Rules & Georgie
Real simple question this morning about a widely reported fact: the guns used by the VTech mass murderer were purchased legally. Are you ready for the simple question? It's pretty simple so don't try to make it more complex than it is. So here:
Doesn't that mean the laws should be changed so that psychotic killers can't get them?
That's not so very complex, is it? The idea that instruments that can easily inflict massive lethal force should be beyond the reach of deadly lunatics?
You couldn't just go out and run over 30 people, so it's not like having a drivers licence. It's guns - semi-auto pistols with huge 15-round clips - that we're talking about.
Look: Cho couldn't have joined the police force, right? They have psychological standards, such as they are, for authorizing people to use deadly force. Same with the military. Which branch would have recruited, trained, and armed a Cho? None.
Is there any sane person who would now want Cho to have his guns? Outside of the crazy gun nuts, the answer is "NO!"
And yet Americans are still hostage to the Junta of extreme rightists who include the utterly irrational gun lobby. Somehow, the right of an organized militia to keep and bear arms has tuned into a religious movement to allow crazy murderers to easily obtain semi-auto pistols with huge clips and unlimited ammo.
Yesterday, as Georgie was having an non-negotiation session with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, almost 200 Iraqis were killed by bombings, despite the best efforts of the "surge." That's more than six VTechs in a day. No wonder the Iraqis are so happy to have us occupy them - the safety.
This passage was interesting:
Several officials said the session was polite. But they said it turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush bristled at the comparison, according to several officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. One quoted him as saying, "I reject" the comparison.
Reid and the generals are right on - that's exactly what's happening. Nixon and Kissinger kept Vietnam going at its deadly pace, constantly "surging" more troops in and increasing the inhuman bombing campaigns (dropping many times the tonnage of bombs that were dropped in WWII) well past the time that they knew it did no good.
And Georgie's riposte: "I reject" it.
Umm, okay. On what grounds? Why is it wrong? Why are the generals, who you used to lie about making military decisions - now wrong about military history? Obviously, Georgie has studied as much military history as any general - how else could he make every mistake ever made in any war by any commander? You think that just happens by accident?
Typically, there's no reason or rationale for what Georgie says. It's just what he thinks, so it becomes reality - that's what Rove keeps telling him.
"It's not Vietnam, Georgie."
"Yeah, Karl, I Decider it's not."
"See, you been to Iraq. You ever go to Vietnam?"
"Hell no."
See?
Doesn't that mean the laws should be changed so that psychotic killers can't get them?
That's not so very complex, is it? The idea that instruments that can easily inflict massive lethal force should be beyond the reach of deadly lunatics?
You couldn't just go out and run over 30 people, so it's not like having a drivers licence. It's guns - semi-auto pistols with huge 15-round clips - that we're talking about.
Look: Cho couldn't have joined the police force, right? They have psychological standards, such as they are, for authorizing people to use deadly force. Same with the military. Which branch would have recruited, trained, and armed a Cho? None.
Is there any sane person who would now want Cho to have his guns? Outside of the crazy gun nuts, the answer is "NO!"
And yet Americans are still hostage to the Junta of extreme rightists who include the utterly irrational gun lobby. Somehow, the right of an organized militia to keep and bear arms has tuned into a religious movement to allow crazy murderers to easily obtain semi-auto pistols with huge clips and unlimited ammo.
Yesterday, as Georgie was having an non-negotiation session with Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, almost 200 Iraqis were killed by bombings, despite the best efforts of the "surge." That's more than six VTechs in a day. No wonder the Iraqis are so happy to have us occupy them - the safety.
This passage was interesting:
Several officials said the session was polite. But they said it turned pointed when Reid recounted a conversation with generals who likened Iraq to Vietnam and described it as a war in which the president refused to change course despite knowing victory was impossible. Bush bristled at the comparison, according to several officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the meeting was private. One quoted him as saying, "I reject" the comparison.
Reid and the generals are right on - that's exactly what's happening. Nixon and Kissinger kept Vietnam going at its deadly pace, constantly "surging" more troops in and increasing the inhuman bombing campaigns (dropping many times the tonnage of bombs that were dropped in WWII) well past the time that they knew it did no good.
And Georgie's riposte: "I reject" it.
Umm, okay. On what grounds? Why is it wrong? Why are the generals, who you used to lie about making military decisions - now wrong about military history? Obviously, Georgie has studied as much military history as any general - how else could he make every mistake ever made in any war by any commander? You think that just happens by accident?
Typically, there's no reason or rationale for what Georgie says. It's just what he thinks, so it becomes reality - that's what Rove keeps telling him.
"It's not Vietnam, Georgie."
"Yeah, Karl, I Decider it's not."
"See, you been to Iraq. You ever go to Vietnam?"
"Hell no."
See?
posted by fiduciary at 8:47 AM
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