Tuesday, January 11, 2011

The Murders in Arizona and Attacks on Freedom

Yet another nut job has decided to take his frustrations out on innocent people. This time one Jared Loughner managed to kill six people and wound thirteen others. The dead include a child, 9 year old Christina Green. Also dead are John Roll, Gabriel Zimmerman, Dorwin Stoddard, Dorthy Murray and Phyllis Scheck. This is a senseless act of violence that should be completely condemned. Jared Loughner needs to be brought to justice and severely punished. I can't imagine any reason that could be given to excuse such abhorrent behavior.

Different groups are going to use this tragic event to try to advance their agenda. This fact in and of itself is a tragedy. The folks on the left are going to try to use this event to curtail gun rights and free speech. The folks on the right are going to use the fact that this event was carried out by a left wing ideologue to try to reflect that violent nature onto anyone with those leanings. It's so predictable. It works that way every time.

Media and people with an agenda will find all kinds of things to blame this incident on. Some will blame it on the availability of legal guns. Others will blame it on Jared's use of marijuana. Still others will blame it on his apparent obsession with and perhaps worship of demonic forces. Some will blame it on society and the inability of anyone to help an obviously troubled young man. There are claims of mind control. I doubt we will ever know for certain the full truth of the matter, and even if the truth does come out how are we ever to trust the information since the general public has been fooled by so many psy-ops and cover ups so often in the past? The blame should fall squarely on the shoulders of the individual who committed the act, but of course extenuating circumstances, if there are any, should be taken into consideration.

The call has already gone out for more gun control regulation. They want to make sure that guns stay out of the hands of such psychotics. Yet there are already laws on the books that are supposed to prevent this type of thing. These laws obviously haven't worked. Creating more laws hasn't worked in the past, why would it work now? It seems to me that if there was ever a psychotic individual, this man was it, yet so many people seem to have been unable to determine he was going to hurt others. I think that no matter how tightly you try to control guns, there will always be psychotic people who will be able to arm themselves if they are so determined and hurt people. It seems to me that we'd all be better off if we were all able to be armed in order to defend ourselves from such occurrences.

More worrisome is the push to pass laws restricting speech. People have the right to speak their minds. By forcing them to keep quiet through the threat of law you only cause them to hide their thoughts. Jared Loughner was very public with his feelings, people were afraid of him, he had made death threats, yet no one seemed able to see this coming. How much more sudden and unexpected would this have been if he had been forced to hide his thoughts and emotions for fear of being arrested?

From what I have seen, I think Jared Loughner is insane, pure and simple. I'm no expert on such matters, but looking at the crime, the shrine, the demon worship, the youtube channel, the claims of mind control, what would you expect one to conclude? Insane or not, it is the man Jared Loughner who needs to be held to account for the deaths he caused, not Rush Limbaugh, not David Icke, not Alex Jones, not talk radio, not the right to bear arms (the right of self defense), not freedom of speech, and not anyone or anything else this troubled young man might be associated with. In fact, it is at times like these we need to band together and shun those who would use such an event to attack freedoms. Those who would use such a tragic and unusual event to force their political agenda into our everyday lives must have something to gain, and that something is likely money and power. We must realize this and resist their sirens' call for more laws and regulations which in the long run only helps the establishment and makes things worse for everyone else.

Shame on all those who use these tragedies for their political gain. Shame on those who wish to demonize individualism in their effort to form their collectivist dystopias. Even Mr. John Green, Christina Green's father, bravely appeared on television and fought back tears in the midst of what must have been overwhelming grief to ask that his daughter's death not be used for political agendas to curtail more of our freedoms. He bemoaned the disrespect the federal government has shown our individual freedoms, especially since the attacks of September 11th, 2001. He cited his own experiences in having to deal with the TSA because he travels so much. Yet there are those who continue to rant against "right wing extremists," "conspiracy theorists," "constitutionalists," and other individualists who threaten their collectivist ideologies as a result of this tragedy. Shame on them for showing such lack of empathy.

It is beyond me why the mainstream media continues to give a platform to "experts" such as Mark Potok at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an institution whose ideas should be irrelevant in a land where freedom is supposed to reign supreme. Their collectivist ideologies would be more at home nested in a society such as those built by the leaders of the Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. The media should not be giving this organization any kind of legitimacy. This man and his institution are only experts at putting people into groups and putting labels upon them. They can't seem to comprehend that an individual is more than the lump sum of the groups he associates with. Perhaps that's because they are so wrapped up in their own associations and so invested in the legalized force that is the government that they can't even imagine others operating in a peaceful manner to bring about a society where the freedom of individuals is respected.

Group punishment is inherently unfair. The vast majority of us are sane. The vast majority of us are responsible. We should not be punished because some insane person decided to use a gun to go on a killing spree. We should not have to worry about voicing our political opinions because some nut job decides he wants to take it on himself to murder in a way that can be interpreted by some as a protest. The vast majority of law abiding citizens know how to use firearms and the freedom of speech in a responsible manner. We must guard the rights of even the minority if we wish to protect those rights for all.

We should all offer a prayer for the victims of Jared Loughner. We should offer a prayer for this nation. We should pray that those who attempt to subvert the principles upon which this nation was built will not succeed in their ambitions. We should even, as unpopular as this may sound, offer a prayer for the troubled young man who carried out this tragedy. After all, his life is as good as over. We should pray that somehow, someday, he can find some kind of redemption. Then we should go about the tough business of bringing about a voluntary society. We should try to educate our young people that violence solves nothing. Violence only begets more violence. Even the unspoken violence that is the state's monopoly of force needs to be condemned. We should work toward a society where participation in government is strictly voluntary and those who wish to be left alone will be left alone. If we can achieve such a society, perhaps such tragedies will become but a memory of a nightmare upon the dawn of a new day. I'm afraid we have a long road ahead of us if we are to reach such a goal.

My archived articles are available at szandorblestman.com. Please visit there to help support me and my efforts. I also have an ebook available entitled "The Ouijiers" by Matthew Wayne.

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