If The Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf were indeed Jared Lee Loughner’s preferred pamphlets—then we also know this about the young man responsible for shooting six people to death and wounding 12 “outside of a Tucson, Arizona, grocery store”: He is consistent on matters ideological.
Left-liberals like the former White House communications director Anita Dunn (of the Mao Moment) will tell you that their communist heroes share nothing with fascism’s icons. Not true.
“For many decades,” wrote Ayn Rand, “The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property.”
On the other hand, Loughner, who shot US Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, a Democrat, through the head, also liked some good stuff: Animal Farm and We The Living.
And Loughner’s penchant for this YouTube Disturbia portends anger, alienation, even pain.
UPDATE I: SHAPING THE NARRATIVE. Intoning on CNN, Donna Lemon was keen to shape this crime as a function of the hot-bed of political hatred that Arizona has allegedly become. Pima County AZ Sheriff Clarence Dupnik has furnished the necessary hyperbole:
“But again I’d just like to say that when you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain people’s mouths about tearing down the government, the anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on in this country is getting to be outrageous. And, unfortunately, Arizona I believe has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Expect this impetus to gather momentum. “Our Overlords Who Art in DC” are worried sick about their own asses. To wit, Speaker John Boehner has suspended the people’s business: a vote to repeal the hulking healthcare bill. Instead, our sovereigns are likely to follow this crime with a rash of laws guaranteeing their safety against The Great Unwashed—at a great cost to said Unwashed.
The Great Unwashed will go along. Fishermen brave treacherous seas to do a job that is the most dangerous on earth, bar that of farmer (Boer) in South Africa. But, no, our elected representatives must be shielded from the vagaries of their relatively easy jobs. Sacred Cows.
Murder is the ultimate evil. Using the political process to steal from some subjects and give to others is also evil. Let us not discount that moral imperative.
What else to expect:
• Draconian security around The Sacred Cows. If one of them deigns to grace the local store again, it will be with a security detail that’ll shut down the store and the suburbs around it.
• Some kind of harm to law-abiding gun owners. No crime against an official can go without doing damage to citizens’ right of self-defense.
• A renewed war on all things Arizona, including on the eminently reasonable immigration-enforcement law, SB 1070.
UPDATE II (Jan. 9): “THE LEFT CRANKS OUT THE BIG LIE.” Via Larry Auster:
Remember when President Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995? Remember when conservatives were blamed for the supposed rash of black church burnings in the late 1990s? Now conservatives and supporters of enforcing U.S. immigration laws are being blamed for the mass murder in Tucson yesterday.
This is the Big Lie, which Hitler, one of its top practitioners, defined as a lie so colossal that “no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.” And here is the particular form that the Big Lie takes in the current instance: falsely blaming one’s target for the very thing that you are doing to him.
The left, through its wild charge that “conservative hatred” is responsible for the Tucson mass murder, is spreading hatred of conservatives. The left is actually doing to conservatives what it falsely accuses conservatives of doing to liberals. That is the Big Lie.
AND:
“The media have not bothered to mention some of the more ‘rude and crude’ comments our esteemed ‘Genius in Chief’ Barry has made over the past couple of years. Lines such as, ‘If they bring a knife to a fight, we bring a gun,’ or, ‘We don’t mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back,’ [‘Rosa Parks could not be reached for comment’], or his remark that middle-class white Americans ‘cling to guns and religion and dislike of people who are different,’ or, most recently, his shocking comment to Hispanics that they should look at Republicans who oppose amnesty as their ‘enemies’ whom they should ‘punish.’ Naturally, the media do not suggest that Obama has been planting hatred of white conservatives in the hearts of liberals and minorities.”
Even if this guy is a leftist, the Democrats will use this tradegy to attempt to pass more anti-gun legislation. I hope the Congresswoman makes a full recovery.
The whole concept of terrorism is to create enough panic in the leadership of the target area that it imposes centralized (socialist) control over the community. Thus grows the socialistic power of the state. Very few governments resist the temptation to follow that pattern, especially the US. The Republicans who gave us Homeland Security after 9/11 are back in power, with like minded Democrats to go along with whatever wacky ideas they have, freedom of the individual is at risk.
If Arizona is so heavily armed why didn’t someone at the rally shoot the sonuvabitch before he got 20 shots off???
My wife, son-in-law an I were just having the discussion about how the so called “right wing talk radio hosts and internet bloggers” would get the blame for this tragic event. Clearly the young man arrested is a “nut job”. A “nut job” who preferred the literature of Marx and Hitler.
The statists will try to use this awful tragedy to severely limit the freedoms enumeratied in the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. They will also attempt to limit debate and dissention on the issues of the day. Clearly, this tragedy was the result of vigorous debate in the marketplace of ideas there couldn’t be any other reason. Once betting that the American people will trade security for a little more freedom.
Dupnik is an absolute nut, and is famous for using the badge to make political statements. Of course, since Tucson is one of two left-wing towns in Arizona, he gets away with it.
From NPR:
http://www.npr.org/2011/01/09/132784957/shooting-fallout-political-rhetoric-takes-the-heat
“Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, a Democrat and friend of Giffords, lambasted his home state on Saturday as “the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.””
Also-
“Last year, Dupnik vowed his deputies wouldn’t enforce the state’s new immigration law, calling it “racist” and “unnecessary.””
“Also last year, Dupnik accused Tea Party activists of bigotry and stifling rational debate on immigration — adding that “We didn’t have a Tea Party until we had a black president.””
There’s a little idea of what is going on down in Pima County. You have a top lawman there who does not believe in enforcing the laws he is charged with enforcing.
Rob Krentz, the slain rancher, lived in Giffords’ district, by the way.
Details are still sketchy about who was armed and who was not, other than the nutjob himself, of course.
In terms of tactics, fear, and being caught up in situations like the Tucson shooting, these things go down differently than people imagine. Without proper training, people have a tragic tendency to “freeze up” just on the shock of it all, leaving them sitting ducks for the madmen.
The assailant always has a plan. Make sure you have one as well, preferably one that is simple and rapidly carriedd out.
Why don’t we hear all this outrage and dramatic terms “rampage, assassination, mentally unstable, nutjob”, with the numerous police brutality cases? When the cops murder citizen(s), does the story dominate the national news headlines for days on end? Do they fly the flags at half-staff and order moments of silence? Usually, the terminology chosen goes something like: “it appears that the officer MAY have gone too far” – even if the incident is plainly recorded on camera.