Wednesday, April 10, 2013

Senators Without Empathy

[updated 11:25 p.m. Tuesday. Votes are scheduled for Thursday; Filibuster may fail,]

There is a growing group of influential and one-dimensional elected officials on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC who apply their oath of office only to the most extreme Tea Party fringe of the formerly Grand Old Party party.

These Senators  - - and one very recent conservative accounting places Wisconsin's Ron Johnson on the list while another story has primary-frightened Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on board - - say they will block even debating consensus gun control measures, let alone standing and voting for all the world to see.

Tuesday afternoon update: Johnson tells the Journal Sentinel he will filibuster any bill that he says infringes on gun rights.

Though it is only a few months after an unimaginable massacre of 20 children and seven adults in Newtown, CN exposed how easily obtained rapid-fire military-style weapons, large-scale, casualty-multiplying magazines and spare ammunition by the shopping cart-full  - - check out this graphic representation of shooter Adam Lanza's arsenal - - could leave even first-graders and their teachers vulnerable to slaughter-by-stranger in peaceful classrooms.

Newtown wasn't the first of these mass-casualty events and won't be the last.

Yet these filibuster-ready, debate-hostile and thoroughly cowardly US Senators - - masters of wordy procedure and obedient servants to gun-interest pressures (and contributions) - - do not care enough - - or at all - - for the suffering that gun violence enabled by loopholes and lobbying wreaks every day on American children, parents, spouses workers, teachers, police officers - - and grieving friends, families and survivors.

These flawed, obstructionist public servants [Sic] have a deficit of what historian Doris Kearns Goodwin said in Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln was that most historic of Republican Party figures' most important trait - - empathy:

"He possessed extraordinary empathy - - " Goodwin wrote on p. 103 of her seminal Lincoln biographer - - "the gift or curse of putting himself in the place of another, to experience what they were feeling, to understand their motives or desires....Such capacity to intuit the inward feelings and intentions of others would be manifest throughout his career."
None of these slavishly pro-gun Senators are fit to be mentioned in the same breath as Lincoln, and none will ever be President.

But wouldn't it be refreshing, with more innocent lives in the balance and the memory of 20 dead children still fresh in the country's common consciousness that these cold-hearted NRA captives could act on the Senate floor as if they had a smidgen of Lincoln's humane depth?



14 comments:

Reagan's Disciple said...

Newtown had nothing to do with lack of background checks or background check failures. The guns were purchased legally and he/his mother were allowed to own them.

As for his "arsenal" what a joke. Lots of .22lr, (which is good for shooting chipmunks) and some shot gun shells.

Also, what is really absent... there is not an assault AR-15 in the photo. I thought he was supposed to have used an AR?

Talk about rhetoric and inaccurate information. But then again, I'm sure the left is not looking for facts.


[reserved for bumper sticker slogans]

Reagan's Discple said...

Glad you are so open listening to both sides of a debate.

Coexist right? I think it is more like propagandize and indoctrinate the poor and uninformed.

Try as they might, it is the 2nd amendment. If people don't like it, they can move or have it amended. They shouldn't try to take it apart by passing moronic feel good laws that will do nothing and mean nothing. Lefties don't want to enforce current gun laws.

I'm guessing like my other posts, you won't post this either, but who cares? Liberals aren't interested in solving problems, only securing power.

Molon Labe

Oh, and I wouldn't call for a ban on box cutters, but perhaps a universal background check.

Anonymous said...

Reagan's Moron,
Too bad James won't censor your posts, but his wisdom shows by letting you spew. And you are one classy dude! Truly Republican.
AnonyBob

Reagan's disciple said...

He does censor my posts. I can't really figure out the pattern for why some are banned and others aren't.

I know one was banned for the comment "moron labe" but then I see he allowed this one above with the same bumper sticker slogan.

All in all I think he is pretty fair, but sometimes I'm sure my fact based posts start to wear on him also.

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

As for his "arsenal" what a joke.

Seems as if it was quite effective at killing six year olds. And his mother.

You feel he should have had MORE lethality at his disposal?

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

It's funny that even here, you can see that one of the favorite meethods of FUD for the gun fetishists is to nitpick and obfuscate about specific guns, and calibers, and technical details; and if their opponent is not fully conversant with the last 10 issues of Guns and Ammo, they may be discounted.

And meanwhile, it's on with the body count....

James Rowen said...

RD is not being censored. Some of his comments are repetitious or derivative. I'm the decider.

Anonymous said...

No Rowen, you are not the decider, but you are a fucking hypocrite.

Reagan's Disciple said...

It is not nitpicking. The shooter supposedly used an AR15 in his massacre. On the page with the grossly overblown photos of single .22lr shells, there was not an AR15 pictured. Did he use it or not?

The author of that page said they scoured the documents to get a full representation of the shooters inventory.

Either they 1) did not scour the documents well enough and missed the primary weapon, or 2) An AR15 was not cataloged as a weapon during the search.

If they didn't search the documents well enough to find the main weapon, I would question the validity and purpose of the other exaggerated photos as well.

And yes, it was a joke to label that an "arsenal." My grandfather was an avid hunter / trap shooter and had more ammunition and guns in his basement than what this "arsenal" contained. Believe me, I've been to people's homes who have an "arsenal" and this is certainly not.

Then again, it is really all about the rhetoric and labels to make things seem more outlandish than what they really are.

Boxer said...

Rayguns is like an alcoholic who continues to redefines alcoholism in such a way that it could not possibly include himself. Now, wait for him to accuse me of calling him an alcoholic.

He says, "Then again, it is really all about the rhetoric and labels to make things seem more outlandish than what they really are."
Really? What could be more 'outlandish' than 20 children--20 FIRST GRADERS--and 7 adults gunned down in an elementary school? Or are we not allowed to cite these facts because it might upset Raygun's delicate sensibilities or interfere with his right to walk around fully loaded with an itchy trigger finger and a chip on his shoulder about protecting HIS [gun] rights?

Anonymous said...

From the text below the graphic:

"The warrant released represents everything found in Adam Lanza's house that he shared with his mother as well as his car."

Obviously that does not include any of the weapons he had with him in the school. I don't know why it doesn't. Perhaps no official list has been released yet.

Mortified in West Allis said...

Senator Johnson is a coward, plain and simple. He is also a knee-jerk wingnut. Why is he filibustering a compromisehe hasn't actually seen? Could it be he doesn't want to go on record with his "black helicopter" agenda? He's up for election in 2016 (a Presidential election year)and with the state wide overwhelming election of Tammy Baldwin he should be "concerned". This non-free thinker should be scared

zombie rotten mcdonald said...

Obviously that does not include any of the weapons he had with him in the school.

It seems quite clear. Which is why the gun fetishists refuse to recognize it.

These were the LESS lethal elements of his arsenal. Being most concerned with ending as many lives as possible, this is what he left behind, while he carried the most lethal elements of his ARSENAL yes I said ARSENAL.

In a use of a favorite Wingnut Arguing Method, dictionary.com defines aresenal (in number 3, the most applicable) as "a collection of weapons or munitions". There is no way that the word is NOT applicable to that pile of death machines.

Reagan's Discple said...

Per your definition, everyone in our country has an arsenal in their home of weapons.

It is really a vague definition and certainly not in the context of what this is.

They had a BB gun listed in his "arsenal" I'm surprised they didn't have 1000 enlarged photos of BBs.

I understand that many of you lefties are afraid of guns, but the issue in these shootings is the mental stability of the shooter, not the weapon(s) they possess.