At least the would-be killer was foiled quickly; at least he (so far) didn't kill anyone. The murderous nitwit who shot at the GOP team practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game certainly intended to.
I have to wonder -- as Democrat pundits did in 2011 on a much less tenable basis -- just how much influence the current violent partisan rhetoric had on the would-be killer? In a year in which we're told that it's okay to punch out armchair Nazis who are doing nothing more offensive than stinking up the lecture circuit (and revealing the obnoxiousness of their twisted philosophy in the process), in which mobs wield improvised weapons to prevent invited speakers from speaking on college campuses, is it really a surprise when a particularly deluded loser decides to go hunting politicians who are members of a party of which he disapproves?
Politics is a rough game; talking smack is a game for adolescents and nitwits. At their intersection, bad stuff happens, the kinds of things that can screw up a civilized government. I'm sick and tired of hearing that this President (or his predecessor, and on and on back) is the end of everything, a threat that needs to be rubbed out-- Oh, nonsense. They're all temporary jobs, for a couple of years, or four, or six, and then we can throw 'em right out if they're a problem.* Talk against them if you don't like them? Oppose the polices you think are bad (and cheer on the ones you like)? Sure, do that. But try to be a grown-up about it -- because a few of the nominal adults around you aren't.
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* All right, except for Supreme Court justices. Still, having grown up in a rural county with "IMPEACH EARL WARREN" stickers on the fence posts at every third or fourth intersection leaves one aware that there's a way to remove them, too.
Update
4 days ago
3 comments:
I'm roughly your vintage, Bobbi.
It wasn't that long back, mid-seventies or so, that while the opposing parties had differences with each other in the way that 'things oughtta be', there was far more common ground in what we both agreed on.
No longer the case. there are now irreconcilable differences in the parties. There is no way in hell I would *ever* agree with them on the end game they want on firearm regulation. And we all know what that end is. For all practical purposes, they want the vast majority of citizen owned firearms *gone*.
They lie on the end game (Nobody is going to take your guns!), and we know they're lying.
What they call 'climate change' is a political position that deems mankind so damaging to the environment that development must be curtailed until the global population is at a size that they deem 'sustainable', roughly 500 million (some say) planetwide.
They want socialism, we want capitalism. Capitalism has problems. No system is perfect. But socialism is *vastly* worse. Over 100 million have been exterminated by socialism-Marxism-Maoism in the last century. Socialism evenly distributes poverty and human misery.
One side (theirs) believes mankind is incapable of self-determination. We believe the individual is the one to determine their path in life.
The two sides are diametrically apposed with each other. There is no way in hell we will ever see things their way, or they to see ours on the major points. This is dangerous. To both sides.
A healthy marriage can only be had when there is compromise and respect by both sides to each other. We had that up to about 1975. No more. Contempt and hatred for each other is grounds for divorce, and must occur *before* the domestic violence begins.
There needs to be a negotiated divorce before things get ugly.
That is the 'national conversation' we need to have. Before it's to late.
That's how I see it, and I've been recently seeing others come to that realization as I do my daily reading in political news aggregators like 'Real Clear Politics', and I agree with them. Let them have their Progressive utopia nation of California, where all energy comes from renewable resources, where everyone gets 'free healthcare', where the 'rich pay their fair share of taxes', and firearm ownership is 'may issue' only.
Let's give it to them...
"...Until 1975?" Hardly. Conflict is the norm in American politics, perhaps especially so at the Federal level. Look at Jefferson and Hamilton; look at the "spirited debate" between 1861 and 1865, and then try again to tell me how the various parties and politicians were all brothers under the skin until the Nixon years.
@ Anon:
"Capitalism has its problems". As far as I can tell, the major problem with capitalism is that it's never actually been TRIED. Even at the start of the most-capitalist system in the world (the US Constitution) there were enormous carve-outs for government monopolies.
What we have now is an economy that masquerades as "capitalism" where only a teeny-tiny portion of it actually works that way. The collusion between established businesses and the regulatory apparatus of the government almost completely eliminates competition from starting, not to mention imposing unheard-of barriers to small businesses trying to get going.
Try reading "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal" for a brief review of these concepts in various essays.
True capitalism also requires a government, but one with extremely sharply limited boundaries. Its sole function: to preserve the rights of individuals. To do so it must have the capability to respond to the initiation (or threat of initiation) of force or fraud by one against another. This in turn requires a form of police, judiciary, and national defense. Beyond that, it should have almost no power what-so-ever.
...and if some collectivist twit shows up screaming, "The roads, the roads" I'm gonna smack it in the face with a pie.
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