Man shoots up an Amish school, targeting female students. Who here should we say shoulders some of the blame?
1. The man who did the shooting
2. Essentially non-existant gun control laws
3. A culture which turns its head or even glamourizes violence and abuse of women
4. Evolution and abortion.
This guy votes for number four:
(via Gawker)
Thank you, CBS news, for turning your broadcast over to this winner. (And thanks to Judd for sending on this link). As for those liberal heathens who are shooting up schools left and right, perhaps we should consider where these school shootings are happening. Check out the map and the list of locations. Because I’m seeing a pretty decent concentration in the South and in the Bible Belt. I’m not seeing very many urban centers making the list. And if memory serves, the vast majority of the perpetrators in these cases have been white males. You know, the traditional arbiters of morality.
Just something to consider before we go throwing stones at progressives and women.
This guy is apparently the father of one of the kids killed at Columbine, which makes him not exactly an unbiased commentator on school shootings.
OTOH, why the hell not blame the leftists on CBS News’ Free Speech segment? It’s not like they’re going to get a chance to respond.
Funny, I didn’t hear him say anything about lax gun control, or criticize the overwhelmingly violent nature of American culture. You know, two of the factors that ACTUALLY contribute to increased school shootings.
I thought tragedy helped make one more introspective. Apparently, it makes some people even more stupid.
On a simliar note, I expect this will disgust many, but surprise no one:
http://www.pennlive.com/news/patriotnews/index.ssf?/base/news/115992961467770.xml&coll=1
Fuckers. I’ll be praying for an injunction.
And goddamn it. Can’t they call it the Westboro Baptist Church, the one run by Fred Phelps, the one that also picketed Matthew Shepard’s funeral and the funerals of gay men dead of AIDS, whose website is at http://www.God Hates Fags.com?
I blame the heterosexuals since this guy was a heterosexual. If they can blame the Foley scandal on homosexuals then I can blame this on on the heterosexuals. I think any time a heterosexual commits a crime, they need to make note of it in the newspaper article. The BTK killer was a heterosexual, too. I guess all heterosexuals must be killers. I think it makes sense.
And I don’t want to hijack a thread, or waterdown your point. But this guy also mentions nothing about the killing of children in Iraq or Afghanistan.
Number 4 is idiocy. 1 is correct. 2 is possible, but not compelling.
3 is nonsensical.
And that culture is…
Oh Tuomas, you’re pretty.
I wasn’t referring to you-know-which culture, btw.
Fred Phelps may have a hard time actually locating the funerals, from what I’ve been hearing. The Amish mourn in private and won’t be announcing any funeral itineraries.
Tuomas, that would be the culture in which dismembering a woman in gory detail gets a movie an R rating, but showing her having an orgasm gets an NC-17.
Violence is glorified, while sex is demonized.
Ah, if only it were that simple…
No, both violence and sex are glorified, so long as that sex is either portrayed alongside violence (think of slasher films — how are the women dressed when they’re killed? What are they usually doing?), or if the sex being portrayed is male-centric. That is, “acceptable” sex puts the woman as an object of the sexual encounter, and the man as the subject. Male orgasms are acceptable, female orgasms aren’t. Man on top is acceptable, woman on top is not. Hetero, male-dominated sex is acceptable. Rape is acceptable.
Hmm. Yeah, it is bit more complicated. I hate slasher films and don’t watch them — there’s a far too strong undercurrent of the scriptwriter having been rejected by the hot cheerleaders in his youth and working out some sick fantasies that shines through.
I was kind of referring to the fact that violence against men is more glorified and often displayed as “comedy”, but then there are aspects in pop culture that do glorify violence against women as something “edgy” and other such rot (I personally studiously avoid them), so I’ll back down a bit.
Tuomas is implyin that it’s not violence against women that’s glorified, but violence in general.
In my opinion – violence against men is “glorified” in that it shows men fighting back. Violence against women is “glorified” in that it’s usually men doing it whiel women are helpess victims, and men who come to their rescue – doing the whole protector/saving the damsel in distress thing. So, apparently, violence – for whatever reason – is great as long as it’s men doing it.
The Kill Bill thing is a rarity.
Apparently the guy was “mad at God” because of the death of his daughter as an infant, so he killed a bunch of girls about the age she would have been had she lived. So doen’t that make religion the cause of this killing?
Actually, what Tuomas is doing is shifting the terminology. He’s using “glorified” where Jill used “glamorized.” Two very different words.
…and I inexplicably used the British spelling. Oops.
Where is violence against women glamourized? I do see it depicted on tv and in films often (Silence of the Lambs immediately pops to mind), but I do not see it being glamourized.
There was a post here just recently all about glamorizing violence against women — that photo spread in Italian Vogue. (Okay, it wasn’t American culture, but it was western culture.)
Ever hear of pornography? Not all porn glamorizes violence, but huge amount of it does, and porn culture has become much more mainstream.
Isn’t that more or less Jill’s point?
“Actually, what Tuomas is doing is shifting the terminology. He’s using “glorified” where Jill used “glamorized.” Two very different words. ”
I missed that. Intentional?
~~~~
“Ever hear of pornography? Not all porn glamorizes violence, but huge amount of it does, and porn culture has become much more mainstream. ”
And stuff like this is gaining popularity. (warning – could trigger – not at all work safe)
http://punkassblog.com/2006/09/28/rape-spam-leads-to-secret-patriarchy-handbook/
Come on. It’s Tuomas.
Non-existant gun control laws?
No one here is to blame but the man who did the killing.
And how many “gun control” laws did he already break by bringing that much firepower onto school property? It didn’t stop him. What do you want to do? Pass more laws for people like him to ignore?
No, it wasn’t. I’m a very quick reader, and get the “gist” of the writing, rather than actual words. Besides, I have a flu and temperature.
Sorry for the misreading.
Yes, it is, which is why I’m backing down. I’m saying that the stuff y’all are mentioning doesn’t appeal to me, and I erroneously generalized from that.
Yes, I admit my ignorance.
Zuzu:
How zuzu-like. ;)
I seriously don’t understand why no one’s killed or even severely beaten Phelps. It seems abundantly obvious that ultimately that’s what the goal is; their actions simply don’t make any sense at all otherwise, even by mean-crazier-than-a-shithouse-rat standards.
No, seriously. What’s that phrase? “Suicide by cop?”
Possibly because he’s 200 years old.
I suppose it could also be a desperate kind of attention-seeking where being loathed by all and sundry is preferable to being ignored.
But that would make Phelps a martyr… and thinking about the consequences of that makes me physically ill. OTOH, if someone were to accidently lose control of a large truck or bus and take out a swath through one of his protests, well…
He’s also extremely litigious.
Say what you will, but vhbmyfi here makes more sense than Tuomas does half the time.
/cheap shot
On a lefty feminist site!
I’m shocked, you know.
Come to think of it, it’s not really necessary to insult this site because some commenter throws a cheap shot at me.
One could almost call that a cheap shot, in fact.
Additionally, doesn’t calling it out as a cheap shot kind of blunt the actual cheapshotness?
Especially in a thread where you’re actually being quite reasonable*?
* For once. BAM!
Chris Clarke:
Yep, one could.
Auguste:
I kind of realized that afterwards.
In that thread, Zuzu said:
I read the same. It may have been misinterpreted by some to glamourize violence against women (perhaps that was the photographer’s fault), but I don’t believe that was the intention.
I haven’t seen any, but I’ll take your word for it.
I’ve seen my share of slasher films, and there is often the “slut” victim, but I think it’s a stretch to say they’re glamourizing the violence. Isn’t the slasher always some sick fuck who gets killed in the end, rather than the hero of the story?
Is porn the only example of violence against women being glamourized?
We have much stricter gun control laws in Canada, and these things still happen here too. I don’t think even the outright ban of all guns would prevent unhinged people from committing these types of crimes. Prohibition didn’t work for booze or drugs, and I have no reason to believe it would work for guns.
IIRC, this Rohrbach loudly insisted for a long time that his son had been mistakenly shot by a police officer. The cops stonewalled (foolish of them), but they eventually ran tests showing that Daniel was indeed shot by the killers.
I feel for Rohrbach. But at some point, you have to recommend that such a person get the help he needs to cope with his loss, instead of continually making a lot of confusing and unhelpful noise.
Knowledge.
Regardless of what the photographer said the photos referred to thematically, the fact remains that the images chosen were of violence against women presented as glamorous.
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There are videos surfacing of Rosie What’s-Her-Name making a 100% fool out of herself on The View, arguing that more gun control could put a stop to school violence.
Sure. Okay. Just pass more laws and all our problems will just…float away.
After witnessing the damage that King George has done while in office, I’ve completely given up on that side of the aisle. But after listening to people like Rosie What’s-Her-Name, Hitlery Klinton, and Dianne Feinstein, I’m inclined to just call the county and…unregister to vote.
So sad.