“Soulless” Gamer Shot Up El Paso
The 21-year-old who shot up the El Paso Walmart was a “soulless” video game player. He cooperated with authorities during his interrogation afterward, and officials should release to the public his answers to many important questions.
It is unlikely that the killer’s motives fit the narrative of “white nationalism” that is being pushed by the national media. For starters, the accused shooter, Patrick Crusius, is a registered Democrat who was critical of Republicans.
The British press is often the best source of information when these tragedies occur, because the American media try to spin and suppress the news to fit their political narrative. The shooting was not domestic terrorism, but was the product of a loner who grew up on video games rather than healthy relationships.
In a manifesto he apparently posted shortly before opening fire on a crowd of back-to-school shoppers, Crusius refers to “Call of Duty,” which trains boys to kill and kill again. People who knew him in high school described him as a “gamer” for his devotion to playing video games.
One of his few friends was of Egyptian descent, and it is implausible that the killer was a “white nationalist.” Another student who knew him in school said “he never spoke of anything political or talked about guns or had any hatred toward minorities,” as reported by the Daily Mail.
Instead, the real problem is that he is “soulless,” as another high-school acquaintance characterized him. His crime might be described as one of nihilism, which is an ideology of despair that has motivated rootless young men toward violent crimes throughout human history.
He had no girlfriends and participated in no extracurricular activities in high school, recalled one classmate who knew him there. He apparently did not have any genetic psychiatric disorder, as his twin sister was considered to be well-adjusted.
Nearly four times as many young men are avid video game players compared with young women, according to a 2015 Pew Research Center study. The average gamer spends more than 7 hours each week playing video games, and many boys spend more than 40 hours per week consumed by the impersonal games which impede their social development.
Crusius became unemployed and it is not yet known how he passed his time each day. Politically, he was not “right wing” or pro-Trump by any stretch of the imagination.
On the same weekend as the El Paso and Dayton shootings, 55 people were shot in Chicago, of whom 7 died. The grim total included two mass shootings: one in which 8 people were shot by the same gunman, and another in which 7 were shot by the same gunman.
Liberals do not want to talk about the massacre in Dayton because it was by a supporter of Elizabeth Warren. Connor Betts, who was killed by police near the outset of his rampage, had posted that he did not think socialism was being adopted quickly enough.
Betts does not fit the “white supremacist” narrative either. Betts described himself as a “leftist,” and is seen in a photograph wearing the patch “Against all Gods.”
He killed 9 people and injured 27 in a mere 30 seconds, which suggests that he got his training on violent video games, too. It is unfathomable that someone could inflict such rapid, deadly harm so quickly without practicing to kill.
Liberals predictably call for gun control after every mass shooting, but they are silent about how these young killers became desensitized to murdering people. It is dangerous to addict unemployed young men on games similar to what the Army uses to desensitize soldiers to killing.
Democrat frontrunner Joe Biden acknowledged the video game problem, to the dismay of Anderson Cooper during a CNN interview. “It is not healthy to have these games teaching kids this dispassionate notion that you can shoot somebody and just sort of blow their brains out,” Biden observed.
Studies show that playing violent video games increases aggressive behavior. This is found to be true across ages and cultures, which is hardly surprising.
The Supreme Court would not likely strike down new bipartisan legislation to protect minors against addiction to violent video games, as it did in 2011 when five Justices said the “publishers” of such games have a First Amendment right to sell their products to children. Since then one Justice in the majority (Kagan) has expressed regret for her decision, and two others have been replaced.
Just 10 days before the weekend shootings, a U.S. House committee conducted a hearing into what was called the “youth vaping epidemic” in which the founder of JUUL was harshly condemned for making his products so attractive to teens. It is time for a similar spotlight to be cast on the dangerous video game industry.
War as a Political Temptation of Trump
The media attention on Middle East violence had the effect of goading President Trump to send American soldiers to the region. But he should resist this temptation to become the world’s policeman.
The U.S. must not be drawn into another conflict in the Persian Gulf – regardless of any overhyped provocation. President Reagan stood patiently by as Iraq and Iran had an all-out war against each other from 1980 to 1988.
These conflicts halfway around the globe are never- ending. Henry Kissinger famously said about the war between Iraq and Iran, “It’s a pity they both can’t lose.”
We should protect our own soldiers by standing aside while Saudi Arabia and Iran fight each other, if they wish. We have been staying out of an ongoing conflict in Yemen, and we should continue that successful approach.
Thanks to tremendous American inventiveness, capital investment, risk taking, and a lot of hard work, the U.S. has achieved virtual energy independence. We do not need Persian Gulf oil anymore.
If European countries and Japan depend on oil tankers passing through the Strait of Hormuz, let those nations police that dangerous waterway. They are wealthy nations which can defend their own interests against Iran.
The pressure on Trump to support a sharp increase in the federal gas tax could be compared to the first temptation of Christ, when Satan challenged Jesus to turn stones into bread. Trump has properly resisted that first political temptation, which is a gimmick that would cause long-term harm.
Luring President Trump into a war with Iran is the second temptation. It is akin to Satan challenging Jesus to jump off a lofty temple, and rely on angels to bear him up.
In other words, a leap of faith. A leap into the unknown. Fifty years ago, the U.S. government launched a rocket carrying three men to the moon and returned them safely to the earth. That was not a leap of faith; it was precisely calculated by natural laws which guaranteed a predetermined successful outcome.
War is not rocket science. Its consequences, political and otherwise, are not predictable.
A military maxim observes that no battle plan survives the first contact with the enemy. Every war has unpredictable consequences.
World War II, which we recently honored on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, entailed enormous losses in American lives as commemorated every Memorial Day. The invasion that General Eisenhower defined as a Great Crusade for “the elimination of Nazi tyranny over the oppressed peoples of Europe” resulted in 45 years of Soviet tyranny over the oppressed peoples behind the Iron Curtain.
Winston Churchill, heralded in England for standing strong and prevailing for freedom, became a hero of the war. But then he lost his next election in a landslide.
Yes, we have grievances with the revolutionary government of Iran. As we have with many other countries in the world, from Mexico to China.
Illegal aliens are pouring over our southern border, enticed by free medical care which California just enacted for them and by drivers licenses which New York State just gave them. These problems deserve President Trump’s undivided attention.
On November 4, 1979, Iran seized 52 American hostages and held them for 444 days until January 20, 1981. That was an act of war under international law, but the Reagan administration wisely chose not to go to war over it.
As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump strongly condemned the nuclear deal with Iran that John Kerry negotiated and Barack Obama implemented without the advice and consent of the U.S. Senate. As president, Trump has continued to criticize the deal, officially known as the JCPOA, and has refused to certify Iran’s compliance with it.
Trump justifiably complains about how the Obama administration allowed $1.7 billion dollars in actual cash to be flown to Iran on a cargo plane, supposedly to settle a debt that had been pending since the Shah was overthrown in 1979. But that money is gone now, and there’s nothing Trump can do to get it back.
Some Republicans were unsettled by Trump’s scathing remarks about George Bush and John McCain, but most came around to support the man who promised to “drain the swamp” in Washington. Now the swamp, also known as the Deep State, is making a determined effort to tempt Trump into fighting a new world war against Iran.
For his final temptation, Satan took Jesus to the mountaintop and promised the whole world if Jesus would bow down and worship him.
President Trump should heed Jesus’ terse response: “Get thee behind me, Satan!”
Why Is Africa Moving to Maine?
For months, the crisis on America’s southern border has been dominated by families with children from the so-called northern triangle of Central America (Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador). Arriving at the rate of 100,000 a month since January, Central Americans swamped the facilities, resources, and ability of officials to cope with the influx.
“Please do not make yourselves too comfortable,” Trump tweeted about this influx of migrants, because “you will be leaving soon!”
He followed up with another tweet, announcing that “ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in.”
But to the surprise of border agents, many hundreds of migrants from Africa are pouring over our border also. They do not speak Spanish, adding a new headache to our border patrol trained in that language.
No one is quite sure who is paying for the African migrants to traverse the ocean, and then typically hop a free ride to get close to our border. They hail from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the second-largest nation by area in all of Africa.
Congo has been in a never-ending civil war for decades. It is divided between Christians and Muslims, and various indigenous languages and French.
Congo has a massive a population of 81 million which is comparable to that of Germany, and more than that of Great Britain or France. The people of war-torn Congo have many reasons to flee for a more peaceful land, but why to our country that is many thousands of miles and an ocean away from them?
Maine is their destination, because its Democratic politicians have been aggressively attracting asylum seekers from Congo. Maine’s cold climate and diet of lobster is not exactly a perfect fit for refugees from the mostly landlocked, distant country of Congo.
Yet this is the insanity that goes on as Democrats, who control Maine, want to prop up their census count and enhance their political strength. Maine once had eight congressional districts, but that has dwindled to merely two amid smaller population growth than southern states, and Democrats see illegal immigration as a way to boost their numbers.
In just one week, the number of migrants from Africa crossing the Rio Grande into Texas was more than double the total number of Africans caught crossing our entire southern border during all of last year. Border patrol agents are baffled at how or why these migrants, who are mostly from the Republic of the Congo, are flooding across our southern border with Mexico.
The “why” is easy: like six billion other people around the globe, they seek the peace, freedom, security, and prosperity of the United States. The “how” is less clear, because it requires secret donors to fund flying them first to a country in Central America, from where they are directed to ride or walk toward the United States and enter here illegally.
Even though some of these African migrants may have legitimate claims for asylum, they still have no right to be here. Under international law they should seek asylum in the first safe country in which they arrive, which is not the United States.
Unfortunately our open southern border has become so famous now worldwide that migrants from every far-flung continent consider coming here illegally. With liberal cities rolling out the welcome mat, why not take advantage of a free plane ride and then wade across the Rio Grande?
These newly arrived African immigrants raise the question of whether they would be eligible for the reparations being promised by Democratic presidential candidates. At least 10 percent of our African-American population are descended from immigrants who came here after the Civil War ended slavery, so the claims of these migrants would be like those of other post-slavery immigrants.
So many of these African migrants have arrived in Portland, Maine, that it has converted its Expo Center into a shelter for them on an emergency basis. Taxpayers are already paying for police protection, interpreters, medical services, three full meals a day, and sleeping accommodations.
It is more than 6,000 miles from Africa to Ecuador, more than 2,000 miles from Ecuador to Texas, and more than 2,000 miles from Texas to Maine, one of the coldest states in our country for migrants coming from a nation on the equator. Is this the American dream, or a recipe for a nightmare?
Chappaquiddick 50 Years Later
The biggest record broken by the national women’s soccer team was not on the field, but in the hype they received from the media. No sports team has benefited from so much free publicity, despite how Americans have always been disinterested in soccer as a spectator sport.
Empty seats plagued the French stadium where the matches were played for the Women’s World Cup, and the American television audience for the finals was 38% lower than four years ago. Some attribute the viewership decline in the finals to its scheduling midday on a Sunday, but American football draws well then.
There were strikingly few minority players in the World Cup from the quarterfinals through the finals, in contrast with the racial diversity in other competitive sports. The many photographs of the American women’s soccer team are of nearly all-white players, unlike the men’s team.
But let’s not allow facts to stand in the way of the liberals’ narrative for this. Their real game here is for “pay equity,” a demand that women be paid as much as men not for doing the same job, but for doing different jobs.
On March 8, the women soccer players sued the United States Soccer Federation in order to be paid as much as men. The men are faster, stronger, and more athletic in playing soccer, but the women demand to be paid as much.
That would mean reducing the pay of men’s soccer players based on a judge setting salaries, rather than the free market doing that. From there it is an easy corner kick to have judges change the salaries across the United States for everyone, with men taking the hit.
There is a political goal line for team feminist on this, too. They want the White House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court to be run by women, and they do not mean conservative women.
Amid all this gender talk, how about an observance of the 50th anniversary of Chappaquiddick? On that island one of the most powerful men of the last half- century, Democratic Senator Ted Kennedy, apparently had a late-night tryst with an attractive young blonde who had worked for his brother.
They left alone together on July 18, 1969, from a cottage where six young women staffers were brought to party with six married men, including Kennedy. The arrangement was the type of setup that #MeTooers complain about today.
But nary a word by liberals in speaking out for the young woman who left with Ted Kennedy and ended up dead, without her underwear on. Sen. Kennedy repeatedly lied about the circumstances resulting in Mary Jo Kopechne being found lifeless in a submerged car that Kennedy said he was driving.
Kennedy never obtained help for her, did not timely report the accident to the police, and did not even seem particularly bothered by it. Many feminists, then and now, seem just fine with Kennedy’s conduct as they have been with Bill Clinton’s.
Yet for the next four decades, Kennedy reigned supreme over the Democratic Party. In 1980 many feminists even supported Kennedy’s bid for president, which fell narrowly short.
There was no justice for Kennedy’s crime at Chappaquiddick, which by his own admission included leaving the scene of a fatal accident and allowing a young woman to die there. Yet he avoided any jail time or even having to answer tough questions about what he had done.
Kennedy wore a phony neck brace to the funeral as though he had been seriously injured as part of an accident, when he had not. The movie “Chappaquiddick” (titled “The Senator” for its release in England) portrayed the deception of the neck brace by Kennedy but was unable to tell the full story because so many defended Kennedy then, and still do.
The director of “Chappaquiddick” stated that he felt the scandal would have been a bigger story today, and would have surpassed in publicity even the lunar landing which occurred two days later. Had a powerful Republican politician been involved in a similar scandal, that observation is surely correct as the media would have used the incident to promote their false narrative of Republicans exploiting women.
But the media hype about gender issues is selective. The 50-year anniversary of a powerful Democrat evading justice for his role in the death of a young blonde who left a party alone with him attracts none of the same attention that relatively minor accusations against Republicans and their conservative Supreme Court nominees receive.
