The fact that so many loyal Democrats and smug progressives will still look you in the eye and say that mainstream media bias is a right-wing conspiracy theory speaks eloquently of the corruption of American politics, individual integrity and democracy. Two depressing examples:
1. The missing mass shootings.
Kevin Downey reviews the large number of mass shootings since the Lewiston massacre, and points out that even though one would assume that a) they are all newsworthy and b) that the anti-gun journalism establishment would want such tragedies to be known, only the Maine shooting ticked off the right boxes to advance the agreed-upon MSM narrative without undermining some part of it. In addition to the high body count, the Lewiston massacre featured a white male shooter using a semi-automatic weapon (that they could call “an assault weapon”). And he apparently liked some conservative social media posts, meaning that the shooting was really Donald Trump’s fault.
Maine authorities were also warned about Robert R. Card II in plenty of time to stop him if they had followed established policies but didn’t. Oh, never mind: as with the Uvalde shooting and others, it’s the guns, the victims and the shooter that matter, not the fact that existing laws and competent law enforcement should have been sufficient to prevent the disaster.
Since the Lewiston shooting (October 25) there were ten more mass shootings, leaving 14 dead and 65 wounded. Two took place in Chicago (of course) and left 19 people shot.In one shooting involving a handgun, 15 victims were hit by gunfire. That there weren’t more deaths is moral luck. The mostly ignored shootings involved shooters “of color,” drug gatherings, parties substantially attended by non-whites, and weapons that couldn’t plausibly be called “weapons of war.”
Downey also cited the amusing idiocy of, again, Joy Behar on “The View,” produced by ABC News, showing abject gun ignorance ( I missed it–sock drawer…). She said (and no one on the set had the wit, integrity or knowledge to contradict her),”If you shoot with an AR-15, let’s say you shoot a deer, you can’t eat it because you basically demolish the animal.” She “doesn’t know the difference between an AR-15 and a bazooka,” writes Downey. That’s fair.
I confess: I was immediately drawn to Steve-O-in NJ’s comment because it gave me another opportunity to post my favorite ethics film clip of all, Sir Thomas More’s speech from “A Man For All Seasons.”
But Steve’s comment, on the post, “Ethics Dunce, And That’s Not The Half Of It: ESPN Host Sarah Spain,” is a worthy Comment of the Day on its own.
Here it is…
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I have to laugh, because the same persons who want to come for the conservatives today were saying “First they came for the Muslims – and then we said, “not this time motherf***ers!” at the beginning of 2017.
These days it’s more like:
First they came for the Second Amendment, and I said nothing, because they said they were protecting schoolchildren.
Then they came for the Fourth Amendment – and I said nothing, because they said if you had nothing to hide, then you had nothing to fear.
Then they came for the Fifth Amendment – and I said nothing, because they were just streamlining the process to get bad people out of society.
Then they came for the First Amendment – and I said nothing, because they were just stopping the spread of disinformation and misinformation.
Then they came for me – and I was disarmed, cowed and silenced,with no protection, so I had no choice but to go quietly with them.