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Conservatives Blame the Victims at V-Tech

The meaness of modern conservative commentary seems to know no bound as two chickenhawks dare to blame the victims of this week's shooting at Virginia Tech for not being "man enough" to stop their armed assailant in his tracks. Astonishing...


Conservatives like John Derbyshire and Nathaniel Blake sure have a lot of balls...theoretically. Both have posted shameful essays about how the victims—yes, THE VICTIMS—of the Virginia Tech shootings should be ashamed of themselves for not fighting back against their armed assailant. I wish to God I was making this up, but I am not.

Convinced that the presumably strapping young college men at V Tech weren't gallant enough to go all "Die Hard" and disarm Cho Seung-Hui as he was shooting their classmates in cold blood, Blake narrows it to one fatal character flaw: a lack of courage.

"Something is clearly wrong with the men in our culture," Blake writes. "Among the first rules of manliness are fighting bad guys and protecting others: in a word, courage."

Easy to say from behind the glowing screen of a desktop computer miles and miles away from the violence that snuffed out the lives of 32 COLLEGE KIDS and their instructors.

Not to be outdone, Derbyshire asks, "...why didn't anyone rush the guy? It's not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness' sake—one of them reportedly a .22."

Both of these shitheads seem to live in a fantasy land where terrifying acts of violence are met by cool headed bravery and quick reflexes. I doubt that any of those actually on the scene considered the caliber of the guns pointed in their faces and calculated the likely damage to organs one might face if a bullet were to find its way to them.

Additionally, Derbyshire ponders why students didn't simply count the shots fired and then rush their assailant before he could reload. It's all far too reminiscent of Dirty Harry to me, and remember what happened when Clint asked the dirtbag if he felt lucky? Well, do you, punk?

As the ultimate bash on these kids, Derby cites the heroes of Flight 93 as how one should react in just such an occasion. Nevermind that nobody knows exactly what happened on that doomed 9-11 flight because everyone involved is DEAD, or that just one day from the V Tech incident, we don't exactly know what happened during Cho Seung-Hui's rampage and that acts of heroism may indeed come to light. Nevermind that innocent people were murdered in their dormrooms and classrooms. Nevermind all that.

Comments like these smack of the same type of armchair heroism that allowed policy heads who had grand theories on power and democracy but knew fuck all of actual combat to drive us headlong into a Middle East disaster. But nevermind all that too.

UPDATE: ThinkProgress has a clip from Olberman's show last night naming these two douchebags (and Detroit-based Debbie Schlussel) to his Worst in the Wolrd list.


One of the professors who was killed, Liviu Librescu, actually had been blocking the door with his body, allowing a bunch of students to escape. Not enough of hero for you? This dude was a Holocaust survivor.

I'm just waiting for the NRA to publicly congratulate the shooter on having good aim and for demonstrating his weapons' capabilities.

There's actually a reasoned debate on this issue (mostly free of personal insults) here:

That actually is a decent conversation. I think I have the snarkiest post over there right now...

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