Sullivan Thinks Southerners are Murdering Ignoramuses
No Suicide
That’s the one thing we know for certain now in the case of the Kentucky lynching:
Two people briefed on the investigation said various details of Weaver’s account matched the details of the crime scene, though both people said they were not informed who found the body. The two spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case. ”And they even had duct tape around his neck,” Weaver said. ”And they had like his identification tag on his neck. They had it duct-taped to the side of his neck, on the right side, almost on his right shoulder.”
That’s the detail that makes you stop and think. If this was a revenge murder for stumbling upon a meth lab or pot plantation, it’s hard to understand why such a big deal would be made out of his census identification card. It’s possible, I suppose, that anger at the feds in general could make a drug dealer murder a census worker. But the most worrying possibility – that this is Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk radio cohorts – remains real. We’ll see.
Never attribute to malice what you can attribute to stupidity: the most likely and plausible explanation is that the census worker tripped over illegal activity and the perpetrators, who were probably high, stupidly thought killing him and making an example of him was the way to go. This is not uncommon at all as detailed in this morning’s Washington Post. Back off Southerners, Sullivan.
“the perpetrators, who were probably high, stupidly thought killing him and making an example of him was the way to go. This is not uncommon at all as detailed in this morning’s Washington Post.”
Uh, no. The Post story contains nothing about anyone being killed by drug makers/growers. It mentions several examples of violence towards census personnel, but none drug-related. It just says the drug trade in Eastern Kentucky may explain hostility to census takers. It also says that people in the region themselves, not just DC talking heads, are asking if right-wing hysteria may be to blame.
But what the heck — why bother with the text of the article when you can read the secret meaning behind the words, just like with the health care bills? Heck, the article probably has some death panels in it!
And in the meantime, the NRA, Glen Beck, and the rest of the blowhards can now add “duct tape” to the list of items protected by the Second Amendment.
If duct tape isn’t protected, it ought to be. Didn’t Homeland Security tell us it was an essential item for home defense in the event of a CBRN attack on US soil?
Of course, it’s also possible that the killers thought that making it look like anti-government extremism might lead the police away from their trail. I’ve heard murderers sometimes do things to lead the police astray.
Let’s wait a bit longer before assigning blame. Most likely the cops will catch the perpetrators, and we’ll learn more then. Maybe they’ll say, “Glenn Beck’s latest program convinced us we had to take some sort of action, and then during the Saturday morning football game we heard the UT band playing Rocky Top, and as we were singing the lines about that moonshine still, it all became clear…”
Or, you know, maybe not. We’ll see.
The Post article affirms that violence against census workers is a known problem. That is a plausible explanation, especially knowing that that region has one of the highest concentration of illegal drug production/growth. The “crazy right” made them do it is a fanciful wish based upon the simple, unstated premise that “southerners are stupid.” The “Beck Boogeyman” is an intellectual farce and Sullivan knows it.
“And in the meantime, the NRA, Glen Beck, and the rest of the blowhards can now add “duct tape” to the list of items protected by the Second Amendment.”
If that is your response to the article and this post then whatever drugs you are taking must have skyrocketed your loony left impulses into the stratosphere.?
Somehow I don’t think the operative adjective in that premise is stupid.
In any event, it’s not just a Southern thing. The incident in question occurred in Eastern Kentucky and Jim Adkisson killed two people at a Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, but Richard Poplawski killed three police officers (and wounded three others) in Pittsburgh, Scott Roeder is accused of killing Dr. George Tiller in Wichita, and James Von Brunn, who killed a guard at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C., had lived in Idaho and on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.
Andrew Sullivan is in no position to disparage Southerners. Rep. John Lewis, however, has different credentials. Mr. Lewis’s words, which were roundly condemned by Republicans at the time, have unfortunately proven prophetic:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/12/mccain.lewis/index.html
No, it’s not a Southern thing; it’s a culture war/hatred thing. I am proud to stand on the side of liberty and autonomy. Are those of you on the Eric Rudolph/Antonin Scalia side proud of your colleagues?
One way to silent dissent is to label the dissent “irrational” and a cause of violence. Because with any large group of citizens–in that case, 10s of millions–it would be a virtual statistical impossibility not to have thousands of loons, some stupidity or violent act will happen. You can almost guarantee it.
But if you take a step back and think about it: what is more likely to occur, a person in the porn industry (which includes only thousands) dying in some tragic death as a consequence of the dehumanization of its culture or one being killed at a tea party? Liberals, as we all know, are more likely to defend the nobility of the pornographer than the legitimacy of the tea party attender, even though the former is far more likely (demographically) to cause human misery than the latter.
Remember, in the liberal universe, Larry Flynt (a purveyor of untold miseries) is a hero, and Sarah Palin is a villian. So, the scare-tactics of the Left come from a place into which no heart should venture: a deep hatred for the values of the heartland and how they stand in judgment against the habits of the blue coasts.
Remember, these are the folks that told us to disarm against the Soviets and in the 30s and 40s their intellectuals were Stalin-loving sycophants. They also said permissive society was all the rage and that we would better off once we embraced. (Heck, the Europeans do, and they’re “sophisticated”).
How’s that working?
Oh please, Frank. I know many liberals and none of them consider Larry Flynt a “hero.” There is a difference between being a liberal and a Stalinist. You’re doing the same thing you accuse the other side of.
Larry Flynt is no hero, but if I were pleading at the bar of eternal justice, I would much rather have Mr. Flynt as a client than Joseph Paul Franklin, the white supremacist “Christian” who claims to have shot Flynt because of his having published photographs of black men having sex with white women.
Good argument, Frank. But I too might have restricted it to “leftist” or even “progressive” rather than “liberal.”
Convervatism should be seen as the opposition to radicalism, not necessarily liberalism. We need our old liberal Democrats back badly, the ones who indeed opposed Stalin, et al.
But yes, Jay, of those gentlepersons of the left I know, Larry Flynt is indeed a hero and what he represents is heroic under the modern notion of “rights.”
As for the WaPo article,
“Here, Sparkman’s gruesome death has ignited a debate over whether it was a byproduct of harsh anti-government rhetoric on talk shows, blogs and protests.”
Huh? What debate? You mean partisans like Andrew Sullivan trying to exploit this man’s death?
The only debate is whether he [or the WaPo reporter for that matter] is blinded by ideology or is intentionally being dishonest. There isn’t one shred of evidence in this story to tie this to the opposition to Obamacare.
How about not engaging in wild speculation before more facts become available. And we wonder why Mickey Kaus started calling him “Excitable Andy.”
Larry Flynt is no hero, but if I were pleading at the bar of eternal justice, I would much rather have Mr. Flynt as a client than Joseph Paul Franklin, the white supremacist “Christian” who claims to have shot Flynt because of his having published photographs of black men having sex with white women.
What is this with sliming Christians by the Left? Franklin’s connection is far deeper with Nazism, a godless sport.
For the record, Rev. Jerry Falwell became friends with Flynt, a far more representative example of Christianity in action.
“He wanted to save me and was determined to get me out of ‘the business.’”—Flynt
Further, MYOB, you elided Beckwith’s core point, which was the harm libertinism disguised as “liberty” such as Flynt’s does to actual human beings, of which Flynt is just a symbol. He was not being judged as a human being.
And “Eric Rudolph/Antonin Scalia” was a cheap trick, the same one Sullivan pulls [and the WaPo intimates] by conflating the census guy’s murder and the Tea Parties.
For some reason the Left thinks they’re not transparent, or that their rhetorical tricks are fooling anyone except themselves.
“Eric Rudolph/Antonin Scalia”
This is a good way to render your ‘argument’ as ridiculous on its face. Come back and try to actually engage in reasonable debate w/o invoking strawmen, non sequiturs, and ad hominem that has been laughed off the face of the Internet thousands and thousands of times…a day.
Is there is a difference between a Stalinist and a liberal? Of course, just ask Pete Seeger.
Pete Seeger’s a leftist. Harry Truman was a liberal. I want my liberal Democrats back.
Joseph Paul Franklin based his racist and anti-semitic views on his interpretation of Christian scripture, and during his trial for bombing a synagogue, he made an unsworn statement to a Chattanooga jury which the Supreme Court of Tennessee described as follows:
State v. Franklin, 714 S.W.2d 252, 256 (Tenn. 1986).
Jesus was far more noble and honorable than his followers.
Furthermore, Justice Scalia and Eric Rudolph are indeed on the same side of the culture war, even though they fight on different fronts and with different tactics. Each is a cultural splenetic, each is perversely obsessed with who sticks what into whom, and each is hostile to personal autonomy.
MYOB is apparently another liberal who doesn’t know the difference between the most extreme right wingers and mainstream conservatives–or pretends not to. Saying Justice Scalia and Eric Rudolph are on the same side is like saying liberals and the Weather Underground were on the same side.
Roeder and LeBrun are likewise not conservatives but extreme right (assuming “left” and “right” are really meaningful categories at all), based on their associations.
BTW, after the OKC bombing one of my first thoughts was that the differences between mainstream conservatives and liberals seemed small when you compare them to a radical like McVeigh. We share some basic values like democracy, liberty, and rule of law. But some, instead of seeing it that way
Yes, and you’re exactly like Harlan Drake.
Now then, do you honestly think that linking murderers to your ideological opponents passes for adult argument?
There is simply nothing in race-based “Christian Identity” theology [we must use the word loosely] that comports with the 2000 years of Christian thought. One of the first Christian converts was an Ethiopian.
Further, you completely skipped over Jerry Falwell because it didn’t fit your argument. And I’d much rather compare you to Harry Truman than Harlan Drake, but that’s your call, pending the reasonableness of your further conduct.
For your wielding of the word “splenetic” is quite a two-edged sword.
Argh, I didn’t finish finish my comment above before hitting the submit button. I meant to say, “Some, instead of seeing that way, chose to play guilt-by-assocation”.
Wielding two-edged swords is second nature to any good criminal defense lawyer, Tom.
I make no attempt to excuse the killing of the anti-abortion protestor, and I indicated so contemporaneously with that horrible event.
http://www.southernappeal.org/index.php/archives/12398#comments
The over-the-top rhetoric of some fringe figures (and some mainstream right wing insult artists as well, such as Ann Coulter) is dangerous and reprehensible (as would be any effort by government to censor that kind of advocacy).
For the right to shed crocodile tears over the politically motivated killings I mentioned above, while continuing to employ extreme rhetoric in the wake of such murderous malevolence, however, is more than a bit disingenuous. The right (and in particular the movement to criminalize abortion) has a more dangerous terrorist fringe than does the left. If all you can do in response is twist the no-true-Scotsman meme into no-true-Christian shtick, that says much about you.
Those who condemn the Ku Klux Klan should also abandon the rhetoric that in Klan circles is called “Nigger and Jew talk”.
So you want to distance yourself from Harlan Drake but saddle your opponents with Eric Rudolph? Nuh-uh.
The original post was about Sullivan pulling the same stunt you’re repeating here. We shall note its dishonesty, and move on.
Beckwith was talking about far greater damage to human beings than these isolated and ultimately unsignificant incidents. If you wish to disagree with him, do it fair and square.
Dragging in the Klan? You insult your own intelligence, sir.
Obama Captures Bin Laden?
My guess is a few bloggers will have a few posts over this one.
Joe, not to be ugly to you, but what does your last comment have to do with this post?
Cry havoc and let loose the ATFE dogs of war.
[...] Atlantic’s Andrew Sullivan immediately fingered “Southern populist terrorism, whipped up by the GOP and its Fox and talk-radio cohorts.̶… Author Richard Benjamin acknowledged that the area where Sparkman died is an infamous drug haven, [...]