The Anti-Derbyshire.
By on Apr 20th, 2007 at 11:09 am
The Anti-Derbyshire.
John Podhoretz responds to his fellow National Review columnist: “The notion that a human being or group of human beings holding no weapon whatever should somehow “fight back” against someone calmly executing other people right in front of their eyes is ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason.”
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They are both idiots.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:19 amAh, playing “Good cop/Bad cop”.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:19 amAs one who’s occasionally read Mr. Podhoretz’s writings over the years and deplored his ideological blindness, I’m pleasantly surprised that he understands the utter absurdity of his fellow writer’s view on the slaughter. Perhaps this is the beginning of his personal enlightenment–although I doubt it.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:22 am∞Ω sez:
Well, I think that’s a prerequisite for being a columnist at the National Review…
April 20th, 2007 at 11:23 amThe victims of the crazed gunman Cho did the best they could to try to defend themselves to stay alive. He was well armed and they had no weapons. The doors into the classrooms had no locks, so Virginia Tech University is negligent in protecting their students from a madman.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:23 amKevin Granata had heard the commotion in his third-floor office and ran downstairs. He was a military veteran, very protective of his students. He was gunned down trying to confront the shooter.
from http://www.washingtonpost.com/ wp-dyn/ content/ article/ 2007/ 04/ 18/ AR2007041802824_pf.html
I hope Mr. Derbyshire reads these words and realizes what an arrogant self serving a** he is
April 20th, 2007 at 11:31 amGun lovers cannot understand why someone didn’t walk up to Cho, who was bent on killing everyone in sight, and just take his gun away from him. This is so stupid on so many levels it makes you wonder just how moronic someone can be.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:33 am” ludicrous beyond belief, irrational beyond bounds, and tasteless beyond the limits of reason.â€
It’s even more than that. It’s insane, and it’s irresponsible to broadcast or print this kind of insanity in the media as if it were a rational point of view.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:42 amIsn’t Cho’s solipsistic madness a National Review ideal? Radical individualism expressing itself with libertarian abandon and moral outrage.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:43 amPerhaps this is the beginning of his personal enlightenment–although I doubt it.
Comment by Prof. Mark Colby
Naaahh.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:44 amIn the parallel universe that CONTURDS live in, we’re winning eye-rack; the “liburl” media just squelch ALL the good news- (school paintings right before they’re blown up)
April 20th, 2007 at 11:48 amthey’re all competent to pass judgement on our soldiers while they foam at the mouth to send O.P.K. (other people’s kids) to die for _their_ wars. What we know but foKKKs ‘news’ won’t acknowledge, is that 90-percent of CONTURDS are ChickenHawks- they haven’t served, nor will their kids.
rush limp-bough calling Paul Hackett a “REMF (rear echelon m.f.) while he s[pent ah hour and a half savaging his Iraq service? Fat-*ss limp-bough didn’t go to Vietnam ’cause he had a pilonoidal cyst (i.e. butt boil).
I had one while wearing a uniform twice; I was off a day or two and back to turning wrenches on aircraft.
Same with these ramboes - being a CONTURD requires a lot of suspension of disbelief.
Who would take advise from an asshat named Derbyshire anyways? This pissant would wail like an infant if he were in that situation. He’s just not man enough to admit it.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:48 amDerbyshire and their ilk are the same kind of people with the same kind of mentality (or lack of) that also questioned why the Jews didn’t fight fight back against the Nazis.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:53 amEven the deranged can have a moral standard.
April 20th, 2007 at 11:54 amDerbyshire said: “Why didn’t the victims just use jedi-mind control on the shooter? I mean, Jedi’s can do it. It must be because of our feminized culture, and the anti-jedi liberals.”
April 20th, 2007 at 11:55 amGood for Jpod for bringing some sanity to the discussion over there. Derbyshire is a monster. I found KLo’s mealymouthed response to the Derb/Jpod smackdown enlightening:
Not quite irrational [Kathryn Jean Lopez]
Jpod, Derb’s point is one that has been echoed by other rational people — here and elsewhere. Folks ponder — and pray over — what would I advise my child to do? What would I do? Why do we hold that heroic professor in such esteem? Because he did something remarkable. But thinking and discussing what one would do in such a situation is only normal…and rational. And it’s also, I don’t think, condemning what those who were there and did what they did . But it’s not an irrelevant or irrational issue to consider — at home, on oped pages…
Got that? It’s not “condeming,” it is in fact “only normal” to call out murder victims for not showing enough fortitude to to take a run at an insane guy firing two semiautomatic pistols. Where do these people learn to think like this? Seriously. I guess she’s invested in Derbyshire being seen as a rational person and not a raving loon, but that bus left the station a long time ago. Let’s not forget the original post:
“…let me be the one to ask: Where was the spirit of self-defense here? …why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake—one of them reportedly a .22. At the very least, count the shots and jump him reloading or changing hands. Better yet, just jump him…. It’s true—none of us knows what he’d do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I’d at least take a run at the guy.
This is what passes for “normal and rational” in the wingnutosphere.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:17 pmIt’s actually a little disappointing to see someone like J-Pod pronounce something reasonable, especially in reaction to a fellow wingnut’s degrangement.
It’s much easier when they ALL spout contemptible non-human dogma. It’s not ultimately satisfying to keep shooting them down, but it is fun.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:54 pmthe San Diego DA is using the fact that Steve Foley’s girlfriend attempted to attack a potential carjacker as evidence against her. They argue that any normal person would drive away from a potential carjacker. She tried to drive over an off duty cop (no badge was presented) who was pointing a gun at her car.
April 20th, 2007 at 12:58 pmAs I said on a previous thread, someone should have gone up and used the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart technique on the killer.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:03 pm‘Tasteless beyond the limits of reason’ Yep, sounds like the Republic party to me.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:04 pmIf I had been face to face with the shooter, I would have pulled his beating heart out of his chest like in the Indian Jones movie.
April 20th, 2007 at 1:20 pmVirginia Tech Was Negligent For Not Protecting Their Students!
Friday 20th of April 2007
by Jay Randal
The enraged killer of 32 students and faculty at Virginia Tech University was able to carry out his horrific act, because the college had no ability to protect students, at the Norris Hall building, since the classroom doors had no way to be locked from inside of the rooms.
The number of fatalities would have been reduced, if the classroom doors had bolt locks installed, but the university administration had no safety considerations for their students, nor any means for them to escape from the classrooms except by jumping out windows.
The family members of the deceased and wounded do have a right to sue the college for complete negligence, and for allowing mentally ill Cho Seung-Hui to attend classes at the university, as well as to possess weapons in his dorm room without any inspections whatsoever.
All US schools would be wise to upgrade safety plans!
(Jay Randal, political activist and writer in Georgia, USA.)
April 20th, 2007 at 2:00 pmJay Randal, small question. If there had been dead bolts and Mr Cho had locked himself in to the German classroom and gunned downed all the studends, wouldn’t you then be saying the school was at fault for having doors that locked from the inside?
And why do you assume the school knew he had guns? It’s not a high school, JR. They can’t just have arbitrary searches of the residences. Mr Cho was 23, not 15.
Finally, Mr Cho was identified by staff as being ‘at risk’. He was on psychotropic medication. He was held overnight in a psych war for observation. Just what more could be done without stricter gun control laws?
What I find curious –and I’m avoiding reading about this because of the false piety in so much of the commentary– is the gap between the first two killings and the massacre. Isn’t it important that one of the first people killed is a Resident Assistant? That is, someone whose duty it is to see that students are behaving properly and watch out for students who are depressed, suicidal, violent, or engaged in substance abuse. And why did Mr Cho make his NBC rant after killing Mr Clark, the RA, unless the first killings were not premeditated?
I suspect Mr Cho was seriously disturbed. I suspect people did reach out to him and they did try to help him and protect others. But it’s hard to deal with seriously disturbed people in a culture that glorifieds violence and vigilantes and guns. The culture feeds the delusions of the disturbed.
April 20th, 2007 at 3:00 pmI wonder if Debblie Schlussel’s head will explode if she reads this (gasp) a victim who sacrificed his life to save another student
April 20th, 2007 at 4:00 pmwas Muslim!
I’ve only seen that account in the NY Times. This one and the story about Kevin Granata rushing at the gunman (and thus dying) don’t seem to be getting much attention.
david > I was busy all afternoon yesterday, so did not see your remark to respond sooner. Cho entered 4 different classrooms to execute students, so if the classrooms had dead-bolt locks, then at least he could have been prevented from entering into 4 classes. Yes he could have entered one and then turned the dead-bolt to lock the door. Classrooms at Norris Hall had key locks just on the outside of the doors, but a dead-bolt lock would have a key access from outside and turn knob latch on the inside.
Another problem was no other way to escape from the upper floor classrooms, except by busting out narrow windows and jumping out. A building like that should have some kind of rope emergency ladder near the windows.
The university administration knew that Cho was a disturbed person, because several female students complained about him stalking them. He should have been expelled from the college.
As for inspecting rooms: the college can require those who live in dorms to have their rooms checked for guns, drugs, and booze. Those who do not like that can live off-campus. Every school and college should have metal detectors, before entering buildings.
April 21st, 2007 at 1:21 am