By Jonah Goldberg
Friday, June 17, 2016
What a dumb time to be alive.
In a normal country during normal times, the jihadi
terrorist shooting in Orlando in which 49 people were murdered in cold blood —
and more than 50 injured — would be a cause for a serious debate about national
security. Instead, it has been taken as an opportunity to light a bonfire of
the inanities.
Let’s start at the top. President Obama once famously
said (more than once, actually), “Don’t tell me words don’t matter.”
Fast-forward to this week, when in a tantrum of biblical
proportions, the furious president said . . . words don’t matter.
Responding to complaints from Donald Trump and others
that he won’t say the words “radical Islamic terrorism,” Obama huffed, “Calling
a threat by a different name does not make it go away. This is a political
distraction.”
Never mind that Obama’s passion refuted his own argument.
Perhaps he’s right that “there is no magic to the phrase ‘radical Islam,’” but
if that’s the case, why the years of stubborn refusal to say it? It’s almost
like Obama still thinks “words matter” — he just wants to mock anyone who
thinks the “wrong” words matter.
But let’s discuss this “political distraction” business.
Before the blood had been mopped up in Orlando, the president and the woman
seeking to replace him immediately tried to make the second-worst Islamic
terror attack on American soil into anything other than Islamic terrorism.
Over and over again, news outlets uncritically reported on
the “common-sense” effort to implement more stringent background checks and get
rid of automatic weapons, AR-15s, and other “assault” weapons. Well, automatic
weapons — i.e., machine guns — are already essentially banned for civilians.
And the weapon used in Orlando wasn’t an assault weapon or an AR-15. As for
background checks, they already exist. Moreover, the FBI conducted two
extensive investigations into the shooter — a background check far more
exhaustive than any proposed checks.
The terror-watch-list ban on gun purchases that Democrats
now desire is a constitutional horror show if you believe, as the ACLU does,
that the federal government shouldn’t be allowed to unilaterally draw up secret
lists to deny people their civil rights.
Of course, Democrats insist they’re just being pragmatic,
which is why Sen. Joe Manchin (D., W.Va.) thinks the constitutional requirement
for due process is “killing us.” What he didn’t mention is that the Democrats’
proposal is opposed by the head of the FBI because it would make tracking
terrorists more difficult. Apparently, “common sense” requires trampling the
Constitution to make the FBI’s job harder.
“A ban on Muslims would not have stopped this attack.
Neither would a wall. I don’t know how one builds a wall to keep the Internet
out,” Hillary Clinton said to guffaws from the crowd at a campaign event in
Virginia. “Not one of Donald Trump’s reckless ideas would have saved a single
life in Orlando.”
OK, but her proposals wouldn’t have saved any lives
either. Moreover, this is the woman who insisted her illegal private e-mail
server was secure because it was guarded by armed Secret Service agents.
Ironically, their guns do save lives, but they’re no more effective than a wall
at combating the Internet.
Still, for all its stupidity, the gun conversation looks
like a debate at the Algonquin Round Table compared with the effort to make the
Orlando shooting all about homophobia and gay marriage.
“While the precise motivation for the rampage remains
unclear,” the New York Times
editorialized, “it is evident that Mr. Mateen was driven by hatred toward gays
and lesbians.”
“Hate crimes don’t happen in a vacuum,” added the Gray
Lady (I’m referring to the Times, not
Clinton). “They occur where bigotry is allowed to fester, where minorities are
vilified and where people are scapegoated for political gain. Tragically, this
is the state of American politics, driven too often by Republican politicians
who see prejudice as something to exploit, not extinguish.”
The killer was a registered Democrat. The source of his
hatred was not the Christian Coalition but radical Islamism. He stated this
motivation clearly during the shooting and for months prior. He reportedly also
considered attacking that notorious gay hangout Disney World. Would we be
hearing about the pernicious, right-wing, anti-cartoon-character climate if
he’d opted for that target?
Maybe we would, because all that really matters to the
people who hate saying “radical Islamic terrorism” is that we cling to the
right political distractions.
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