this one's political and hyperbolic and features nunchucks

[spatch]

Courtesy 28bytes:

I was flipping channels on the way to lunch today and happened to catch Rush Limbaugh talking about the shootings. He was complaining that no students rushed the attacker, and blamed this on them being soft, politically correct, and afraid of confrontation.

(Update 4/19: I've read the transcript of Rush's show yesterday and Limbaugh actually did not make the statements. He used "people have told me" as a strawman argument to begin ranting about political correctness causing folks to be too scared to send the kid away beforehand for fear of being called racist or whatnot. Even so, there have been plenty of neocons actually espousing the opinions above. So with that in mind, I'm making a retraction. But still...)

Hi! I'm Neocon Tough Guy, and I think the victims of the Virginia Tech shooting only have themselves to blame for being too wussy to fight back! Not a speck of self-preservation among the lot of them! That's right, in this politically correct climate they were too soft to all rush that Asian kid who was shooting up the school because those liberal professors of his taught him to hate America. That's why we need more people like me who have the courage to take matters into their own hands and play hero when everybody else is playing possum.

Here's what I would have done if I were in one of those classrooms, and don't believe for a moment I wouldn't:

Okay, so first I'm sitting at my desk pretending to listen to some liberal propaganda, and then there's a banging. What is it? A threat! My adrenalin is at the ready and I'm raring to go! Now there's the sounds of shooting! Phew, just someone exercising their Second Amendment rights, no cause to worry. No, wait! People are screaming! This must be bad shooting! We've got to do something!

Now people in my classroom are trying to barricade the door. What are you, pacifist fruits? We can't be the heroes if we're locked safely inside! Come on, you guys, stop that! We can all band together and defeat this unknown threat if it comes our way!

And it does! The barricade doesn't work and the shooter barges in. That's when I leap into action. With a bellowing "LET'S ROLL!" I get out from my desk and, as the kid is firing into my class nearly one shot per second, I go right for him. I push the falling bodies out of my way as I charge, jumping over knocked down desks and past those wimps playing dead, trying not to slip in any pools of blood, and then, once I've reached him, I take out my nunchucks -- did I mention I had nunchucks? -- and whap! Out goes the gun from his surprised hand! Whap! away goes his other gun!

Then I get to say something awesome, like "Now that's the kind of gun control I like!" And whap! I use my mad nunchuck skills upside this kid's head. He falls like a sack of potatoes and, as he does, I leap up and give him the ol' Atomic Legdrop. BOOM! Now we're talking! And then I tie his hands behind his back, get some wires and a car battery, and go all Jack Bauer on him. WHERE'S THE PRESIDENT'S DAUGHTER? WHERE IS SHE, YOU TERRORIST? TELL ME!

After that it's all gravy as the cops come, take him away, and I get some awesome face time on Fox News.

That is, of course, if he ran out of bullets before he got to me.

Yeah, he does. See, as I leap right in front of him, he aims the gun right at me and says "Yippie-kai-yay, motherfucker!" And he pulls the trigger and -- click! click! Out of bullets! And THAT'S when I get out my nunchucks and say "No, yippie-kai-yay YOU!" and take him down like I did before.

So that's what I'd do, because I'm just cool like that. No, it's not a wish fulfillment fantasy, it's reality! I would SO do that! Maybe I'd have a gun too. Yeah, see, ok, this happened just after they let the students carry guns to protect themselves too, okay? And we all gang up and take him down. Can't you see that? Half the classroom firing pistols wildly at the advancing shooter? That'd be so cool I bet someone would capture it on their phone and send it all over the world. Oh, stop crying, collateral damage is a liberal myth and you know it.

Me, I'd have two pistols of course, cause I'm a bad-ass dual wielder and I'd leap in front of all the other kids, dual firing and shattering glass and lights and sparks are flying and it's in slow motion and it'd be fucking sweet. Cause that's just the way I roll. I'd rather shoot my mouth off on the Internet, but I'd sure as hell shoot the gook who dared make a stand against America if I had the chance.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. I have to have like one final closing line before the cops come. Something really cool. Oh, I got it. I'll pistol-whip him with his own gun and, as he falls unconscious, I'll narrow my eyes real mean-like and say in a gritty, low voice, "Class dismissed."

God I need a cigarette.

Comments

[ubiquity75.livejournal.com]

Spatch 4 Prez.

[ron_newman]

Or at least for Globe columnist. Aren't there a few vacancies this month?

[mcsnee.livejournal.com]

Hell, I'd be just as happy to give him Rush Limbaugh's job.

[luckimunki.livejournal.com]

"I would challenge the media to go in and sit through a couple of his professors' lectures and listen to what they have to say, and maybe we can place blame somewhere." (genius caller)

Wow.

[prog.livejournal.com]

I am saddened to report that the "pansy-ass dead students have themselves to blame" angle is a spreading meme among conservative pundits.

[sarcasma.livejournal.com]

Wow. WOW. Even Bush isn't dumb enough to want to alienate every voting parent and voting student everywhere in his country.

[dcart.livejournal.com]

I am not surprised to see this kind of attitude from conservatives. My brother is not a conservative. However he is a very blue collar kind of guy who tends toward being pro gun and sometimes socially conservative on a few other things. Prior to his time with the Feds, he was someone who has been shot at more than once and he expressed something similar to me. He thought that barricading the door was smart. He thought that escaping out windows, even jumping from windows was smart. But he is genuinely having trouble understanding why people hid behind desks as the shooter shot other people in the room. I gave up quickly and changed the subject because I didn't think I would get anywhere with him on that.

I love your post, btw.

[sup3rmark.livejournal.com]

I'm disappointed in you, Spatch.

Too soon. Toooooooo soon.

[spatch]

Well, you're right. It is too soon. Too goddamn soon. This whole thing hasn't been a week old yet, and look where's it getting us.

Within a day of the incident, a single day, we had politicians and media figures alike asking themselves not "How can I help?" but "How can I spin this in my political favor?" Most of the latter action involved trying to pin blame on anybody but the kid. Scapegoats are needed, by golly, because we have to have some subject for our Four Minutes of Hate.

So far on the list we've had VT's public safety unit, gun control laws, liberal professors, video games, anti-depressants, and when they've run out of people or things to blame, political hay is made out of other aspects of the story, not even with 24 hours' rest. The VT student who was mistakenly fingered as the shooter, the Asian-American gun enthusiast, wrote a statement which began with him denying any role in the shootings, discussed how his personal life was in a shambles due to misplaced threats, and then concluded with an offer to appear anywhere and "...give my opinion on how the situation could have turned out better if other students were allowed to be armed."

(He has since retracted that last offer, however, and is now devoting his efforts to helping his school and support organizations who help. We're all human. 15 minutes of infamy can be quite intoxicating.)

But then there was Rosie O'Donnell, who took Bush to task on The View for responding to Virginia Tech sooner than he did to New Orleans after Katrina. What the fuck? No, seriously, what the fuck? Could she not think of anything else to discuss other than taking on a favorite target once more? Criminy, t

It's mad, it's all absolutely mad. And while I can't "blame the media" for writing too soon -- I'm responsible for my actions, not anybody else -- I can say I was compelled enough, disgusted enough, to write as I did, when I did, after hearing of this neocon mindset of blaming the victims and the "political correctness" that kept them soft and afraid to make confrontations.

However, I've just gone and read the transcript from Rush Limbaugh's show yesterday to find a corroborating quote, and I've found there really isn't one. Rush brings up the fact that people are pointing fingers at those who didn't try to be a hero, but he takes attention off that, he doesn't personally espouse the opinion himself, but instead ends up veering into blaming "political correctness" (the now-senseless term which is easily hidden behind to spout crazy opinions) for not nabbing the kid in the first place -- he was Asian, so obviously all the PC weenies couldn't take action, send the kid for help, take him out of school, for fear of being called racist.

So I'm going to have to edit the piece, and write an update explaining this. Limbaugh didn't stoop as low as others have, and so honestly, it's not about him anymore. However, there are more than enough people who can safely sit behind a keyboard and explain how they would have saved the day because life is like the movies and response to dangerous situations is never irrational.

[28bytes.livejournal.com]

When Rush said "Why didn't they gang tackle this guy? Why didn't they just overpower this guy once he started firing!" yesterday, I didn't pick up that he was actually saying ""Why didn't they gang tackle this guy? Why didn't they just overpower this guy once he started firing!"" with an extra pair of quotation marks, as it's presented in the transcript. My bad on that.

But it was easy to miss those quotation marks listening, because he answered the question with an explanation involving political correctness that did not dispute the premise of the question.

To be fair to Rush, here's the part of the transcript I heard, directly from his website:

I want to explore something entirely different than banning guns, and that would be a ban on political correctness. You people (and you know who you are), I'm getting e-mails from you, some of you have called, and you're lamenting the "soft structure" of the American child these days, the American young person. "Why didn't they gang tackle this guy? Why didn't they just overpower this guy once he started firing!" Everybody's got their theories, and one of the most common theories that I'm hearing in my e-mail and on the phones here is that, "Come on, Rush! From kindergarten on they're taught conflict resolution. 'Don't offend anybody. Don't make anybody mad, da-da-da-da-da-da-da, da-da-da-da-da-da-da.' Well, what is that if not political correctness," and it may be a factor.

[spatch]

Yeah, that's the conclusion I came to as well. Still, as the quote is in quotation marks of its own, I can't rightfully call him out on holding the opinion. So out he goes and in comes Mr. Neocon Tough Guy.

[sup3rmark.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was drunk when I made that comment. I think I missed the from-Limbaugh's-POV thing.

[spatch]

Hey, no problem. Thanks for the reality check.

[resk.livejournal.com]

I cannot begin to express my disappointment upon clicking the above link and receiving this message:

YOU ARE ACCESSING A PAGE FOR RUSH 24/7 MEMBERS ONLY. PLEASE LOG-IN ABOVE.

If I had 3 wishes, I'd use one of them to create an untraceable account so I could log-in and none of Rush's posse could find me.

I'd use the second wish to go back in time so I could tell Cho Seung-Hui that God created him, and God don't make no junk!

I'd use my third wish to get Richard McBeef into the hands of Charlie Kaufman for a rewrite.

[atothek.livejournal.com]

brilliant.

[redtheblue.livejournal.com]

Bottom line: The people who are prepared for this kind of attack are usually the guys who attack in the first place.