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Congressman Shot At Baseball Practice


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So much talk about the event and the political ramifications of it... not enough about what Scalise himself stood for. For example, Scalise was one of the loudest voices in Congress leading the charge against human trafficking - something we all can get behind:

 

http://scalise.house.gov/press-release/combatting-human-trafficking

 

If there's a positive that can be taken from this, besides more unity:

 

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/337845-top-dem-buys-pizza-for-scalise-staffers

 

... perhaps this violent act can be turned into a positive and Scalise can get some more momentum behind his anti-human trafficking legislation.

 

Really? I read in multiple places he was pro-human trafficking.

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Really? I read in multiple places he was pro-human trafficking.

This made me chuckle.

 

But it also raised a point with me.

 

When did championing what's obviously the right thing to do become synonymous with virtue? At the bare minimum, I expect our politicians to be good people. I think we should save actual virtuous acts for when they are truly a thing of virtue.

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Speculating, but perhaps that happened when "the right thing to do" became subservient in our political and national discourse to the "the most profitable thing to do".

You have a point here.

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This made me chuckle.

 

But it also raised a point with me.

 

When did championing what's obviously the right thing to do become synonymous with virtue? At the bare minimum, I expect our politicians to be good people. I think we should save actual virtuous acts for when they are truly a thing of virtue.

Politicians have been kissing babies and condemning heinous acts for a long time.

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Politicians have been kissing babies and condemning heinous acts for a long time.

they've also been sending them off to die in wars and battles while fueling violence openly and directly (guns, riots, drugs, ridiculous laws).

 

So, your petulance presence here again can be undermined by something you champion. Idiocracy.

 

Your lock step party line took the wrong approach on this.

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What Do The Congressional Shooter’s Facebook Pages Say About Him – And Society?

by Jennifer Van Laar

 

The Facebook pages of James T. Hodgkinson, the 66-year-old Illinois man who shot Rep. Steve Scalise and three others this morning, are made up almost exclusively of anti-Trump, anti-Republican, and pro-Bernie Sanders memes and videos going back at least into 2015.

 

Anyone who spends more than a few minutes on social media has seen these types of memes from the left and from the right, and we all have a few friends and relatives who seem to have a fixation on politics and a disturbing level of anger. Most likely, Hodgkinson was “that friend” for a few people.

{snip}

People are asking others to not “politicize” the shooting, but that’s just not possible. Hodgkinson went out looking for Republicans to kill. He wanted to kill them because of their politics. This is a political attack – and this is a man who was influenced by the incessant drumbeat of rhetoric which dehumanizes political enemies.

When a comic posts a photo where she’s holding the (fake) severed head of the president, when a Shakespeare play is modified to show the assassination of the president, when it is okay to mock the 11-year-old son of the president because of the T-shirt he wore, and all of these things are done without a second thought, without considering that these people are human beings who have thoughts, dreams, needs and desires just like you and I have, we have arrived at a point in our civilization where we really need to take a long, hard look at what we’re doing.

I can’t know for sure, but I would suspect that when James Hodgkinson stepped on that baseball field today he didn’t see Steve Scalise, Jeff Flake, and the rest of the GOP baseball team as people. (For God’s sake, there was a child there, and that didn’t stop him.) I suspect he saw them as evil, dishonest, greedy impediments to progress who needed to be eliminated for the greater good.

Bernie Sanders is not to blame for Hodgkinson’s acts. Neither is Kathy Griffin or any number of trolls who say crappy things or wish a horrible death on President Trump, Melania Trump, Barron Trump, or Republicans in general. This is squarely on Hodgkinson.

But, the environment of “other-ing” and dehumanization of anyone who disagrees with our politics definitely played a part, which is an attitude evident in the memes and postings on Hodgkinson’s Facebook pages over the last two years – and evident on the Facebook and Twitter timelines of many people.

“I don’t care what happens to that person. I hope they suffer and die a slow, painful death. They’re getting what they deserve for voting for [fill in the blank].”

That’s what James Hodgkinson’s Facebook page says about all of us.

 

 

Hey - Cut and Paste

 

Maybe you usual "red state" websites didn't carry this story:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/19/muslim-girl-17-killed-on-way-home-from-virginia-mosque

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Hey - Cut and Paste

 

Maybe you usual "red state" websites didn't carry this story:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jun/19/muslim-girl-17-killed-on-way-home-from-virginia-mosque

 

I won't be surprised if that's not what it initially looks like. That's an MS13 area, and regionally there's been a surprising amount of gang-related retribution crimes lately.

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