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general freedom ideological culture

The Atrocity Exhibition

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News commentary can seem like a race, commentators reacting as if to the crack of the starting-​gun, scrambling to make sure they do not come in last.

Yet, in stories like this weekend’s round of mass shootings, being last to comment might be something to aspire towards. 

As I have argued before, mentioning perps’ names has a tendency to encourage further mass murders, spree murders. But in cases of outright terrorism — as the El Paso shooting was immediately classified — the frenzy to comment is pretty much the same thing as using names. 

How?

Well, terrorism is the use of violence to effect political change. The old anarchists and syndicalists called it “propaganda by the deed.” And, in a mass- and alt-​media drenched democratic society, the aim is to get people to go into alarm, in part by getting tongues tapping and keyboards clattering.

Focusing on terrorist murders does feed the idea that terrorism somehow works.

So, when Democrats immediately talk about racism and the need for gun confiscation (both seen on Twitter immediately after the El Paso event, of course) and Republicans leap to the “mental health” issue and … video games (as I saw inching across the news chyrons) … my urge to comment dissipates dramatically. 

But here I am.

Politicians can demand new laws to restrict firearms, or video games, but those laws won’t prevent future mass shootings. 

Nor do I hold any hope that we can perfectly police against white nationalists like the manifesto-​writing El Paso killer or lewd socialists such as the Dayton shooter. 

Our best hope is to save kids from growing into angry, disaffected, violent adults.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Hat Hate

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I will concede — at least “arguendo”  — that President Trump is awful. But I will not concede that he is uniquely awful. His Tweets and signature verbal provocations aside, he is arguably better than his predecessors.*

Arguably.

Which means that his cribbed campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” affixed to an ultra-​simple red hat, is the last thing we should fixate on. 

You know, as a symbol of “hate.”

Even Andrew Sullivan, in lambasting the media — and the left in general — over their insane over-​reaction to the Covington kids’ non-​existent “racism” and “disrespect” (“The Abyss of Hate Versus Hate, Intelligencer), could not help himself when it comes to the MAGA hat. Amidst his defense of the lads, Sullivan wrote that “they should not have been wearing MAGA hats to a pro-​life march.”

Why not? Mr. Trump has taken pro-​life action.

“They aren’t angels,” Sullivan went on, “they’re teenage boys.”

The President is no angel either. But he was duly elected. And he hasn’t started any unconstitutional wars** or suppressed the freedom of the press.

MAGA is said to be a statement of “white supremacy,” but, well, there are non-​whites who find that absurd. For good reason. 

This all indicates a deeper problem: an over-​indulgence in symbolism — real and contrived.

In the immortal words of “motorist” Rodney King, “can we all JUST get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it, making it horrible for the older people and the kids?”

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

* Admittedly a low bar.

** Unlike other presidents we could name.

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Common Sense

They Don’t Need No Stinkin’ White Men?

horse before the cart, strategy, Democrats, Clinton, backwards, voters, white, Trump

All informed, concerned adults should vote.

If they want to.

Yes, I am all for ballot access, and suggestions that we must minimize the vote in any election elicit a shiver: calls for voter participation reduction give me the creeps.

But that does not mean that every push for increased voter participation is a good idea.

In the case of a recent Nation think piece on how progressives can win future elections, it may indicate a severe misunderstanding of reality, a sort of cart-​before-​the-​horse senselessness.

Steve Phillips has developed an “Organizing Strategy” that, his title informs us, would “Revive the Democratic Party” without depending on that dreaded category of citizens, “White Voters.”

Now before you jump to the conclusion that he is merely another trendy, leftist anti-​racist racist, a person who has discovered the sheer joy of being able to heap scorn on the one group left in the modern world to which it is socially acceptable to deride, hate, and discriminate against, please note: his his plan to ignore white voters avoids the lesson Democrats most need to learn.

Hillary Clinton lost, Phillips correctly observes, because many, many minority voters who had previously voted for Barack Obama did not go to the polls for her. From this he extrapolates a need to seek out these voters. Democrats don’t need more white voters to win.

True enough. But he never once considers the obvious reason for Mrs. Clinton’s failure. She was a horrible candidate. Horrid. The worst.

From minority points of view, too: which is why so many blacks and Hispanics voted for Trump, in record numbers*.

Democrats, want to win? Stop promoting awful candidates.

And you could try better ideas, too.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

 

* Well, that would be the Trumpian way to put the fact that the President-​elect did better with minorities than did, uh, Romney.

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