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A funny thing happened at the Mall…
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The other day I was at Johnsonville Mall, one of Wellington’s northern suburbs. Michael Wolff’s exposé, Fire and Fury was available at the mall’s Whitcoull’s at a discount, and I was keen to read for myself what was happening on the other side of the planet. The lunatic asylum currently inhabiting the White House held a fascination much like driving past a train-wreck and trying to make sense of the tangled, smoking carnage.
Approaching the counter, with one customer in front of me, we suddenly heard several loud *pops*, slowly spaced out, emanating from the same direction.
We looked out into the mall…
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We saw a worker from the pharmacy across the way climb back onto a ladder. She affixed balloons to the shop frontage, and as she did so, several burst…
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I looked at my companion and remarked;
“You know, if this mall were in the United States, we all would’ve been diving for cover by now.”
We approached the counter and the Whitcoulls counter-attendant, having overheard my comment, remarked;
“That’s exactly what I said to the customer before you!”
What does it say about two predominantly anglo-saxon societies – both settled from Europe, where English is predominantly the lingua franca – but which over two centuries have diverged in such a radical fashion? Where bursting balloons would raise curiosity in one society – and abject mortal fear in another?
And how lucky we are to be living in the former and not the latter.
If ever New Zealand draws up a constitution, our Second Amendment should guarantee the right to bear balloons. And that’s it: balloons.
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Previous related blogposts
NRA response; more guns. Common sense sez otherwise.
How many more? For god’s sakes, how many more?!
Why arming our Police is not such a flash idea
Michael Moore on yet more shootings in the USA
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All images stamped ‘thedailyblog.co.nz – fmacskasy.wordpress.com’ are freely available to be used, with following provisos,
» Use must be for non-commercial purposes.
» Where purpose of use is commercial, a donation to Child Poverty Action Group is requested.
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» Acknowledgement of source is requested.
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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 3 October 2018
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The Scalise Shooting: this solves nothing!
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A few days ago;
Congressman Steve Scalise, the No. 3 Republican in the U.S. House of Representatives, was in critical condition on Wednesday night after he and three others were shot as they practiced for a charity baseball game.
[…]
Also wounded were a congressional aide and one former aide who now works as a lobbyist, officials said. One Capitol Hill police officer suffered a gunshot wound and another officer twisted an ankle and was released from a hospital, police said.
Reports indicate that the gunman, who was shot and killed, was a Bernie Sanders supporter;
It quickly emerged the [gunman], had posted anti-Trump messages on his social media accounts and campaigned on behalf of Mr Sanders, the Left-wing Senator who ran for the Democratic presidential nomination.
Whatever my thoughts and feelings toward those on the Right – including this current Trump Administration – the actions of the shooter (who will not be named here) in Washington D.C. cannot be condoned. In fact, when news of the shooting came through on Radio NZ, I felt sick in my stomach.
For at least three reasons, political assassination must never be allowed to become a social norm;
- The person who resorts to a weapon to silence an opponent has lost the contest of ideas. It elevates the value of an assassinated person’s ideas. In effect, they have been martyred, and history is full of examples, whether it be Ghandi or Martin Luther King Jr.
- Whatever one thinks of a political opponent, they too have families who will mourn their violent death. Their partner and children do not deserve such a tragedy in their lives.
- It’s just plain wrong.
As well, the gunman has undermined and damaged his own ideology. Supporters of Bernie Sanders will now share the odium of one disturbed assassin’s crime.
Already, those inclined toward conspiracy theories have jumped on this shooting for their own agenda;
It didn’t take long for some to connect the shooting to Sanders himself. One person in particular, Jack Posobiec — a Trump supporter who has pushed the conspiracy theory surrounding DNC staffer Seth Rich’s death — especially fueled that idea.
“Just 4 days ago Bernie Sanders ordered his followers to ‘take down’ Trump,” he tweeted.
However,
It is disconcerting that – as far as this blogger is aware – Trump never visited the sole survivor of three men who stood up to a racist bigot threatening two young women in Portland;
Pressure is mounting on Donald Trump to address the fatal stabbing of several men who tried to protect a Muslim teenager from being subject to a racist rant on a train.
53-year-old Ricky Best and 23-year-old Taliesin Myrddin Namkai-Meche were killed after they tried to stop Jeremy Christian from hurling abuse at two women, one of whom was wearing a hijab.
A third passenger, 21-year-old Micah David-Cole Fletcher, was wounded.
Ted Wheeler, the Portland mayor, and the FBI have condemned the killings.
The President has not mentioned the attack by Christian, a man who has been described as a white supremacist, yet Mr Trump has continued to actively use social media.
Tweets since the attack include his “big results” from the trip to Europe, “fake news” and health care, and he has even praised the newly-elected Republican representative in Montana who allegedly assaulted a Guardian journalist at a campaign event.
Veteran journalist Dan Rather made an appeal on Facebook for the President to name the “brave Americans” killed in the attack, and his post has been commented on and shared more than 340,000 times.
“I wish we would hear you say these names, or even just tweet them,” Mr Rather said.
When there was a comment from the White House, the supposed tweet from Trump was – irony of ironies – apparently “fake”. It was most likely written by a White House staffer;
After pressure mounted on Donald Trump to comment on the racist attack in Portland, Oregon that left two men dead on Friday, the president said on Monday the attack was “unacceptable”.
Trump’s words were broadcast on the @POTUS Twitter account, rather than the more commonly used @RealDonaldTrump, on Monday morning, shortly before Trump marked Memorial Day with a speech at Arlington national cemetery in Virginia.
“The violent attacks in Portland on Friday are unacceptable,” the tweet read. “The victims were standing up to hate and intolerance. Our prayers are w/ them.”
The @POTUS tweet does not sound like Trump’s style of writing on that particular medium.
Have I ‘attacked’ Trump?
Yes I have. And for damned good reason. But no violence was used.
No one died. No blood was spilled.
This is how a contest of ideas should – must! – take place in a civilised society.
Otherwise we are still cave-swelling barbarians – albeit with high-tech weapons, reality tv, and delusions of civility. To be a gun-wielding maniac, whether from the Right or Left, is to surrender to our worst urges. No intelligent thought, creative imagination, or insights required.
When one of “Our Own” from the Left or Right resorts to violence, we have to own that person. In this case, the Left has to take ownership of the Washington gunman and remind ourselves; this is not the way.
When a Norwegian neo-fascist terrorist murdered seventyseven people in his own country, we demanded that the Right take responsibility for his actions.
The Left should do no less.
Final note
After the attempted assassination of President Reagan, on 30 March 1981, US Congress passed into law the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act. The Act restricted access to firearms and was supported by President Reagan, and passed into law by President Clinton on 30 November 1993.
After this attack on one of their own, Republican lawmakers might re-visit their recent history when it comes to gun-control.
A bullet makes no distinction between Republicans and Democrats. Only the person wielding the gun does that.
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References
Reuters: Scalise in critical condition after attack by gunman at baseball field
The Telegraph: Donald Trump visits Steve Scalise in hospital after Republican congressman shot at baseball practice
The LA Times: How fake news starts – Trump supporters tie Bernie Sanders to Alexandria shooting using a fake quote
The Independent: Portland attack – Calls mount for Donald Trump to address fatal stabbing of ‘brave men’ who tried to protect Muslim teenager on train
The Guardian: Portland attack – Trump says victims stood up to ‘hate and intolerance’
Wikipedia: Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act
Previous related blogposts
The Portland Heroes – the indomitable human spirit at its finest
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This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 17 June 2017.
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It’s official: ACT’s Jamie Whyte is several-sandwiches-and-a-salad short of a picnic
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There aren’t very many times I agree wholeheartedly with our Dear Leader – but on this occassion I believe he spoke for those 99% of New Zealanders for whom common sense is as natural as breathing air.
ACT – with it’s long line of loopy leaders and coterie of strange MPs – has a record for saying and doing things that can best be described as “unwise” (in a Judith Collins sense of the word) – or just down-right Full Moon Barking Mad to be bluntly honest.
Case in point;
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Whyte’s comments were further reported;
Dr Whyte said he had no view on what weapons shopkeepers should arm themselves with but believed firearms were appropriate, “if they felt that there was sufficient threat”.
Full. Moon. Barking. Mad.
When Whyte offered his views on incest on the blog, “The Ruminator“, ACT’s opponants (and there are plenty of them); the MSM, and blogosphere reacted with disbelief, derision and exasperation.
Personally, I took it as the musings of an “philosopher-intellectual” who had spent way too much time isolated in dusty University halls and had only recently returned to Planet Earth to mingle with us mere humans. Kind of akin to a left-wing Labour candidate musing out loud about enforced re-nationalisation of all privatised state assets, or their National counterpart musing out loud about banning all trade unions. Definitely stuff not meant for public consumption and best kept to one-self.
Except it appears that the incest gaffe was not an isolated incident, and Jamie Whyte’s insane suggestion to allow store owners to “bear arms” now confirms his reputation as someone whose grip on reality is questionable.
It was left up to the Prime Minister, New Zealand Association of Convenience Stores chairman, Roger Bull, and others, to inject some sanity into this American Gothic nightmare scenario that an ostensibly sober Jamie Whyte was casually promoting as a new way of life.
Key pointed out the obvious;
“The reason I think it’s a bad idea is that firstly you’d be putting weapons in the hands of people that are not trained.
Those weapons could be used [against] the very shopkeepers themselves. It’s a recipe for disaster.”
And Roger Bull said matter-of-factly;
“Our policy has always been if there’s a robbery, you comply with the instructions of the person and you do not try to do anything quick or sudden because you don’t know the mental state [of the offender].
You comply and get them out of the way as quick as possible.”
Let me illustrate the type of wacky-doodle idea that Whyte is flirting with.
Soon after the September 11 attacks, more than one individual – exhibiting a decidedly dubious capacity for logic – suggested on several internet fora, that passengers be allowed to carry guns on flights, to protect against further terrorist attacks.
Yeah. Because gunfights on aircraft flying at high altitudes, is just such an amazingly good idea! Add to the scenario of gun-packing passengers, growing incidences of alcohol-fuelled high-altititude high-jinks, and the threat of hijacking becomes the least of our worries.
Take the same concept of people feeling threatened by random, high-profile crimes from 10,000 metres, and relocate it to West Auckland, and the only difference is the absence of the likelihood of explosive decompression when bullets miss their intended targets.
There is a disturbing bizarre pattern to Whyte’s pattern of “thinking”. Whether it is simplistic notions of removing the Resource Management Act or Three Strikes for burglary, his “solutions” are predicated on a naive, almost black and white world-view, that is reminiscent of an adolescent who has yet to come to terms with the complexities of society. Generally, pre-adolescent teenagers, when faced with pressing social issues and problems, will arrive at simplistic, knee-jerk “solutions” based on little more than their own limited life-experiences.
For a supposedly mature, well-educated, worldly individual to express similar naive beliefs suggests that Whyte’s own intellectual development has been ‘arrested’ at some point in his youth and has not progressed to understanding that the world around him is a vastly complex, messy, inter-twined mass of human threads. Tug on one thread, and there is no telling where that pressure will be exerted.
It does not take a genius to figure out what is wrong with the picture of allowing store owners to keep firearms for “self defence”.
Aside from how such weapons would be stored – under the counter? Easily stolen or picked up by kids. Locked away – then not much use to a store owner facing a robbery situation.
Or a gunfight in a store with other customers present – who else would be injured or killed?
Whyte obviously has not thought the issue through to it’s ultimate, deadly conclusion. And if he has, and if he is simply exploiting the tragedy of murdered shop-keepers for political gain to win votes – what does that make him?
I would be hard-pressed to work out which is worse; a parliamentary aspirant with a stupid idea that would most likely end up killing more innocent people?
Or a parliamentary aspirant with an idea that is exploitative of other people’s grief , just to win votes?
Even the right-wing, lock’em-up-throw-away-the-key, Sensible Sentencing spokesperson, Ruth Money, opposed “a crazy increase of firearms behind every counter“.
When even the so-called “Sensible Sentencing” recognise a patently lunatic proposal, you just know it’s a step too far into Wacky-doodle Land
Perhaps Whyte should have stuck with legalising incest. After all, what’s the worst that can result from incest? Idiot people with idiot ideas?
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References
NZ Herald: Act policy a ‘recipe for disaster’ – Key
The Ruminator: Mr Ryght: An interview with ACT leader: Jamie Whyte
Previous related blogposts
ACT leader, Jamie Whyte, refutes cliched stereotype of solo-mothers?
Letter to the Editor: A great business opportunity, courtesy of ACT
And this is why we call them Right Wing Nut Jobs
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes
This blogpost was first published on The Daily Blog on 14 September 2014
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Michael Moore on yet more shootings in the USA…
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The latest bout of insanity from the USA,
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The article above contained this chilling information;
“Police said they were examining a video posted on YouTube in which a man, sitting in a car, said he had planned an attack in Isla Vista because he was sexually frustrated and had been snubbed by women. The young man, who said he was 22, described himself as a virgin and said he planned an act of retribution because women had not found him attractive.”
If true, then those Americans who support the right for people to own deadly weapons are allowing crazed, frustrated, young men to vent their anger by using their guns on their fellow citizens.
The term “mass insanity” does not begin to cover what ails that country.
I thought this response, from Michael Moore’s Facebook page, was worth re-posting*…
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With due respect to those who are asking me to comment on last night’s tragic mass shooting at UCSB in Isla Vista, CA — I no longer have anything to say about what is now part of normal American life.
Everything I have to say about this, I said it 12 years ago: We are a people easily manipulated by fear which causes us to arm ourselves with a quarter BILLION guns in our homes that are often easily accessible to young people, burglars, the mentally ill and anyone who momentarily snaps.
We are a nation founded in violence, grew our borders through violence, and allow men in power to use violence around the world to further our so-called American (corporate) “interests.”
The gun, not the eagle, is our true national symbol. While other countries have more violent pasts (Germany, Japan), more guns per capita in their homes (Canada [mostly hunting guns]), and the kids in most other countries watch the same violent movies and play the same violent video games that our kids play, no one even comes close to killing as many of its own citizens on a daily basis as we do — and yet we don’t seem to want to ask ourselves this simple question: “Why us? What is it about US?”
Nearly all of our mass shootings are by angry or disturbed white males. None of them are committed by the majority gender, women. Hmmm, why is that?
Even when 90% of the American public calls for stronger gun laws, Congress refuses — and then we the people refuse to remove them from office.
So the onus is on us, all of us. We won’t pass the necessary laws, but more importantly we won’t consider why this happens here all the time. When the NRA says, “Guns don’t kill people — people kill people,” they’ve got it half-right.
Except I would amend it to this: “Guns don’t kill people — Americans kill people.”
Enjoy the rest of your day, and rest assured this will all happen again very soon.
[* Paragraphs added to break up text.]
The scary thing?
Moore is right. It will all happen again, very soon.
Facts
- There are 32,000 gun-related deaths in the United States, per year.
- In 2001, there were a total of 29,573 gun-related deaths.
- The September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, in 2001, killed 2,977 victims.
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References
Washington Post: Shooter kills at least six people in rampage near UC Santa Barbara
Facebook: Michael Moore
Policmic: There Are 32,000+ Gun Deaths A Year in the U.S. — Here is How We Get That Number to Zero
Gun Policy: United States — Gun Facts, Figures and the Law
Wikipedia: September 11 attacks
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Above image acknowledgment: Francis Owen/Lurch Left Memes
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The “right to bear arms”…
… does it include death ray guns?
When the USA’s Second Amendment was adopted on 15 December 1791, the “right to bear arms” referred to weapons like these,
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I wonder what the American Founding Fathers would have thought of 21st century weapons like an Xray “death-ray” weapon?
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Acknowledgement: ABC News – FBI Foils Plot To Build Strange X-Ray Weapon, Possibly Targeting President Obama
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In the years and decades to come, as technology produces more and more highly advanced direct-energy (ray guns) weapons – capable of god-knows-what destruction – will the American appetite for guns finally be quenched?
If I was the NRA, I’d start to be worried.
Some buildings make awfully good targets. Especially for those who are pissed of at the gun lobby after losing loved ones to gun violence…
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Why arming our Police is not such a flash idea
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When the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre suggested that the “solution” to mass shootings in US schools was to arm teachers, the response of trhose with more common sense was one of (a) disbelief (b) dismay and (c) disgust. (See previous blogpost: NRA response; more guns. Common sense sez otherwise. )
And rightly so. Escalation of America’s internal arms race could not be viewed by any sane human being as anything other than compounding the madness that is part and parcel of their fixation on guns.
New Zealanders generally shook their collective heads at the sheer stupidity of Wayne LaPierre’s suggestion.
But it seems that we, ourselves, are not above knee-jerk reactions when it comes to crime, drunken mayhem, Police, etc.
As is usual now with the de-regulation of the booze industry and our laws on alcohol (courtesy of the “free market” and the Cult of the Individual), theend-of-year “festive season” now includes a routine plethora of out-of-control parties and public displays of alcohol-fuelled violence.
As if we should be surprised that the easy availability of cheap booze would have any other consequences?
This year was no different, with several instances of Police having to deal with alcohol-fueled fights and other public dis-order.
The intensity of the violence has taken a new turn, with Police themselves coming under direct attack.
One was particularly nasty,
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In one, big, reflexive jerk of the knee, Police Association vice-president, Luke Shadbolt, repeated the call to routinely arm police,
“Increasingly, members are calling for general arming. And we know, amongst the staff … more and more are leaning toward general arming as well.”
See: IBID
Thankfully, though, others in the Police force were able to exercise a modicum of common sense. Whangarei area commander Inspector Tracy Phillips stated the blindingly obvious,
“I don’t know what would have happened [if he’d been armed] but firearms are easier to use than Tasers.“
See: IBID
That’s right, folks; one of the drunk partygoers had taken the constable’s taser and had tried to use it on the unconscious police officer.
The complexity of the weapon defeated the drunk idiot.
Now replace the taser with a handgun.
Instead of two bruised and battered police officers, we would have at least one – probably two – dead police; grieving families; and two more names to add to a sad list at the Police College of fallen policemen and women,
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In this case, the lack of guns probably saved two lives.
Meanwhile, as if we needed to emphasise the point, in 2010 seven American police officers were killed by their own weapons that had been taken from them. (See: FBI Releases Preliminary Statistics for Law Enforcement Officers Killed in 2010)
We have a problem in this country, but it is not with unarmed Police.
Our problem lies with the ubiquitous availability of dirt-cheap booze; a gutless National “government” that has kowtowed to the liquor industry; and an attitude in this country that alcohol abuse is someone elses’ problem.
Anyone who seriously thinks that giving guns to police will solve this deep malaise in our society has probably had one too many.
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Additional
The Press: New liquor laws ‘dog’s breakfast’ – Dickerson (12 Dec 2012)
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How many more? For god’s sakes, how many more?!
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How many more?
How many more people must die in the United States before the body count becomes too much, even for the most obsessive, hardened, gun-“fans”?!
Twenty children plus six adults. Is that the price of American’s “right” to own lethal weapons?
God help your nation.
Because it sure seems that you people are incapable of it.
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