Enough Is Enough

I’ve been offline for a bit, so I guess I’m just catching up, here.

My condolences to the victims of yesterday’s episode of workplace violence in San Bernardino.

Clearly, the avalanche of white-supremacist violence that the left, media and Administration (pardon the redundancy), and especially against the Planned Parenthood clinic just two miles away from the event, in our climate-change-afflicted nation, have been warning us about is coming rapidly to pass.

The real tragedy is this: if California merely banned magazines larger than ten rounds, as well as a much wider range of “assault weapons” than Federal law currently addresses, and instituted much more intrusive background checks than the rest of the country, none of this would have happened.

We can still be thankful that none of the victims, being in a “gun-free” government building, were able to resist, or who knows how bad it could have gotten?

UPDATE:  Oh.

47 thoughts on “Enough Is Enough

  1. By all accounts, violence was perpetrated by devout muslims. Not radical, not moderate, just devout. If islam is a peaceful religion, why did they attack? Last time I checked definition of peace it did not say it had anything to do with killing anyone. Maybe it is time we admitted “islam is a religion of peace” is an oxymoron.

    “I come in PEACE!!”
    “And you go in pieces, ASSHOLE!”

  2. They keep talking about assault clothing in the article. I’m not sure what that is. Is it black? Maybe has a special attachment point for a bayonet?

  3. Near as I can tell, it’s a vest with pouches for magazines and other tacti-cool accoutrements. It’s easily mistaken for body armor, by people who have no idea what either item actually is.

  4. “Farook graduated from California State University, San Bernardino with a degree in environmental health in 2009, according to the university’s commencement document.”
    See, he was just worried about the environment. Bernie Sanders was right. Climate Change and Unemployment cause terrorism.

  5. ‘Workplace violence’ sez the prez.
    The woman didn’t work there.
    Idiot. Biden should take over.

  6. That’s right, lunchbox. Workplace violence by a white, gun loving, bible toting nut job. I wonder if following facts will change PC opinion? Nah… who am I kiddin’.

    The attackers who killed 14 at a California office party Wednesday left behind a remote-controlled explosive device as they raced away in a black SUV with the bomb controller in their hands, NBC News has learned.

    Multiple federal and regional sources familiar with the investigation of the attack at San Bernardino’s Inland Regional Center told NBC News that the controller was similar to the model car controller used in the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013.

    Authorities said the design indicated that the attackers appeared to have calculated that their initial attack would draw a heavy law enforcement and emergency personnel response and left behind a device that would cause still greater casualties.

    The device did not explode, and investigators do not know if the controller was too far away to trigger the bomb. Forensic investigation of the device has not been completed.

  7. So, I’m not real clear….let me see if I have this straight.

    According to Obama, this was not a case of refusing to convert or allowing women to walk to the store by themselves, no siree.

    Someone evidently took that last cup of coffee, and by Allah’s beard, Farook (love that name) went home, got the wife and the tac gear and laid waste to the whole office.

    Well, I think I speak for everyone else when I say thank God it wasn’t terrorism!

  8. So, you know, multi-automatic round weapons are easily available, even though not in California, but they can cross the state line, as you know. Rep Sanchez

    These are the people who represent us in the goobernment, and they are here to help you see the light.

  9. “We must throw away all quarrels and differences, form a firm fist, a unified anti-terrorist front, which will act based on international law and be sponsored by the UN,”

    Any guesses who said this?

  10. To be fair to President Obama, he was just “leaving the question open”, but it still suggests a detachment from reality that suggests he needs to visit the room Jesse Jackson Jr. occupied in Mayo’s Generose building.

    Really, it makes no less sense than opening up Marine infantry to women when not a single woman has passed the infantry course yet, I guess, but I still wonder what color the sun is on Mr. Obama’s planet.

  11. Fair? I don’t recall 0bumbler leaving any questions open in the case of clockboy, skittles, stupid cops, etc, etc, ad nauseum. Only when it comes to condemning religion of pieces is the question ever open for him.

  12. I would pray for the victims, but I heard that’s out of vogue now, passe and pedestrian. Evidently God is guilty because he allowed this to happen, so prayer is now antithetical to the Greater Good.

    Can I “hope” for them?

  13. so now I’m reading that the woman’s name (Tashfeen Malik) is a well-known nom de guerre among muslims. Yes, DHS let her into the country with that name.
    Imagine the screening the Syrian refugees will have to go through!
    Maybe DHS will get suspicious when thousands of them are named “tashfeen malik al mujahaiden.”

  14. When ISIL attempts a Paris-style terrorist attack in the US, they’d better bring their ‘A’ game, or they might not be the top item on the news that night. Workplaces and schools in the US increasingly have to plan and train for the possibility of a workplace or school shooting. That inconvenience will help to raise consciousness of the issue amongst the broad middle who do not own guns but are largely unaffected by gun violence. When we find that our freedom to act is restricted by precautions against people with guns, support for gun control will grow, as it has in the past. It will take a while, though.

  15. Let’s make sure we’re clear, here. I don’t begrudge benefits to servicepeople. And it’s possible that servicepeople might be objectively a better risk, possibly.

    But civil rights aren’t benefits – they’re endowments from our creator. They apply to everyone.

    You wouldn’t say servicepeople deserve extra consideration on search warrants, or trials with special juries, would you?

  16. EmeryTheAntisemiticSoci@list vomited:
    When we find that our freedom to act is restricted by precautions against people with guns, support for gun control will grow, as it has in the past. It will take a while, though.

    Terms “Legal” and “Illegal” are foreign to this vile orc. And so is the concept that guns do not kill people. People kill people. Nevermind the fact that terrorists were stopped by a bullet from a gun, not by a verse from Kumbaya.

  17. I’m taking the bus to work. I’m ashamed that my driving has contributed to Global Warming, which is the cause of Islamic violence like the Muslims who massacred those people at the company Christmas party in San Bernadino.

    But I’m not giving up my guns, I might need them for the Zombie Apocalypse. I’m not completely crazy.

  18. Emery, when ISIS attempts a Paris style attack in the U.S., it will happen in a gun free zone, just like in Paris, and just like this sad case we’re discussing. Maybe the Mall of America.

    And for those of us unlucky enough to find ourselves in such zones when it happens, we’d do well to have something with which to defend ourselves, even if it’s only pepper spray.

  19. Investigators think that as the San Bernardino, California, attack was happening, female shooter Tashfeen Malik posted a pledge of allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi on Facebook, three U.S. officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.
    Our leaders are blind idiots.

  20. Pingback: In The Mailbox: 12.04.15 : The Other McCain

  21. Hitler and Mussolini (and Franco and Pinochet, etc., etc.) weren’t wrong about the threat of Communism. They just had a very bad solution to the problem, and one that overstated the threat. Keep that in mind before embracing some of these neo-fascists and their remedies for Islamic Jihadism. The Left wing being wrong doesn’t make the Right wing response correct.

  22. ” . . . and one that overstated the threat”
    Easy to say in retrospect.
    I’m not sure who you think is a ‘neo-fascist’ (Obama fits the bill in many ways), and what remedies you believe would be going too far.

  23. FYI, Emery, the reason the FBI decided that the San Bernardino shooting spree was terrorism, was because the woman had sworn allegiance to ISIS. The federal government does not consider ISIS to be Islamic. Therefore associating with ISIS is not Islamic terrorism, it’s just terrorism, and so the FBI has saved the appearances.

  24. I’ve never gotten a good answer to why calling terrorism “Islamic” helps fight terrorism. I listen to the argument: “well, you gotta call a spade a spade”. To which I respond, “OK, then what?” The reason we don’t say “Islamic terrorism” is that we don’t want to cast the conflict as a war against Islam. Really it’s the reverse of the reason our adversaries are trying to present the war in religious terms. Its why they call us “crusaders”.

  25. “I’m not sure who you think is a ‘neo-fascist’”
    Mussolini made a very successful career out of corralling the dim-witted; there’s no reason Trump can’t do the same.

  26. What positions has Trump taken that you believe to be neo-fascist, Emery?
    I hate it when people play the ‘fascist’ card. Usually they mean nationalist (which is something quite different), but they don’t like nationalists so they try to smear nationalists with the taint of Nazism.
    Both the Italian and the German fascists used to beat people to death and leave their bodies in the streets as a warning to others. Are you accusing Trump and his followers of doing this?

  27. If Donald Trump hasn’t insulted you or your intelligence yet, you haven’t been listening. Whatever you think of Reagan, he exuded optimism for the US. And that is why Trump, even were his policy ideas sound (not all of them are stupid), would make a terrible president. He is profoundly pessimistic about the US, and the US can only be led well by an optimist. As a further example, what is it about Bill Clinton that made him a better leader than Obama? Is he smarter? Does he have better policies? No, but he inspired optimism. Obama exudes the disdainful pessimism of the educated liberal elite, and that makes him a much lesser leader than Bill Clinton.

  28. You still haven’t explained what Trump proposed policies you believe to be ‘neo-fascist’, Emery.
    I would never vote for Trump, but not because he is a neo-fascist.
    I would never vote for Trump because A) he is not a conservative and B) he is not suited for the office. Or any office, as far as I can tell. He’s good at being an obnoxious, shady, lawsuit-happy billionaire. He should stick with that.

  29. What I find fascist about Obama is his distrust of Democracy. He doesn’t like the Senate, he doesn’t like the House. He doesn’t like the state governments. He loves the bureaucracies under his control (and that is about all he has got). He loves the Pentagon because he can simply tell the generals to do things.
    The idea that the national political destiny is best expressed by a strong man rather than the citizen-voters is garden variety fascism. That is what Obama and the Democrats believe, these days.

  30. I found this bit from Douthat’s NYT column amusing:
    “But the charge can be easily fleshed out with more examples. Writing for Slate last week, Jamelle Bouie argued that Trumpism, however ideologically inchoate, manifests at least seven of the hallmarks of fascism identified by the Italian polymath Umberto Eco.”
    I like Douthat. I like Eco. Eco is a literary genius. But Eco should stay away from politics. Eco is provincial on the topic, at least as far as USA politics goes. Eco has that continental thing going where you divide politics into black shirted fascists who will kill you, or red shirted communists who will kill you. The US ain’t Italy in 1943.

  31. I’m not arguing that the liberals are right. What I’m arguing is that many on the right wing and individuals are using the problems of various liberal policies to justify remedies totally out of proportion with those problems. You have to pause and consider some of the measures being suggested to remedy the problems of immigrants and Islamic terrorists:
    Which freedoms would you be prepared to lose in an effort to reduce your risk of terrorist attack or exposure to immigrant cultures?

    Would you accept that all residents must declare their religious faith?
    Would you accept that all citizens must carry ID cards identifying their religious faith and ethnicity, to be presented to police on demand?
    Would you accept that all places of worship must be licensed, and their memberships verified by police spot checks?
    Would you accept limits on what religious leaders can say in religious services?
    Would you accept differing laws on whether you can buy weapons based on your religious faith or ethnicity?
    Would you accept restrictions on travel based on religious faith or ethnicity?
    In times of heightened national security tension, would you accept rounding up males of certain faiths or ethnicities for quarantine?
    Would you accept regular spot checks for citizenship papers for those entering workplaces and schools?

    These are the sorts of ‘realist’ measures that nativist politicians and parties wish to put in place. They all blame the ‘others’, be it Muslims or immigrants, the dark-skinned or handicapped (listen to Trump some time). They tell the native born white citizens that they’ve done nothing wrong, and that all will be well if we get rid of the others, build a big wall, and let the new smart guy manage the economy and the security forces. Is that Fascism? That’s a question of definition, but it satisfied most of the requirements. We won’t know for sure until they’ve been given power.

    So yes, go ahead and criticize policies. But when you or your political party starts to talk about limiting freedoms for the sake of security and preserving White Christian culture, I’m going to start throwing the F-word around.

  32. A game, Emery? Depends on where they attack.

    The San B victims had active shooter training and a response plan. Their plan was to huddle in a mass like fish in a barrel to be slaughtered.

    “When we find that our freedom to act is restricted by precautions against people with guns, support for gun control will grow, as it has in the past. It will take a while, though.” Substitute “Muslims” and see how you like that sentence. Now try “evildoers” and see if it’s not more sensible. Bush got a lot of crap for saying that, but he saw clearly what we needed to control – people who do evil, regardless of motivation or tool.


  33. Would you accept that all residents must declare their religious faith?
    Would you accept that all citizens must carry ID cards identifying their religious faith and ethnicity, to be presented to police on demand?
    Would you accept that all places of worship must be licensed, and their memberships verified by police spot checks?
    Would you accept limits on what religious leaders can say in religious services?
    Would you accept differing laws on whether you can buy weapons based on your religious faith or ethnicity?
    Would you accept restrictions on travel based on religious faith or ethnicity?
    In times of heightened national security tension, would you accept rounding up males of certain faiths or ethnicities for quarantine?

    None of the above would get past the courts.
    Heck, I don’t even like the idea that the government can declare ISIS to be ‘non-Islamic.’ What will be next? Declare that churches that don’t support same-sex marriage aren’t really churches?
    “Would you accept regular spot checks for citizenship papers for those entering workplaces and schools?”
    We already show ID for a lot of this. You can’t get into my workplace w/o being a “US person.” And, yes, they don’t take your word for it. You need documentation.
    Schools are quasi-public places, but they don’t let people just wander in and out of them. Workplaces are under the control of the corporation that owns them.
    “But when you or your political party starts to talk about limiting freedoms for the sake of security and preserving White Christian culture, I’m going to start throwing the F-word around.”
    No one has a right to emigrate to the US, Emery.
    A lot of what you perceive as proto-fascism is a backlash against a federal government which has lost the trust of an important segment of the American people. Americans are citizens, not subjects.

  34. Some interesting poll data:
    http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/a-portrait-of-muslim-americans/
    Pakistan is the country where the largest percentage of the population supports ISIS.
    Pakistan is also the country of origin for the largest percentage of Muslim immigrants to the US (14%).
    21% of American Muslims believe that a good deal or a fair amount of American Muslims support religious extremism. This is about half as much as the general public. Apparently this means that Muslims are only half as likely to be anti-Muslim bigots as the general population.
    Oddly enough, nearly a third of US Muslims believe that Muslims are better off in Muslim countries, which makes you wonder what they are doing here.

  35. JD: You’re missing my point. I was commenting on the level of gun violence in US society, not the effectiveness of terrorist attacks. The US suffers from smaller scale versions of the Paris attack regularly, for purely domestic reasons, due to the availability of assault weapons and guns in general. Because this problem is endemic, public spaces are being changed to protect against the possibility of assault. The realization that their lives are being changed for the worse by gun violence indirectly (most middle class Americans are not directly exposed to the gun violence found in poor, urban neighborhoods) may finally lead to popular support for gun control.

  36. BG: It is deeply ill-advised to take a conflict with perhaps 10,000-20,000 Jihadists and turn it into a war with a billion followers of Islam. Most Muslims disagree with ISIL and Al Qaeda and would prefer a peaceful coexistence with the modern world. Yes, they see what makes the Jihadists unhappy, so there is some sympathy there and ambivalence with regards to helping outsiders battle fellow Muslims, but they disagree with the Jihadists’ approach to solving the problems of their world.

    The Jihadists deeply want us to declare a war on Islam, as that will cement their importance and leadership roll in the Muslim world. Why in the world would you grant them that wish? Try to think strategically. The greatest fear of the Jihadists isn’t the armies of the modern world; it is the disdain of their fellow Muslims.

  37. Emery, I was curious about the number of Muslims living in the US who support sharia. It’s very odd that I could not find an authoritative source for such a survey. One survey with poor methodology was published by an anti-Muslim group, the Center for Security Policy. It found 51% of Muslims in the US supported sharia. I was able to find a refutation of the survey’s methodology by a diversity outfit at Georgetown University, the ‘Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.’ I believe the funding for the ‘Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding.’ comes from the Saudis. The person who wrote the screed is almost juvenile in his hatred of Bill O’Reilly, of all people. The survey could be refuted by a second survey with a more reliable methodology, but somehow one has never been done. Or published.
    Pew has found that majorities of Muslims around the world — even those living in Western Europe — support sharia. For some reason Pew did not include the Americas in this survey.
    I am not in favor of declaring war on all Muslims. I am in favor of reasonable, common-sense precautions when it comes to immigrants from parts of the world that produce religious extremists.
    The history of Muslim extremism in the US and worldwide is to constantly up the ante. This makes Muslim extremism far more dangerous to Americans than the right-wing bogeymen groups like the SPLC likes to use for its fundraising drives. The reluctance of our government and our elites to acknowledge Islamic extremism makes groups like ISIS more dangerous yet.

  38. Lunchbox, you are arguing with an idiot. There is so much misinformation, lies and logical circular arguments in his screeds that they are not even fun anymore to fisk. EmeryTheAntisemiticSoci@list is a waste of bandwidth and a demagogue devoid of any morality or scruples.

  39. “Not every flower can say love, but a rose can. Not every plant survives thirst, but a cactus can. Not every retard can read, but look at you go, little buddy ! Today you should take a moment and send an encouraging message to a fucked up friend, just as I’ve done. I don’t care if you lick windows, or interfere with farm animals. You hang in there cup cake, you’re fucking special to me, you’re my friend, look at you smiling at your phone!”

  40. Belief in the universal applicability of Sharia might be a good marker for people who should not be allowed to influence American politics (by their votes or otherwise). One of the Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center’s complaints about the CSP survey was that it implied that all Muslims have the same idea about Sharia (but of course the Al-Waleed Bin Talal Center could have commissioned its own survey, and chose not to).
    It would be hard to find many Americans, religious or not, who believe that the government is the final word on what is right and what is wrong. Religious believers often struggle with their idea of the conflict between God’s law and man’s law.
    But it is my understanding that Muslim’s have a different view of the God’s law vs. man’s law conflict. There is little space for exegesis. Christians can point to the fact that the bloody, law-oriented OT has been replaced with a new covenant based on the redemptive sacrifice of Christ. Law is no longer the bridge between man and God. Jews follow the OT in theory, I suppose, but Judaism is not a universalist religion, and in any case evidence suggests that, for whatever reason, Jewish religious terrorism is not a problem in the US.
    It would be fascinating to discover how many Muslims in the US believe that non-Muslims should be forbidden from insulting mohamad, for example, or should pay the jizya.
    I don’t believe a survey that asks questions like this will be done, because the people whom you would normally expect to perform such a survey are afraid to do so.

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