Both were on the CNN Town Hate the other night; Rubio was accused of being a murderer but still appears to be in favor of more controls while Nelson was granted Favorable status so he was protected from tough questions - he's reliably Evil Party to the core. CNN protected Nelson to the extent that Jake Tapper protected Nelson when a student asked him if he was happy with his NRA blood money, saying, “Senator Nelson, you don’t have to answer that question, Let’s move on to the next question”, then telling the student that question was for Dana Loesch. “But your question, I thought you were going to ask Senator Nelson a question. Your question sounds like you want to ask Dana Loesch a question in the next segment. And I’m happy to do that, if you want.”
Delete