A lunatic, likely off his meds, but poisoned in the mind in the first place by the ideology of two failed states already in the rubbish bin of history (Rhodesia and Apartheid South Africa), went to a church in South Carolina, during a bible study meeting, and slaughtered 9 people, all black who were there to worship. Pictures of this idiot soon surfaced affirming his hatred and ideological bent. You know, the ones with the shaded glasses, and the weapon pointed “sort of” at some target of danger, eyes glossed over as if that image is supposed to enhance the seriousness of the subject and make onlookers cringe, cower, and shudder.
My first thoughts were of the obvious weakness of the individual—based purely on his target choice. He went to a church; hardly a hard target, and killed six women—hardly a physical threat. Unless you enter a mosque, you have no fear of running into an armed audience. No one carries a weapon to church unless they are an off-duty police officer. And unless these six women suddenly swarmed on him, they couldn’t have presented a threat to him. No, just like all of these other “crazy people” (John Holmes, Adam Lanza, etc.) they selected a target where they would have time to kill a lot of people with little to no interference from within the target zone or immediately outside of it. That goes a long way towards thwarting the insanity defense. You picked some low hanging fruit rather than go, say, into middle-city Baltimore and shooting up the crowd outside a quickie mart or a basketball complex. There you’d have met some resistance and probably armed resistance. That would be crazy.
In the immediate aftermath of the killing, politicians on both sides of the aisle (which more and more seems to be the same side of the aisle) jumped from the act of killing to the symbols the lunatic seemed to appreciate. First and foremost was the Confederate Flag. South Carolina Governor Haley quickly stated it was time to remove the flag from the capital grounds. As if removing the flag now is going to stop the next idiot from turning the barrel of his gun as whatever target that fits the profile of his demon.
Other politicians raced to one-up Governor Haley. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky stated that a statue of General Robert E. Lee in his state that had been defaced should be removed and placed in a museum. I guess putting it in a museum means far fewer people will see it. And he is probably correct. No one goes to museums anymore. They are too enraptured with what the Kardashians are doing. They can get an abbreviated version of whatever is displayed in a museum on their smartphone from the discomfort of their toilet. Never mind that the blurb accompanying the smart phone version has been politically edited to fit some radical liberal’s agenda and reflects very little of historical accuracy or relevance.
Tennessee politicians clamored that a bust of Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest be removed from the State House. He was an early Ku Klux Klan leader, you see. Never mind that he was a hugely successful Soldier in the Civil War, rising from an enlisted man to three-star Cavalry General. His thoughts and practices of mobile warfare are the basis for today’s mobile warfare—getting there first, with the most. But never mind his contribution to history. He traded slaves. All memory of him must be expunged.
Governor Terry McCauliffe banned the symbol of the Confederate Flag from appearing on the Virginia license plates. Other states are vowing to follow suit.
Amazon, Walmart, Ebay, and Sears stopped selling Confederate Flags. There are even calls for book covers that have the symbol to be removed and reworked. The Kentucky State Senate calls for the removal of a statue of Jefferson Davis, the President of the Confederate States and fellow Kentuckian.
It has grown into an epidemic of cultural cleansing all in the name of racial sensitivity. What about the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC? It honors President Thomas Jefferson, who was a slave owner, even knocking one of his teenaged slaves up. Never mind that he authored the Constitution and was a founding father of our country. Those contributions and accomplishments mean nothing compared to the horror of his having owned slaves.
Strom Thurmond was a Senator in the United States. He once ran for President as a Segregationist. Should we strike any mention of him from history? Shall we revoke any law he signed on to, sponsored, or promoted? Never mind the function and positivity any of those laws created. He was in favor of separating the races! Everything he did pales in comparison.
We cannot erase the past of this country by removing all relics that remain to remind us of it. But really, the groups doing most of this complaining are not doing it for anything as righteous as righting a historical wrong. They are doing their little “useful idiot” part towards fundamentally changing this country. These cretins simply believe that the United States was born, founded, built and continues on a history of lies, theft, murder, and corruption. These stupid cultural alterations are not their goal. It is the annihilation of the entirety of our culture they seek. And with a complicit and unchallenging media, they will get it.
I’m just glad I’m 54 years old. I’ll be dead before the country completely collapses. My kid? He’ll have to deal with it. I hope he is arming himself.