The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

NotAnAgitator — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 01:09:08 -0000

We have over 300 million people and we have very few such events as demonstrated by the saturation of news coverage over the last day or two.

What we need to find concerning is a tendency by our leaders and other special interest groups to overreact and use such an event to restrict our freedoms and weaken our Constitutional rights. It's been happening since 9-11 with various iterations of the Patriot Act.

I am a socially liberal somewhat libertarian American who believes in the right of people to do whatever they wish, be it religion or relationships, etc as long as they don't harm others.

My concern at this moment is a subtle movement rationalizing the 1984 Orwellian preemptive prosecution of criminality and of thought crimes. Mind reading is at the basis of the prosecution of some hate crimes.

I see it as un-American and a slippery slope to have a private non-public entity, non-accountable group that has its own partisan and fund raising agenda such as the SPLC having a decisive word on which groups are deserving of protected status and which groups are of "hate" status. This potential redlining McCarthyist function should be a government function which can held accountable to the people and to the political leaders.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

gordon gartrelle — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:32:46 -0000

Interesting.

Juan Williams has gone the other direction. He used to be a serviceable centrist up until very recently. Perhaps both switches were executive decisions.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Aubrey Maturin — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 16:03:23 -0000

I hear you. I wasn't saying there's something wrong with pointing out his race. Sometimes we get to the broader social or political implications of these tragic events so quickly that we lose fellow-feeling for that individual life so violently taken. I'd just heard of the incident and wanted to convey that we should spend a moment to empathize with those most directly affected by this public death.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

gillian — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:59:07 -0000

Politico reports the Weekly Standard may have been shooter target:

"The suggestion that the Standard may have been a target complicates any view of the racist shooter in contemporary left-right terms. Von Brunn's white supremacist roots put him under the rubric of a "right-wing extremist," but the substance of his views -- which included everything from believing that President Bush may have been in on the September 11 attacks to denying that President Obama is an American citizen -- are too far on the fringe to fit into conventional political classification.

The focus on the Standard, though, appears to be of a piece with his central motivation: Anti-Semitism. In one essay, Von Brunn attacked "JEWS-NEOCONS-BILL O’REILLY," and the suggestion that neoconservatism is a specifically Jewish conspiracy is common on the racist fringe."

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

lmd — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 15:26:50 -0000

As an act of terrorism, it hasn't failed or succeeded yet. That is up to us.

Terrorism is meant to incite fear and push our people past our constitutional principles into reactions that weaken us strategically. I imagine this act was intended to help create a fearful citizenry to push our leaders to mandate a furious back lash where we sanction unconstitutional arrests, illegal searches & seizures of property and unlawful detention of militia-men/skinheads/supremacists.

If we as an electorate support such an overreach in response to these incidents, and don't lawfully deal with violence like this, then supremacist leaders would be able to turn to their followers and say: "I told you there is a real conspiracy perpetrated by [any of the above] to take our rights away. This is war." At this point they want this rallying cry (and others) to strengthen their numbers.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:39:42 -0000

Wendy,

Those are the exact same reasons I'm opposed to it. I agree with every single word in your first paragraph. I simply think your second is beside the point. Of course there is no doubt that the this guy is guilty. You execute him, there is a 0% chance you've executed the wrong guy. But you can't start making exceptions. I'm not usually one to argue the slippery slope theory, but in the case of the death penalty, you ABSOLUTELY can't go there. Without reading more on the issue, the average person would assume that a confession would be a pretty iron-clad case for the death penalty. We clearly now know that it's not the case. The death penalty must be opposed in all cases.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

wendy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:27:55 -0000

A lot of us death penalty opponents (I don't know if rikyrah is in this category) are in opposition because of how often innocent people are convicted. We agree that some crimes warrant death; we're just not convinced the right person is always convicted.

In this case, there's videotape, close-up eyewitnesses in broad daylight, puddles of blood evidence, and a handwritten confession in the suspect's car. I'm not the least bit concerned about the possibility of this being a mistaken identity case.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:21:14 -0000

Dave,

It's incompetant, and stupid to even try. I mean, you certainly can't say what he did was competent. He failed! I know several people who are members of Mensa who are complete idiots. They may have a high IQ, but are very stupid in the ways that count.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Eric L — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:16:46 -0000

The Islamic organizations that you speak of are typically organizations that are peaceful and are trying to preempt the blind hatred of people who don't understand that all people of a certain group, whether that group be muslims, blacks, etc, don't think and act alike. To spend ten seconds condemning this man's murder seems rather hollow compared to the dozens of hours some media figures have spent insinuating that the President isn't a US citizen, speculating about whether there are FEMA camps being built to imprison your family, and telling America that a second holocaust is occuring in their backyard.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:10:54 -0000

I suppose I just find it interesting when people, who are otherwise against the death penalty, seem to make exceptions when they are particularly appalled by a crime. Maybe I shouldn't assume that rikyrah is against the death penalty, but I thought she was.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

TW Andrews — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:50:03 -0000

Lethal injection would do just as well. Or firing squad.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

TW Andrews — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:47:47 -0000

I think this is what offended a lot of them about the DHS report, but when you're profiling potential criminals, and you're being objective, you have to note correlations like that. It doesn't mean all, or even a significant number, of veterans should be suspects, but it might mean that veterans are more likely to commit certain types of crimes than non-veterans.

Replace the word veteran with the race of your choice and tell me how you feel about that profiling again.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

TW Andrews — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:40:45 -0000

It's a fine time to talk about it, but it's a hard argument to win. DC has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation, even after Heller (which invalided the gun ban, but doesn't do anything about the zoning laws that DC uses to keep guns from being sold in the district).

Given that, it's hard to say that if only those laws had been even stricter, Steven Tyrone Johns would be alive today.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

DaveinHackensack — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:38:10 -0000

"Not only evil and stupid, but incompetent."

Evil, yes, but stupid and incompetent, no. The man was a member of Mensa, which means he wasn't stupid. And it's not incompetence when one man is unable to defeat several armed guards simultaneously in a gunfight; it's a near-impossible task.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

albatross — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 11:24:51 -0000

It's worth remembering that this attack failed. He got stopped at the entrance, got into a firefight with the armed guards, and did *not* get inside to murder a bunch of unarmed victims, which must have been his goal. Not only evil and stupid, but incompetent.

He murdered one black security guard, which is awful, but it could have been so much worse. (And it wasn't, thanks to that guard and the others who stopped the bastard, and may have saved a dozen lives doing it.)

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Tel — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 10:29:29 -0000

People have been shaking the crazy tree since last summer. If an 88-year-old Nazi and a couple disturbed religious nuts are the only things to fall out, I'd say we're doing pretty well. Doesn't help the families of the victims, but it's kind of comforting to the rest of us.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Ta-Nehisi Coates — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:32:09 -0000

I banned him. So you don't have to worry about being polite anymore.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Jeff Hess — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 08:08:30 -0000

Shalom Ta-Nehisi,

For updates on memorials for Officer Steven Tyrone Johns, visit Writes Like She Talks.

B'shalom,

Jeff

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

eric k — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:38:36 -0000

Sullivan caught the odious Debbie Steussel blaming it on Muslims, seriously.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

eric k — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:35:02 -0000

Nice that you are able to read the minds of the media and know what they think.

I also like how you don't provide any evidence for this conspiracy to sweep the muslim murderer under the rug.

Just one data point and she isn't the entire media of course, but Rachel Maddow talked about him on her show today while talking about Von Brann and used him as an example of extremism getting out of control, but that doesn't fit into your anti PC world view so I suppose that doesn't count.

I'll try to be polite because TNC prefers it that way, if your gonna bring this crap to this site at least bring something beyond the strawmen floating around in your addled brain.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Stacy — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:40:35 -0000

Just to clarify, you want him to be executed by way of the electric chair?

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Paul — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:17:31 -0000

Meme watch: Malkin and RedState are trying to pin this on the Lefties. I can't wait to hear from Rush and Glenn Beck. This is so sick.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Stan B — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:05:27 -0000

Deleted. And banned.

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

Billare — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:59:02 -0000

Hey, hey, people, what about our punitive prison sentences, like Glenn Loury has argued in a forum sponsored by Cato?

Re: Shep Smith On Extremist Violence

RL — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 00:51:01 -0000

11:49 P.M. and you're still posting! Go to sleep. I have an excuse, watching the Giants play Arizona.