February 19, 2018
It's the Culture, Stupid!
Dana Mathewson this from Urgent Agenda:
REMARKABLE INSIGHT – AT 3:31 P.M. ET: Readers send us links all the time, but there's a current article that's been sent to us more times than any other in about a year. It notes that the left is now reaping the whirlwind from the culture it has created. From PJ Media:
It was after a school shooting near Spokane last September that Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich addressed a clutch of reporters:
When I was in high school, every one of those rigs in the high school parking lot had a gun in the gun rack. Why? We went hunting on the way home. None of those guns ever walked into a school, none of those guns ever shot anybody... Did the gun change or did you as a society change? I'll give you odds it was you as a society. Because you started glorifying cultures of violence. You glorified the gang culture, you glorified games that actually gave you points for raping and killing people. The gun didn't change, we changed.
It seems clear to me the sheriff was speaking about rap music with its hateful, violent and misogynistic lyrics, and video games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can have sex with a prostitute then strangle her or pull an innocent person out of a car, beat him, then steal his vehicle.
I am a First Amendment purist and don't want to see expression censored in any way. And I don't argue that there's a straight line between any specific cultural creation and bad acts. But surely, a culture in which those in authority approve of and argue for things like gangsta rap and GTA — and indeed for the use of violence to silence speech that offends them — well, such a culture becomes a machine for transforming madness into murder.
It reminds me of some wisdom from another two sheriffs, the fictional sheriffs from the Coen Brothers movie of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men discussing the mindless violence that has taken over society.
"Once you stop hearing 'sir' and 'ma'am' the rest is soon to follow," says one.
"It's the tide, the dismal tide," says the other. "It's not the one thing."
The left wants to defend gangstas and "transgressive" art and antifa thugs — but when the shooting starts, they blame the guns.
COMMENT: Read the rest.
Did you, or your parents, ever think you'd be living in a time like this?
Makes me want to read that novel! I've still got a gift card from B&N from Christmas. Had it earmarked for another book, but maybe I should look this one up instead.
Dana replies:
No, I can't. I can imagine him very indignantly refusing. Same for a number of other great singers.
We didn't know how good we had it when we were young -- or when I was young (and Eddie), I should say. Turning on the radio and hearing Cole, Crosby, Sinatra, The Andrews Sisters, Perry Como, Dick Haymes, Margaret Whiting, Kay Karr, and others of that quality -- as a matter of course. I should have gotten down on my knees and thanked God for it, if I'd known how unique it was.
I DO remember hearing my first Elvis record (Heartbreak Hotel) and thinking the world was coming to an end.
REMARKABLE INSIGHT – AT 3:31 P.M. ET: Readers send us links all the time, but there's a current article that's been sent to us more times than any other in about a year. It notes that the left is now reaping the whirlwind from the culture it has created. From PJ Media:
It was after a school shooting near Spokane last September that Spokane Sheriff Ozzie Knezovich addressed a clutch of reporters:
When I was in high school, every one of those rigs in the high school parking lot had a gun in the gun rack. Why? We went hunting on the way home. None of those guns ever walked into a school, none of those guns ever shot anybody... Did the gun change or did you as a society change? I'll give you odds it was you as a society. Because you started glorifying cultures of violence. You glorified the gang culture, you glorified games that actually gave you points for raping and killing people. The gun didn't change, we changed.
It seems clear to me the sheriff was speaking about rap music with its hateful, violent and misogynistic lyrics, and video games like Grand Theft Auto, where you can have sex with a prostitute then strangle her or pull an innocent person out of a car, beat him, then steal his vehicle.
I am a First Amendment purist and don't want to see expression censored in any way. And I don't argue that there's a straight line between any specific cultural creation and bad acts. But surely, a culture in which those in authority approve of and argue for things like gangsta rap and GTA — and indeed for the use of violence to silence speech that offends them — well, such a culture becomes a machine for transforming madness into murder.
It reminds me of some wisdom from another two sheriffs, the fictional sheriffs from the Coen Brothers movie of Cormac McCarthy's novel No Country for Old Men discussing the mindless violence that has taken over society.
"Once you stop hearing 'sir' and 'ma'am' the rest is soon to follow," says one.
"It's the tide, the dismal tide," says the other. "It's not the one thing."
The left wants to defend gangstas and "transgressive" art and antifa thugs — but when the shooting starts, they blame the guns.
COMMENT: Read the rest.
Did you, or your parents, ever think you'd be living in a time like this?
Makes me want to read that novel! I've still got a gift card from B&N from Christmas. Had it earmarked for another book, but maybe I should look this one up instead.
Dana replies:
No, I can't. I can imagine him very indignantly refusing. Same for a number of other great singers.
We didn't know how good we had it when we were young -- or when I was young (and Eddie), I should say. Turning on the radio and hearing Cole, Crosby, Sinatra, The Andrews Sisters, Perry Como, Dick Haymes, Margaret Whiting, Kay Karr, and others of that quality -- as a matter of course. I should have gotten down on my knees and thanked God for it, if I'd known how unique it was.
I DO remember hearing my first Elvis record (Heartbreak Hotel) and thinking the world was coming to an end.
Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at
05:13 PM
| No Comments
| Add Comment
Post contains 565 words, total size 4 kb.
21kb generated in CPU 0.015, elapsed 0.8918 seconds.
35 queries taking 0.8855 seconds, 157 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
35 queries taking 0.8855 seconds, 157 records returned.
Powered by Minx 1.1.6c-pink.
