When our friend, Fat White Man made his sarcastic remark the other day, "why are liberals so violent," I guess it didn't occur to him that the ratio of hate crimes Right vs. Left is about 50 to 1.Let's be clear: Yesterday's shooting of a security guard at the Family Research Council's offices in Washington, D.C., evidently motivated by the shooter's anger over the FRC's ongoing campaign against the LGBT community, was an atrocity that harmed the cause the shooter espoused. After all, the chief reason groups are called out as "hate groups" is that the rhetoric they purvey is so toxic that often it justifies and inspires acts of violence against vulnerable minorities. To respond to that with an equally insane act of violence is a betrayal.Moreover, if the motives as reported so far are accurate, it was clearly an act of domestic terrorism, one of an increasingly small species of such acts: left-wing domestic terrorism. It may be helpful here to remember that since 2008, there have been more than fifty incidents of domestic terrorism committed by right wing-extremists and directed at "liberal" targets.
The only thing more lopsided than that is the ratio of gun violence incidents to legitimate DGUs. That's about 200 to 1.
What's your opinion? Please leave a comment.
There you go again, guessing about defensive gun uses. You have no evidence, but that's never stopped you before.
ReplyDeleteRegarding this incident and others, they are murder or attempted murder. Other labels merely dilute the point.
Rally Mike? 200 to 1? Did that hurt when you pulled it out of your ass?
ReplyDeleteIt is one thing to offer up unproven gut feelings for DGU in a comment section during a discussion. It is disingenuous on steroids to present the same type of figures as if they were facts in the main text of your blog article.
Your credibility rating has just fallen 300 points.
Oh, it's not so bad in the comments? You have some strange ideas, FL.
DeleteI told you before when we were talking about my idea that there are about 500 legitimate DGUs a year, these guesses of mine are based on a lot of reading and thinking, on lots of common sense, they are educated and qualified guestimates.
If you accept the idea that no one knows for sure what these numbers are, that no survey or statistic can delve into people's minds and identify their intentions, then you should be able to accept my ideas as sincere attempts to be as accurate as I can.
Um, no:
Delete1. You don't extend us the same courtesy. You don't believe that we try to be as accurate as we can be. Let's put it this way--in God (or the gods or what have you) we trust. All others pay cash, keep your hands where we can see them, and cite your sources.
2. You've decided that most people who claim to have used a gun in self-defense are actually committing a crime. You have no evidence for this. You merely believe that all gun owners are suspect. That bias lies at the heart of your guesses.
3. For you, when something isn't certain, it must be completely in doubt. What you fail to realize is that there are percentages. There are degrees of probability. A study may not be absolutely certain, but may at the same time give a reasonable estimate.
The difference between it being ok in a discussion thread is that it is surrounded by context. Out there in the main text of the blog, it is presented as verifiable fact.
DeleteAs Greg mentioned cite your sources. Cite, cite, cite! Why is Wikipedia, although a wonderful source for general information, not allowed to be cited students for high school or college papers? Credibility.
If you are going to present a number as if it were fact - which you clearly did in this article - you must cite a source. PERIOD. Otherwise say "My personal opinion is that they are about 200 to 1." Anything less is disingenuous.
I use Wikipedia now and then, but as I tell my composition students, it's an encyclopaedia. That means that it is a level farther out than a secondary source. It's written for a general audience, not for specialists (although the physics articles there don't remember that...). It does also suffer from the fact that anyone can edit the articles, but that tends to matter mainly on controversial topics.
DeleteBut what Mikeb really cares about is how he feels with regard to a topic. We've demonstrated that time and again here. Facts impress him not at all. Neither does logic. He hates guns and distrusts gun owners. That's all he needs.
these guesses of mine are based on a lot of reading and thinking, on lots of common sense, they are educated and qualified guestimates
DeleteReally Mike, and what education would that be? How exactly are you qualified to give an educated guess? Which University was it that you graduated from again?