Tuesday, April 07, 2009

Pretzel logic

Right in line with all the other leftists, The Blade has decided that the reason a violent, troubled man shot and killed three police officers is because of talk radio.

Yes, you read that correctly. The Blade has joined the leftist chorus trying to blame talk radio and gun-rights advocates for the shooting.

I guess the fact that the shooter was described by his former girlfriend as a violent, abusive man with a history of anger management problems had nothing to do with it.

The Blade says the man's "mind had been poisoned by drinking deep of irrational anti-government conspiracies and gospels of hate." How they know this? Absent any evidence of the editorial board's psychiatric educational attainment, I would call it wild speculation and inferring a mental state based upon isolated comments from the man's friends. Whatever happened to blaming violent behavior on being spanked as child?

The Blade also says there will be time "take to task the radio talk show hosts who foment evil by banging drums of hatred," so I'm certain they plan more editorials doing just that.

I'm going to speculate myself, here, and say they are not talking about liberals and leftists, but conservative talk radio. But I have to wonder: have they listened to the hatred that spews forth from liberals and leftists on a daily basis? The anger and 'drums of hatred' are more likely to be directed AT conservatives than visa versa - especially in the pages of their publication.

Here's the problem with their editorial. They say that the shooter was afraid of having his guns taken away and this fear was part of what drove him to the actions. They then say they support 'sensible' restrictions on guns. Do you wonder if the shooter might have seen their 'sensible restriction' as an assault on his ability to own arms? To someone who is not quite right to begin with, would we be surprised if the editorial stance of The Blade would be part of what the shooter feared?

If, indeed, the man's fear of losing his Second Amendment rights played any part in his decision to shoot at police officers, the logical solution would be to stop putting restrictions on such ownership so the fear would go away and irrational people wouldn't be driven to shoot. To put further restrictions on gun ownership would only feed into the paranoia, making further shootings more likely.

Fear of having guns taken away becomes the left's justification for actually taking guns a way. Using The Blade's own editorial logic, if leftists would just stop talking about restricting an individual's right to bear arms, the man wouldn't have been afraid in the first place and might not have shot these officers.

See how illogical this stance is?

But that's not the worst of it. The editorial says:

"The person accused of the crimes, Richard Andrew Poplawski, appears to be another archetypal loser who was all about rights but not responsibilities ..."

They then absolve him of his responsibility by saying his mind had been poisoned by others. See? It's not him and his decisions and actions, it's because others poisoned his mind - so those others need to be stopped.

Noel Sheppard, in looking at how the left is spinning this story against talk radio and conservatives, says it best:

"But when an unstable, highly-armed, recently laid off guy who was kicked out of the marines for throwing a food tray at his drill sergeant gets into a fight with his mother and shoots three police officers, it is absolutely irresponsible for people to blame it on anyone BUT the man pulling the trigger.
...
Post facto commentary: Let's be clear what these attacks on folks like Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity are all about -- the left-wing in our nation want to silence ALL opposing voices in the media, and they will do it using all tools at their disposal INCLUDING blaming journalists and political commentators for the criminal behavior of others."

To take such a horrific event and attempt to use it to advance their own political agenda is crass and unconscionable.

As Sheppard also says: You should be ashamed of yourself.

2 comments:

Casmi said...

To make those statements infers that The Blade has information the rest of us are not privy to. And if they have that info and are using it to justify their editorialization, then they need to share it with the world - and quote their sources.

The man that pulled the trigger was probably fueled by many things. And we, the unknowing public, will probably NEVER know exactly what those things were.

This type of heinous act always leaves the public speculating. It's the way of the world.

Maybe he ... had a headache, didn't like the color blue in the sky, was upset with the television, burnt his toast, realized his socks didn't match ...

I'm not trying to make light of the tragedy. Not at all. BUT ... we do NOT know what spurred this event and will most likely never know for sure.

Once again it's The Blade pulling that old 'fickle finger of fault' out of their pocket and spinning wildly in circles waiting to point it at someone. And if I'm not mistaken ... it's not the first time they have done that!

Roman said...

When your take on life is clouded by the filter of leftist thought, it will be as predictable as the Toledo Blade, one of America's Newspapers. Compound this by trying to rationalize irrational actions, it is too predictable. If the only tool in your toolbox is a hammer, all of your problems look like nails...

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