Is Glenn Beck.
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[…] Yglesias at the end, there. John Cole calls Beck the dumbest man in America. I dunno… that’s a strong claim. Also in contention: Dr. Helen, Glenn […]
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Is Glenn Beck.
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[…] Yglesias at the end, there. John Cole calls Beck the dumbest man in America. I dunno… that’s a strong claim. Also in contention: Dr. Helen, Glenn […]
Michael D.
The sky is blue.
Nancy Grace is dumb as a bag of hammers.
Etc.
CalD
…and?
Napoleon
John, you can now remove the "consistently wrong since 2002" from the top of your website.
jibeaux
Now Hannity’s website has to do a new poll on secession / revolution, to include an option for "gunning down your family plus some unfortunate strangers". See, they’ve had a new idea in the last thirty years!
Leo v.2.0
Have I been banned for attempting to link to wikipedia, or what?
Atanarjuat
A man can only be pushed so far until he snaps.
Who’s to say that the Alabama shooter wasn’t so marginalized by society that he was driven to madness?
As always, I must remind the knee-jerk haters that this doesn’t excuse the actions of the murderer, nor does analyzing motives or any possible catalyst diminish the tragedy in any way.
-A
GSD
30 years ago a ranting lunatic like Beck would have been communicating to a handful of people via ham radio from a bunker in Idaho. Thanks to the Limbaugh effect of defining political deviancy downward and to amoral money grubbers like Rupert Murcock, he gets to spread his raging paranoia daily in prime time.
-GSD
eyepaddle
BIll O’Reilly–the voice of reason. I bet that felt strange–even to him.
I always try to avoid feeding the trolls, atanarjuat, but other than some random gut feeling do you ‘n’ Glenn have even the faintest of reasons to say this?
Josh Hueco
Dave Neiwart’s going to either become a millionaire chronicling this bullshit for the next eight years or he’s going to die from a stroke caused by disgust.
Michael
When Bill O’Reilly is the most rational person in the discussion, you know things have left the rails.
I’ve taken lately to watching Beck with the sound turned off. He looks like he’s ready for a commitment.
Svensker
@Atanarjuat:
An empathy you are glad to extend to Palestinians, as well. Oh, wait. What? Never mind!
jenniebee
I don’t know about that, John. What about the three dozen people who watch him without either abhorrence or irony? They’re pretty dumb too.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
BOB says that Glenn Beck is an up and comer and the one to keep an eye on. So I guess this post just makes me confused.
jibeaux
Does anyone remember Chris Rock after Columbine, talking about how people explained that the shooters didn’t have a lot of friends, etc…
"Whatever happened to crazy? Don’t we have crazy people any more?"
Atanarjuat
Svensker, how can you compare the (thankfully) rare derangement that would drive a lone gunman to a shooting spree to that of a murderous, Islamic culture who has vowed undying hatred for Jews?
You’re comparing apples to cannonballs, I’m afraid.
-A
jibeaux
It would, of course, be irresponsible not to speculate…
The Moar You Know
You’ve really walked off the edge when Bill O’Reilly is the voice of reason and sanity. Glenn Beck needs to be forcibly institutionalized.
Zifnab
@Atanarjuat:
@Svensker: That’s completely different. Palestinians might be segregated within their own country, arrested without due process, and constantly at risk of having their houses bulldozed, but they don’t get hassled for political correctness. They’re allowed to say whatever they want before they’re shot at.
Glenn Beck has it right. Conservatives are the most marginalized, victimized, and martyred minority group in the world. If this wasn’t the greatest country on earth, their lives would be intolerable.
wasabi gasp
I was marginalized by society and all I got was the blood of my victims splattered all over my stinkin’ t-shirt.
patrick
The dumbest woman would be Victoria Jackson.
Her and Glenn should have a baby and call it George.
camchuck
Glenn Beck: Providing a public voice for the batshit insane so that they aren’t forced to murder the rest of us.
And y’all thought he had no public value.
Tom Hilton
Very dumb, yes…but also, perhaps, just a little self-aware. As in, maybe he’s telling us he would go on a spree killing if he were "pushed too far".
jibeaux
@Zifnab:
Amen, brother. I mean, the fairness doctrine, people! How are people supposed to avoid committing random acts of horrific violence when there are internet rumors that some guy somewhere wants to bring back the fairness doctrine? It’s just asking too much. A person can only endure so long with Fox, free republic, a carton of cheetos and a shrine to Sarah Palin. Sooner or later the involvement of high caliber ammunition is simply inevitable.
Zifnab
@Tom Hilton: He’d be all over the news for weeks. So nothing would change.
Faux News
Why you guys even bother feeding the Antana-whats-its-name Troll is beyond me. At least B.O.B. is mildly entertaining.
Anyway I always thought it was the Grammar & Spelling Nazis on the internet boards that cause people to snap and go on killing sprees. I’m glad that Glenn Beck has proven me wrong.
SGEW
A demi-serious note:
Someone should really alert the SPLC about Brick Oven Bill. Not to make you paranoid, Bill, but "better safe than sorry," and all that . . . .
[I am assuming that they already have a file open on Mr. Beck]
jibeaux
I call him Big Tuna, and usually ignore him, but sometimes I enjoy freestyling a little. Philosophical question for discussion: can you riff on a troll’s comment without feeding the troll, or is any response at all troll food? What do YOU think?
Crazy First.
John Cole
Brick Oven Bill just earned himself a week time-out.
Martin
A weekend diversion for all:
Transcript of the story meetings for Raiders of the Lost Ark
It’s 125 pages long, took place over 5 days, and lets you peek inside how Lucas/Spielberg think out a story. I’ve just started it…
AhabTRuler
@patrick: Yes, but to be fair to Victoria, it was always obvious that she was a moron. Not funny, either.
Martin
True, but it’s guys like Beck doing the pushing. I mean, the guy is in freaking Alabama – it’s not like he’s got a bunch of Berkley hippies outside his door telling him to stop eating meat. He’s in a blood-red Republican state, with a Republican governor, a megachurch for every town, and no safety net, just as the GOP likes it.
(See you in a week Bill. Come back with more tractors and less crazy, please.)
eyepaddle
Shorter B.O.B
White people think, black people run fast and catch stuff.
People don’t think you’re a crazy racist because you buck the "higher ed" view of evolution–they think that because you say batantly nutty things.
Look into "bottlenecks" and "motivation" and then get back to us with another well thought out example of evolution.
GP
Could it be that Beck is Lou Dobbs son? You know the one that never got to ride the horses
eyepaddle
Rather than edit I’ll just say thanks to John.
norbizness
After seeing him stink up Obsidian Wings’ joint for months on end, I’ve concluded that BOB is part Steve Sailer and part Ken Clean-Air System.
Zifnab
@Martin:
Yeah, funny how you never hear about conservatives losing it and going on shooting rampages in blue states.
Comrade Stuck
@John Cole:
Ah shucks, I missed it. must have been one of BoB’s patented Genome doozies. My favorite to mock.
lutton
Is this part of Beck’s crazy "We Surround Them FRIDAY!" initiative?
http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/21018/
lutton
oh, PS…hat tip to Philly-Bits for the Beck info:
http://twitter.com/philly_bits/status/1321257024
Martin
Sounds like the opening line for a tv ad for the Ronco assault-o-matic. "It’s a floor wax! It’s an assault rifle! It’s two things in one!"
Joey Maloney
30 years ago a ranting lunatic like Beck would have been communicating to a
handful of peoplespace aliens viaham radiohis fillings from a bunker in Idaho.Fixt for your convenience.
Brian J
Thankfully I just had to see what the site address was to get Beck’s "point." You see, while I’m all for seeing what the other side has to say, I’m dead set against wasting my time with goons like Hannity and Beck. I don’t know if I’ve ever actually seen him live or read something’s written; I think I’ve mostly come across it by third party sources. I don’t know if that’s right, but it doesn’t seem like I am missing much.
Now, I get that a lot of people feel individuals like Olbermann and Beck are the same. I guess they have similar qualities in that they are both partisans, but I don’t think Olbermann’s a polemicist in such a negative way. He may have an insufferable personality to some, and he may be willing to throw punches a little too freely some times, but he doesn’t exist merely to cause trouble like a town drunk.
With that in mind, I find it incredible the number of people who aren’t brain dead conservatives but instead educated and for the most part reasonable who follow Glenn Beck. What they see is anybody’s guess.
gbear
question: How far can someone take that crap and not get pulled off the air? He’s heading into Westboro Church territory.
Svensker
@Atanarjuat:
Grammar fail.
The rest is just beyond fail and not even worth swatting down.
Martin
No, Olberman mocks, mainly. We have a pretty high tolerance for that over what Beck does. That said, I find Olberman to be fairly insufferable. I could watch Rachel 24/7, though. She wins double style points for coming off like a completely normal person and actually focusing on things that I think matter to the audience.
Michael
Glenn has a poll!
http://www.yourvotepoll.com/glenn-beck.html?a=77756&b=10&c1=
It keeps referring me to ad sites when I vote "no". What a lowlife – basically, he signs you up for spam just to try and vote no.
Atanarjuat
I understand, Svensker. When a liberal has no counter-argument, they lunge for the low-hanging fruit of grammatical errors.
You’ll be pleased to know that I found your (non)response predictable.
Meanwhile, your comparison of the lone Alabama shooter to an entire Islamic culture bent on the eradication of Jews in the Middle East is still inappropriate.
Thanks for playing. There’s no door prize, though. Sorry.
-A
Ricky Bobby
Hannity is a partisan hack. Coulter is a used up drag queen of the right relegated to the vaudeville tents. Bill O is an impotent megalomaniac still struggling with the fact he went to "journalism" school instead of becoming a Navy SEAL. El Rushbo is just high.
Glenn Beck, on the other hand, is a true believer. The true believers are the ones who actually scare me.
r€nato
The cult of right-wing victimhood had devolved to the point that it can be used to justify mass murder.
Awesome.
Time for another book by Malkin or Coulter about how the left is unhinged.
Foxhunter
It will only be a matter of time before some Alabama variation of the ‘Knoxville Church Shooter’s Manifesto’ is found. The full PDF can be found here.
Brian J
@Martin:
I think you prove my point. With KO, whether you agree with him politically or can stand to listen to him enough even if you disagree with him, the question is more his tone, not whether he says completely nutty things day after day. You can think he’s an asshole for a bunch of reasons, but he’s not throwing Molotov cocktails like Beck.
Cain
@John Cole:
What did he do? WTF, what am I going to read and drink to now??!
sri
Zifnab
@gbear: Well, they make an excellent point. God does hate fags.
amorphous
Has anyone actually looked at the Glenn Beck "sleeper cell" website for "We surround them! Friday"? This is principle number 8, according to Beck:
Excuse me while I clean up the milk that just shot out of my nose.
Fuck you, Glenn Beck.
Now I see lutton already linked it. My point still stands: Fuck you, Glenn Beck. Go drink some mercury, asshole.
Cain
You know… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Atanjunk and BoB post at the same time…. dum dum dum dum!
cain
Zifnab
@Atanarjuat:
Wrong again, A. Here’s your pie. Tell me that shit’s not delicious.
Dennis-SGMM
It isn’t coincidental that in the forty years since the Nixon administration began the Republican habit of nonstop whining about conservative victimhood that the mass murderers are inevitably righty wingnuts. Victimhood and denying the consequences of their actions are the only consistent things about them.
Zifnab
One other question re: The Dumbest Man In America.
Where does this leave Douglas Feith?
Incertus
@Zifnab:
Still clueless, too stupid to realize just how stupid he really is.
Trollhattan
Beck and Norman, er, Ahmadinejad make a bold and ironic plea for gun control. Probably not what they intended, but there ya go.
To clarify, real men don’t snap. Real men steel themselves and push back in an intelligent fashion. Now, when the pushing is imaginary we have a problem, Houston. Zoloft? Nah, Thorazine!
Comrade Dread
Attention Republicans and Conservatives:
STOP MAKING BILL O’REILLY SEEM SANE!
It’s very disconcerting.
Ed Drone
What I just don’t get is that these nuts are "driven to distraction" by "Political Correctness?" You mean just because they’re not allowed to call niggers, "niggers" or fags, "fags" or whores, "whores," they go out and shoot up the town? Really? They’re being made to stop being racist, homophobic and misanthropic in a society working its way out of racism, etc., and they can’t take it? Are you serious?
What part of "love your neighbor" don’t these assholes understand?
I guess I’ll have to start being more PC, too, then, and refrain from calling assholes, "assholes," war-mongers, "war-mongers," and racist scum-sucking bottom-feeder brain-dead shitheads, "Republicans."
/snark
Ed
dslak
@Ed Drone: Don’t do that, Ed, or else you’ll end up turning into a mass murderer.
Comrade Dread
Well, I did for eight years.
You know what I didn’t do?
I didn’t run out and gun down all of my loved ones and random strangers to feel empowered.
Because I’m SANE.
Michael
@foxhunter (post 50)
The Knoxville Shooter Manifesto reads like a screed from Jim Robinson and about half the posters at FR.
And increasingly like Glenn Beck.
TenguPhule
But only by a hair.
TenguPhule
Sticking an ice-pick is his brain to catch up.
jrosen
Feith is the dumbest guy on the planet (h/t Tommy Franks. But that was a while ago. Beck is coming up strong on the outside.
But seriously folks, when does this sort of thing become the equivalent of shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater? When is the next Timothy McVeigh going to take Beck, Hannity, Coulter and company for real and take his Magnum .357 into a mall in Massachusetts? Isn’t incitement to riot and/or murder a crime in itself?
Dennis-SGMM
At least the shooter didn’t kill any embryos. That would have been bad.
The Grand Panjandrum
It’s going to be a long hot summer.
me
Since he left Headline News, Beck has gone from being nuts to full on completely fucking crazy. Was that in his Fox contract?
The Moar You Know
@Ed Drone: Well, yes. I thought everybody did that. They don’t?
anonevent
@Dennis-SGMM: But if he kills an unborn baby is he made a hero or executed?
Atanarjuat
Dennis, this shit’s not funny. An 18-month-old toddler was shot dead. Trying to tie this to the pro-life/pro-choice debate is not at all cool.
You liberals can yuck it up all you want and attribute this savage and senseless violence to the "philosophy" of bible-‘n’-gun-totin’ wingnutZ, but the fact is that no SANE person would have committed such a murderous atrocity — regardless of political belief.
The young man in question was fucked in the head, and it’s just as fucked up that no one caught the warning signs before it was too late. Whatever it was that drove him over the edge IS worth understanding, having nothing to do with excusing this shit, conservative ideology, or the rantings of that blowhard, Glenn Beck.
-A
Zifnab
@anonevent: Was the baby liberal?
Zifnab
Aaaand we’re back to the gay bashing. Thanks for the insight A.
dslak
Shorter Atanarjuat: Mass murders carried about by deranged individuals should be politicized only when doing so is to the advantage of conservatives!
Atanarjuat
Zifnab — GAY bashing?
Are you drunk or something?
-A
Zifnab
@Atanarjuat: You just dropped everything about the guy and made wide-eyed allegations about his sexual habits, then pinned it all on that. And frankly, that’s bigoted and disgusting. And I pity you.
The Moar You Know
@Dennis-SGMM: The ChristCons can rest easy. He shot a toddler, a mom, and a bunch of people, including some people just out for a stroll, but no embryos or fetuses (what the hell is the plural of fetus? Fetuses? Fetii?) were harmed in bringing you this episode of Americans Excercising Their God-Given Right To Own And Use Asssault Rifles, Part 2,198,032.
@Atanarjuat: You know what’s also not cool? Your pearl-clutching concern trolling that tries to frame this murderer as a well-meaning patriot driven to insanity by the vicious liberals who wouldn’t let him call a black man a nigger.
amorphous
@Atanarjuat: 2/10
Sane people do murder. Rational people do not.
r€nato
I literally cannot remember the last time someone went on a mass murder spree for left-wing political reasons. You’d probably have to go back to the 60s "New Left" to find that, and even then you are not talking about shooting sprees, it’s more like bombs which were intended to damage property not people. Which doesn’t excuse it, but it’s not the same thing as intentionally setting out to kill as many people as you can.
However I can think of several home-grown terrorists and mass murderers who killed for political reasons, and were right-wingers.
Tim McVeigh.
Eric Rudolph.
That guy in the south last year (Tennessee?) who went on a killing spree and did it because he was pissed off at liberals ruining America. Turned out he was a huge fan of right-wing hate radio and guys like Hannity and Savage and O’Reilly. I remember he shot up a Unitarian church.
Ricky Bobby
@jrosen (68)
Yes.
When does this kind of shit turn into incitement to commit violence? The fact that anyone would ever listen to Glenn is shocking enough, much less take him seriously, but all it takes is one in a few million and you have some dead innocents.
Beck is acting irresponsibly.
kay
"@Atanarjuat:
The young man in question was fucked in the head, and it’s just as fucked up that no one caught the warning signs before it was too late. Whatever it was that drove him over the edge IS worth understanding, having nothing to do with excusing this shit, conservative ideology, or the rantings of that blowhard, Glenn Beck.
-A
He couldn’t hold a job. It had nothing to do with "political correctness", and there were no warning signs, unless getting fired repeatedly is a warning sign. Beck is the one using this to push conservative ideology.
Incidentally, he was once fired for not wearing earplugs.
He wore earplugs on the shooting spree.
"Authorities say McLendon had struggled to keep a job and left behind lists of employers and co-workers he believed had wronged him. The lists found in McLendon’s home included Reliable Metals, which forced him to resign years ago, a sausage factory from which he suddenly quit last week and a poultry plant that suspended his mother, District Attorney Gary McAliley said.
The pages torn from a spiral notebook included names of co-workers, including one who reported him for not wearing ear plugs, another who made him clean a meat grinder and a supervisor who didn’t like the way he cut pork chops, McAliley said."
Arachnae
Frank Gaffney is apparently vying with Glenn for the title. Apparently the current bit of rightwing revisionism is that Saddam was behind OKC. … oooooookay?
Michael
But didn’t you know that the greatest, highest expression of Southern freedom is the ability of the Southern white man to call somebody a nigger without being criticized for it?
It is such a noble tradition, something that generations of beloved brothers, sister, parents and grandparents held on to.
It is about as noble as Southern Christianity, which made sure it talked lots and lots about vice and sin while supporting the God given right of white men to politically and economically repress their neighbors in the black community. Imagine the Southern-style courage it took for beloved parents, grandparent, aunts, uncles and teachers to look the other way and remain silent while black people were prohibited from participating in the economic and political life of their own communities.
Yessiree, Southern Christian Conservatism is all about courage, nobility and action.
r€nato
gee that one was floated by some of the MSM at the time and has been pretty well shot down repeatedly.
You’d think that if there were proof of Saddam being behind OKC, Bush/Cheney might have cited that in their push for war.
Apparently the right-wing is in such disarray that they have nothing left but recycling long-discredited conspiracy theories.
Michael
Frank is just plain nuts, and has been for decades.
Don SinFalta
Stupid isn’t the same thing as batshit insane. Glenn Beck is nuts, too detached from reality for stupid to even apply. Dumbest man in America? It’s a tossup among (at least) Douglas Feith, Donald Luskin, and Larry "black hole of stupid" Kudlow.
Josh Hueco
Semi-OT: Get caught driving black, they’ll take your jack (clap clap clap)/ Deep in the heart of Texas.
Tonal Crow
Yessiree, cons have it hard in America. We routinely raid their meetings, imprison them indefinitely without charges, send their children to re-education camps run by Castro, bulldoze their houses, shut down their radio, TV, and news properties and give them to communists, assault and batter them on every street corner, hang them from bridges, sell them into slavery, desecrate their churches by filling them with pig shit, use them to test new "enhanced interrogation methods", deport them, deny them access to the courts, starve them, sow their fields with salt, curse them with a thousand unhealing wounds each, subject them to witch-dunking…there’s just not enough room to list the injustices America inflicts on cons.
And, oh yeah, we criticize their political ideology.
I am just awed that so few cons go gun-wild given this terrible record of repression.
The Moar You Know
@r€nato: More:
James Kopp
Paul Hill
Michael Griffin
John Salvi
Shelley Shannon
Donald Cooper
Clayton Waagner
and the most recent guy, Jim Adkisson.
There are so many more it would take days to compile them all.
r€nato
you can’t always tell a disturbed person from a disturbed person who is thinking of committing mass murder if one more person wrongs him (it’s nearly always a male who does these things).
My stepbrother committed suicide last November. He was a deeply unhappy person, very angry with the entire world and likely had a long list of people who’d wronged him residing somewhere in his head. He had a chemical imbalance which made him manic-depressive. He also had a hard time keeping a job. I am not an FBI profiler but I’ve got a pretty good hunch that he fit quite a number of the criteria for one of those folks who end up going on a shooting spree.
He was 38 when he shot himself in the head two days before Thanksgiving. Frankly, I am surprised (though gratified) that if he was going to go out like that, that he didn’t decide to take some people with him. We didn’t even know he owned a firearm. Like I said, he was a very angry and disturbed person. He seemed like an ideal candidate to become one of these spree shooters. We’ll never know why he didn’t do something like that but of course we’re eternally grateful that whatever it was, restrained him from doing that.
r€nato
can you imagine what might have happened had Gore taken the White House in a manner like Bush took the White House in 2000?
I can, and I’d say it’s about 50-50 that Rush, Hannity and the rest of that crew would have whipped the right-wing into such a state of fury that some right-wing ‘patriot’ would have taken it on himself to settle some scores with evil liberals.
crustaceanette
Beck is just masturbating his wingnuttery all over the place, spooging all over the teevee screen. Disgusting.
Just Some Fuckhead
@John Cole:
I heard they go on shooting sprees when ya try to stifle their beautiful minds. Anyone know where BOB lives so I can attempt to avoid the carnage?
amorphous
@Arachnae: Links, plz?
@Don SinFalta: I also think Hannity is dumb. And I mean plain stupid unintelligent. I wish (maybe? maybe not?) I could convince myself that he were smart and was just doing an act, but I think he is actually just an uninformed, disinterested, stupid, stupid person.
@Josh Hueco: I think we both touched on the overarching theme of Texas yesterday.
The Moar You Know
@r€nato: It doesn’t take much to set these guys off.
Left out of the article is the nasty fact that his main weapon in killing his victims was a steam iron.
Davis X. Machina
Bald erscheint hier das amerikanische Freikorps, frisches von Irak.
crustaceanette
I noted here a few days before the shooting that some of the unemployed are bound to be committing suicide and/or taking people with them, partly b/c they cannot get the mental health treatment they need, provided they recognize they have a problem, since they have no insurance. A mentally ill person w/o meds and therapy to help them deal in a world they pretty much don’t understand is a tragedy waiting to happen, especially when they have been wounded and there is nothing more devastating, besides losing a loved one, than losing your job. I don’t care if you are a wingnut or not. That’s something that can push you over the edge. But I still don’t know what has come out about why this guy did what he did, but I know he was let go from his job.
r€nato
@amorphous: regarding Hannity, I think the word you are searching for is, ‘ignorant’. Dumb? I dunno. "Dumb" means (to me) someone who is incapable of learning beyond a certain, basic level. "Ignorant" means (to me) someone who may well be naturally intelligent but chooses not to become more educated.
Hannity is above all a bully, and he’s used that quality to his advantage. Funny how so many of these right-wing douchenozzles are, at the end of the day, just bullies. Bush is a bully, Rush, O’Reilly, go right down the line and it is the one character trait they all share in common.
Josh Hueco
@amorphous:
Yes, I think we did. I hope you choose to stay in Austin. We need more lefties in this state so badly.
@r€nato:
I’m so sorry to hear about your stepbrother. I live with depression and bipolar myself, and thankfully manage both with medication. Even though I can’t afford insurance, I’m lucky enough to be able to pay for meds out of pocket for now. If I couldn’t…well, I know I wouldn’t be able to do the things I do now, school- and workwise. As much as we joke about crazy people going off, mental illness is severely neglected and undertreated in this country. :(
r€nato
I forgot all about the wackjob who assassinated Denver left-wing radio host Alan Berg.
It was a conspiracy by some Aryan Nation white supremacists but the actual shooter was one Bruce Pierce, so add him to the list.
crustaceanette
Yes, it is
r€nato
@Josh Hueco: Josh, thanks. He did not want to take his meds. He was filled with self-loathing and bent on self-destruction. It’s really a shame because he had lots of help from his father. There was no need for him to kill himself, it’s not as if he was left on his own to fend for himself.
Arachnae
Amorphous – here you go
crustaceanette
Josh Hueco: me too, same thing, managing with meds and recently had to start going to therapy – if I wasn’t fortunate enough to be able to do that, I would not be able to work and hold down a job (when I can find one) – really, folks do not understand how devastating an illness it can be unless they have it themselves — again, I see lots more suffering on the way unless all these folks get help — losing your job is enough to drive "normal" folks insane (especially when you can’t find another one, no matter how hard you try), so the issue of mental health care is going to come to forefront eventually whether the general public wants to deal with it or not
amorphous
@r€nato: Ignorant is quite possibly a better description, but I believe that part of his problem (and part of the problem of all the knee-jerk reactionaries) is an actual inability to think beyond the very first step, to see the ultimate outcome. That, to me, fits very well into the "stupid" moniker.
amorphous
@Arachnae: Ho lee shit.
r€nato
well see, that’s what I have been saying for quite some time. The devolution of the right-wing into an echosphere and top-down distribution of daily talking points to be mindlessly repeated by their lackeys for consumption by the proles may promote ideological discipline, but it also promotes intellectual atrophy and we’re now seeing the results of that, a political movement which simply cannot think for itself because it has forgotten how to do that.
Gordon, The Big Express Engine
Renato – your description was chilling because in many respects this is what happened to one of my best friends. Time frame (early dec), age (37), refusal to take meds and a lot of the details are eerily similar, including the bit about the father.
In other news, what did BOB due to earn a temporary ban?
Michael
Here’s a couple of nice stories about Free Republic’s nuts
Cop Killer Don Matthews (nickname: matsuidon)
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=948
Matthews basically ambushed a young cop on a routine stop. Robinson scrubbed his record, but there were lots of posts showing just how unhinged he was and his intent.
Fake Anthrax letter sender Chad Conrad Castagana, posted as "Marc Costanzo" at FR.
l8pilot is Lourie Salley III, a LOS guy (meaning KKK in all but name). His wife, pistolpaknmama, was deeply enmeshed in FR early on via the South Carolina chapter.
http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=462
Salley’s use of Kirk Lyons as "Chief Trial Counsel" for the "SLRC" is telling – Lyons is Richard Butler’s (the founder of Aryan Nation) son-in-law.
Its the sort of place where the soft side of the Klan conditions folks for harder ideologies.
crustaceanette
Beck: "My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government."
Herhm, I guess that leaves out all the unmarried Cheeto munchers. He may want to re-think the spouse thing.
Oh, I forgot, you are a worthless piece of shit unless you are married with babies. If you have not spawned (I assume he has, the very thought of the end result sends shivers down my spine), your life has been a waste.
Oh yeah, forgot he has a special needs child. Why don’t you just call him retarded, Glenn, like we did in the old days. Isn’t calling him "special" a real PC thing? Hello? K, according to your rules, I can come on your show and call your kid retarded and you won’t cry like you always do, how’s that?
JL
His life has not been easy but that should not excuse his hateful rants.
Atanarjuat
@The Moar You Know:
Bull fucking shit, dickhole.
At no point did I show "pearl-clutching concern trolling that tries to frame this murderer as a well-meaning patriot driven to insanity by the vicious liberals who wouldn’t let him call a black man a nigger."
Unless you can quote me CHAPTER and VERSE where I try to frame this as ANYTHING but a monstrous tragedy that was undetected until it was too late, then please kindly STFU.
The young man is anything but a patriot, and the leftist attempt to once again pin a mass murder on conservatives is getting really fucking old.
One of the victims is an 18-month-old toddler is dead, goddamn you. Get your moral compass fixed already.
-A
Michael
atar@#115
Um, you might want to review your #6 again before going off on an invective-laced tirade.
lilysmom
Well it looks like a bunch of Conservotards decided to go off their meds last week….sigh.
Atanarjuat
Yeah, Michael, I asked a question about where the shooter felt marginalized or not. Did you bother to read what I wrote right after that, in the same comment?
Where am I excusing or framing anything?
That’s weak sauce you’re serving, son.
-A
The Moar You Know
@JL: He stopped drinking but didn’t stop anything else.
While it still doesn’t excuse his actions, his whole schtick makes a lot more sense now.
Martin
Yeah, because Dennis is the one who ties those things together:
Results 1 – 10 of about 2,560,000 for baby killer obama.
The pro-life folks crossed that line around the time I was born. Take it up with them.
The Moar You Know
@Atanarjuat: I, too, would be very upset if someone who identifies with my political beliefs murdered an 18-month old child.
I understand that you would be angry with me, who pointed this unpleasant fact out to you.
I forgive you.
chuck
@Atanarjuat:
Seriously, you’re being baited. Calm down. No one is seriously saying anything other than that this man was deranged well beforehand and that any "fault" is a pretty complex thing to pin down, between illness and hate.
Except for Glenn Beck, who is saying the liburuls made him do it.
Answer a straight question: is Glenn Beck right?
Martin
How do you know it has nothing to do with those things? Were all Nazis insane as well, or were many of them also following their ideology and the rantings of a blowhard?
Don’t underestimate the power of ranting blowhards. Don’t overestimate it either, but to say they have no part to play here is to be completely ignorant of history. Even recent history.
bayville
Agreed. But K-Lo deserves a chair at his side at the head of the table.
The banks are insolvent. Unemployment is skyrocketing. The rate of home foreclosures are the highest since the 1930’s. And today the Fed announced the average American had their wealth decrease by almost 18 percent in 2008 — alone.
In other words, Laisse Faire capitalism has proven to be a failure.
So what does Sister Sandwich link to today: A video of an interview with the Godfather of Laisse Faire economic philosophy.
Ask Governor ARoid out there in Caleefornia how Milton’s advice is working.
The Moar You Know
@chuck: I’m not baiting anyone. Glenn Beck said that the evil liberals drove this guy over the edge. Atanarjuat agrees:
So, by the process of deduction, the toddler-killer is a conservative who can’t handle the onerous restrictions that us brownshirted liberal fascists placed on him. Presumably he’s upset that he can’t call black men "niggers", fly a Confederate flag from his truck, threaten to shoot the president, or refuse to pay taxes.
They want him, they can certainly own him. Seems like a dubious political strategy to me, but what do I know?
bago
Atan: The joke just crossed over into Not OK territory. Don’t make me explain why.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Michael:
Edited for accuracy.
crustaceanette
A dry-drunk is a very bitter person, sometimes worse than when they are drunk, and, depending on the extent of the alcohol abuse, can destroy parts of the brain that involve reason. Everything is always everybody else’s fault. See George Bush and also his inability to articulate or accept any responsibility whatsoever for any of his actions. I think Beck may be suffering from some kind of dry-drunk paranoia. At any rate, it sure looks like a serious condition that has gone untreated — lots of these guys think all they have to do is join a fundie type church that will tell them exactly what to do and how to think and that they are man enough to handle the problem themselves—but it just makes ’em crazier. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. The guy needs serious help and yet he has both his own teevee show and radio show.
Michael
OK, you stepped forward with one foot – let’s try the other step.
What was it about society that marginalized him?
And do you agree with Beck’s premise?
crustaceanette
And, oh yeah, by the way, I am bat-shit insane, can I have my own teevee show?
Ed Drone
@Atanarjuat:
Glenn Beck is the one who claimed liberals drove this guy to do what he did. Liberals didn’t make the perp into a conservative — Glenn Back did. And you seem to have agree with Beck. Unless that isn’t what you are saying, in which you need to be a better writer.
Ed
The Populist
Thanks for the red meat. He lives in Alabama so one must assume conservative nonsense pushed him over the edge, eh?
The Populist
Anybody see Chuck Norris’ nonsense on Worldnetdaily?
Wowee, the right really do hate this country of ours.
The Populist
Nothing. You are rightfully implying that living in a small, conservative Republican stronghold with zero diversity of thought and culture made this man go on a rampage.
I agree actually. It couldn’t have been liberal thinking. Was his family liberal? I doubt it. Even if they were, who kills their family unless either he got fed up with the rigid thought process involved with being conservative OR he shot his liberal family because so many con talkers made him believe they were evil and up to no good.
Either way, your point is correct…
The Populist
Nah, you said it we didn’t. His environment made him this way. Either that or Rush and Sean put so much hate in his soul that he snapped.
Either way, liberalism had nothing to do with this. Hate most likely did or bad policies that drove this country into our financial mess.
I’m right and you know it. BTW – you should celebrate this man since you accuse anybody who disagrees with you as being "treasonous."
The Populist
Chuck Norris ain’t too far behind – John or Doug, care to post some of the juicy tidbits from this article for discussion?
Again, why do rightie fundie types hate this country so much:
http://www.examiner.com/x-2071-DC-Special-Interests-Examiner~y2009m3d9-Chuck-Norris-claims-thousands-of-right-wing-cell-groups-exist-and-will-rebel-against-US-government
Michael
Looking at the photos, I’m struck by the homogeneity.
http://www.meetup.com/WeSurroundThemGathering/photos/#7611869
AnneLaurie
Srlsy, Mark Ames has a thought-provoking post about this on EXILED ONLINE:
Alabama Murder Mystery Solved
The Populist
Yep, I agree with this. Atan is wrong yet again. No liberal plot at all. This man snapped because of conservative policies that back corporations to do whatever they want with their employees.
gocart mozart
Question for the moron Beck. If your spouse breaks the law, who is the ultimate authority. Bonus points if you can answer without your head exploding.
JWW
Yeah,
That is funny! I don’t often listen to him on radio and have yet to see him on TV. But since he pays more in taxes or spends on underwear than your yearly income, I would say there are better dumb asses out there than you.
2th&nayle
@AnneLaurie: Glad to see that someone finally made reference to that article. I read it yesterday on Alternet, and it certainly helped bring an otherwise unfathomable tragedy into a little bit better focus. But it didn’t make it any easier to look at. So senseless. Chilling, really. Don’t want to sound like a doomsayer here; I believe we have some reasons to feel optimistic about the future. But I get the feeling this kind of thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets any better.