Selective Outrage

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Eugene Robinson writes,

Since the 9/11 attacks, we have demonstrated that when alienated young men who are foreign-born and Muslim kill innocents, we will do anything in our power to keep such atrocities from happening again.

Shamefully, however, we have also shown that when alienated young men who are not foreign-born or Muslim do the same, we are powerless.

Robinson was talking about the failure of the Senate to pass a gun purchase background check law, but it goes further than that. The Texas plant explosion that killed 14 people and injured about 200 is fading from memory even as media are obsessing over every detail of the Boston bomb case. Mike Elk writes,

On Friday, as cable news networks sought desperately to fill airtime while waiting for the latest news in the aftermath of the Boston bombings, a friend asked me, “How come there’s no manhunt for the owner of the Texas factory, which did far more damage than the Boston bombers?” He was right to wonder. …

…After all, while it remains difficult to deduce what may have been the motives of the alleged Boston bombers, it is not so difficult to postulate what was behind the explosion at the West Fertilizer Company’s plant: the failure to follow the science of workplace safety. The plant had 1,350 times the legally allowed amount of highly explosive ammonium nitrate, yet hadn’t informed the Department of Homeland Security of the danger. Likewise, the fertilizer plant did not have sprinklers, shut-off valves, fire alarms or legally required blast walls, all of which could have prevented the catastrophic damage done. And there was little chance regulators would learn about the problems without the company reporting them: Not only had the Occupation Safety and Health Administration not inspected the plant since 1985, but also, due to underfunding, OSHA can only inspect plants like the one in West on average once every 129 years.

One suspects the factory owner is a native Texas white guy, so no, nobody cares. Had he been an immigrant from the Middle East or Latin America, however, he’d be a public enemy now.

Getting back to alienated young men … there does seem to be something that drives some young men to do damnfool things, whether shooting up a movie theater or becoming freelance jihadists. Maybe radical ideology is not the cause of the murderous impulses but just the package the murderous impulses crawl into, to give them some shape. Charles Pierce writes of the younger Tsarnaev,

What are they all going to do if this guy just turns out of be a pathetic, murderous follower of an unhinged older brother? What are they going to do if there’s no “cell,” and if he doesn’t declare his allegiance to jihad in court? What if he is, as he still appears to be, merely Dylan Klebold with a funny name and a pulse? We are supposed to be seeking justice here, not a public blood sacrifice to the gods we’ve made of our fears. What do we do if the truth denies us that?

Truth? Who needs truth?

17 thoughts on “Selective Outrage”

  2. Well, in all fairness to our MSM, industrial accidents like the one in West, TX, happen fairly often – albeit, usually in mines – and fatal workplace accidents are a dime a dozen, so yeah, from their perspective, locking-down their news coverage as Boston and sorrounding towns locked themselves down, while hunting some young terror suspect, and still a potential terror-bomber, made sense.

    Besides, Boston is closer to the MSM centers of NY and DC, and West TX, is about 1/2 way to LA – and, with budgets the way they are, why pay to fly a reporter to TX, when he/she can drive up to MA?

    And the extra-added plus, is the suspect, or at least his brother, was a devout Muslim – and you know how much THAT pumps up the ratings!

    Besides, who wants to go work through incorporation papers to find some older white dude whose factory went “BOOM!”, killing at least 14 people, when the worst that’s going to happen to him, is a slap on the wrist – and, I’m sure that in the tort-free, or tort-limited, FreeDUMB and LiberTEA loving state of TX, after paying legal fees, the civil trial(s) will probably result in enough money for the families of the victims to slap some half-decent faux-marble headstones on their graves?
    Probably…

    So, the kid who killed 6 people with bombs and bullets, will spend the rest of his life in prison – and that’s if they can’t figure some way to give him the death penalty, and the guy who owned that plant that went “BOOM!” killing 14, after greasing the right palms, will probably get state or federal aid to rebuild because – JOBS!!!

    We have selective justice, because if you have enough money, you can select who to elect, and reap the benefits.
    Only losers kill people with gun, or bombs.
    The message here clearly is, become an owner of a company, or CEO, and you can do whatever you want, kill as many as you want, all to your hearts content!

    When do we have the death penalty for the people who own mines that collapse, and fertilizer plants that go “BOOM!”, that kill people?
    If that were the case, then maybe I could come around from my absolutist stance of, “NO DEATH PENALTY!!!”

  3. Those first two sentences from Robinson capture the conservative trifecta of denial, fear-of-other-hysteria, and spite with a simplicity that even conservatives should “get”…but probably won’t. What we have here are distinctly human problems for which some are hell-bent on turning a strinct matter of “them, not us”. I find that a sadly primitive and dehumanizing case of selective understanding and total absence of empathy.

    For the past several days I’ve marvelled at the juxtaposition of :

    1. how we submit to the inconventience of removing our shoes at departing gates yet the eventual 3-4 minute delay in purchasing a gun is tyranny
    2. the disproportionate outrage in one incident in which a couple of people died and another in which 5-10 times that number did.

    Apparently the response, outrage and call for changes is inversely proportional to similarity in appearance which is starting to sound more like a personality disorder than patriotism.

    Must everything be a matter of us vs. them in their closed reptilian minds? That’s sickening.

    I think John Cleese was right, extremism including the drama and hysteria we’re witnessing must feel good to some though I suspect it’ll take years off one’s life.

  5. If we had sensible gun laws, the marathon bombers would not have been able to get guns. One of them was not even a citizen.

  6. “Had he been an immigrant from the Middle East or Latin America, however, he’d be a public enemy now”

    Well of course, we have learned this behavior from our closest and dearest ally Israel. Maybe someday we like them will round all the rag-heads up, subject them to constant harassment and conceal them behind fifteen foot concrete walls.

  7. And where are the Bible-thumpers when things like our banking/finance disaster and West explosion happen? They’re still joining groups like “Christians Against Obama” and going for enemies who do not donate to them and ignoring the “sins” of those who look like them and therefore must be good people.

  8. Maybe radical ideology is not the cause of the murderous impulses but just the package the murderous impulses crawl into, to give them some shape.

    That would be my guess. I think they call that justification.. and it’s the most efficient way to avoid looking at yourself and accepting responsibilty for your actions. Torquemada loved it..and so does George Bush. When you take away the glamous patriotic justifications, shock and awe, and torturing doesn’t look so good.

  9. The elimination of the applicable signing statements from the bush 2 era would probably be a good place to start the re regulation of guns. We really don’t need more laws, just the enforcement of the laws that we have, and already agree upon. After all, how did the older brother get his weapon, investigate that, How were these folks getting money, if on welfare, as just on the news, how did they get too visit the family overseas? These “news” leaks sound strident, as if to invoke fear, not information…foxie, makes me wonder? Propaganda, next step to the police state? Only two or three more liberty losses, and we are there. It will be a shame to lose this country, just because of the house is afraid of the public.

  10. I hate to say it, but another reason why the bombing in West, Texas isn’t getting the wall-to-wall press gossiping treatment (‘The owner travelled abroad in 2004, and may have gotten training in explosives!) is simply the fact that it happened in West, Texas, and reporters would have to leave their cushy desks to report it. Heck, there’s not even a direct flight from DC.

    Boston has the ‘advantage’ of being a quick air shuttle or train ride away, and in the same time zone. Who the heck wants to go out to some blasted podunk on the outskirts of Waco?

    It would be kind of funny to see stories about the scandalous past of the Fertilizer Bombers, though. Why didn’t Homeland Security flag these guys before they blew up a town!!!???

  12. As a chlid of “The Cold War”, I shudder to think what would have heppened if two Russian immigrants set off bombs and had a gunfight with cops in 1974.

    Here in Florida, we view traffic fatalalities as “the cost of doing business”, but shark attacks are sensational.

  13. OT – but if you need a good laugh:
    We know how well the Republican outreach program is going with women – NOT!!!

    Here, on gay issues, they want to dock the pay of judges – but ONLY the ones who vote that marriage is not exclusively between a man and a woman. So, their outreach to homosexuals looks like it’ll work as well as the one for women.

    http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/04/24/iowa-lawmakers-to-slash-justices-pay-by-80-percent-for-2009-lgbt-marriage-ruling/

    And you have to love our Constitution-loving, and hugging, Conservative politicians – you know, the ones who don’t know one feckin’ thing about it.
    LOL!!!

    • The Missouri state legislature has been crazy for years. There’s something in the water in Jefferson City, I tell you.

  16. “Have a peek and see if you can encapsulate in words what’s going at a deeper level in the link below”

    Arm the children, it’s the only way!

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