The Little Red Blog

Wednesday with Pascal: Have Mercy on Us All

• Pascal the existential Russian blue cat had a column prepared for today, but, in the wake of yesterday's school shooting in Texas (not to be confused with the recent supermarket shooting in Buffalo), Pascal has instructed me to line his litter box with what he had written. "What good are words in a world filled with bullets?" he complained. I had no answer, so today Pascal has no column.
• To paraphrase the Nobel Laureate of a generation: How many deaths will it take 'til we know that too many children have died?  
• I have pondered and pondered and even cogitated on this, and I can only say, what the hell is wrong with us? That is not a rhetorical question; I would like an answer, please. The best description of mankind would be "God's favorite mistake". The deity has a lot of godsplaining to do.
• To paraphrase Jack Nicholson's "Joker," what this country needs is an enema.
• Pascal has just interrupted me to ask that I also use the endless and useless "thoughts and prayers" to line his litter box. 
• Another paraphrase: Nihilism is a warm gun. 
• At least Swiss army knives, baseball bats, and tire irons have other uses; they were not specifically designed to kill. Explain to me how guns serve any other purpose. They are killing machines, plain and simple, and they should be labeled as such.

Words ring hollow. They make me sick. The rest is silence. Have a great day, America, you murderous beast, you nation of accomplices. May God have mercy on us all.

Weapons of Mass Destruction

 

  

Pire Commentateur dans le Monde

Believe it or not, Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry aims the following admonishment at American liberals:

Identity is a powerful thing. Kick it out the door and it climbs back through the window. And identity politics turns important issues into excuses for beating down people who aren't like you because they scare you. All I can say is: Please cut it out, take a deep breath, and grow up.

Gobry is responding to what he calls liberals’ “shamless overreach on gun control,” an overreach that consists of (a) a tabloid newspaper headline calling the NRA “terrorists” and (b) President Obama and Hillary Clinton praising Australia’s “gun buy-back” program.¹ For such unprecedented and inexcusable “hubris,” liberals are castigated for—it’s worth repeating—“beating down people who aren’t like you because they scare you.”

This, mind you, in the Year of Trump, to whose xenophobic, angry, and frightened supporters M. Gobry has never once said “Please cut it out, take a deep breath, and grow up.”

I wish (I wish, I wish in vain) that M. Gobry would go back to writing about religion again.  Even though I often disagreed with him, I always recognized that on that subject he knew what he was talking about.  When it comes to politics, however, and especially to American politics, M. Gobry is, as the French say, un putain de cretin totale.²

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http://theweek.com/articles/593605/shameless-liberal-overreach-gun-control

¹ M. Gobry also references (because of course he would) President Obama’s famous “cling bitterly [to guns and religion] for irrational reasons,” taking it completely out of context (because of course he would) and distorting its meaning.  Is it too much to ask that, eight years or so after the remarks in question, people bother to go back and see what Obama actually said?  And when M. Gobry appends the phrase “for irrational reasons,” he is precisely reversing Obama’s point, which was that the prioritizing of guns and religion—shorthand in that context for “cultural issues”—was perfectly understandable.  Candidate Obama was, in essence, refuting Thomas Frank’s famous “What’s the Matter with Kansas?”  If I have to explain this one more time…  

² https://translate.google.com/#auto/fr/a%20total%20fucking%20idiot  

Stuff Slips Through the Cracks

I am not the first, nor will I be the last, to point out that the standard Republican response to mass shootings—“Stuff happens” is how Jeb Bush put it—is conspicuously different than the continuing Republican response to Four Dead in Benghazi.  Four American deaths overseas are a tragedy that will be investigated until Trey Gowdy finds a smoking gun or the Republicans take back the White House, but ten more smoking-gun caused deaths here at home are apparently just a statistic, and an unpreventable one at that. The GOP-controlled House of Representatives will not convene a Select Committee to Investigate Mass Shootings in America, because stuff happens and because (as Jeb Bush further helpfully explained) there is no way that any government, no matter how powerful, can ever prevent said stuff from happening—except, of course, when stuff happens in Libya and can be blamed on Hillary Clinton and/or Barack Obama.

“Tragedies,” [Bush] said. “A child drowned in a pool and the impulse is to pass a law that puts fencing around pools. Well it may not change it. Or you have a car accident and the impulse is to pass a law that deals with that unique event. And the cumulative effect of this is, in some cases, you don’t solve the problem by passing the law, and you’re imposing on large numbers of people burdens that make it harder for our economy to grow, make it harder to protect liberty.” ¹

Harder for our economy to grow.  Harder to protect liberty.  You might as well shake your fist at an earthquake or a hurricane or a tsunami (or declare a War on Terror?) for all the good passing laws will do when it comes to keeping people safe at home, in their cars, or in the workplace—anywhere, really, except Libya. 

Donald Trump agrees, which settles it:

You know, it’s not politically correct to say that [some dangerous people are going to slip through the cracks], but you’re going to have difficulty, and that would be for the next million years you’re going to have difficulty. People are going to slip through the cracks and even if you did great mental health programs, people are going to slip through the cracks! [...] you are going to have difficulties. You’re going to have difficulties with many different things, not just this. And that’s the way the world works. And by the way, that’s the way the world always has worked. ²

Why try to fix the cracks when someone will always slip through them and find a way to amass caches of weapons and ammunition?  Let’s just leave the cracks in our systems alone—mental health treatment, for instance, and gun control—in order to protect liberty and help our economy grow.

Charlie Pierce calls the likes of Bush and Trump “the f---ing mole people.” I think that’s unfair to f---ing mole people.  Let’s just call Bush and Trump exactly what they are: mainstream Republicans circa 2015.

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¹ http://www.nytimes.com/politics/first-draft/2015/10/02/jeb-bush-is-criticized-for-saying-stuff-happens-in-reaction-to-oregon-shooting/

² http://www.vox.com/2015/10/2/9441957/trump-gun-control  Trump may not be aware that the world, unlike today's United States, has not always made available such exquisitely and excessively deadly weaponry to its disgruntled residents.

It's Our Country, We Can Take It Back If We Want To!

The voters of America have spoken: order has been restored to the republic, and our long national nightmare is over.  We've taken our country back.

President Obama has scheduled an address to the nation later today.  It's expected that he will announce his resignation and that of Vice-President Joe "BFD" Biden, thus catapulting Speaker of the House John Boehner into the White House.

President Boehner will have his work cut out for him, undoing six years of Obama's tyranny.  His task will be made more difficult by the fact that there are still enough Democrats in the Senate to block legislation by means of the filibuster; therefore, new Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's first order of business should be to eliminate the filibuster.  Once that's done, the Republican majority will be free to enact the will of the people.

Item one on the legislative agenda, of course, will be to repeal Obamacare and to replace it with not-Obamacare.  Americans have been longing to return to the days when they could be denied health insurance due to preexisitng medical conditions, and when women could be charged higher premiums than men for the same policies; millions of Americans living in poverty want back their freedom not to seek medical treatment unless it's an emergency.  It's too late, sadly, to save the many Americans who were executed by Obamacare Death Panels (estimated number so far: zero, and rising), but all we can do now is uninsure the future for the millions who would rather die a natural death by untreated illness than have Uncle Sam cart them away.  Under righteous Republican rule, the government will no longer involve itself in your healthcare decisions; those decisions will be made by your employer and your insurance company, the way God intended.

Speaking of God, He's back!  With Obama out of the way, churches can re-open and pastors can freely speak their minds: the Reign of Terror has ended.    Prayer can be returned to public schools where it rightfully belongs, sparing parents the burden of praying at home with their children.  The Bible can be taught again as God's word--and so can the  Constitution!  As for the Gay Mafia and its various LGBT paisonos: it's back to the closet for them.  They'll have to tear up those bogus "marriage certificates" and go back to living in sin, which is all they're about anyway.

What else?  Well, all the guns confiscated by President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder  will be returned to the American people.  The IRS will be told to mind its own business and stop snooping into the activities of tax-exempt organizations.  And speaking of snooping, the out-of-control Obama-era NSA will be instructed to revert to the policies of the out-of-control Bush-era NSA, which should be a comfort to us all.  Also, Obama's FEMA re-education camps will be closed down forthwith, and all citizens who have been re-educated will be de-educated.  As for voting "rights": votes from now on will be allocated based on income ("One dollar, one vote!"), which is the only fair policy.

Taxes, of course, must be cut immediately, as must government spending.  Both tax rates and federal spending must be rolled back to 2008 levels (hereafter known as "the baseline" for budgetary purposes).  In essence, the 2008 economy should be restored: we want our housing bubble back!  All federal regulations imposed under the Obama regime will be declared null and void, beginning with the heinous imposition upon the American people  of non-Edisonian lightbulbs; if standard incandescent bulbs were good enough for Thomas Edison, they should be good enough for us.

All federal entitlement programs must be reduced and reformed immediately.  Anyone who signed up for SNAP benefits or disability under the Obama Interregnum must re-apply after first repaying the fraudulent benefits they received.  A constitutional amendment should be passed recognizing gainful employment of at least thirty hours per week as the legal obligation of each and every non-trust-funded citizen.  The retirement age will be raised to 75, but full Social Security and Medicare benefits won't kick in until age 90; this will restore the fiscal solvency of those programs.  Also, Social Security will be privatized, amortized, condensed, and obfuscated.

Finally, on foreign policy: no more apologizing for America!  Robust American military power, thoughtfully and prudently employed as it was by the likes of Ronald Reagan and both Bushes, is exactly what this world wants and needs.  The Appeaser-in-Chief will be replaced by a Warrior-in-Chief, and America's enemies (and perhaps even its friends) will tremble once again.  We are the world's policeman, because God has appointed us.  President Boehner will dispatch the Ferguson (Missouri) Police Department to the Middle East, thus putting an end to that region's troubles once and for all.  When the Ferguson PD is done there, it will return home to guard our nation's southern border, patrolling the Great Wall of America that will finally be completed, albeit over the dead bodies (literally) of the Democratic opposition.  Our immigration policy will consist of "Trespassers will be shot".

Also, the U.S. will invade Ebola, overthrow the viral regime, and stop the outbreak in its tracks.

Remember the date--November 4, 2014: the day when everything changed forever.  May God bless America--because if He doesn't, He'll have to answer to the Ferguson PD.

Sunday Quickies

Ho-hum, another day, another murderous rampage:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/05/24/shooting-california-santa-barbara/9532405/

I’ve already watched a panel discussion (on CNN) about this incident in which the main concern seemed to be that we not blame guns or pass any silly gun-control laws.  Gun advocates could hardly wait to point out that half of the killings in this case were done by stabbing, not shooting.  Pair this story with the recent decision by the governor of Tennessee to cart out the state’s creaky old electric chair for an execution, and you’ve got a good picture of American Exceptionalism: we are an enthusiastically violent nation.  Perhaps we should change the adage to It’s as American as mom, apple pie, and random violence.

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Fredrick de Boer and Noah Millman pick some bones with Thomas Friedman about what “average” means, based on this Friedman excerpt:

“I’ve been arguing for a while now that “average is over.” It has to be when every boss has cheaper, easier, faster access to software, automation, robots, cheap foreign labor and cheap foreign genius that can produce above-average so easily. Everyone needs to find their unique value-add, their “extra,” and be constantly re-engineering themselves if they want to obtain, or advance in, a decent job that can’t be digitized.”

De Boer says the excerpt proves that Friedman doesn’t understand what “average” means (if everyone upgrades, then the average skill level simply rises, but “average” doesn’t just disappear) while Millman suggests less innumerate ways of understanding what Friedman means (while admitting that Friedman "speaks in buzzwords rather than in language intended to convey actual meaning").

As for me, I’m left to wonder: what is Thomas Friedman’s unique value-add, his “extra,” that enables him to hold his particular job, to be famous and to rake in piles of money?  In what way has Mr. Friedman re-engineered himself to avoid digitization or being replaced by a robot?  Or—and this is worth considering—is it possible that Mr. Friedman has in fact been replaced by a robot or by software (“Buzzware”? “The World is Flat-ware”?) designed to crank out pseudo-profundities about the world?  What if Mr. Friedman’s columns are being produced by a variation of the computer program that cranks out columns by “David Brooks”?  

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/millman/tom-friedman-v-math

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Matthew Yglesias weighs in on the case for racial reparations:

"Ta-Nehisi Coates' essay on "The Case for Reparations" is much more a call for a moral reckoning with the legacy of white supremacy in America than it is a detailed accounting of what a reparations policy would look like. The more wonkishly inclined might prefer a specific proposal, so here's a place to start: we could close the wealth gap between black households and white households by directing the Federal Reserve to print $55 billion a month for 25 months and divide the proceeds evenly among every African-American."

I think the Ta-Nehisi Coates essay (link below) should be required reading, and I don’t think it’s even a close question that this country continues to need “a moral reckoning with the legacy” of slavery.  I should note that Matthew Yglesias falls into the very trap that Mr. Coates deplores when he writes about the “legacy of white supremacy” as though that phenomenon is in the past; Ta-Nehisis Coates has argued eloquently and persuasively for some time that America continues to be a land of white supremacy and white privilege, “color-blindness” and multicultural pretensions aside.

That said, and as a matter of actual policy (as opposed to an exercise in consciousness-raising): if you’re looking to tear this country apart, you could not do better than to pass a law requiring racial reparations.  Go ahead and give every African-American her or his share of $55 billion a month for two years, then crank up the printing presses again for reparations to America’s indigenous tribes.  Don’t worry about running out of money or about other groups insisting on getting their share; the country will have gone up in flames long before that might happen.

Mr. Coates—whose work, I stress, I respect and admire—should be aware of the contradiction in his two related claims.  First he insists (and I concur) that America remains a white-privilege nation, and then he says we should seriously discuss reparations; but if the first is true, then the second is either not going to happen or it’s going to end very badly. 

What sort of a world is it, you ask, when the right thing to do morally is not the right thing to do politically?  It’s the world in which we live.  I understand the temptation to make a moral statement by advocating racial reparations; but I’d think very carefully about the social (not to mention, political) consequences before I made that the Left’s issue du jour.

http://www.vox.com/2014/5/23/5741294/slavery-reparations-are-workable-and-affordable  and http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/05/the-case-for-reparations/361631/  

Addendum: Might “shame” be an issue here?  I suspect it is, just as it was for Germans in the wake of the Third Reich.  When it comes to race, white Americans shift the focus to the issue of guilt, in order to deny theirs: my family didn’t own slaves, I’ve never discriminated against black people; ergo, I haven’t done anything to be guilty about. But even those of us (white Americans) who are not in that sense guilty are still, I believe, deeply and properly ashamed of the American legacy regarding slavery and Jim Crow.  And so we defend ourselves against our shame by rejecting any responsibility and by treating black Americans’ demands for justice (which demands trigger our shame) as an affront.  Shame, remember, breeds anger and aggression as well as denial and depression…

Feds Blink; Liberty Ensues

Out here in the west, you can smell the freedom in the air this morning:

BUNKERVILLE, Nevada (Reuters) - U.S. officials ended a stand-off with hundreds of armed protesters in the Nevada desert on Saturday, calling off the government's roundup of cattle it said were illegally grazing on federal land and giving about 300 animals back to the rancher who owned them.

The dispute less than 80 miles northeast of Las Vegas between rancher Cliven Bundy and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management had simmered for days. Bundy had stopped paying fees for grazing his cattle on the government land and officials said he had ignored court orders.¹

The dispute may have been simmering for days, but Cliven Bundy had stopped paying grazing fees years ago, accumulating well over $1 million dollars in unpaid fees and fines. His logic is simple and unassailable: “government” belongs to the people, therefore “government land” belongs to the people, and therefore Cliven Bundy can graze his cattle where he damn well pleases, QED and all that.

Anti-government groups, right-wing politicians and gun-rights activists camped around Bundy's ranch to support him in a standoff that tapped into long-simmering anger in Nevada and other Western states, where vast tracts of land are owned and governed by federal agencies.  The bureau had called in a team of armed rangers to Nevada to seize the 1,000 head of cattle on Saturday but backed down in the interests of safety.

"Based on information about conditions on the ground and in consultation with law enforcement, we have made a decision to conclude the cattle gather because of our serious concern about the safety of employees and members of the public," the bureau's director, Neil Kornze, said in a statement.

“Concern about safety” my Aunt Millie!  The feds backed down because decent, god-fearing, gun-toting Americans were prepared to go all Second Amendment on their behinds.  Uncle Sam is a typical bully, all bluster and bravado and “court order” this and “confiscate your property” that: until someone stands up to him, and then he turns tail.  Sic semper tyrannis, buddy.  Don't let the gate hit you on your way out.

The protesters, who at the height of the standoff numbered about 1,000, met the news with applause. Then they quickly advanced on the metal pens where the cattle confiscated earlier in the week were being held.  After consultations with the rancher's family, the bureau decided to release the cattle it had rounded up, and the crowd began to disperse. "This is what I prayed for," said Margaret Houston, one of Bundy's sisters. "We are so proud of the American people for being here with us and standing with us."

But it wasn’t prayer what slayed the federal beast, it was firepower:

A number of Bundy's supporters, who included militia members from California, Idaho and other states, dressed in camouflage and carried rifles and sidearms. During the stand-off, some chanted "open that gate" and "free the people." A man who identified himself as Scott, 43, said he had traveled from Idaho along with two fellow militia members to support Bundy. "If we don't show up everywhere, there is no reason to show up anywhere," said the man, dressed in camouflage pants and a black flak jacket crouched behind a concrete highway barrier, holding an AR-15 rifle. "I'm ready to pull the trigger if fired upon," Scott said.

I don’t see how this episode can send anything but salutary messages.  Cattlemen now know they don’t have to pay grazing fees but can use federal land at their will, as God and George Washington intended.  The federal government now knows not to stick its nose where it doesn’t belong, like into any of the fifty sovereign states, all of which can take care of their own business, thank you very much.  Margaret Houston now knows that God answers prayers, and Scott, 43, and his fellow militiamen now know that they can parade around and play soldier/domestic terrorist to their heart’s content.

I can’t wait for the next showdown!

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http://www.newsweek.com/us-officials-end-stand-nevada-rancher-cliven-bundy-246038

In The Bubble: Day Eight, Part Two

As Elton John almost sang, Saturday night's alright for getting fighting mad with Huckabee. Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee has been traveling hither and yon around this great country of ours, talking to ordinary folks just like you and me¹, and he hates to say it but he is but duty-bound to report the following: for the first time ever, Americans are afraid of their own government.

As well they should be—as Governor Mike went on to detail, our “gargantuan monster of a federal government” is out of control.  A gargantuan monster!  It's like Godzilla rampaging through Tokyo, only from a desk somwhere in Washington.  The federal government, said the Governor, can and does regulate businesses right out of existence.  It openly lies about four Americans killed on foreign shores (Benghazi!).  It even, for some inexplicable reason, feels the need to crush the poor Little Sisters of the Poor, who just want to be left alone to disobey a law they don’t like, just as it—the gargantuan federal monster—crushes its political opponents by means of a weaponized and politicized IRS.  Our government sends its agents, guns drawn, into a simple guitar factory in Memphis, whose owners’ only crime was to use “the wrong kind of wood for their guitars”.²  The government draws up charges against elected officials, smearing their reputations, ending their careers, and forcing them almost into bankruptcy trying to defend themselves.*

I know I’m going to be accused of blaming the messenger, but is it possible that the reason Americans are afraid of their government³ is the constant litany of “evil government” actions and “evil government” intentions that is peddled nonstop by Fox News (among other peddlers)?  People who are constantly told that “big-government liberals want to control every single aspect of your life”⁴ might understandably become fearful.  In any case, even though the I’m afraid of my government meme is uttered frequently on Fox, I honestly don’t think any of the people uttering it are actually afraid—they’re pretty outspoken, seemingly fearless, and they’re pretty well compensated, I’m willing to bet, for stoking the fears of others.

I don’t know if “Fear and Anger” beats, in the long run, “Hope and Change”; but I do know that, in the short run, it’s good for ratings, book sales, and lucrative speaking engagements.  Hope is not a strategy, as we’ve been told, and change is hard, as Donald Rumsfeld explained; but fear and anger are the easiest things to sell on the face of the earth.  Unfortunately, they’re also essentially toxic, but that’s never kept people from buying them.  

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¹ To be clear: Governor Huckabee did not actually talk to me, and I don’t know if he talked to you; it’s just a figure of speech.

² By “wrong kind of wood,” I believe the Governor means “wood imported illegally,” which doesn’t explain the agents coming in with “guns drawn”—but then, I thought conservatives like Governor Mike liked guns?

* I honestly don't know who the Governor is referencing with that last one--Chris Christie, perhaps?  Bill Clinton comes to mind, but I doubt that's what the Governor intended.

³ Assuming, of course, that Americans in any significant numbers are in fact afraid of the government.  I know no one personally who has expressed that fear, but I’ve heard anecdotally that such people exist.  I also know people who are afraid of all sorts of things that don’t usually, under ordinary circumstances, engender fear for the rest of us; which is to say, even if people do feel fear, that in itself doesn’t prove that their fear is justified—in this case, maybe they just need to change the channel or turn off the damn TV.

⁴ I’m a liberal (“Love me, I’m a liberal!” as Phil Ochs used to sing) and I do not want to control every aspect of your life, nor do I want big government to control every aspect of my life.  I’m grateful, however, for clean air and water, for food inspectors and for workplace safety, and for the $22 in monthly SNAP benefits that I’m currently cadging from the system (suckers!).

Omaha Girl Killed By Culture

A five-year-old Omaha girl named Payton Benson was recently killed, sitting at her kitchen table, “by a stray bullet fired by gangbangers in the next block.”  The tragedy prompted Rod Dreher, detective and Arbiter of the Moral Universe, to leap into action and identify the guilty party: “The people who teach little children to curse and call themselves niggas killed Payton Benson.” ¹

Mr. Dreher is referencing an infamous YouTube video, “The Cursing Toddler of Omaha,” which exemplifies, according to Dreher, the “culture of death” manifested by contemporary black Americans.  And that culture killed Payton Benson.

You may recall the Arbiter’s previous verdict not long ago concerning the wrenching question of whether the World War II Soviet General Kalashnikov should have had to bear a burden of self-expressed guilt over the deaths caused by his eponymous and murderous-by-design assault rifle. The Arbiter ruled that General Kalashnikov had no reason to lose sleep over the thousands, perhaps millions, who died, during the war and in the decades after, as a predictable result of his ingenuity.  Apparently, the Moral Universe relaxes its rules in time of war or whenever someone is acting out of patriotism.

Ah, but loud hip-hop music and offensive lyrics get no such pass, as the Arbiter explains:

“On Thursday, [my son] Matthew and I were driving in Baton Rouge, and stopped at a red light next to a young black man, maybe 23 or so, driving a Chevy Caprice with expensive rims. He was dressed ghetto, had his windows down, and was playing his hip-hop music extremely loud, because as we all know, everybody wants to know what he’s listening to. It was amazing. We sat at the red light for 30 seconds or so, and the song he was listening to was an uninterrupted stream of “nigga” this and “nigga” that, except when he was saying f**k, d*mn, or sh*t.

It was like a Klansman’s idea of degenerate black culture. But there it was. This young man was filling his mind with it.”

How, you may ask, did that young black man then make his way from Baton Rouge to Omaha in order to accidentally kill Payton Benson?  You will have missed the Arbiter's point:

“There that fool was, sitting in his car on a beautiful sunny day, windows down, pumping nigga nigga nigga f**k f**k f**k into his head, and into the minds of everyone unfortunate enough to be near him. No wonder these gangbangers kill each other with such frequency. They hate themselves. They just plain hate.

It’s the culture of death. I don’t understand it. I don’t pretend to understand it. But I hate it.” 

It would take far too much time and be far too much trouble to try to understand other people; it’s so much easier simply to denounce them as fools and blame them for random killings.²

The phrase “culture of death” did not appear in the Arbiter’s column about General Kalashnikov and his killing machine, nor did he apply it to either the Soviet army or to the Nazis whom the Soviets faced in a duel to the death; for that matter, he didn’t apply it to World War II itself.  The Arbiter does not call America’s gun fetish a “culture of death,” nor has he weighed in (yet) on the most recent school shooting (New Mexico) not perpetrated by gangbangers or on various deaths caused by the accidental discharge of firearms inside of otherwise tranquil suburban homes.  The Arbiter does not blame Payton Benson’s death on America’s gun fetish or on gun designers, manufacturers, advertisers, promoters, distributors, merchants, purchasers, or users.  The Arbiter has spoken: guns don't kill people, hippity-hop niggas and their f***ing music kill people.

Having so ruled, the Arbiter in his wisdom also gives us the solution to our woes—the solution being music, but not the evil hip-hop kind:

“If aliens sent an emissary to ask for the purest artistic expression of the highest of our species’ humanity, when it came to music, I’m not sure what all I would send them, but I would at least send them Bach, I would send them Mozart, and I would send [Louis] Armstrong and [John] Coltrane.”

Yes: Payton Benson would be alive today if hippity-hop niggas listened to better music.  And before you suggest that Rod Dreher might want to calculate, when he gets a chance, how many people have been murdered, in war and in peace, by civilized folks both white and black who listened to Bach, Mozart, Brahms, and Louis Armstrong: may I remind you that you are not the Arbiter of the Moral Universe, Rod Dreher is and he has spoken. 

Now turn down your damn hippity-hop music before another kid dies.

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¹ http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/culture-of-death-omaha-style/comment-page-1/#comment-4136755

 ² In fairness, the Arbiter did recently publish a fairly long and discursive excerpt about the cultural-historical antecedents and influences of the Duck Dynasty klan clan, proving that he is perfectly capable of trying to place at least some cultural phenomena in context.