Scaring Into Submission

Here is a story that was somehow glossed over by the media in the past week:

[Will] Corkins pled guilty today to firearms, terrorism and assault charges in Washington, D.C. Corkins shot and wounded one man in a terrorist attack last August, but he admitted in court that he had intended to kill as many as possible. He was carrying a loaded 9 mm handgun and had in his possession two additional loaded magazines and 50 loose rounds of ammunition. So the Democrats and their media outlets should be talking up Floyd Corkins, right? 

Wrong. Because he carried out his attack on the Family Research Council’s Washington headquarters. Corkins is a left-winger who set out to murder FRC’s employees because he “didn’t like [their] politics,” specifically the fact that they oppose gay marriage. Corkins carried in his backpack, along with ammunition, 15 Chick Fil-A sandwiches in which he said he had intended to rub the faces of conservatives after he murdered them. It wasn’t just the FRC, either; Corkins had targeted three other conservative organizations whose staff he intended to murder after he was finished at the FRC.

And from where did Corkins get his targets?  From the Southern Poverty Law Center's map that shows the location of "hate groups" such as the Family Research Council.  According to the SPLC, the FRC is hate a group because it is against gay marriage.

But remember when after Jared Loughner murdered six people in Arizona and maimed former Rep, Gabby Giffords, Sarah Palin was immediately blamed because she used targets on maps to identify  places where Republicans should focus their energies.  And also remember that in the hours right after the mass shooting in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater, it was reported (gleefully in some circles) that the shooter was connected to the Tea Party.  Of course this was later found to be not true.

Coming back full circle, it is highly doubtful that the same crusaders for civility who have blamed the Right in the past will be wondering aloud over the complicity of the SPLC and the Left in Corkin's crimes.

But in exposing this glaring hypocrisy does in no way make culpable the SPLC, the Tea Party, or Rush Limbaugh in any of the acts described above.  Even if one would openly declare their allegiance to one political ideology or another before committing mass murder, it does in no way make that side complicit in the acts the murderer  that may be commited.  (To say the obvious, only if an ideology actually openly promotes violence are they the ones to blame).

Paul Mirengoff has some very sensible thoughts on the idea of blame when it comes to horrible acts like the ones described above:

I have long considered it ridiculous to report the political/social ravings of deranged murderers like Jared Loughner, the Tucson shooter. The salient point about these people is their derangement, not its ideological manifestation (ideology actually being too serious a word in these cases). And publicizing the ideological manifestation gives the lunatic a forum he doesn’t deserve. 

I’ve also believed that the publication by journalists of the political ravings of murderers is opportunistic. That is, biased journalists seek political advantage by trying (often in the most attenuated way) to connect the ravings with right-wing thinking.

As does Charles Cooke at NRO:

I have been a longtime critic of the fatuous claim that those whom the nation’s madmen admire are somehow culpable for their actions. It was ridiculous when the Beatles were blamed for Charles Manson’s behavior; it was ridiculous when Sarah Palin was blamed for Jared Lee Loughner’s behavior; and it was ridiculous when the Southern Poverty Law Center was blamed for the shooting at the Family Research Council. It would be equally ridiculous to blame Piers Morgan or gun controllers or the left-leaning media or anyone else named in Christopher J. Dorner’s rambling manifesto for what he did in California.

He nails the actual problem taking place here:

There is a whole world of difference between reporting the details of a killer’s manifesto, and accepting the killer’s conceits. To quote is no more to endorse than to reference is to imply cause. Usually, this distinction serves as the media’s justification for reporting the ramblings of criminals. But not today. In the combined 3,240 words of the lead stories from the New York Times, theLos Angeles Times, and the Associated Press, there is no mention whatsoever of the political contents of Dorner’s screed. Even the BBC ignores the inconvenient bits. They all mention the manifesto, of course — just not what’s in it, even in New York Times’ specific post about the document.

There’s no mention of the extensive sections praising gun control, nor of the author’s appreciation for Piers Morgan, Dianne Feinstein, and President Obama. There’s nothing on his hatred for the NRA and Wayne LaPierre, whom Dorner calls a “a vile and inhumane piece of s***” whose defense of the right to bear arms justifies his “immediate and distant family” to “die horrific deaths in front of” him. There’s no reference to Dorner’s commendations of the “great work” of “Chris Matthews, Joe Scarborough, Pat Harvey, Brian Williams, Soledad Obrien, Wolf Blitzer, Meredith Viera, Tavis Smiley, and Anderson Cooper,” nor of his lionizing Ellen DeGeneres for her work in changing “the perception of your gay community.” Readers would not know that “Prop 8 supporters,” per Dorner, are “pieces of s***.” They’d have no idea that moderate Republicans are praised: George H. W. Bush, Jon Huntsman, Colin Powell are all singled out. 

None of the people that Dorner mentions are guilty of anything whatsoever. But let me ask an earnest question: Had the killer instead praised Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, President George W. Bush, Wayne LaPierre, the NRA, and Proposition 8, and slammed the collection of journalists that he praised, perhaps singling out Piers Morgan for particular attention on the basis of his gun-control advocacy, what do you think the media’s reaction would have been? Ignore your first response and dig deep. What do you think the media’s reaction would have been?

It's obvious that the media's project is to use whatever they can -- e.i., blaming shootings on their political opponents -- to tell those with whom they do not agree politically to shut up and get on board with their cause.  Because, don't you know, that if you listen to Rush Limbaugh, you also enjoy murder, right?