If you haven’t seen it yet, head over to College Insurrection for Rhode Island prof demands NRA chief’s “head on a stick”, regarding University of Rhode Island assistant professor Erik Loomis.
Loomis is outraged that he is being called out:
Oooh, the obligatory Glenn Reynolds attack on me for going after the NRA. How exciting. pjmedia.com/instapundit/15…
— Erik Loomis (@ErikLoomis) December 18, 2012
This comment to my post at CI brings up memories of the low cause-and-effect standard set up by left for rhetoric and imagery from the right:
Mark Reardon | December 18, 2012 at 10:25 am
Since I don’t Tweet, would someone tell Mr. Loomis that metaphor was explained to us very clearly when Sarah Palin was guilty of shooting Gabby Gifford because of the crosshairs on a campaign map. We’ve learned that lesson, why is he so upset we’re applying it?
For those of you who don’t remember, left-wing bloggers and ultimately the mainstream media drove the meme that Sarah Palin was connected to the shooting of Gabby Giffords by Jared Loughner because Palin had used an electoral map (similar to one previously used by Democrats) of the country with bullseyes on various districts, including Giffords’.
We now know that Loughner was insane, so much so that he initially was declared incompetent to stand trial, and there was zero evidence that Loughner was political, was conservative/Tea Party (if anything, he as liberal), or even ever saw the map.
Yet none of that stopped the media from blaming Palin for the murder.
I wrote about the sequence of events We Just Witnessed The Media’s Test Run To Re-Elect Barack Obama:
I previously posted about a CNN poll showing that 35% of all people (including 56% of Democrats and 34% of Independents) believe that Palin has a great deal or moderate amount of responsibility for the shooting. A PPP poll reflects that 26% of all people (including 45% of Democrats and 22% of Independents) believe Palin bears “at least some responsibility” for the shooting.
These are big numbers, considering that there is no evidence as of this date that Jared Loughner ever even saw the Palin electoral target map which put Palin at the center of attacks over the shooting.
The false connection of the Palin electoral target map to the shooting did not start in the mainstream media. As I have documented, that false connection started with bloggers at DailyKos and Think Progress using Twitter to push the issue into the mainstream media within hours of the shooting with the help of their followers.
The ruthless efficiency with which the left-wing blogosphere tied Palin to the shooting, and the success of their efforts in equating Palin with mass murder, is a lesson we should not forget.
Here’s what Loomis wrote at the time about Palin being unfairly blamed (emphasis mine):
From a political perspective, the big loser is Sarah Palin. Truthfully, the whole Tea Party movement loses here because a lot of Americans are flinching in the face of the violent rhetoric that propelled them to power. Many Republicans are defending themselves vociferously. Some, such as Rush Limbaugh, claim that Loughner was a liberal and a Democrat, but this just alienates most people at this time. But no one lost more than Palin.
Perhaps she was right to be irritated that people connected her with the shooting, but then again, she’s the one who had a target over Giffords’ district.
Palin never threatened anyone, and no one reasonably could have taken a standard electoral map as advocating violence. Yet for purely policital purposes Loomis and many others held Palin to account.
What goes around comes around.
Update — Via Twitchy, Loomis has deleted his Twitter account. The past day’s tweets are saved in Google Cache.
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Comments
https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/280881070373744640
It’s a metaphor for killing somebody.
I was going to e-mail his President at Rhode Island, but no e-mail listed. Does someone have it?
I’m against emailing employers, because it’s been done to me.
Glad to see you say so, Mr. Jacobson. Surprised it’s so common a reaction, and that no one spoke against the idea in the comments at Campus Reform. The answer to speech one doesn’t like or approve of is more speech, and online disagreements, no matter how hyperbolic, shouldn’t translate to offline acts (…unless there are legitimate safety concerns, anyway…and if you have those, you should probably be reporting them to the police, not the guy’s boss.)
I object to that policy. What’s Cornell’s e-mail? 🙂
But only if the statement is made by a liberal.
http://twitchy.com/2012/12/16/post-newtown-witch-hunt-nra-president-and-members-bombarded-with-death-threats/
NSFW, btw. Depending on where you work.
The histrionics around this are flushing (I use the term advisedly) the dregs of the Collective out.
Instructive. Literally. Print this stuff off for your instruction of those you should be educating around you.
I have been letting @ErikLoomis have a piece of my mind on twitter about this and so has many others.
https://twitter.com/search?q=%40ErikLoomis
A value of Twitter is you can directly address people and they see it in their home page/timeline.
It is obvious Loomis is personally monitoring his twitter account. It’s not being run by a surrogate.
Well, he blocked me! My first block! Yeaaaaaaa! I’m now an official right wing whacko!
Congratulations, JoAnne! Loomis Got Your Memo. 😉
JoAnne, as you may know and others may not know… another value of Twitter is the “retweet” feature.
Even though Loomis has no doubt blocked me now, others have been sending him retweets of my, and others, initial tweets addressed to him and all that has drawn many more into tweeting him directly. It’s like a mini-viral tweet storm.
His twitter block button must be getting a through and ongoing workout today. Poor him, not.
Give me a shout out on twitter, dear, and let me know you are JoAnne from LI. Would like to be assured that I am following you there.
Anyone tempted to dip their toe in the Twitter waters, I suggest using TweetDeck as your twitter interface.
It is free and can be found at http://www.tweetdeck.com/
If, while using it, you click on a word or a phrase which has a # as its leading character a very cool thing happens.
#tcot is for conservatives tweet visibility as #p2 is for progressives.
As is always the case they can dish it out but they cannot take it. Cowards.
Just my thoughts –
It seems that one of the pieces that is common to many of the cases of mass violence committed has been the failure to report and follow up on threats that were posted in the public sphere by those individuals. Therefore, it does seem reasonable that the individuals who are making the unfortunate choice to use their Twitter accounts to make specific violent threats against identifiable individuals such as NRA Members should be referred to the AG in their state.
Just to clarify – My concern is not that I disagree with his speech or point of view. However, I do believe that the use of intentional rhetorical threats is inappropriate. There is a huge jump from “targeting Senate seats” to threatening the lives of NRA Members.
I like this. These people are clearly making threats over interstate electronic networks — which, AFAICR, is a federal crime.
They’re doing so in order to influence the targets’ politics, which I think is another federal crime, again AFAICR.
Sure would be fun if these clowns had long talks with friendly FBI agents.
You are assuming our country still respects federal laws. They don’t. They follow those they like and ignore those they do not, guided solely by the WH political agenda. The chances of Eric Holder allowing the FBI to investigate are very slim. No, I’m wrong. The chances are nonexistent.
I don’t know that it would work everywhere – but in States with Republican Attorney Generals, you might get a bit of attention given to the matter.
” Some, such as Rush Limbaugh, claim that Loughner was a liberal and a Democrat”
Loughner’s delusions drew more from the left than from the right. Make of that what you will.
Loughner’s motive for the shooting was quietly disclosed in the media to the horror of Progressives.
He was a volunteer in Giffords previous campaign and became jaded and angry at her as a result of her voting record, believing she had politically betrayed his reasons for being a prior Giffords campaign volunteer.
How many people in the US are aware that Giffords was a moderate Democrat who supported gun rights?
Compare that number to how many people believe the lie they were told by the liberal media that Palin was responsible for that shooting.
Before the discussion of Loughner was shutdown I got the following snippets.
Loughner!s ‘m & Giffords were members of the same reformist synagogue.
Loughner’s mother had one of those youth dream jobs
Millions of people are alone on. christmas
The Discovery Channel has now cancelled their TV show ‘American Guns’ in the wake of progressive screams at them following the shooting last week.
This has been a responsible family oriented program which educates young and old, men and women, about gun safety and responsible behavior.
[This is a slightly edited version of a comment I recently posted over at College Insurrection.]
IT’S SIMPLE, REALLY: Obscure professor Erik Loomis — Instapundit’s self-styled arch-enemy — craves attention.
Having never heard of Loomis until a couple hours ago, when I read Glenn Reynolds’ post on Instapundit mentioning William Jacobson’s coverage of Loomis calling for the assassination of the head of the NRA, I wondered why in the world a university professor would conduct himself in such a manner.
Then I headed over to Loomis’s Twitter feed (@ErikLoomis), where he remarked on “[h]ow exciting” it was to have become Instapundit’s arch-enemy: https://twitter.com/ErikLoomis/status/281032500661338112.
Then I headed over to Loomis’s blog where he’d posted: “Being attacked by a David Horowitz wannabe for saying I wanted to see Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick has led to a world of fun . . . .” http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2012/12/on-metaphors-and-violence.
Then I did a bit of Google-ing to see if Loomis had ever in the past said anything else remotely interesting that anyone bothered to mention, and what his reaction was to it. On the website of a school he used to teach at, Southwestern University, I found a short article on a little speech he delivered at a sorority in which he parroted some liberal talking points about anti-modernism and environmentalism: http://southwestern.edu/su_blogs/megaphone/2009/10/23/tri-deltas-last-lecture-spotlights-erik-loomis.
The article was a puff piece (which is fine for a campus publication spotlighting an assistant professor), talking about Loomis’s presentation of “his deepest and integral philosophy,” etc.
Then I headed over to Loomis’s Facebook page to see whether he’d hyped this silly little article, and whether there was any indication of a deep craving for attention. Sure enough, he posted a link (and a photo of the cover of the magazine; it was the cover article): http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=164395195958&set=pb.668470958.-2207520000.1355854999.
From the comments of his friend, and his comments, you’d think Loomis had delivered a speech ranking with the “Gettysburg Address” or the “I Have a Dream” speech!:
Erik Loomis: Let’s get back to the important things — me. Here’s the full article
Colin Snider My favorite part of that is the final bit, about “shortly after Loomis closed, applause erupted.” I know what they meant, but that “pause” leads to some hilarious open-endedness (did they applaud because you were finished? Was there some other announcement made right after you finished that led to the applause?) And it’s really, really weird seeing you in a jacket like that.
Erik Loomis: I’ve received a lot of comments about the jacket. And who knows why they applauded….
Virginia Scharff: “provocative, foreboding, funny and inspirational”– what a very sweet and thoughtful article. Congratulations to you. Sounds like a huge hit.
B Erin Cole: Wow, that’s a great article! It sounds like it was a fantastic lecture . . . .
Yann Kerevel: I can’t wait to brag about knowing Erik Lommis. Awesome!
Karthika Muthukumaraswamy: This is awesome! Congrats! Sounds like it was one amazing lecture….
Melissa Byrnes: I think you need to hire a company to manage your “brand.”
From this admittedly quick look into the fellow, the conclusion seems pretty obvious: Erik Loomis is an attention whore who isn’t satisfied with getting insipid comments on his Facebook page and blog, so he’s turned to calling for the execution of his enemies on Twitter so as to garner a bit more attention. A bit sad?
From his bio, which lists him as an assistant professor, it’s unclear to me whether he has tenure: http://www.uri.edu/artsci/his/Erik_Loomis.html.
If not, Erik, good luck with that.
Congratulations, Bill, on being quoted by Wes Pruden of the Washington Times:
When tragedy strikes, the hysterics rule
By Wesley Pruden
December 18, 2012
“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . yours is the earth and everything that’s in it, and which is more, you’ll be a man. . . ”
Well, maybe. But Kipling is an old guy who has nothing to say to us. Being a man is not even the proper 21st century response to crisis. We’re all modern here, so we must emulate frightened, hysterical old women like Mayor Michael Bloomberg of New York City, who thinks he knows how to silence the guns.
President Obama should ignore Congress and write out an executive order tomorrow morning to make the streets safe for everyone, including all the little kitties. “The president,” Bloomberg says, “can introduce legislation even if it doesn’t get passed.”
Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California promises to introduce legislation to curb the power of “the gun lobby.” Sen. Charles Schumer of New York gets in his usual rail about guns and the nuts who own them. Mayor Rahm Emanuel of Chicago, where people-shooting is the municipal sport, says it’s time “the leadership in Congress will have a vote of conscience.” Since only gun hysterics have a conscience we can imagine how Hizzoner expects that vote to go.
It’s not just the politicians who are wetting their pants. Someone should call 911 because the CNN newsroom needs medical help. “For the past three days,” cried one correspondent on air, “I have been on the verge of tears every second and most of the people here have been crying 24 hour straight.” Ed Schultz of MSNBC, where creepy crawlies have leapt from Chris Matthews’ thigh to run up and down random legs in the newsroom, thinks there’s no time for due process: “It’s the confiscation of these types of weapons that counts and will have an impact.” Bob Schieffer of CBS News is relieved that the Connecticut shooter is a good Judeo-Christian American: “If this person had had, I’m sorry to say this, but if he had had an Arab name people would be going nuts about what we ought to do right now.” What an odd thing to say. People with Arab names have done evil things sometimes – the Fort Hood massacre comes to mind – and there’s no record of anybody going nuts over it. But it sounds like the right thing to say.
Hysteria and frenzy are clearly the way the politicians and media elites think we should deal with tragedy. These media worthies might better spend their tears and lamentations over the reckless coverage of the tragedy, when speculation, supposition and make-believe were presented as fact. Errors included the wrong number of the dead, the false identification of the shooter, the wrong guns identified, and the way the shooter was dressed. Tragedy was compounded by media ghouls who descended on surviving children and parents, stuffing microphones the size of beer cans in their faces to ask, “how did it feel?” Alas, editors have been chased out of the media.
Only reluctantly, some questions are raised now about whether such shooters are usually crazy, and what to do about them. A recent survey by Mother Jones magazine found that 38 of the 61 shooters in massacres over the past three decade “displayed signs of mental health problems prior to the killings.”
Prof. William Jacobson of the Cornell University Law School suggests that laws inspired by the ACLU make it difficult to identify and intervene with known nuts. “Will we address mental-health and educational-privacy laws, which instill fear of legal liability for reporting potentially violent mentally ill people to law enforcement? I doubt it.”
No one wants to talk about the tawdry and violent pop culture that has become a tsunami of blood and gore. An entire generation has been poisoned by a steady diet of television and movie shootings, knifings, explosions and assorted trauma.
Cardinal Donald Wuerl, archbishop of Washington, suggests we need to look into our hearts.
“What is it in our culture, what is it in our society that leads to this type of violence? Is it that we are so focused on ourselves? Is it that we don’t regard the dignity of every single person, the value of every single life, as something precious? Have we created such a mindset in our country that human life isn’t considered any longer precious, sacred, something we’re not allowed to take? We have to do some soul-searching.”
Good questions all, but there’s more media bang-bang with guns.
Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
[…] Violent rhetoric for we, but not for thee (legalinsurrection.com) […]
I also am against emailing employers; it’s a clown move. Having said that, I suspect some employers, such as universities, may start to require employees to disclose their social media accounts in the same way that public employees must disclose conflicts of interest or outside employment information.
I would suspect that his meeting with the dean did not go well today and that is why he deleted his twitter account. Of course, that is just a guess though.
I’m led to believe that Assistant Perfesser Loomis had a meeting with the Dean today. Can’t wait to hear how that went.
[…] recently delved a bit into Erik Loomis’s apparent craving for attention. I thought I’d delve a bit into his scholarship in response to R.S. McCain’s tweet […]
This just serves to underscore the need to tightly control, if not outright ban, the manufacture, distribution and possession of pointy sticks (often referred to as “pikes”). Only when we do this will we see an end to the “head-on-a-pike” violence that plagues our society.
Furthermore, pikes with multiple forked branches that possess many pointy tips fall under the definition of the notorious “assault pikes” and are especially deserving of this ban.
That ought to take care of the problem.
Riiiiiiight????
The so called Professor should remember what happens to intellectuals, real or otherwise, like himself when communists or socialist come to power. Study your history professor and be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
[…] “Instapundit” Reynolds and Cornell University Law Professor William Jacobson’s Legal Insurrection site, as well as American Thinker and others collected by the blog-aggregation site Memeorandum. […]
[…] Professor Erik “Head on a Stick” Loomis has established a new precedent in Online Civil Discourse: Any epithet-strewn obscene rant full of violent language against political opponents is acceptable, as long as you explain that it is a Metaphor Right-Wing Morons Can’t Understand. […]
[…] Violent rhetoric for we, but not for thee (legalinsurrection.com) […]
[…] ? Violent rhetoric for we, but not for thee (Update – Twitter account … […]