Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Why are there no consequences for this?

How many Republican Presidential hopefuls were at this meeting?

According to Right Wing Watch: "Jeb Bush, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, Scott Walker, Rick Perry and others."

Yes, the NRA, the only organization with more blood on its hands than the PNAC, held a meeting and these men who would be President attended. And spoke.
At a meeting where this occurred:

VIDEO: At NRA Annual Meeting, Ted Nugent Talked About Shooting Sen. Harry Reid


http://mediamatters.org/embed/static/clips/2015/04/14/39539/nraaanualmeeting-nraannualmeeting-20150412-nugentreidvid

 Nugent called Reid a "lying prick," but described him as a necessary evil, stating, "If your child is dying and there is only one way to get to the doctor, would you get on Harry Reid's boat to get there? ... I'd get on the boat, get there, and then I'd shoot him."



And this happened:

NRA's Wayne LaPierre On Clinton And Obama: "Eight Years Of One Demographically Symbolic President Is Enough"


And of course, there will be no repercussions for their participation in this hate-and-fear-fest.

Imagine if a bunch of Democratic candidates had attended, um. . . well, there is no equivalent group on the Left. Nothing even close to an organization as disgusting and evil as the NRA.
But for the sake of argument, let's use the ACLU. I have a great deal of respect for the ACLU and I am NOT trying to equate them to the NRA. But to many on the Right, the ACLU represents pretty much all that is evil in the world.

Remember the way they hung the ACLU around Mike Dukakis's neck like an albatross? When Bush 1 was running against Dukakis, I, through sheer dumb luck, was handed a ticket to go in to the auditorium at Cal State Fullerton to see Ronald Reagan stump for Bush. I went in with a group of Dukakis supporters and booed him, don't worry. Anyway, one of the things that Reagan had to say about Dukakis was that he was a "card-carrying member of the ACLU" an organization which he claimed wanted to make it legal for our little brothers and sisters to be used in child pornography.

Obviously, this was total bullshit, but the Bush campaign repeted the "card-carrying member" trope over and over til election day.

So what are the odds that any Denmocratic candidate, or any surrogate, or member of the media will call out Cruz, Bush, Rubio, et al for their love of an organization that helps to make thousands of gun deaths possible each year? I'm guessing the odds are about zero. Maybe Alan Grayson might say something, but I can't imagine anyone else would.

Why not? Why shouldn't these candidates have to wear a scarlet A and a scarlet N and R? Every campaign ad, every stump speech by any Democratic candidate should hammer on these sob's embrace of the gun-nut fringe. What are they afraid of? The NRA represents, what, about 2 percent of the population? they claim to have 4.5 million members, that's about 1 and a half percent. Assuming that number is accurate, and assuming there are folks who share their point of view but haven't joined, let's say that's 5 million out of a population of 300 million. And as the recent post-Sandy Hook disgrace showed, the NRA doesn't even represent the views of a majority of its members who agree that the gun-show loophole shopuld be closed, and other mild restrictions should be put in place. So why worry about offending the NRA? You weren't going to get the votes of any of the gun-felaters anyway.

It's about time that we call these psychos out, make membership in their sick organization something about which to be ashamed. It's past time that anyone who admits being a member or supporter of the NRA be treated as a pariah. Talking about your NRA membership should be like talking about your online pornography subscriptions.

The NRA is a profoundly evil organization. There have to be some consequences for embracing them.