Ruben Navarrette was outraged by the behavior of some people in the wake of the massacre of schoolchildren in Connecticut. The syndicated columnist quickly took aim at those who offended his sensibilities: the people who decried America's insane love affair with guns. Navarrette was dismayed by the prompt and vigorous reaction by supporters of more stringent gun-control standards. In his view, they were guilty of not maintaining a sufficiently long period of silence. The NRA, at least, was good enough to duck and cover for an entire week before calling a press conference to double-down on their traditional gun-worshipping insanity.
Navarrette singled out in his column some especially egregious offenders against common decency:
How about giving a horrified and heartbroken nation a chance to mourn and bury the dead? How about showing some respect for the victims you claim to care about? How about giving politics, pet causes and partisan jockeying a rest until we wipe our tears and catch our breath?Sorry, Ruben. I agree with Nadler. Completely.
Tell that to Rep. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., who said after the shootings: “If now is not the time to have a serious discussion about gun control and the epidemic of gun violence plaguing our society, I don't know when is.”
Navarrette points his accusing finger at Nadler and other gun critics and demands, “Have you no decency?”
Go to hell, Ruben.
In his defense, we should perhaps point out that Navarrette is legitimately worried over the state of the nation—although he dismisses Nadler's similar concern. The columnist fears for the safety of his children, as would any responsible parent. His solution? A return to childhood superstition.
I spent Sunday morning looking for answers in a place I hadn't been in a while—a pew of my neighborhood church. The woman next to me wore pain on her face, and didn't smile once during the hour-long service. I held on tight to my kids. During communion*, I asked the priest to bless them. As we walked toward the altar, I whispered, “This is to keep you safe.”Yeah, Ruben. And a garlic clove dangling from a neck thong will keep vampires away.
*Note: Is Navarrette a nominal Catholic? If Navarrette has indeed been absent from his neighborhood church for a while, then he is guilty of the mortal sin of deliberately missing mass and therefore cannot legitimately partake of communion. I have more contempt for pretend-Catholics like Navarrette than those who take seriously the arcane rules of the club they belong to. If you think that communion is real, then you apparently believe in the Church's magical powers. How does that square with flouting the Church's rules except when you feel like going in for a tasteless snack?
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Do you recall that in one or another of the civil wars in central Africa a decade or so ago, boy soldiers were told before battle that bullets couldn't harm them? Do you remember which war this was?
That was Uganda, the LRA.
(You know, the group that Limbaugh, apparently knowing nothing about it but its name, waxed wroth when Obama offered to help put it down. You'd think a man who's sold his soul to groups that hijack "family" and "freedom" and "patriot" would be wise to that trick, wouldn't you?)
Rush is never wrong; just ask him. Neither is Fox News; just ask Ailes. What, you don't believe them?!?
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