Kirk Cameron - Evangelical

Here's a hilarious excerpt from a Slate piece that discusses the awesome tragedy that is evangelical christianity - through the lens of Kirk Cameron!

"In Cameron's introductory remarks at the debate—which can be seen at something like its full and numbing length at abcnews.go.com—he coolly claimed that "the existence of God can be proven 100 percent, absolutely without the use of faith." First, I grew excited at this promise, then began to wonder why no theologian, philosopher, or sitcom star in recorded history had done it before—Thomas Aquinas, Immanuel Kant, Tina Yothers, whoever—and realized I was in for a letdown. Comfort's cadences were not even those of a preacher but of an infomercial host, and the God Squad had but three arguments on behalf of the big guy: All things have makers; the human conscience is evidence of a higher moral power; if you read the Gospel, then Christ will be revealed to you. For reasons too stupid to type, this was not an airtight case, and the atheists made quick work of it in tones of juvenile sarcasm."

Skating Vid

Neither him nor I will soon recover from that fall!

It's YouTube's Fault

Over at The Corner, Peter Suderman makes a good point: the VT shootings appear to be at least in part a product of the era of Internet self-glorification; in short, the age of YouTube. Perhaps they are a reaction to the fact we've gotten 90% of the way to Andy Warhol's prediction but not entirely: everyone can have his 15 minutes of fame but he needs to do something radical to achieve it. That may involve skating off a roof or killing a bunch of people. Same idea...

The Laws Didn't Help Here

Matt -

I'm actually very surprised that you're taking a position in alignment with the gun control advocates. I think you're being logically inconsistent. With respect to drug control laws, you recognize that it's impossible to affect in even the slightest degree the availability of drugs via criminal enforcement; and so the right thing to do is to accept that reality and work towards prevention, treatment, etc.

You need to break out of the leftist box for a second and realize that gun control laws are the same. You are not ever going to affect the availability of guns. People sometimes ludicrously point to Britain as an example; Britain is a little bitty island. What's the evidence? Well, it's illegal, for example, for a felon to possess a gun; and yet felons seem to get guns in great numbers.

Here's much more direct evidence: it's illegal for students to have guns at VT. And yet... well obviously. So given that you can't affect the availability of guns, what do you do? You make the legal ones available and tightly regulated (again, as we should be doing with guns).

And Matt, it's certainly a fact that if students who were so inclined were carrying for self-defense, this wouldn't have happened. The lunatic truly was able to dispatching 32 people with little bitty handguns because the sheep he was slaughtering didn't have even the most basic ability to fight back.

More Guns Is the Answer?

This is so outrageous! Gun advocates will yield to any rationale in an effort to protect their ability to possess lethal weapons.

From the NYT:

"In Virginia and on gun-rights blogs, some critics were challenging Virginia Tech rules that prohibit gun owners from carrying their weapons on campus. A committee of the State House of Delegates has considered legislation to override the ban, which is common at many other colleges.

No one can say for sure if allowing students and faculty members to carry arms would have prevented the rampage on Monday, said Philip Van Cleave, president of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. “But they wouldn’t die like sheep, at least, but more like a wolf with some fangs, able to fight back.”

But Blaine Rummel, a board member of Virginians for Public Safety, an anti-gun group, disputed the notion that arming more people would reduce violence. “Virginia is second in the nation in the ease of getting handguns,” Mr. Rummel said. “If easy availability was a solution, Virginia Tech wouldn’t be in mourning today.”