Let us never forget who injected Sam (not Joe) Wurzlebacher (not actually a plumber) into our civic discourse:
Guns are mostly for hunting down politicians who would actively seek to take your freedoms and liberty away from you. Google “Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung Il, Castro, Stalin” just for starters.
So, according to the former Republican Presidential nominee’s go-to guy for “real world” insight, it’s open season on politicians (and presumably the rest of us) who think the words “well regulated” mean something…not to mention those who notice that when societies don’t masturbate 9mm at time, a lot fewer people get shot.
I’ve been noticing a lot of “both sides do it” stuff lately, so let me offer this one anecdote as evidence that while many of us left of center regard most of Republican political posturing and policy with loathing, we don’t generally call for folks to put their cross hairs on GOP leaders. The two sides are not the same.
Image: Jean-Léon Gérôme, The Death of Caesar, betw. 1859 and 1867.
BGinCHI
How can we miss these idiots if they won’t go away?
Baud
None of whom were assisanated by a gun, unlike, for example, the children of Sandy Hook.
Mnemosyne
Your image is borked in Safari. Please to fix.
NobodySpecial
@Baud: Hell, Castro’s still alive.
? Martin
@Baud: Ah, but if Sam where there, they’d all have been shot dead as soon as they stepped out of line. Like Red Dawn, motherfucker!
pew-pew-pew
Cacti
There was plenty of armed resistance against Hitler in the countries Germany invaded.
And they were mowed down mercilessly by the superior firepower of the Wermacht.
KG
@Baud: hell, you could argue that better gun control would have prevented the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which would have then prevented World War I, which would have prevented the Treaty of Versailles, which would have prevented the rise of Hitler, which would have prevented the Second World War, which may have then prevented the Cold War and thus the rise of Mao, Kim Jung Il, and Castro. I mean, that’s a lot of ifs (actually a lot of “whichs”) but still.
? Martin
@Cacti: If only the German people had been armed.
Oh, right, they were, and the used those guns against the Jews. If only the Jews had been more armed.
So, only minorities should be armed, I guess is the lesson here. Let’s try that!
g
Why publicize anything this idiot says?
Morzer
@Baud:
Hitler’s gun hunted him down, which is close enough for wingnut work.
Zam
Are we supposed to look these guys up to see how they overthrew governments?
Ash Can
I’m betting the Secret Service is keeping a close eye on this putz’s blog.
Tom Levenson
@Mnemosyne: Fixed now, I think. For you?
Warren Terra
I understand it has recently been discovered there was a typo, and the Second Amendment actually was meant to guarantee us the right to keep ant bear arms.
nancy darling
@Baud: I think, save for Castro, they all died of old age. Last time I checked, Fidel lives.
Tokyokie
@Baud: Sadly, I think that’s his point. If only more manly men with impressive penile substitutes like himself had been around in those societies, then, by golly, those dictators wouldn’t have had a chance. Never mind that most of these perverted creeps are also authoritarian asswipes who, so they could exercise power over others with impunity, would have joined the Sturmabteilung or the Red Guards or whatever gaggle of bullies a dictator might have used to enforce order.
RaflW
There’s a photo making the rounds of Joe/Sam the Plumber/Jobless, at a microphone lookin’ all serious, and Lindsey Graham is in the background, grinnin’ ear to ear, looking like he just sucked the biggest …ummm… lollipop in the world.
Yeah, Lindsey, butch up by being second fiddle to Joe the Plumber. Prrrrrrrfect.
jl
This non-Joe non-Plumber is getting desperate for attention and is acting out.
The reason we have statesmen is that they explain to politicians why what non-Joe non-Plumber says is load of crap.
Start with James Madison, Notes on Nullification
http://www.constitution.org/jm/18341200_nullification.htm
Of course, Madison did acknowledge that we have a natural right to pack heat and shoot anybody who gets in our way or does things we don’t like, or who we or our buddies thinks is ‘unconstitutional’. Madison also explained some things about exercising natural rights: you can’t automatically expect U.S. Constitutional rights to help you out if things get sticky, hello Mr. Mad Max and good-by Constitution, and good luck yer on yer own, sucker.
heckblazer
At least one of those guys got into power thanks to allied groups of thugs running around and fighting their political opponents. Just sayin’…
JGabriel
Tom Levenson @ Top:
I don’t think putting crosshairs on Republican politicians is a good idea, but I suspect we’re not going to see any gun control in this country until the billionaire conservatives who fund the GOP are the ones getting shot.
MikeJ
Duh. They’d send us to prison. There was a guy who went to prison for making a joke about policy coming from a burning Bush.
RaflW
@nancy darling: Hitler, not so much.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
As someone who has always gone by his middle name, can I request that people stop making the false claim that the guy’s name isn’t Joe? I hate to break it to all of you, but Joe IS his real name; you sound like idiots when you insist that it isn’t.
Not that sounding like an idiot is unheard of around here.
jl
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): So, I should call you ‘Thin’ now? OK with me.
But, OK, if what you say is true, then I will henceforth call him Joe non-Plumber, unless he unstopped a drain once.
Calouste
@KG:
Franz Ferdinand was only killed by a gun because an earlier attempt to kill him with a bomb failed.
And the powers were so chomping at the bit to start a war that I doubt it would have mattered much if Franz Ferdinand had survived the attempt. The attempt in itself would have been enough for Austria to push the same demands on Serbia.
Schlemizel
@KG:
Since Kim Jung was a direct result of our giving the North half of Korea to the Russians after WWII it is not a stretch to say that WWI gave him to us. WWI also gave us the Russian revolution (which might have happened anyway but perhaps not & perhaps with a different outcome). It would have left the Middle East in control of Turkey & not England & France which would have let it healthier and happier. There would have been no shoah 6 million Jews, 6 million gays, Gypsies, disabled and communist would not have died horrific deaths.
So there is that
gene108
I think the biggest difference between right-wingers and left-wingers is the level of bug shit crazy each side is willing to believe.
Right-wing gun owners made a run on ammo, starting in October 2008, because right-wing nuts got anonymous chain e-mails that was telling them that Obama was going to take all their guns, when he said he was not going to touch gun control laws.
Left-wingers – usually the New Age types, I’ve known – can get into weird stuff, with little evidence backing it, like avoiding fluoride toothpaste for whatever reason, but left-wingers are generally better grounded in reality and/or left-wing nuttiness does not lead to disastrous decisions, like hoarding guns and ammo.
I’m not sure where the anti-vax crowd fits into this, but a good many of them are probably liberal, though I think the scale of the anti-vax movement cuts across a lot of political ideologies, unlike hoarding guns and ammo which is purely a right-wing phenomenon.
Mnemosyne
@Tom Levenson:
Yes, thank you!
Bobby Thomson
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): Never trust someone with a first initial.
nancy darling
@nancy darling: And Hitler didn’t die of old age, but the others did.
Mnemosyne
@Calouste:
Franz Ferdinand was killed because his assassin stopped for a sandwich. True story.
gussie
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN): I called Mitt Mitt, but do I have to call J.E.B. ‘Jeb?’
Schlemizel
@heckblazer:
Actually every one of them got to power from the barrel of a gun except ol Kimmy. Each one lived in a nation with no gun control laws, except as stated previously Hitlers laws about Jews owning guns. But the NRA will never let truth, reason nor common sense be part of the debate.
gene108
@Tokyokie:
I don’t get how people can say stuff like this and not get it pointed out that Castro, Mao and Lenin/Stalin all fought civil wars against an established government and its military to seize power, in their respective countries.
If they are the bad guys with guns, the good guys with guns – I guess the governments they overthrew – were pretty well armed or at the least were not unarmed.
PurpleGirl
@Baud: Hitler committed suicide — he took a cyanide capsule and then shot himself in the right temple. The rest of them died due to natural causes and Castro is still alive although no longer in power. These asswipes don’t know their history and its so easy to find on TV.
Mnemosyne
@Schlemizel:
WWI also gave us the Vietnam War — Ho Chi Mihn approached Woodrow Wilson to ask for Wilson’s support against the French, and Wilson refused.
Schlemizel
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Except he never went by Joe IRL until he was made a sock puppet. Plus I’m OK with making fun of his phoney-baloney ass in anyway anyone wants. It is no less honest than the clown himself.
I have no idea what your first name is, unlike Sammy.
P.S. I have become a ULL fan because of Christina Hamilton’s glasses, reminds me of Sheen in Major League!
Bobby Thomson
@Mnemosyne: I don’t think Wilson needed any excuses to turn down a request from a non-white leader to take sides against Europeans.
Schlemizel
@Mnemosyne:
Yeah, we sold Ho and Viet Nam down the river at Versailles. OTOH the whole thing with Japan was unrelated in anyway I know of the WWI and it was during that time that Ho and Giap got a lot of equipment from the US as well as a ton of practical experience in combat against the Japanese.
Schlemizel
@Bobby Thomson:
True that. He did a hell of a job in Haiti thats for sure.
Tokyokie
@gene108: I agree with you, but I doubt logic will dissaude a pervert from his obsession.
PurpleGirl
@Schlemizel: Japan was a Western ally in WW1 but they were essentially ignored during the negotiation of the Treaty of Versailles. This pissed them off royally and was one reason they joined with the Axis powers for WW2.
danimal
I think this is how the Wurlitzer finally fails. As conservative media personalities become more and more desperate for audience share, they have to make more and more outlandish statements. The most outlandish still get prestige in conservatopia, but at some point even the most apathetic, gullible, real ‘Merkuns start understanding that these people are bugshit insane.
We all know J the Ps in real life. We’ve heard them spout crazy stuff at Thanksgiving and at the office water cooler. When normal folks realize that the wingers are just like crazy Uncle Elbert, they tune out. Which makes media personalities market themselves to a smaller, more crazy market share. They become more purely conservative as they polish away their liberal attributes.
Peak wingnut will come when there is a single conservative left, filled with bile and evil energy, spinning at the speed of light.
Mike in NC
Local gun nut wrote a Letter to the Editor about how dictators like Hitler, Stalin, and Mao (and Obummer) always confiscate the guns of hard-working patriots. Responded by asking why every adult male in Yugoslavia and Iraq had an AK-47 stashed under their beds. Still waiting for a reply.
JPL
Tom, I love your posts. Thank you.
buskertype
I think it’s worth pointing out that Castro came to power as an anti-government insurgent. actually, no it’s not worth pointing out. it’s not worth pointing out anything to these people.
JPL
@Mike in NC: Didn’t Hitler loosen gun laws for the chosen?
I am so confused on why they use Hitler as one who banned guns.
JPL
@buskertype: Maybe it’s time for Ted Cruz’s dad to weigh in for that comment. haha
JPL
@danimal: The news no longer corrects the fiction the right spreads, so I don’t know how it ends. Most Americans get the news on TV and they believe it.
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
Considering that the Ottomans were willing to commit the Armenian Genocide, I’m not sure leaving the Middle East under their control would have made things a lot healthier and happier.
gene108
Posted on this theme in the thread about Charlie Pierce’s column about how the NRA wants to arm both the “bad guys” and the “good guys”, but I think he misses a very important point about the “bad guys” being armed.
I do not think U.S. gun lobbyists are concerned about minority gang members having access to guns or else they would not have let legislatures make it hard for convicted felons to get guns, as minorities are more likely to be convicted of felonies.
What got the gun lobbyists up in arms was when the government started going after white supremacist groups in the 1980’s and 1990’s.
If you listen to the rhetoric about gun rights from the NRA, racists like Bundy and the militia yahoos at his ranch, and white supremacists they all pretty much converge to the same talking points.
I really do suspect the leadership of the NRA knows it is doing what it is doing, in order to allow white supremacists to be heavily armed when race-war / revolution comes.
sublime33
He wanted to purchase a business that makes $250 grand a year. Basic business valuation models say the business should sell for 5 to 8 times earnings. So where is Joe The Fraudster going to come up with a minimum of $1.25 million dollars to purchase this cash cow of a business? And no media called him on this BS. Not even MSNBC. Of course this same media ignored Dick Cheney’s active stock options worth over $15 million while in office – unheard in the normal business world. Even Jack Welch had to cash out the options after he retired from GE.
Roger Moore
@JPL:
It’s simple. Hitler was evil. Banning guns is evil. Therefor Hitler must have banned guns. QED, libtard!
Schlemizel
@Roger Moore:
Certainly not for the Armenians. But without the European meddling there might be no house of Saud, no Fouad, no Faisal, no Palavi and there might have been a more organic development of nations.
The Armenians were screwed prior to WWI so that didn’t really affect that horror.
Mike in NC
Hitler didn’t ban guns. The Weimar Republic came down on guns because the disbanded German army in 1919 used artillery, machine guns, and armored cars in the streets against their opponents (Spartacists vs. Freikorps and others). Hitler only banned Jews from owning guns.
Schlemizel
@sublime33:
As I recall the premise of his question was that his business made $250k the previous year therefore raising taxes on incomes over 250 would kill him. That despite the fact that if is business cleared 250 increasing the marginal rate on the next dollar wouldn’t affect him at all and if he made more than 250 only the dollars over 250 would be affected at all. Oh yeah, also he had no business and that non-business did’t make $25 the previous year let alone $250,000
Roger Moore
@gene108:
Except that the gun lobby has worked very hard to make it easier for felons to have their right to buy guns restored. The NRA wants felons to be able to buy guns.
gf120581
John McCain is such a great judge of character, isn’t he?
Not that you need another example after the Plumber and the Wasilla Grifter, but here’s another: McCain’s top choice for Treasury Secretary was Phil Gramm, at least until Gramm opened his mouth (“nation of whiners”) and made himself radioactive.
Think about that. Phil fucking Gramm.
Elmo
I don’t get our side, I really don’t. How is this not immediately turned into a press release:
Repub Spokesman Calls For Political Assassinations
Prominent Repub Advocates Violence Against Opponents
Palin Ally Defends Gifford Shooting; Calls Assassination Attempt Justified
You know the other side would do it immediately, and Politifact would call it “mostly true.”
PurpleGirl
@Schlemizel: Also Wurzelbacher did not have a plumbing license. He was working for a man who had the business and the license. Without the training as a plumber and the license, he would have had to hire someone who had the license. (I know this situation because my father was an electrician but he worked for the man who had the license and did all the work getting jobs for the shop.)
Roger Moore
@Schlemizel:
My point is that the Ottomans were nasty people who were perfectly willing to commit genocide. Leaving the Middle East under their control was not necessarily going to be better for the people living there than turning it over to the various monarchies who replaced them. They were one regime that was toppled as a result of WWI and replaced, in Turkey at least, with a better government.
raven
@Roger Moore: Wait, I thought America was the root of all evil?
JPL
@efgoldman: So are you saying that twenty seven percent believe that bullshit?
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Schlemizel: Actually, you know my entire first name. And I don’t see what’s so difficult about calling people what they want to be called, no matter when they make the decision. There are several dozen things to make fun of Joe Wurzelbacher about that it shouldn’t be too hard to stick to those things that a) matter and b) don’t make you look like an asshole.
Kay
@sublime33:
Did it matter, though? It was like “you didn’t build that” in 2012. It just didn’t matter to anyone. Not “in hindsight” either. At the time.
JPL
The Onion is becoming the most trusted news site, imo.
“That the phrase “latest shooting” exists should HORRIFY us. But we’ve become used to it. Which is…horrifying.”
We can’t become complacent.
Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN)
@Schlemizel:
No, it wouldn’t have. The Ottomans were every bit as much the unpopular, non-native imperialists that the French and British were. Just because they weren’t European doesn’t make them the same ethnicity as the Arabs. And pointing at the House of Saud doesn’t change that; given the state of their culture at the time it’s pretty doubtful that anyone actually better would have taken control if they hadn’t.
The last sixty years ought to have taught us that post-colonial regimes that take power after an armed revolt tend to be an extremely depressing lot. And given the extent to which the Ottoman Empire was falling apart without anyone else’s help, you’d have had a messy power vacuum even without WWI.
Villago Delenda Est
@PurpleGirl: Well, prior to WWI they were part of Kaiser Wilhelm’s “yellow menace” which did not go away when Kaiser Wilhelm did.
Hal
@Baud: Just because I’ve seen this on Facebook several times now, I believe he is saying that these people enacted gun control laws, and that gun control is the first step in ruling over the people. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, just that all tyrannies start with gun control (Per facebook postings from several people.)
Anoniminous
@Elmo:
Democrats do not have Public Relations organizations. Getting the word out is a Game and Dems don’t suit up to play.
Suffern ACE
@gf120581: isn’t he 104?
chopper
LOL, ‘go Google hitler’. Like nobody’s heard of the fucker.
PurpleGirl
@Villago Delenda Est: This is true. The politics of the era is very convoluted and complicated.
mainmata
@Baud: None of whom were assassinated at all (well there’s some dispute about whether Uncle Joe’s demise was entirely natural). But Castro is still alive, Mao, natural causes; ditto Kim Jong Il and, of course, Hitler offed himself. 2nd Amendmenters manage to be both strategically and tactically stupid while dedicated to intimidation and violence because that’s their definition of freedumb.
raven
General Honore is on Rachel and he’s ripping Howdy Doody and the oil pukes.
gian
@Hal:
it’s part of the wingnut alternate reality. The same one where Truman “lost China”, FDR knew about Pearl Harbor, and Bill Clinton personally ordered the sniper with Bin Laden in his sights not to shoot. The same fake reality that after the war on poverty policies were instituted believes poverty went up, that there’s no proof that cigarettes are bad for you and that because Al Gore is a serial liar and is fat, and flies on an airplane there’s no global warming.
I could go on for a while but you get the idea.
muddy
@raven: Excellent segment.
raven
@muddy: I love him, he doesn’t fuck around.
Tokyokie
@gf120581: Phil Gramm is the single most corrupt politician this country has produced since Richard Nixon. Rod Blogojevich was pretty bad, but he’s now serving time, which Gramm, whose corruption caused far more damage, ought to be doing.
raven
@Tokyokie: Asshole is a UGA grad too!
JPL
@Tokyokie: I supported the republican who was running against Phil and proudly voted for the republican. I also voted for the democrat running against him.
Richard Grant
@gf120581: I’ve wondered if Bernard Madoff was on his short list.
KG
Like I said, a lot of ifs. But the basic point, as others have made, is that it is not the lack of guns (or the imposition of gun control) that has historically led to bad things happening.
Suffern ACE
It’s beginning to be hard for me to think that Joe, while having a few political ticks I disagree with, is otherwise a good guy. Man this salt-of-the-earth pandering I need to come up with is getting to be exhausting.
Woodrowfan
@Mnemosyne: Well, France was an ally in the war, and Ho was a young pasty chef, so perhaps there was a bit of an imbalance in who would be listened to.
Woodrowfan
@gian: you forgot “Al Gore has a big house”.
Suffern ACE
@Woodrowfan: do you mean Ho was pale, or did he specialize in Cornish street fare?
JPL
@Tokyokie: Thinking about it, how many folks do you know that voted against Phil when he was a democrat and then voted against him as a Republican.
He has always been a slimy bastard.
Suffern ACE
@Woodrowfan: and he claimed to be in love with his wife, but ten years later he divorced her.
trollhattan
@efgoldman:
Admittedly, those are some fine-looking jackboots.
JPL
@Suffern ACE: Love is strange.
Morzer
@jl:
I propose “Joe the Unaplumber”. It fits his personality, record and general conduct.
Chyron HR
@chopper:
“Hitler’s pretty obscure. You probably haven’t heard of him.”
– Joe the Hipster
srv
NEW SPACEX DRAGON V2 LANDER
Parachutes only for backup
some guy
Another tough day for Cacti’s pals in al Qaeda. So sad, looks like the House of Saud backed another unpopular jihad against a secular regime. If only al Qaeda could get some more manpads from American taxpayers they could really turn the tide.
chopper
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
You know, Jeff, I agree with you.
Villago Delenda Est
@JPL: Anything Hitler did = automatically bad. To include building the Autobahns, and ending unemployment in Germany.
It’s a totally black and white world to the wingtards. There are no shades of grey, there is no nuance, everything is Manichean.
Villago Delenda Est
@Tokyokie: Gramm needs to be sliced and diced and turned into julienne fries.
Seriously.
MikeJ
@Villago Delenda Est: Fundigelicals believe that teh antichrist will bring peace. Therefore any politician that doesn’t want eternal war is automatically suspect.
kc
I know this is wrong, but I think it would be awesome if “Joe” the “Plumber” died of a self inflicted gunshot wound while cleaning his weapon.
some guy
Phil Gramm, wasn’t he the guy Chuck Schumer worked with to repeal Glass Stegall? I fondly recall how Schumer speed the votes on on Gramm Leach Biley, working so hard to give Bill Clinton a truly bipartisan bill to sign.
Morzer
@kc:
I imagine that all of Joe’s “weapons” are low-caliber and fire blanks.
Comrade Dread
Every loud gun nut that feels the need to tweet this shit right after a mass shooting always has a narcissistic Red Dawn fantasy that probably ends with him reluctantly accepting the Presidency of the New Confederate States of America and heading off to Richmond with a hot chick on each arm.
jurassicpork
Actually, you have both McCain and Obama for inserting this idiot into the public eye like a sharp stick during their second presidential debate in 2008.
As abominable as this post by JtP is, even he’d have reach deep down to write something more despicable than his post before that, in which he addressed the grieving parents of the victims at UC at Santa Barbara. Here’s my open letter to Joe’s open letter, which got linked on Crooks and Liars yesterday, ICYMI.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
@srv:
Neat. Unfortunate name, though. Elon could have called it Dragon II, or something else. Anything but the same name of a Nazi terror weapon, though I will admit that terror weapon helped get the American space program off the ground.
On a different note, go Rangers! We want the Cup!
Omnes Omnibus
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: Are tiger and panther off the table for you as well?
jonas
It always perplexes me — as a historian — to hear the gun nuts trot out the old canard that Hitler and Stalin were gun control advocates. Hitler’s rise to power was facilitated by the SA (Sturmabteilung), a private, well-armed Nazi militia that operated completely outside government control, but was essentially a goon squad that helped Hitler to power by beating, killing, and intimidating the opposition into silence or retreat. Hitler later had the SA dissolved (“Night of the Long Knives”) and replaced them with Himmler’s SS, whom he saw as more loyal.
Hitler didn’t ban guns — in fact he largely swept aside the Weimar-era restrictions, allowing most German citizens, and Nazi party members in particular, virtually unfettered access to guns. Jews, of course, were the exception, and were banned from possessing any weapons at all. Hitler’s rise to power was enabled by the SA, who openly flaunted gun control laws at the time and formed an armed group dedicated to the overthrow of the republic and the establishment of a Nazi regime. When the Nazis came to power, it was the gun nuts who won and the gun controllers who lost.
Keith P
FWIW, I Googled “Hitler, Mao, Kim Jung Il, Castro, Stalin” and the first hit is an article about Joe the Plumber.
Villago Delenda Est
@jonas: Jeeze, there are those damn liberal-biased facts getting in the damn way again.
Villago Delenda Est
@jonas: Jeeze, there are those damn liberal-biased facts getting in the damn way again.
xenos
Google “John Wilkes Booth” while you are at it, too. He was well known before he became infamous.
Omnes Omnibus
@xenos: Giuseppe Zangara?
Mnemosyne
@xenos:
Yep. Imagine if Brad Pitt murdered President Obama.
David Koch
@jonas: As a historian, what books would you recommend on Hitler’s rise to power?
Villago Delenda Est
@David Koch: This, I would say, is the standard.general history, although many academics are critical of it, saying it’s not informed by historical scholarship. Shirer was a journalist, not a historian.
Robert Sneddon
@Baud: Or indeed Ronald Reagan who survived being shot by, I presume, a “patriot”.
cleek
dirty bombs, sure. crosshairs, no.
i keed. i keed.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
none of whom were stopped by common citizens with guns.
NonyNony
@jonas:
Well, perhaps we’re reading Wurzelbacher’s quote more charitably than he intends. When he says:
Maybe he means “as examples of people who used their guns to hunt down politicians who would actively seek to take freedoms and liberty away from their people.” I’m actually pretty sure that, based just on my own amateur reading of history, that Hitler and Castro at least all saw themselves as people who were standing up for the little guy in the face of politicians and leaders who were crushing their people. Stalin possibly as well, though it would make more sense if he’d used Lenin instead of Stalin there.
Kim Jung Il is the outlier with that interpretation, of course, given that he inherited his position from his father.
Of course the most likely (and least charitable) explanation is that Wurzelbacher is a dumbass whose knowledge of any of those four people extends no farther than their names on a list of “bad guys” that he remembers from growing up with Kim Jong Il thrown in because Fox News has been telling him that Il is the new Hitler. 20 years ago it would have been Saddam Hussein on the list instead. And 10 years before that, the Ayatollah Khomeini.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@Tissue Thin Pseudonym (JMN):
Okay, well, contrary to what he has stated, he is NOT a plumber, and he IS a republican (also, his middle name is Joseph.)
jonas
@David Koch: The work of Ian Kershaw is fundamental, I think. Start with that.
Tokyokie
@JPL: Having never lived in his congressional district, I never got to vote against Gramm as a Democrat, but when he first ran for statewide office, I did volunteer work for his opponent.
khead
I laughed all the way through the second piece.
Apparently if you ask the author to show their work you are biased.
Chris
@? Martin:
Have said this every time one of these shootings come up and the NRA does its thing;
If there is ever fascism in America, the RWNJ gun owners powering the NRA will not be La Resistance fighting to save the country. They’ll be the SA brownshirt thugs chasing down and lynching every Muslim, immigrant, black person, poor person, union member, leftist, feminist, homosexual and other Undesirable in the country.
The kind of people who nurse their guns all day fantasizing about the day they’ll finally get to shoot a bad guy are not the kind of people you can count on for anti-autocratic causes.
(Of course, to the NRA gun nuts, all this is a feature not a bug).
johnny aquitard
@Chris:
This. Fucking this.
They had their wake-up call in the Bush years, if what they say was true about why private gun ownership should be allowed.
I have heard so many times in the Bush years an endless boasting of how guns will protect us from government tyranny, even as the Bushies fixed facts around policy to create a pretext for war. The erosion of real, foundational, liberties went unchecked while they laud the returned availability of high capacity magazines as a bulwark against the very tyranny they cheered on.
They’ve had their chance to prove they will spill their blood for defending freedom. Several times over by the end of the first term of G. W. Bush.
They either do not know what the manifestations of real freedoms look like, or they have a twisted version of freedom.
The events of the Bush years tells me the invocation of ‘freedom’ is just a means to get what they really want, which is an authoritarian government.
johnny aquitard
@jonas: Thanks. Yes I was interested too.