It's just sad to consider the remote -- but still, in a nation of 320 million people, many of whom are simpletons, all too real -- possibility that someone out there still takes Sarah Palin seriously on any subject at all. She's a liar and a calumniator and a fucking dunce, and the world will be a better place when she finally fucks off and goes home for good. We should all just chip in five bucks and bribe her to go the fuck away already. It would be money well spent. Whoever these brain-dead morons are that still listen to her nonsense, they would seriously be better off if they went back to eating their own poop and impregnating their siblings.
For the millionth time: no one wants to take your precious guns away. Nobody in their right mind even thinks it's possible. But it's not unreasonable to say that if you're not allowed on an airplane, you probably shouldn't be allowed to purchase a gun, likewise if you're a raving lunatic who's been investigated by the FBI.
Or not. I mean, I barely give a fuck anymore, because we've clearly decided that mass killings are the cost of freedumb. It's a big country, and a toxic culture, and quite frankly, it's a bit surprising these things don't happen more often. People will only care when someone famous gets shot, and the laws will only get changed when a senator's kid gets mowed down in the weekly mass-kill.
But what's intolerable is this fucking shrew yammering on with her lies and bullshit. Consider: two of the most notorious examples in the last year of mass killings perpetrated by Muslims are Orlando and San Bernardino. Both of these nutjobs do indeed appear to be "inspired" by ISIS, but like their counterparts in Europe, not explicitly directed by ISIS. This is a critical factor which right-wing morons of the Palin/Trump species continue to fail to apprehend.
Now, a couple days before the San Bernardino massacre, some asshole shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, "inspired" at least in part by the bogus videos circulating about how PP was parting out fetuses to pay for Ferraris or some shit. And the morning after the Orlando massacre, mere hours after the slaughter, a man was caught heading to the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, with guns and bombs in his car, ready to do some damage.
You hear very little in the lamestream media about these last two individuals, and nothing at all from the conservatards. But here is the thing -- both of those assholes are white, and almost certainly identify as Christians. The PP shooter appears to be legitimately insane, and will be tried and adjudicated as such.
But so, one might reasonably posit, was Omar Mateen. His workplace rants and domestic violence merely hint at the seething rage and self-loathing beneath. Mateen's feverish mindset was perfect tinder for the twin ignitions of internet Islam and easy access to damaging firepower.
But we don't even hear the argument, the possibility that Omar Mateen, Syed Farook, and Tashfeen Malik might have been clinically insane, the way we take it for granted that Robert Dear and James Howell are insane. I don't subscribe to the Bill Maher theory that religion makes people nuts, but it seems pretty clear that religion does serve as a convenient vehicle for action, for people who are already unbalanced. What better excuse for sociopathic actions, than to proclaim that it was God's will?
Coupled with the fact that "the West" (including the US, Britain, and France) have been meddling in the affairs of the Middle East for over a hundred years now, it's not at all surprising that individuals will, from time to time, decide to "strike back" in the only way they know how, under the guise of religious principle. Nor is it surprising that impressionable individuals like Dear and Howell, inundated with homegrown hate speech about abortionists and faggots, decide to harness their existing mental demons to extinguish those perceived affronts to celestial preference.
And yet you won't hear a word about Dear and Howell being participants in "radical Christianity". Nor should you. Again, we have to make the distinction between a person motivated to a crazy action by religion, and a person who is already crazy acting on religion, but could just as well have acted on the wrong teevee commercial, the wrong song on the radio.
Understanding motivations is, I guess, a pursuit that is noble in intent anyway, but seems ultimately fruitless. There is no percentage to be had in trying to presume rational decisions by irrational people, or even in figuring out the bases for their irrational decisions. They were nuts to begin with, and they'll just ascribe their action to whatever catalyzing event was on their radar that particular day. It is no more or less complicated than that.
Can you imagine trying to explain these ideas to the sound-bite morons that dominate the coverage these days? Can you visualize trying to explain this to Sarah Palin, to Donald Trump? They wouldn't listen; it doesn't matter. But we need to understand it all the same.
For the millionth time: no one wants to take your precious guns away. Nobody in their right mind even thinks it's possible. But it's not unreasonable to say that if you're not allowed on an airplane, you probably shouldn't be allowed to purchase a gun, likewise if you're a raving lunatic who's been investigated by the FBI.
Or not. I mean, I barely give a fuck anymore, because we've clearly decided that mass killings are the cost of freedumb. It's a big country, and a toxic culture, and quite frankly, it's a bit surprising these things don't happen more often. People will only care when someone famous gets shot, and the laws will only get changed when a senator's kid gets mowed down in the weekly mass-kill.
But what's intolerable is this fucking shrew yammering on with her lies and bullshit. Consider: two of the most notorious examples in the last year of mass killings perpetrated by Muslims are Orlando and San Bernardino. Both of these nutjobs do indeed appear to be "inspired" by ISIS, but like their counterparts in Europe, not explicitly directed by ISIS. This is a critical factor which right-wing morons of the Palin/Trump species continue to fail to apprehend.
Now, a couple days before the San Bernardino massacre, some asshole shot up a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, "inspired" at least in part by the bogus videos circulating about how PP was parting out fetuses to pay for Ferraris or some shit. And the morning after the Orlando massacre, mere hours after the slaughter, a man was caught heading to the Los Angeles Gay Pride Parade, with guns and bombs in his car, ready to do some damage.
You hear very little in the lamestream media about these last two individuals, and nothing at all from the conservatards. But here is the thing -- both of those assholes are white, and almost certainly identify as Christians. The PP shooter appears to be legitimately insane, and will be tried and adjudicated as such.
But so, one might reasonably posit, was Omar Mateen. His workplace rants and domestic violence merely hint at the seething rage and self-loathing beneath. Mateen's feverish mindset was perfect tinder for the twin ignitions of internet Islam and easy access to damaging firepower.
But we don't even hear the argument, the possibility that Omar Mateen, Syed Farook, and Tashfeen Malik might have been clinically insane, the way we take it for granted that Robert Dear and James Howell are insane. I don't subscribe to the Bill Maher theory that religion makes people nuts, but it seems pretty clear that religion does serve as a convenient vehicle for action, for people who are already unbalanced. What better excuse for sociopathic actions, than to proclaim that it was God's will?
Coupled with the fact that "the West" (including the US, Britain, and France) have been meddling in the affairs of the Middle East for over a hundred years now, it's not at all surprising that individuals will, from time to time, decide to "strike back" in the only way they know how, under the guise of religious principle. Nor is it surprising that impressionable individuals like Dear and Howell, inundated with homegrown hate speech about abortionists and faggots, decide to harness their existing mental demons to extinguish those perceived affronts to celestial preference.
And yet you won't hear a word about Dear and Howell being participants in "radical Christianity". Nor should you. Again, we have to make the distinction between a person motivated to a crazy action by religion, and a person who is already crazy acting on religion, but could just as well have acted on the wrong teevee commercial, the wrong song on the radio.
Understanding motivations is, I guess, a pursuit that is noble in intent anyway, but seems ultimately fruitless. There is no percentage to be had in trying to presume rational decisions by irrational people, or even in figuring out the bases for their irrational decisions. They were nuts to begin with, and they'll just ascribe their action to whatever catalyzing event was on their radar that particular day. It is no more or less complicated than that.
Can you imagine trying to explain these ideas to the sound-bite morons that dominate the coverage these days? Can you visualize trying to explain this to Sarah Palin, to Donald Trump? They wouldn't listen; it doesn't matter. But we need to understand it all the same.
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