The shotgun-wielding suspect in Sunday’s
mass shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church
was motivated by a hatred of “the liberal movement,” and he planned to shoot
until police shot him, Knoxville Police Chief Sterling P. Owen IV said this
morning.
In my head I know that most people who think the way that Jim Adkisson do will never start shooting.
It's just hard to not make comparisons when this blogger says she's okay with roughing up illegal immigrants, "a little," or that one says that gays should be put in prison for getting married in a state that allows them to celebrate that occasion.
The letter, recovered from Adkisson’s black 2004 Ford Escape, which was
parked in the church’s parking lot at 2931 Kingston Pike, indicates he had been
planning the shooting for about a week.
“He fully expected to be killed by the responding police,” the
police chief said.
Owen said Adkisson specifically targeted the church for its
beliefs, rather than a particular member of the congregation.
Most of the right-wing bloggers who thrive on hateful speech will say they're standing up for their "values" as if they never gave a moments thought to the values of others.
“It appears that church had received some publicity regarding its liberal
stance,” the chief said. The church has a “gays welcome” sign and regularly runs
announcements in the News Sentinel about meetings of the Parents, Friends and
Family of Lesbians and Gays meetings at the church.
I asked one of these absolutely certain bloggers how she knew that her values took precedence over the values of another blogger. She replied that her values were true. Nothing else but the dead certainty of the unquestioning mind. In that one four letter word she was able to dismiss the 80 percent of the world who believe differently than she.
What did the congregation of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church do to deserve Adkisson's death sentence?
The church’s Web site states that it has worked for “desegregation, racial
harmony, fair wages, women’s rights and gay rights” since the 1950s. Current
ministries involve emergency aid for the needy, school tutoring and support for
the homeless, as well as a cafe that provides a gathering place for gay and
lesbian high-schoolers.
I'd like to be the better person when I see these anti-immigrant/gay/Liberal/choice/Latino/black/coexistence/anti-anti-anti rantings. I wish I could see through to the kernel of goodness at the heart of their argument but it's damnably hard sometimes.
So often their arguments come cloaked in the mantle of religion or wrapped in the flag. So often they don't even see the hatefulness in their postings. This time hatefulness came with 76 shotgun shells in a fanny pack, having left a raving manifesto behind.
Sometimes it's hard to not see those emotions in a blog post.
4 comments:
Now I'm sure this was not directed at moi, but surely this is a little overwrought and reminiscent of when Clinton blamed Rush Limbaugh for the Oklahoma City bombing.
James, this is most certainly not aimed at vous.
And it's not meant to be about blame. It's about me (which seems only right) and how I struggle to disconnect some of the downright (upright?) foolishness I read from the people I presume are out there writing them.
It's a struggle for me to even comprehend how some can write the sludge that they do and then claim a values-based foundation for it.
The bumper sticker said, "Hate Is Not A Family Value." Most days I just can't comprehend the free-floating hatred I see in a few corners of the Cheddarsphere.
Maybe you should put that same critical eye on the hate spewing forth from liberal blogs and from people like you on Whallah.
You are a huge hypocrite.
It's always nice to have Fred's Racine homies stop by for a little bit of anonymous name-calling.
I'll admit that we who post on Whallah do our share of "afflicting the powerful."
That is a far cry from calling for the torture of a 16 year old or calling for ICE Agents to "be a little rough" on the immigrants they're arresting.
Whallah is there to point out the follies of those who seek to form opinion in Sothern Wisconsin. It's done a pretty good job of it, too. You go back and reread what I've written there and you'll see that I write about the actions I abhor.
If you think that Kevin Fischer is within the bounds of good taste or good sense when he compares the beureaucrats of the DNR with the murderous Gestapo then you are one of those willfully, deliberately stupid people I worry about in this post.
If you can't see the difference between that kind of filth from a legislative aide and making fart jokes about Charlie Sykes then you don't have much of a clue anyway.
You missed the point of the post. Go back and reread it.
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