If there is any good that came of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, it is that the informal stricture against “politicizing tragedy” enforced by the gun lobby and its allies, and generally complied with by the news media, crumpled, in something akin to a mass act of civil disobedience. The injunction against politicizing tragedy was itself political; now the rest of us are politicizing it back.
via nymag.com
Chait is getting the informal stricture wrong. It is only tragedies like Benghazi, that if politicized reflect badly on his preferred political position, that must not be politicized. There is no stricture against politicizing Newtown, though decency demands that there should be. Not even hours passed, that I am aware of, before this tragedy was politicized. I grant it's not that interesting a question, but one wonders if Chait is so lacking in self-awareness that he does not see how oleaginously self-serving his comments are.--ts
There's an interesting comment here.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/brendanoneill2/100194585/it-isnt-redneck-gun-culture-that-causes-mass-school-shootings-its-the-culture-of-narcissism/
Posted by: dearieme | December 18, 2012 at 03:51 AM
I suppose his point boils down to the proposition that the danger doesn't arise because Americans own guns but because the guns are owned by Americans.
Posted by: dearieme | December 18, 2012 at 03:53 AM