Tag Archives: Hall of Shame

Take That Statue Down!

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Confederate soldier statue in front of the historic Leesburg Court House

Take that confederate soldier statue down that stands in front of the historic Leesburg Court House!

It’s a symbol of disunion and slavery.  If it’s to stand anywhere, let it be in a museum but not at the front of a court of law on public grounds.

Our forebears could have placed a less offensive symbol in front of the court house in 1908.  But they didn’t.  They intended to make a statement – an unacceptable statement – and it’s high time we rejected that offensive statement.

Years ago, in the 1980s, there were stocks and whipping posts in front of this same court house.

I made reference at a sentencing in the court house once, how it was “unfortunate” that such dehumanizing and tortuous methods of punishment stood directly in front of a court house when we were considering punishment in a criminal case. Continue reading →

Evan Mantel’s Whistleblower Letter

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Having worked for Dave LaRock’s 1789 Project, Evan Mantel, a recent graduate of Patrick Henry College, says he is now “cynical towards politics.”

I wonder if he’s also now cynical toward our local press. Mantel’s letter to the editor describing his unpleasant experience appeared in the Loudoun Times Mirror on May 2, and was removed on May 5. I’m still waiting to hear an explanation for the removal, but given other recent conduct by the LaRock campaign the application of pressure to the editor seems likely. If that turns out to be true, it’s very disappointing behavior from a candidate for public office.

Luckily, the original letter was saved in Google’s webcache. It reveals a pattern of self-indulgence, abuse, and theft of labor hours. See for yourself: The letter is reproduced here, just in case LaRock’s campaign to represent Virginia’s 33rd District is successful at bullying Google, too. Continue reading →

Meet the woman who just told everyone she thinks of herself as a vagina.

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Her name is “Natassia,” at least that’s the name she uses at the Patch. I won’t bore you with the rest of her moronic comment describing “openly homosexual boys” here, but this is how she ended it:

“(And yes, a sexual attraction to the male anus is a disorder.)”

I trust that we can all see the problem.

Usually I try to cultivate compassion for the terminally stupid, but not today. Dehumanization kills people, and there’s been more than enough killing. I hope Natassia is mercilessly ridiculed. I hope the ridicule makes her cry. The only thing that will make a person who would say something this clueless finally pull her head out of her nether regions is for someone who cares about her to firmly grasp her shoulders, look directly into her eyes, and say “Stop. You are embarrassing yourself and everyone else.”

If there is someone out there who knows and cares for this confused woman: Please. For the love of God. Help her.

Culture of Death

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Culture of Death

This letter appeared in today’s Purcellville Gazette (warning 12Mb .pdf file).

“If there were no guns in the house, a drunk 16 year old would have been taken home by the Sheriff’s Department. No one would be DEAD.” So said a friend of the late Caleb A. Gordley in an online comment. No amount of ‘coulda, shoulda, woulda’ excuse making can change this unassailable fact. If Donald West Wilder hadn’t had a gun, or if he hadn’t made the choice to shoot Caleb, Caleb would be alive today.

Three letter writers last week tried to justify the killing. John Phillips, speaking for Mr. Wilder, said “[P]eople will play politics with this…I did the right thing.” Kevin Fitzpatrick asked “What about the guilt [Wilder] will live with for the rest of his life because of a string of poor decisions made by some teenagers.” Jim Schatz first described the shooting as “accidental,” but then claimed that Mr. Wilder was “required” to use deadly force. Required by whom?

Mr. Schatz also cites something he calls “God-given rights to self-protection.” We understand that it’s fashionable in some circles to claim that whatever one wants to do is a “God-given right,” but this is a fabrication. When Peter cut off the ear of one sent to arrest Jesus, Jesus admonished him, telling the apostles “those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” In the story of the “Good Samaritan,” Jesus explicitly told his followers to put first the needs of others, NOT a concern for their own safety. Jesus also did not speculate about a “string of poor decisions” made by the man who was tended to by the Samaritan. We have a responsibility (not a right) to love our neighbors – including especially a teenager so drunk that he has mistakenly climbed in the wrong window. Claiming that the “right” to protect property is more important than the life of another person is worship of the creation, not the Creator. The inevitable result is a culture of death.

David and Jonathan Weintraub, Lovettsville

Blood Lust

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If there were no guns in the house, a drunk 16 year old would have been taken home by the Sheriff’s Department. No one would be DEAD.

The quote above, by KathleenVS, is a response to ugly comments on the shooting death of Caleb A. Gordley, a sixteen year old Park View High School junior. Her comment isn’t a debate argument. It is a fact.

The facts of the tragedy are less clear. Donald West Wilder, a Sterling Volunteer Fire Company veteran allegedly fired a warning shot, and when Caleb passed him in the stairwell and walked down the hall, Wilder “discharged his firearm several times,” shooting him in the back. Was Mr. Wilder protecting other members of the household from a youth who was so inebriated that he didn’t notice a stranger shooting at him? Sheriff Chapman confirmed that Gordley had no criminal intent when entering the home.

Continue reading →

Just a kid!

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I’m just a kid, 16 ½ years old.  The half year matters.  I’m getting older.  I play b-ball and f-ball at Park View High School and can palm a ball.  I like rap, rhyme and rhythm.  I’m kind of square.  I hang with great kids, no h8ers, and I’m blessed that they seem to like me.  My Mom and Dad are fine.  My Dad’s white and my Mom’s black.  So I’m like President Barack although I’m Caleb and my parents are race-reversed.  Like a verse I’d rehearse.  I’m a person of color but don’t feel that I’m treated differently.

We live in a nice home.  The other homes on Pullman Court are like ours – all nice – very much the same.

My friends joke I’m “black Irish” — so we’re going out tonight – to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.   It’s quiet in my house so I’m going to sneak out now, and go out with my friends.  I kind of know better.  But my parents must have done the same when they were my age.  Huck Finn did this kind of thing.  Right? Continue reading →

Frank Wolf holds one-sided youth violence hearing

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Congressman Frank Wolf (R-VA), Chair of the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice, Science and Related Agencies Subcommittee held a meeting on the National Science Foundation report: “Youth Violence: What We Need To Know” on March 19 that correlated video games with violence. No video game proponents were called to witness, and the video game industry is calling foul.

“Unfortunately Chairman Wolf is trying to make this hearing as one -sided as he possibly can. The hearing will have two panels and two witnesses – both who will present evidence that violent media has some sort of connection to real-world violent acts. Wolf is handling this hearing the way other lawmakers tried to handle SOPA and PIPA; by presenting only one perspective. Clearly there’s mountains of research that disputes Bushman’s claim that video games and other media are a bad influence on America’s youth.”

Wolf’s press release on the NSF report states that (emphasis mine):

“The research described in the NSF report supports Wolf’s belief that rampage shootings are a result of multiple factors, including access to firearms, mental health issues, and exposure to violent media, including violent video games.”

Congressman Wolf could have called the authors of Grand Theft Childhood, Drs. Cheryl K. Olson and Lawrence Kutner who have been studying the issue since 2004 after winning a $1.5M grant from George W. Bush’s Justice Department. Their research exposes many of the myths that the Wolf-funded report perpetuates.

If you have kids, ask them if they know the difference between real world tragedy, and video game violence. I bet they do.

 

The trouble with binary thinking, illustrated

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This actually appeared on the Fox News website last month. See a problem?

It’s the same problem exhibited by commenter “Suzie Q” here:

Someone who hates [sic] republicans isn’t a democrat?

It’s tempting to just laugh at stuff like this (and I’m not saying you shouldn’t). But clearly, there are people who actually conduct their lives on the basis of this kind of “logic,” and some of them participate in our democratic process. Here’s the thought process that led to this howler, broken into its simple-minded steps:

Continue reading →

Gun control or thought control?

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Pastor Doug Giles, Townhall columnist, and all-around "good guy"

 

“No one is willing to believe that adults too, like children, wander about this earth in a daze and, like children, do not know where they come from or where they are going…and are as thoroughly governed as they are by biscuits and cake and the rod.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, “The Sorrows of Young Werther”

If Goethe were alive today, he might replace “biscuits and cake and the rod” with “guns and ammo and mental illness.” Wayne LaPierre, head of the NRA, wants taxpayers to fund a “national database of these lunatics,” because “good guys” need biscuits assault weapons and cake thirty-round clips. In addition to blaming the government for letting “these lunatics” out of the nuthouse, the innocent little LaPierre blames the video game makers (who market the guns and ammo he so adores) for gun carnage. The NRA isn’t likely to change their name to the “National Rifle and Friends of Mental Health Association” any time soon. Here’s what LaPierre said about mental health in a Meet the Press interview:

Continue reading →

The “culture of life” that kills people

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“It was worse than if the NRA had not spoken at all,” said Gene Grabowski, executive vice president of Levick Strategic Communications, a Washington, D.C.-based issues management firm that has worked with firearms manufacturers.

Meanwhile, during that curious week of self-imposed silence from the NRA, we’ve heard just about every offensive explanation and excuse imaginable for the atrocity in Newtown, Connecticut: The gunman could have his way with the elementary school because it was a “feminized setting” without enough “male aggression” (this ignorant assertion made in the face of the heroic actions of the women who hid children and tried to tackle the gunman); this massacre and others like it are the price we must be willing to pay for the convenience to gun enthusiasts afforded by the “almost universally benevolent” Second Amendment; and of course, there was the predictable ranting from the usual suspects blaming an imaginary “war on Christmas,” imaginary “homosexual agenda,” imaginary “end of school prayer,” etc. But in the discussion of a naked propaganda post that managed to go on and on and on about a sustained, lethal assault upon schoolchildren with a military assault weapon without once using the word “gun,” one commenter takes the prize for disingenuous sanctimony by claiming the atrocity wouldn’t have happened if only, if only, we had a “universal respect for life.”

Continue reading →