Blockhead of the week...

The Evil That Men Do - Megan McArdle:

...This guy was some form of lunatic or psychopath, [There are HUNDREDS of suicidal Islamic attacks every year. Are they all "lunatics or psychopaths"? Should we treat them psychologically?] and it seems pretty clear to me at this point that he was inspired by terrorists. [He wasn't just "inspired." He lived and breathed Muslim jihadist ideology.] But there's no evidence that he was a terrorist--that is, that he was hooked into some organized network. [That's just STUPID. It's like saying you can't be a capitalist unless you work for a corporation.] Lots of people do terrible things in the name of their religion--just ask George Tiller. [Nice touch of the ol' moral equivalence.] Their acts are, as the Catholic Church says, "sins that cry out to heaven for vengeance". But they are no more indictments of a community than the acts of that Korean kid who went crazy at Virginia Tech. [Bullshit. These things are not the same. There is a LARGE subset of the Muslim community that supports jihad in various ways. There is NO part of the Christian community that encourages violence (though people with guilty consciences often fantasize that they are under threat).

Nobody gets kicked out of his mosque for saying that suicide bombers are "martyrs" or "heroes." But If I publicly praised the murder of Tiller, wow! I'd instantly be the most reviled person in my parish. Maybe in the whole Archdiocese!]

There is absolutely no political lesson to be learned from this. [There is a HUGE political lesson. See below.] Gun control would not have stopped a commissioned officer from obtaining guns. [But as always it kept the victims helpless.] Barack Obama had no power to stop this. [He's a leader of the climate of opinion that encourages this.] Infectious PTSD is a lousy theory. And nations certainly do not--and should not--shape their foreign policy around the possibility that a random psychopath will start shooting up a crowd. [Random. Surrrre. Muslims attacking US military personnel is almost unheard of.] Evil people do evil things. [This is a case of an evil ideology TEACHING people to do evil things.] That's all....

"There is absolutely no political lesson to be learned from this." That's the stupidest thing I've read this week. The war we are in and the intense desire to forget that it exists is one of the 3 or 4 most important subtexts of politics today.

There is a large part of the European and American populaces who are in deep denial about Islamic terrorism. They are desperate to block out the truth. Whenever some Muslim makes an individual attack they LEAP to proclaim that he is just a lunatic, and that there is no evidence of terrorism. It seems to get pasted into the very first news reports automatically.... "All-we-know-as-of-yet-is-that-there-has-been-a-shooting-but-officials-emphasize-that-there-is-no-evidence-of-terrorism."

And people VOTE on this issue. Politicians pander to it. Not overtly—no politician says "Vote for me and I'll cooperate with you in pretending we are not in a deadly conflict." But that's the sub-text. That's the message conveyed by what is not said. And by body language. You can just look at Barack, and his whole style says, "I'm NOT a cowboy, and Jesse James is our fault, and I will NEVER ask you to admit that there are causes worth fighting for."

I bet if you could peer into Ms McArdle's head you would find that she voted for Obama, and did so partly because his covert message was that he would be an enabler of our curious addiction to denying the obvious. Actually, I'd guess that a lot of people voted for him because of his middle name—it's the contemporary equivalent of "Neville."

As for WHY people act this way, I've explained it too many times and won't go over it again today. Click here for more.

Update: " a random psychopath will start shooting up a crowd..." So. Random, huh. Suppose I started hanging out with "white supremacists," and praising their violent acts. And then I shoot up a crowd of non-whites. That would be "random," Ms McArdle, right? Hmmm? Random, not, er, connected with anything? I'd just be a "random psychopath," right?