Many people rushed to judgement about the character and heritage of the perpetrator. But few had the crass, uncivilized gall of David Sirota of Salon.com. Here’s what he had to say:
“[R]egardless of your particular party affiliation, if you care about everything from stopping war to reducing the defense budget to protecting civil liberties to passing immigration reform, you should hope the bomber was a white domestic terrorist. Why? Because only in that case will privilege work to prevent the Boston attack from potentially undermining progress on those other issues.”
Did you get that? He wanted the bomber to be a white male! He wanted it so that certain liberal agendas could be better achieved!
Although his comment had a racial bent, his primary thrust was political.
It is true that the bombers were probably politically motivated in the sense that they had a prior ideological stance that resulted in their desire to wreak havoc on Americans. Their methods were steeped in cowardice, being unable to face counter ideology in a civilized, rational manner.
It’s not the first time national tragedies have been politicized, and it probably won’t be the last. But can’t we take the time to mourn and to care about the victims before we go to ranting about the political leanings of the bad guys?
There is a difference between making a studied prediction of the cultural background of a particular perpetrator(s) based on sound psychological profiling and totally abandoning the empathy we ought to feel for the victims in these horrid events.
To use a tragedy solely for political leverage is not much better in terms of civilized thought than the cold, calculated indifference of those who perform the terrorist acts in the first place.
The two sides of the American political spectrum do not react to these events equally. Forbes has shown that leftist websites politicized the Newtown shooting earlier and more often that conservative websites did.
Liberals immediately seized the opportunities to advance progressive ideas. They tend to use these terrorist events to “demonstrate” the need for more federal government intervention in Americans’ lives in the name of safety for society.
Conservatives believe these acts can only be reduced in number through the change of the attitudes of human hearts. This is a slower process, but allows for the preservation of liberty and freedom.
For instance, it can be documented that stringent gun control laws would not have mitigated or prevented Fort Hood, Columbine, Newtown or the Boston bombing.
In the future, why don’t we resist the urge to immediately insist that the federal government take away more of our freedoms and instead concentrate on those things that will bring about the changes in hearts and minds needed to prevent these horrible, senseless acts from occurring to people in the first place?
Or is that just a fruitless pipe dream due to the universal depravity of mankind to begin with?
10 comments:
A little off-topic,
But as for Obama’s “brilliant” idea to discourage his daughters from getting tattoos, what if the First Daughters decided to wear deadlocks and get tattooed and speak Ebonics.? Would Barack and Moochelle do likewise?
I agree completely with the quote from Salon.
Now that the identities are known the fringe right will continue on their witch hunt, the likes of Bloomberg will use it to further militarize civilian police forces and we won't learn a damn thing.
Once again, the pathology of these two is much closer to school shooters than any organized terrorist operation.
Terrorism has come to mean simply a crime committed by a Muslim and that gets us nowhere, absolutely nowhere.
For instance, it can be documented that stringent gun control laws would not have mitigated or prevented Fort Hood, Columbine, Newtown or the Boston bombing.
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Joe, are you that far in the weeds that you think we believe gun regulation will stop it all?
I don't know the answer but I do know that the fringe right position that more guns means less gun violence is absurd on its face.
Police fired over 300 rounds at a pair armed only with a 9mm. and couldn't take down either of them (the elder brother was killed when his younger brother ran over him).
Do you really think Boston would have been safer with a bunch of Yahoos running around firing on their own?
Yes indeed, it's pretty amazing... the same people who want to take away everyone guns let a known terrorist drive away from a shoot out, and they want us to trust them to keep our families safe?
Massachusetts seems to have become a BIG JOKE!
Think about this! We had over 7,000 heavily armed cops, with the FBI and with a few other local and Federal agencies with heavily armed trucks and other heavily armed vehicles along with Bomb sniffing Dogs hunting a single 19 year old kid in Boston, while 4 million cowering Bostonians stayed in their homes, under the kitchen table for a full day.
That alone should totally embarrass the hell out of you Liberal Cowards.
In my opinion, the two terrorist brothers and their mentors, whoever they are won in their heinous plot in Boston. And the Boston Police as well as the FBI and all the other agencies who took part in this mess miserably failed in their task of defeating these pipsqueak terrorists. If you look at what really happened, the Terrorists actually won. . They won because Terrorist like to inflict a physical and a economical blow as severely as they can on their target. They won on this point without any doubt. The Boston police force and all these other security agencies failed miserably to weed out these known terrorist and lets not forget that the elder brother was known to the police and the FBI. They failed to catch them for 3 long days, and during that time these pipsqueaks killed a Policeman while the Boston Police and the FBI and allowed the terrorists to run away so easily from within their hands. And the worst thing is that among all imposed and house to house search, FOUR MILLION PEOPLE TO STAYED IN THEIR LOCKED UP HOMES FOR A DAY.
This three ring circus. sure didn’t do anything to make anyone feel any safer.
In the days to come, we will hear many stories of bravery and professionalism in the media, but the bottom line is it was a very poor show of our security agencies, and need to be investigated by a high level commission. For this mess and for the FBI’s failure to stop them before they even started, as they were warned not only once but twice. And maybe next time the TERRORISTS will NOT WIN.
FOUR MILLION PEOPLE TO STAYED IN THEIR LOCKED UP HOMES FOR A DAY.
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That's more than the entire metropolitan area, butt nugget.
I for one didn't stay indoors and I'm on the border of Boston and Cambridge.
The night of the shoot out I was walking to the subway on the way home from a jazz concert about a mile and a half away.
You really are dumb.
Ducky - What we have here are Low Information Blog Commentors.
No, the terrorists did NOT win by anyone's estimation.
How do you call this winning?
One is dead; and the other will probably be put to death.
On what planet is that a "win?"
Boston Strong: Better than the anti-America commenters here who are happy to see an American city hurting.
This is exactly how the jihadists feel. And you happily join in piling on their exultation.
Talk about giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
You all hate liberals more than you love your country.
Disgusting.
Chaw gets an early start on her Commie May Day celebration!
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