XPost: alt.poltics.socialism.democratic, tacoma.politics, ucsb.humanities   
   XPost: pdaxs.issues.democrats   
   From: lying-pricks@msnbc.com   
      
   In the aftermath of Dylann Roof’s racist murders in Charleston,   
   the Internet was deluged with think pieces about whiteness,   
   white privilege, white racism, and the legacy of American racial   
   injustice. While Roof’s individual agency in the murders was   
   acknowledged, his actions were deemed inseparable not just from   
   America’s gun culture but also from its racist past. Flags had   
   to come down, statues had to be toppled, and even Confederate   
   bones had to be exhumed.   
      
   What narrative will prevail after yesterday’s horrific shooting   
   in Virginia? Vester Lee Flanagan, a gay black man, was every bit   
   as race-obsessed as Roof. Former colleagues report a long   
   history of unhinged behavior on Flanagan’s part. The anecdotes   
   stretch back for years.   
      
   As the Daily Beast reported, he “kept getting fired, kept   
   threatening co-workers, and kept claiming he was the real   
   victim” of racism and homophobia. But rather than hurting his   
   career, one former colleague said that his race and sexual   
   orientation gave him new chances: “The fact that he kept his job   
   was because he was an African-American gay man. That’s pretty   
   hard to say no to.”   
      
   So is the proper response to yesterday’s shooting an extended   
   meditation on blackness, gayness, affirmative action, and black   
   or gay rage? Should there now be a cultural hunt for symbols or   
   expressions of that rage or a quest to batter history into   
   submission until it tells only the stories we want to tell?   
      
   After all, police reportedly confiscated a “gay pride flag” from   
   his home. Yet for the Left, yesterday’s brutal murders are all   
   about guns. They present yet another opportunity to “shame”   
   lawmakers into passing legislation that limits Americans’   
   constitutional rights — legislation that would have done nothing   
   to prevent Flanagan from killing his victims.   
      
   You want background checks? Flanagan reportedly passed a   
   background check. You want to keep crazy people from owning   
   guns? So far there’s no evidence that any entity, anywhere,   
   adjudicated Flanagan as insane, and while portions of his   
   manifesto indicate that he believed he heard from Jehovah,   
   others demonstrate that he knew full well what he was doing. He   
   was more than capable of discerning right from wrong.   
      
   Roof’s murders weren’t about guns or “whiteness.” Flanagan’s   
   murders aren’t about guns or “blackness.” They’re about evil,   
   and no demographic — no matter its history — is immune to evil.   
   The alleged privilege of whiteness doesn’t make a man a killer.   
   The alleged oppression of blackness doesn’t make a man a killer.   
   Guns don’t make a man a killer. The man makes himself a killer.   
   He is solely responsible for his actions.   
      
   The most effective cultural and political response to killings   
   like Flanagan’s — and killings like Roof’s — is to assign   
   responsibility and enact policies that reflect man’s individual   
   fallen nature.   
      
   We decry mass incarceration — and we do need to think hard about   
   whether so many Americans need to be in prison — but no one   
   credible is arguing that we’ve engaged in mass incarceration of   
   the innocent.   
      
   The Left decries increasingly “lax” gun laws as enabling attacks   
   like Flanagan’s, yet those very same laws place the means of   
   self-defense in the hands of individuals who are actually at the   
   scene of the crime as it happens.   
      
   Indeed, the era of aggressive policing, tougher sentencing,   
   increased prison populations, and less restrictive gun laws is   
   also the era of dramatically reduced violent crime, including   
   gun crime. Yes, black lives matter. Think of the tens of   
   thousands of black men and women alive today because of the   
   decreased crime rate.   
      
   Radically revising our approaches to policing, incarceration,   
   and gun ownership because they haven’t eliminated crime entirely   
   is the equivalent of getting rid of anti-lock brakes and air   
   bags because they haven’t ended traffic fatalities.   
      
   In the Left’s upside-down fantasy, proven solutions become part   
   of the problem: Somehow, the world is safer with fewer   
   Confederate flags flying, more criminals on the streets, and   
   fewer opportunities to defend ourselves against them.   
      
   But the problem isn’t policy or history or symbols. It’s people.   
   As if we needed any reminder, yesterday’s events showed that   
   anyone can be a vicious, murderous bigot, regardless of their   
   race, their sexual orientation, or the flags they hang in their   
   home.   
      
   — David French is an attorney and a staff writer at National   
   Review.   
      
   http://www.nationalreview.com/article/423181/vester-lee-flanagan-   
   murders-race-sexual-orientation-guns-evil   
                       
   --   
   Illegal alien Barack Hussein Obama seizes on this tragedy caused   
   by one of his mentally ill homosexual, black ardent supporters,   
   to wave the flags for more gun control.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)