Instapundit
Dear Mr. Reynolds,
I understand why you would want to distance conservative rhetoric from violent acts like those committed by the cop-killing gun rights activist over the weekend--nobody wants to think that the spittle they fling in the pursuit of readers and ratings might actually harbor rabies. But I think you're making the wrong argument.
It's just not credible say that there is absolutely no connection. Anyone can turn on Glenn Beck and see him accuse the government of instituting fascism, or hear the troika that leads the GOP, Rush Limbaugh, Sarah Palin, and Newt Gingrich, call Obama a socialist or a Marxist--and that's not even getting at Michele Bachmann's re-education camps and Fox news' insinuations that Obama may be a Muslim terrorist or even the Antichrist.
Eventually, someone is going to act on that. After all, it's really the patriotic thing to do, isn't it? I mean if our leaders really are islamunistofascistoantichrists, you're not going to stop them at the ballot box.
I think it might be better to admit that although conservative eliminationist rhetoric might prompt a few acts of violence, most conservatives are far too cowardly to actually try to save the country from the imminent destruction they so terribly fear.
It's like back in the early days of the war, when a group called the Protest Warriors, spurred by rhetoric that the US was in a death struggle with Iraq, organized anti-anti-war protests. I joined them and suggested that we finish an anti-anti-war protest by marching to a recruiting center and signing up to serve. They kicked me out of the group for that. You see, actually doing something real to win the "life and death struggle with terrorism" was considered too dangerous, so they settled for screaming the word "traitor" at their fellow Americans.I had a similar experience on the usenet group, misc.activism.militia, in the nineties. One of the colonels (they were all colonels, there) reported that Russian troops were gathering in the woods in Tennessee in preparation for a Klinton/United Nations takeover. I asked him why he wasn't doing anything to personally stop them--why wasn't his militia attacking them? He responded by promising to hunt me down and execute me for treachery. I laughed, because I knew he was also too cowardly to do that.
I can go on offering example after example of cowardice in the face of the impending destruction of all in which we believe, but I'll end with just one more. How many times have we heard people say that abortion is murder? Yet most of these people do nothing more than talk about it. They know that what they consider to be a murder will take place at a certain location between certain hours, yet they stand by idly as it happens.
So that's your argument. It's OK to incite conservatives to violence because most are too cowardly to actually defend their most basic beliefs.
Hmmmm. Or maybe it's that you know it's simply bullshit, but still, it's all you've got, so you run with it.
Gotta be the first one for me, because I'm certain Obama is the anti-christ.
Heterosexually yours,
Gen. JC Christian, patriot
Real Patriots of the 101st Chairborne Division like Glenn Reynolds know that what Realer Patriots (where the hell are DemoCommie's trademark symbols for me to steal, dammit?) need is encouragement.
ReplyDeleteBy Realer Patriots, I mean those people who are SOOOOO angry at the Obamaislamasocialistfascantichrist takeover of America that they're willing to shoot the first policeman who comes to their door. Or the postman. Or someone in their family. I'm warning you, Ma, if you keep nagging me to come up from the basement and mow the lawn, something bad's gonna happen!
Have you ever been at a bar where a guy's drunk and upset, but he won't go over and smash a bottle in the face of the other guy who's giving him the stinkeye? But that other guy NEEDS some hitting! Only, he's big and has a lot of tattoos. Even a drunk person can see it would not be a good move.
That's where the 101st Chairborne comes in. It's their patriotic duty to be like the Colonels who order the lower-ranking soldiers to vault from the trenches and charge the enemy machine gun nest. Or the policeman who's coming to serve the eviction papers, whatever. Somebody's gotta start the rebellion, dammit! (Have I exceeded my quota of dammits for the day?
And when the revolution is jolly well underway, and Real Patriots know they won't look like fools for joining in when everybody else is just standing there watching, you'd better believe they'll be ramming the manparts! Until then, hey, you, angryscarywhiteguy with the closet full of guns, you go first.
They have no...no...what is that word? Ah, now I remember: shame. They have no shame. Oh, well, with a little effort they can self-punish by lashing themselves before they go to bed. But not for orgasms! That perverts the whole process, for crying out loud!
ReplyDeleteLook, if I yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater that just means some namby-pamby pc liberal is going to blame me for all of the carnage that follows. And I had nothing to do with it. I was just exercising my right to free speech. How was I to know anyone would take me seriously? For goodness' sake, I'm a right wing wacko: why would any disturbed, alienated, racist, gun-obsessed, paranoid meth head listen to me?
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ReplyDeleteYou know, coward and bullshit artist don't have to be mutually exclusive...
ReplyDeleteGeneral, Sir:
ReplyDeleteI did a little researchification on Mr. Instapunkd's name and it appears that the name is a derviative of a fucking french surname, Reinold. But, then again, it apppears that it might have, at some point been spelled "Renaud" or maybe "Renard" ( frenchoise for "fox").
So, it looks like Mr. Reynolds might be a lot of things, based on how you determine the provenance of his surname. That he is a bloviating, spittle spewing fuckface and asshole is, fortunately, evident upon listening to him for no more time than it takes to find the remote.
Bubs:
I believe that, in Glen's case, cowardice and bullshittery were parts of a double major.
Bubs said...
ReplyDeleteYou know, coward and bullshit artist don't have to be mutually exclusive...
Howdy Bubs, I think he's much more of a multi-tasker than that, hell, he's obviously pulling off dipshit and asshole at the same time as bullshit artist and coward.
Bukko nailed it sir. What is more courageous than wringing out enough testosterone from angry sociopaths to get them to actually kill?
ReplyDeleteThey're your people Glenn, just make sure you always have an alibi or moms apron for cover.
Its the fault of that Godless liberal hovel of homosexuality, Hollywood.
ReplyDeleteToo many movies have the main fight started by a stirring motivational speech by the protagonist. No-one cares about the rubes that get worked up by the speech, only those who give the damned speech.
These gallant heroes you are mocking are only doing what Hollywood has told them is required to win a fight for decades.
PS. The alternate theory is that conservatives are extremely good at projecting. The rules & their own fatwas are invariably only for *other people*. Oddly, every conservative I've ever encountered has very strong beliefs about how other people should behave. They don't seem to be self aware enough to apply it to themselves.