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Blood Pool

PRAYER AND SAN BERNARDINO

[ Emphasis and {commentary} in red type by Abyssum ]

It was a bizarre mass shooting yesterday in California, with aspects that do not match up with typical activity. http://vlt.tc/27h2  “Police were still searching for a motive late Wednesday night after two shooters stormed a holiday gathering for county employees and killed 14 people in the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. in three years. Syed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, dropped off their six-month baby girl with Mr. Farook’s mother early Wednesday morning, a family member said. Mr. Farook, a San Bernardino County employee, later attended a work holiday event and at some point, left the party in anger, law-enforcement officials said.

“Mr. Farook, 28 years old, then allegedly returned 10 minutes to 30 minutes later, with Ms. Malik, 27. The pair, dressed in “assault-style clothing” { surely it would have taken Syed Farook at least 10 to 15 minutes to don the assault-style clothing and to assemble all his weaponry with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, which surely indicates that this was indeed a well planned, pre-planned, terrorist operation }  opened fire, according to police, killing 14 people and wounding 17 others. Hours later, the couple were killed in a gunbattle on the street with police, just 2 miles from where the mass shooting had occurred. Authorities said the pair were found armed with assault rifles and semiautomatic handguns.”

The bits and pieces of information that have trickled out in the media seem to indicate the possibility that this “assault-style clothing” – according to some reports, including body armor and GoPro cameras – was not intended for a shooting that may have been motivated by a workplace incident {it was intended for terrorist motives which have yet to be uncovered, but which will surely be uncovered as the FBI interrogates family and friends and examines all the evidence collected from the home of Syed and Tashfeen }. It could have been intended for some other use. This was not a lone-wolf gunman attack, but it also does not seem organized with the normal suicidal jihadi intent. There are just a host of questions here still unanswered.

But that has not stopped the Democrats from deciding how they’re going to avoid letting this tragedy go to waste. Already a Democratic PAC is trying to exploit San Bernardino by claiming Paul Ryan abetting terrorists. http://vlt.tc/27gi  “When Paul Ryan and the entire Republican Party refuse to stand up to the NRA and the gun industry and pass common sense gun reforms — as they did once again just yesterday — they are aiding and abetting those terrorists. Period.”

Obviously, Democrats aren’t afraid to be anti-gun anymore. http://vlt.tc/27gw  But there is simply no logic to this attack. Farook had no criminal record that would have prevented him from purchasing legally, as he apparently did, at least some of the guns used in this attack. http://vlt.tc/27h3  Just as with the rhetoric about the use of a terror watch list to prevent gun purchases, Democratic anti-gun efforts have now reached the stage of denying Constitutional rights to people who have never been convicted of anything. Short of that, you can’t prevent something like this.

As for the media, it is ridiculing the “thoughts and prayers” expressions from Republican politicians. The New York Daily News cover is the harshest expression of ridicule for those who invoke a spiritual, rather than a political, response:

Mollie Hemingway responds. http://vlt.tc/27gj

That’s when things got super weird. For some reason, much of the media began mocking the efficacy of prayer. This was happening while victims of the shooting were actually asking people to pray. I mean, the critiques were everywhere. An editor at ThinkProgress said, and I quote, “Stop thinking. Stop praying.” There’s a bumper sticker for you!

“Theodicy attempts to defend God’s goodness and omnipotence in light of the existence of evil. “Why do bad things happen to good people?” the question goes. (To which a Lutheran might reply, “Trick question! There are no good people!”) There are various schools of thought and debate, rekindled with every hurricane, tsunami, earthquake, act of terror, and mass shooting. Progressives seem to begin their response to tragedy with the question, “Why do bad things happen to good governments?”

“The theodicy of federal government seeks to defend the goodness of government in the face of tragedy. So just as some religious groups might blame a weather event on insufficient fealty to the relevant god, some progressives blame — before we actually know what is even going on in a given tragedy — insufficient fealty, sacrifice, and offerings to the relevant god of federal government. And so they explain that the god of good government would have been able to take care of us if only we’d given it sufficient power to do so. In this case, that power is gun control.

“Progressives tend to believe that government — if made to have sufficient size, scope, and proper management over the affairs of man — will fix or at least seriously mitigate the problem of evil in the world. Conservatives tend to believe that human nature is flawed and inclined toward bad things. Conservatives believe that government, being made up of humans, will also be inclined toward bad things, and therefore it must be restrained and not given a dangerous amount of power. They tend to see greater success for fixing problems in society with voluntary associations and institutions, such as families and community and organizations. Progressives tend to believe that man can be perfected, and perfected through government action. These almost cartoonish denunciations of prayer we saw yesterday, combined with the implicit praises of government action, are best understood as a sort of primitive religious reaction to the problem that growth of the state still hasn’t fixed the problem of evil in the world.”

RELATED: Syed Farook was identified as a ‘very religious’ Muslim. http://vlt.tc/27gh  Police, feds probe terror as possible motive in SoCal massacre. http://vlt.tc/27gx  Terrorists Murder Out Of Love, Not Hate. http://vlt.tc/27gp  Prayer vs. Gun Control After a Mass Shooting in San Bernardino. http://vlt.tc/27gt  Media tangles itself in rumors linking Calif. shooting to Planned Parenthood. http://vlt.tc/27gu

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