REVISITED: Hate and Switch: Obama’s Opportunism in the Wake of Emanuel AME
Posted by D_E_Liberty 9 years, 1 month ago to Politics
The following is a piece I wrote at the time of the Emanuel AME shooting. Now with the Umpqua Community College shooting in Oregon, Obama has not only repeated his transgression, but has actually anticipated the criticism - similar to that he previously received over Emanuel - by stating that Umpqua "NEEDS" to be politicized. Its like saying demagoguery is good for democracy. Doubly distasteful viewed when viewed in front of his effrontery towards that thin blue line dedicated to protect and serve in hopes of preventing further victimization. But the President wields his sword of "victim justice" based on political expedience - his own. Just pawns in his progressivist passion political play. he is the epitome of the cynical political saying, "never let any tragedy go unexploited." Same on you again Mr. President.
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Hate and Switch: Obama’s Opportunism in the Wake of Emanuel AME
Every moral American is justifiably outraged by the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The mercilessness and hatred demonstrated by the methodical manner of these murders is hard for most to even comprehend.
More impossible is our ability to imagine what the victims and surviving family members must be enduring. They must be reeling from not only the magnitude of their shear physical pain and emotional suffering, but also from the incomprehensible senselessness of such a hate-filled act.
As a national crime victim advocate who has seen far too many violent hate crimes during a decades-long tenure, I can tell you, based on experience, that there is little anyone can do or say to truly ease the pain and suffering of the victims and survivors in this or any other murder case.
But that doesn’t mean we should remain in a universal state of mortified immobility and stunned silence. Now IS the time to speak out! The world, by simply acknowledging that the victims’ sorrow is inconsolable, can thereby offer some comfort and conciliation. Their world has shattered—the least the rest of the world can do is acknowledge the magnitude of such epic human devastation in their lives.
At the very least, a hate crime of this proportion deserves the universal condemnation of decent, just, and peace-loving citizens of the country and, indeed, the world. Everyone should take whatever opportunity to speak out against racial hatred, and to signal other would-be murderers that there is no place for them or their despicable acts in a civilized society.
The victims and their needs should be the sole focus of everything we say and do. They are the only ones with the moral right to speak for themselves and to define the consequences of this unspeakable crime and their response to it. It is not about anyone else, or anyone else’s agenda—and particularly not their personal political agendas.
Yet there stood Obama at the bully pulpit of the Presidency with the perfect opportunity to speak about the victims and the racial hatred of the man and mind behind this heinous massacre. And appropriately, when he spoke to those issues he spoke for us all, as the elected holder of the nation’s highest office should. But rather than confine his statements to the victims and racial hate, he choose the opportunity to raise the issue of gun control…as if the instrument of their loved ones’ destruction was relevant in the face of the malicious motive of the man who wielded it.
He had us all listening intently when he spoke of hate, but lost all his moral authority to speak at all when he choose to turn his Presidential pulpit into a soap box to launch yet another attack on the Second Amendment—literally making a bait and switch sales pitch, or rather a “hate and switch” pitch, to his unsuspecting audience.
Scoring political points on the highly contentious ancillary subject of gun control before the victims’ survivors’ tears are dry or their loved ones buried in the ground, is the height of political opportunism. That’s not to say that some victims of this latest crime might well share his view on guns. I’m sure some do. They might even want to take up his cause in the wake of their victimization. If that were the case, I would wholeheartedly support their effort, as is my mandate as a crime victim advocate. But THEY and they alone, have the moral right to bring this issue into their grieving and recovery process, not anyone else—not even the President.
In the same vein, it would be equally inappropriate for the “pro-gun” contingent to use this tragedy to prove their point about unlimited rights to carry a gun (e.g., if just one of the victims had had a gun to defend himself).
Some victims have already voiced their forgiveness for the perpetrator. That is, of course, their right. But it would be highly inappropriate for anyone to claim it is their duty. Neither is it their duty to adopt anyone else’s opportunistic political agenda in the immediate aftermath of the crime.
Any demagogue, who chooses to use the “victims’ grief and suffering” as a political springboard, is morally reprehensible and ethically bankrupt. Such callousness could only be construed as pouring political salt in their wounds at a time when they are most vulnerable. President Obama and his usurious anti-gun zealots should not only bow their heads in reverence for the victims, they should also bow their heads in shame.
--------------------------------------------------------------
Hate and Switch: Obama’s Opportunism in the Wake of Emanuel AME
Every moral American is justifiably outraged by the shootings at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina. The mercilessness and hatred demonstrated by the methodical manner of these murders is hard for most to even comprehend.
More impossible is our ability to imagine what the victims and surviving family members must be enduring. They must be reeling from not only the magnitude of their shear physical pain and emotional suffering, but also from the incomprehensible senselessness of such a hate-filled act.
As a national crime victim advocate who has seen far too many violent hate crimes during a decades-long tenure, I can tell you, based on experience, that there is little anyone can do or say to truly ease the pain and suffering of the victims and survivors in this or any other murder case.
But that doesn’t mean we should remain in a universal state of mortified immobility and stunned silence. Now IS the time to speak out! The world, by simply acknowledging that the victims’ sorrow is inconsolable, can thereby offer some comfort and conciliation. Their world has shattered—the least the rest of the world can do is acknowledge the magnitude of such epic human devastation in their lives.
At the very least, a hate crime of this proportion deserves the universal condemnation of decent, just, and peace-loving citizens of the country and, indeed, the world. Everyone should take whatever opportunity to speak out against racial hatred, and to signal other would-be murderers that there is no place for them or their despicable acts in a civilized society.
The victims and their needs should be the sole focus of everything we say and do. They are the only ones with the moral right to speak for themselves and to define the consequences of this unspeakable crime and their response to it. It is not about anyone else, or anyone else’s agenda—and particularly not their personal political agendas.
Yet there stood Obama at the bully pulpit of the Presidency with the perfect opportunity to speak about the victims and the racial hatred of the man and mind behind this heinous massacre. And appropriately, when he spoke to those issues he spoke for us all, as the elected holder of the nation’s highest office should. But rather than confine his statements to the victims and racial hate, he choose the opportunity to raise the issue of gun control…as if the instrument of their loved ones’ destruction was relevant in the face of the malicious motive of the man who wielded it.
He had us all listening intently when he spoke of hate, but lost all his moral authority to speak at all when he choose to turn his Presidential pulpit into a soap box to launch yet another attack on the Second Amendment—literally making a bait and switch sales pitch, or rather a “hate and switch” pitch, to his unsuspecting audience.
Scoring political points on the highly contentious ancillary subject of gun control before the victims’ survivors’ tears are dry or their loved ones buried in the ground, is the height of political opportunism. That’s not to say that some victims of this latest crime might well share his view on guns. I’m sure some do. They might even want to take up his cause in the wake of their victimization. If that were the case, I would wholeheartedly support their effort, as is my mandate as a crime victim advocate. But THEY and they alone, have the moral right to bring this issue into their grieving and recovery process, not anyone else—not even the President.
In the same vein, it would be equally inappropriate for the “pro-gun” contingent to use this tragedy to prove their point about unlimited rights to carry a gun (e.g., if just one of the victims had had a gun to defend himself).
Some victims have already voiced their forgiveness for the perpetrator. That is, of course, their right. But it would be highly inappropriate for anyone to claim it is their duty. Neither is it their duty to adopt anyone else’s opportunistic political agenda in the immediate aftermath of the crime.
Any demagogue, who chooses to use the “victims’ grief and suffering” as a political springboard, is morally reprehensible and ethically bankrupt. Such callousness could only be construed as pouring political salt in their wounds at a time when they are most vulnerable. President Obama and his usurious anti-gun zealots should not only bow their heads in reverence for the victims, they should also bow their heads in shame.
