Gun Banning and Social Contempt

In attempting to make sense of things, one should always look to the insights of the wise and the experienced. But one should also heed the occasional ill-considered outbursts of loud-mouthed idiots, since these too can be quite enlightening. A ranting partisan sometimes gives the game away by thoughtlessly blurting out the cynical thinking behind their own lousy ideas. Such inadvertent and ill-advised slips make it far easier to emotionally reverse engineer partisan stances that more skilled advocates all too often succeed in dressing up as serious proposals.

When Republicans took control of the House of Representatives in 1994, Democratic representative Charlie Rangel reacted by exclaiming: “It’s not ‘spic’ or ‘(n-word)’ any more. (Instead Republicans) say ‘let’s cut taxes.'” Rangel’s remark underscored the absurdity of treating every policy difference as grounds for racial accusation by deploying the strategy in a ridiculous context, thereby exposing the emptiness of screaming “racist” at everything. His little eruption gave away the standard Democratic approach, and highlighted its absurdity.

When Russia invaded Ukraine, many area experts cautioned there could be no solution to the crisis so long as Vladimir Putin remained in power. Lindsey Graham then unhelpfully ran to every hot mic he could find and yelped himself hoarse demanding Vladimir Putin be assassinated. Graham’s asinine chest thumping only succeeded in making any would-be Putin assassin look like an American pawn.

A more recent example comes to us from a fairly reliable source of spontaneous stupidities: Geraldo Rivera.