Joe the Plumber: Guns > Dead Kids = FREEDOM

Hey, remember that Joe the Plumber guy?

Yeah, this guy, the shiny one with the microphone in front of that old lesbian Lindsey Graham?

You know, S. Joe Wurzelbacher, the Ohio "small business owner" who asked a question about taxes during a 2008 Obama campaign stop, and was then made into an "average American" hero by the conservative media? Remember how his pithy sobriquet was repeatedly invoked during the next debate, by both McCain and Obama, as an avatar for Real 'Murica? And remember how he turned out to not actually be a plumber after all? [Skip to the bottom for the tl;dr version!]

Yeah. That guy. After his 2008 fame waned, he reappeared like a pasty bald poltergeist in 2012 to run for Congress as a tea-thumping Republican. Despite being an icon of True American Manhood, he received a mere 30% of the vote. In American politics, we call that a "good old fashioned whupping." Apparently, Mr. the Plumber did not take this resounding defeat as a sign that public life wasn't really his cuppa' bullshit.

Joe, the classy gentleman that he is, wrote a heartfelt hateful Internet open letter to the families of those killed in Friday's horrible shooting spree in Isla Vista, California, which left six dead (plus the killer) and several wounded. The letter is a true masterpiece of heartless gall, of paranoia trumping empathy, of right-wing lunacy lashing out against the tide of history. In it, Joe asks the families of Friday's gun violence victims to resist the urge to speak out for stricter gun regulation, for such talk only plays into the hands of the "gun-grab extremists." After all, while they may be mourning murdered children, Joe still has his con-stuh-tooshunal rights! Seriously, that's what he says:

"Your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights."

your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/27/open-letter-parents-victims-murdered-elliot-rodger/#2OHeqaPRpyfhjdsx.99

your dead kids don’t trump my Constitutional rights.
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/27/open-letter-parents-victims-murdered-elliot-rodger/#2OHeqaPRpyfhjdsx.99

Wow. Joe, that's not harsh, that's horrible. Does he think these people, mourning family killed mere days ago, give a shit about him and his rights? Why the hell should they? The Internet is a wonderfully impersonal medium, but could he actually say this out loud, in person? I would like to see Mr. (not-actually-a) Plumber look these grieving people in the eye and read them his letter. I don't think he actually has the chutzpah to directly face these families and say, Sorry about your dead kid, good sir/madam, but Second Amendment, so shut the fuck up already. Yes, I would definitely like to see him do this and do so while completely unarmed; these rabid firearm fanatics tend to use bullets to make up for missing testicles, so I'm not sure he'd be so bold without a shiny bangy tube by his side. This is, after all, the root of the fear driving him to write this drivel, that the only thing making him feel like a man will be taken away.

Oh, to be fair, Joe is terribly sorry for their loss. Mourning a murdered child, says Joe, is "the one thing I never want to go through." Indeed, and even though having a gun in the home significantly increases the likelihood that your kids will be killed by a gun, Joe knows that being armed to the teeth is the ticket to avoiding personal tragedy. Joe say it is his duty to protect himself and his family against... he doesn't say... so, I don't know, hoodie-wearing black kids? He can't begin to imagine the pain of losing a child, but urges of the parents "any feelings you have toward my rights being taken away from me, lose those."

the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/27/open-letter-parents-victims-murdered-elliot-rodger/#2OHeqaPRpyfhjdsx.99

the one thing I never want to go through, is what you are going through now
Read more at http://barbwire.com/2014/05/27/open-letter-parents-victims-murdered-elliot-rodger/#2OHeqaPRpyfhjdsx.99

Innocent people have been murdered. Sensible gun control maybe would have prevented it; even if not, it's certainly reasonable to continue the conversation about gun violence in America and what to do about it. But no, we must not, for Joe says that "the future of our very liberty lies in the balance of this fight."

He's right about that, but he's on the wrong side of the scale.

(Strangely, Joe seems to imply that upon investigation, these mass murders all turn out to be Democrats, "Obama voters." I'm curious where he got that fact, and why it even matters? The Isla Vista shooter certainly seemed to have some rather illiberal delusions motivating his spree, regardless of any votes he may have cast.)

tl;dr

Here's a concise open letter in reply.

Dear Joe,

Fuck you and the pipe you rode in.

Yours,

The Human Race

[h/t Right Wing Watch]