Blaming [_______]

Let's recap what movement conservatism has taught us about the Virginia Tech shooting.

1. As Charles Krauthammer said, we should not use the shooting to make political points. Unless you're Charles Krauthammer.

Lesson: do as neoconservatives say, not as they do.

2. The students who were murdered were cowards because they didn't rush the shooter like the heroes of Flight 93. The students were cowards because they've been wussified by liberals.

Lesson: Cowards are liberals, and liberals are cowards. Heroes are conservative, and thus the heros of Flight 93 were conservatives.

3. The killing happened because the students were not carrying concealed weapons. They weren't carrying concealed weapons because of liberals.

Lesson: Guns don't kill people, liberals who prevent America from reaching its full potential of a nation full of John Wayne style armed bad-ass gun heroes kills people.

4. The killer resented the rich kids at school, which makes him a liberal. So says Rush Limbaugh.

Lesson: Liberals are prone to be homicial mass murderers.

4. Somehow the shooting discredits atheism and Richard Dawkins. So says Islamic terrorist sympathsizer D'Nesh D'Souza (h/t James Still)

Lesson: Atheists are to be blamed for tragedies even if no one can come up with any sort of reason why they should be blamed for the tragedy.

*Sigh*

Now I notice over at The Vanity Press (as far as I can tell, TVP is the blogger formely known as The Green Knight) that I'll comment on briefly. Vanity Press blogger writes:

In all the Very Serious Ponitificating from certain quarters on how the VTechstudents and faculty are a demonstration of the Decline of the West, and Not How We Did Things in the Old Days, I've noticed one glaring absence: namely, not one of these pontificators -- that I've seen, anyway -- has been able to come up with a single historical instance of a psycho killer on a shooting spree being stopped by a bunch of unarmed civilians.

What I find interesting about this passage is the them of a cultural decline. You're starting to see this more and more from movement conservatism, every tragedy that occurs is indicative of cultural decline, and every tragedy occurs has a silver bullet answer. Either we weren't conservative enough and/or "liberals" were to blame for some reason or other.

This sentiment that society is decaying as a result of liberal decadence and what not (the central premise of D'Souza's latest bit of hate-literature) is one of the key components of fascism.

Now, I'm not saying that any of this means these pundits are fascist. But what I'm saying and will be saying is that the elements and conditions that have historically metastasized into fascism are starting to coalesce, and I'm seeing dark clouds on the horizon. (Once you get to chapter 7 of The Authoritarians you'll see Altemeyer is seeing them, too.) More on this in the next month or so.

Update: I was on my way out the door, but I couldn't leave without linking to this piece at Greenwald's blog. It is simply amazing the depths to which neoconservatives will go to justify their love of endless and permanent warfare.

But to relate this to the issue of fascist creep, Glenn provides a number of bloggers and figures who have swallowed up the most ridiculous "discovery" of WMDs possible. The article was writtene by a British neoconservative who fears impending conquer by hordes of Islamic terrorists. These people are living in a fantasy world, a parallel reality of their own making. Hannah Arendt warned about that as one of the signs of nascent totalitarianism.

It would be laughable if these weren't the sorts of people who are influencing the president and still in control of the U.S. military.

But this is the most amazing of all

Jim Henley provides some additional information about Dave Gaubatz, including his organization devoted to celebrating the unique "White Christians" -- "a distinct people and privileged as such" -- who founded the country.

Fascist creep, indeed.