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Watercooler 9/28 Open Thread: Burlington Shooting and “Right Wing Marxists”

Wednesday, September 28, 2016 13:47

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(Before It's News)

#NeverTrumpNeverHillary #NotInMYNameWelcome back to another installment of the Watercooler, RedState’s daily Open Thread! Today, we’ve got…

Local Perspective on the Burlington Mall Shooting

Y’all might have heard about a shooting at Burlington Mall here in Washington over the past week. Thankfully nowhere near me–it’s on Whidbey Island in the middle of Puget Sound, while my lair is under the Cascade Mountain foothills–but I thought I’d pass along a few facts that aren’t being widely reported.

The offender (I will not use his name) is a Turkish Muslim of uncertain US citizenship, who came here because his mother married a US serviceman.
The offender seems to be a supporter of both Daesh and Hillary Clinton.
The offender stole his stepfather’s weapon, which proves that Universal Background Checks like we just enacted are Universal Bull Crap.
The offender’s weapon appears to have been a Ruger 10/22, which has been causing my media ex-colleagues no shortage of butthurt about “a perfect pretext to push bans and we can’t even use the EEEEEVIL Assault Weapon narrative!”
The offender was under an order issued by a judge not to possess firearms.

Conclusion: There isn’t a bloody thing any current or proposed law could have done to stop this little terrorist bastard.

“Right Wing Marxists” and Out-Conservatived… By Freaking CANADA?!

Hillsdale College’s latest issue of Imprimis has an interesting, and somewhat alarming, argument by Frank Buckley: That the reason the US resisted Marxism so long was economic mobility regularly reshuffling the deck, but the development of an aristocracy class among politicians and media has driven a kind of “right-wing Marxism” to develop best illustrated by the Branch Trumpidians.

“A complacent Republican establishment denies this change has occurred. If they don’t get it, however, American voters do. For the first time, Americans don’t believe their children will be as well off as they have been. They see an economy that’s stalled, one in which jobs are moving offshore. In the first decade of this century, U.S. multinationals shed 2.9 million U.S. jobs while increasing employment overseas by 2.4 million. General Electric provides a striking example. Jeffrey Immelt became the company’s CEO in 2001, with a mission to advance stock price. He did this in part by reducing GE’s U.S. workforce by 34,000 jobs. During the same period, the company added 25,000 jobs overseas. Ironically, President Obama chose Immelt to head his Jobs Council.

According to establishment Republicans, none of this can be helped. We are losing middle-class jobs because of the move to a high-tech world that creates jobs for a cognitive elite and destroys them for everyone else. But that doesn’t describe what’s happening. We are losing middle-class jobs, but lower-class jobs are expanding. Automation is changing the way we make cars, but the rich still need their maids and gardeners. Middle-class jobs are also lost as a result of regulatory and environmental barriers, especially in the energy sector. And the skills-based technological change argument is entirely implausible: countries that beat us hands down on mobility are just as technologically advanced. Folks in Denmark aren’t exactly living in the Stone Age.”

What does this have to do with our neighbors to the north?

“Readers of Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose will have encountered the word palimpsest, used to describe a manuscript in which one text has been written over another, and in which traces of the original remain. So it is with Canada, a country that beats the U.S. hands down on economic mobility. Canada has the reputation of being more liberal than the U.S., but in reality it is more conservative because its liberal policies are written over a page of deep conservatism.”

Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College. Before you guys break out the torches and pitchforks, I suggest giving Buckley’s article a read in its entirety–the hardcopy’s only five pages and the digital three, and I don’t think Hillsdale would risk their reputation publishing just anybody who tries to wrap himself in the right-wing banner.

Our usual News of the Weird will return next week.

This Week In History

Sunday, Sep 25: Congress approves first 12 Constitutional Amendments*, 1789; Doolittle performs first completely “blind” instrument-only flight, 1929; Operation Market Garden fails, 1944
Monday, Sep 26: Federal Trade Commission established, 1914; first televised Presidential debate, 1960; Stanislav Petrov prevents nuclear exchange, 1983
Tuesday, Sep 27: First production Model T Ford rolls out, 1908; first Liberty ship, SS Patrick Henry, launched, 1941; The Tonight Show debuts with Steve Allen, 1954
Wednesday, Sep 28: Siege of Yorktown begins, 1781; Congress submits Constitution to state Legislatures, 1787; first color TV sold, 1951; Strategic Air Command stand-down, 1991
Thursday, Sep 29: 1st Conress adjourns, 1789; National Cathedral cornerstone laid, 1907; first YF-22 prototype flies, 1990
Friday, Sep 30: Edison’s first hydropower plant opens, 1882; Hoover Dam dedicated, 1935; Lockheed delivers first L-100, civilianized C-130 Hercules, 1965
Saturday, Oct 1: First Mississippi River steamboat reaches New Orleans, 1811; Stanford University opens, 1891; first World Series game, 1903; Judgment at Nuremberg, 1946
*The Bill of Rights, the Congressional Compensation Amendment ratified 200 years later, and the as-yet-unratified Congressional Apportionment Amendment.

Today’s Birthdays: CBS founder William S. Paley and TV host Ed Sullivan, 1901; refugee and singer Maria von Trapp (yes, The Sound of Music‘s von Trapps), 1914; supercomputer builder Seymour Cray, 1925; quarterback Steve Largent, 1954

Holidays Around the World: Here in the States it’s Ask A Stupid Question Day. “Do you want fries with that?” The Czechs are celebrating Statehood Day. It’s also International Right To Know Day and World Rabies Day, and Christian students around the world observe See You At The Pole to pray around their campuses’ flagpoles this morning.

This Week In History is compiled with assistance from History.com and Wikipedia. Something interesting not listed here? Please share in the Comments section–this is an Audience Participation Encouraged featurette.

Gratuitous Gun Giveaways

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*Guns Magazine, for a Ruger Hawkeye FTW bolt-action rifle and scope package, a Rock Island Armory .22TCM 1911 pistol package or EAA polymer 1911 .45 package: http://gunsmagazine.com/giveaway/
Davidson’s Gallery of Guns, for a Weatherby Element Deluxe 12-gauge shotgun or Vanguard bolt-action rifle: https://ggg.galleryofguns.com/
Aero Precision, for a custom AR15: http://gvwy.io/e9hi1al
GrabAGun, for an HK VP9 pistol: http://grabagun.com/giveaway

*Note: FMG Publishing giveaways require you to provide an FFL dealer’s info at entry.