Monday, August 5, 2019

Another Biden Flub

You have to hand it to Uncle Joe Biden. He is so obviously over the hill that even I have noticed. 

From today’s New York Post:

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden expressed his sympathy for the victims of the weekend’s mass shootings in Houston and Michigan – bungling the locations of the tragedies in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

Speaking at a fund-raiser in San Diego on Sunday evening, the 76-year-old former vice president talked about the “tragic events in Houston today and also in Michigan the day before,” the Washington Examiner reported Monday, citing pool reports of Biden’s remarks.

Of course, he did not just botch the places. He botched the timing too. I am late to the party but it seems increasingly clear that Biden will not be the Democratic presidential candidate.

The amusing part is that the Democratic Party is supposed to be the party of smart people. Obviously, this is silly. The average Democratic voter is surely not a great thinker. Smart people did not elect AOC.

And yet, people so often disparage the minds of Republicans that we feel compelled to point out this sign of a lack of intelligence in a Joe Biden... who, despite the gaffes, is still leading the field.

And yet, to be fair, how many mainstream news outlets and how many commentators will make an issue of Biden’s obvious mental defects?


trigger warning said...

Not sure what your problem is, Schneiderman. You should know by now that Republicans either lie or say abysmally stupid things, and Democrats misspeak.

Trigger's Journalistic Fact Check: Biden's remarks were Mostly True - people were killed by machine-gun wielding Republican male white supremacist Trump campaign volunteers in the South and Midwest, Trump incited it, and the NRA gave them the weapons at a gun show.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

Joe Biden is remarkable. He gets so little squared with reality. What is interesting is how no one really talks about his victories and accomplishments. Wonder why that is...

Speaking of the El Paso situation, it is interesting to read the manifesto. I did the same after the Christchurch shooter left his manifesto. They are much the same. In fact, the El Paso shooter attributes most of his brevity to the fact that the Christchurch shooter got it all right the first time around, and the Christchurch shooter attributes his clairvoyance to the Norwegian mass shooter Brevnik. But what’s not talked about in the Big Media is the content outside of the racist stuff. There’s a lot about economics and environmentalism that is quite primitive. Like they don’t know what they’re talking about, yet they are so certain. Like they read a lot of science fiction and dystopian novels and can’t get past the “fiction” part of these genres.

Trump is right to bring up violent video games and entertainment as a contributing factor in all this.

There are more efficient ways to kill lots of people in close quarters like a Wal-Mart. The shotgun is a devastating weapon, and can just mow people down with little attempt at accuracy. If these punks wanted to maximize their firepower in a controlled, planned, methodical way, they’d use a shotgun. Instead, they go for “assault weapons.”

Why is that? It seems obvious to me.

They are living out their fantasies. They want their video games and movies to come to life. They’re psychotic. The only difference between them and someone like the Unabomber is that Kacynski didn’t own a TV. They are pretend justice warriors, avengers. Superheroes.

Add in social isolation, anomie, a general malaise about life, science fiction meaninglessness, plus their low social status because they don’t contribute to society, you get a mass shooter. Now, the people who produce those video games and movies will get very upset that their product is being blamed, and go on to claim they have free speech. Yes, and we also have a Second Amendment right to bear arms that ought not be sacrificed because psychotics are going postal to fulfill their fantasies.

The solutions always seems to be that I have to give up my rights so others can exercise their right. That doesn’t make sense. That’s Biden-type stuff.

trigger warning said...

IAC: "The only difference between them and someone like the Unabomber is that Kacynski didn’t own a TV."

Well, that and about 2-3 standard deviations on the IQ scale. ;-)

trigger warning said...

BTW, Hollywood and watching video...

Theory A: Watching Saturday morning tv commercials obviously makes children demand more junk food.

Theory B: Watching violent movies, shows, and games has no discernable effect on children's behavior.

One of those theories is wrong.

Ignatius Acton Chesterton OCD said...

trigger warning @August 5, 2019 at 11:16 AM:

“Well, that and about 2-3 standard deviations on the IQ scale. ;-)”

Indeed. Kaczynski was on the loose for 18 years, all the while with a 125-man team of FBI and BATFE agents trying to find him. That’s what the high IQ gets you... time. The OCD and mechanical craftsmanship that went into his mail bombs was remarkable. And it took Kaczynski’s brother to turn him in after reading the manifesto “Industrial Society and Its Future.” The UNABOM Task Force didn’t find him, and Kaczynski was improving the lethality of his contraptions —he killed 3 of his last 4 targets. Publishing the manifesto was a roll of the dice, but it paid off. The killing stopped. Or did it?

The technology (Kaczynski) and racism (Breivik, Tarrant, Crusius) stuff is the veneer “issue” to legitimize their efforts. The main body of these manifestos is a discontent with all facets of society/civilization, which fuels their radical worldview. It justifies their killing, all would be well with the world if all these people weren’t around. It’s a misanthropic fantasy with them as the hero. Kaczynski’s IQ and OCD kept him on the loose for almost two decades. The others decided to go out in a blaze of their own glory. Except Kaczynski, all are labeled “far-right” and “alt-right.”

What was also interesting in my effort to look up the size of the UNABOM task force was that I also found that Breivik cited/copied the Kaczynski manifesto extensively. Tarrant’s manifesto cited Breivik. Crusius’ manifesto cited Breivik and Tarrant.

These loonies all share a similar eco-anarchist worldview. The recent variants (save Kaczynski) fancy themselves racial nationalists. Again a veneer for what they have in common. All are antisocial and paranoid. All are atheists or pagans. They don’t like socialists or feminists. They all love nature, and feel it is being spoiled by modern man. They all. hate corporations. It strikes me that’s the place to start looking, not gun control. My goodness, Breivik’s manifesto is 1,500 pages. Kaczynski’s is 100 pages. Plenty to learn from. I read Kaczynski’s, Tarrant’s and Crusius’ manifestos. I value my time too highly to read Breivik’s. I find none of these to be interesting or persuasive. They’re ranting, self-absorbed lunatics. Again, courageous heroes in their own minds.

And all these madmen remain alive. Except the clock is ticking on Crusius — he did his work in Texas, and acknowledged his fate in his manifesto. Yet went ahead and did it anyway, perhaps reflecting his IQ. Breivik killed 77 people, and got 21 years — Norway’s maximum sentence.

Sam L. said...

"And yet, to be fair, how many mainstream news outlets and how many commentators will make an issue of Biden’s obvious mental defects?" That would be ZERO, ZIP, NADA.

370H55V said...

"On the one side, we have President Trump, a man who said that some of the participants at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesburg were good people. An astonishingly ham handed remark, to say the least. To call it Hitlerian is hyperbole."

I can't believe you bought this canard, which has been totally debunked by the actual transcript of what he said, which was that some of those people were only there to defend the civil war memorials.

And it's Charlottesville, not Charlottesburg.