Monday, January 10, 2011
Thoughts of the Day
And as Byron York pointed out, if the Arizona gunman had shouted "Allahu Akhbar!" and left a YouTube manifesto proclaiming his intention to gun down a Congresswoman in pursuit of jihad and in honor of Bin Laden, the media would still be scratching its collective head as to his motivation.
But since he left jumbled lunatic ravings, they know Sarah Palin is to blame.
From which I infer what - that it is OK to categorize and demonize all right-wingers but not even extremist Muslims? Puzzling.
To paraphrase Justice Cardozo ("proof of negligence in the air, so to speak, will not do"), there is no such thing as responsibility in the air. Those who try to connect Sarah Palin and other political figures with whom they disagree to the shootings in Arizona use attacks on "rhetoric" and a "climate of hate" to obscure their own dishonesty in trying to imply responsibility where none exists. But the dishonesty remains.
To be clear, if you're using this event to criticize the "rhetoric" of Mrs. Palin or others with whom you disagree, then you're either: (a) asserting a connection between the "rhetoric" and the shooting, which based on evidence to date would be what we call a vicious lie; or (b) you're not, in which case you're just seizing on a tragedy to try to score unrelated political points, which is contemptible. Which is it?
As presented by port side demagogues . . .
Phase 1: Sarah Palin publishes a map.
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Gunfire.
Really, at the end of the day, they have nothing more than this to make their case that Palin is responsible for the shootings.
The cross hairs inside a rifle scope do not extend beyond the optical tube. A circle with two lines crossing at right angles, which lines extend beyond the circle are, vis a vis maps, surveyor symbols, which are no more threatening than a banana. That ignorant and prejudiced people on the left called innocuous map symbols something else, and then imputed a raving schizophrenic's actions to their misinterpretations, says a lot more about them, none of it good, than it says about Sarah Palin and the so-called inflamed rhetoric of the right.
Roger Fraley, Jr.
Labels: Tom McGuire quote; Glenn Reynolds quote; Pejman Yousefzadeh quote; Roger Fraley Jr. quote
