Liberals just love to pose as morally superior and oh so very high minded people. But sometimes they clearly show the ugly and smugly malicious side underlying liberalism’s true character.
Leftist websites are indulging in a gloatfest over a man in South Dakota who accidentally shot himself in the penis. In a textbook exhibition of schadenfreude (defined as “pleasure derived from someone else’s misfortune”) the liberals have worked themselves up into a state of ecstatic glee at the idea that a Republican gun-owner suffered a catastrophic injury to his genitals. Only people with truly warped minds i.e. typical liberals would find satisfaction is such a tragic episode.
Now, there are some twists in the story. The man is a convicted felon, and he shot himself in the middle of trying to buy a gun illegally. And when police arrived at the scene, he tried to blame the shooting on a black assailant. Let me say straight off that if these facts are true, he should be prosecuted for violating the law. And let me also say, his concocted story of a black assailant may indicate that he’s a racist. And the news stories on the internet do not specify the severity of his injuries. But even so, I see no possible justification for finding pleasure or humor in his misfortune.
I can easily imagine the man was in a state of severe shock and panic, and the black assailant story may have been the first thing that came to his mind. That does not make him a card carrying member of the KKK. And although there are laws against convicted felons purchasing guns, on the scale between jaywalking and premeditated murder, his alleged violation in this case is hardly the most heinous of crimes. And it may be the case (I sincerely hope not) that his genitalia are irreparably damaged. The news story makes no mention of the man’s political affiliation, but liberals jump at conclusions.
Talking Points Memo is a typical left-liberal site that decided this was newsworthy. And there is no doubt from the headline “Convicted Felon Shoots Himself In Penis, Blames It On 'A Black Guy'" what lesson Josh Marshall, TPM’s publisher, wishes his readers to draw. In the comments section every single commenter expresses their immense moral satisfaction. Several make the story an occasion for showing off their wit with what they imagine to be clever limericks.
A racist young man from Dakota
Whose brain weighed not half one iota
Was buying a heater
But blew off his peter
And now his schlong’s lacking its quota.
Other commenters speculate that the man may probably be a Republican, and of course what could be greater poetic justice than a Repug (as many TPM readers like to call Republicans, clever, get it? As in Repugnant) suffering a horrifying injury. And of course gun-owners are in for mockery, with the implicit wish they also suffer some such similar accidental wounding.
It is a shockingly ugly spectacle, but not surprising, not if you know these people. Liberals do tend to have a very nasty streak. In my extremely liberal law school I was an object of unbridled scorn and blind hatred. I recall in a constitutional law class there was a discussion of an old Virginia law providing for involuntary sterilizations for indigent women. I suggested that such laws should be evaluated based on the moral understanding and economic situation of the times they were enacted i.e. during the Great Depression. I added as a footnote that one of my own relatives was one of the last women to have been sterilized before the law was repealed. One of my classmates loudly hissed that “it’s too bad your parents weren’t sterilized.” Somehow not one person present thought that was an inappropriate thing to say to another student. Had I been black, gay, or a Democrat such a comment would have been grounds for expulsion. But as a conservative, I was fair game for abuse and discrimination.
In fact, you can be sure if the news story had specified that the man in South Dakota had been black, gay, or a Democrat, none of these liberals would find any humor in it. They would in fact be appalled that anyone could be depraved enough to laugh at such a terrible thing as another human being suffering from genital mutilation. But that’s how liberal double standards work, in their minds anyone they imagine is conservative isn’t really fully human or deserving of basic human decency. Shame on them.