Where Do Assassins Come From?
Cole Allen recently attempted to assassinate President Trump. Assassinations are not new; we are not in a brand new age of violence. This is just the same old age of violence. There have been countless assassinations since the time of Julius Caesar and beyond. I’m old enough to remember where I was when JFK was assassinated.
You don’t need to read still another report on this most recent attempt. You already know all you care to know. You probably had your conclusions in place before it happened.
But here’s a question we avoid: Is there ever a time when an assassination is justified, and on what basis do you decide? People often speculate on the degree to which life would have changed if Hitler had been assassinated. Few people today support him, or anything about him. Yet, he was highly popular in his time, and had legitimate issues with existing leadership in Germany. But knowing what we now know, it’s not hard to be supportive of the idea of assassinating Hitler. (Attempts were, in fact, made). If it had happened, and you were alive then, what would have been your reaction? Joy? Horror?
What about Lincoln? It may seem offensive to mention Lincoln in the same conversation with Hitler, but the parallels are obvious. Lincoln was a threat to the southern culture just as Hitler was a threat to Jewish culture. Southerners were indeed oppressed by Lincoln. Then again, slaves were oppressed by Southerners.
Every leader is reviled by someone, and revered by someone. Is there some standard, some mathematical equation that can determine when it’s appropriate to shoot someone who is abusing power? Whose mathematical formula should we use?
This may sound radical, but hey, I’m a radical; I can’t make a blanket denouncement of assassination. Hitler? Yes, although it’s impossible to say how it would have changed things. The assassination of Stalin and Mao would likely have saved tens of millions of lives.
Who decides? Who deserves praise for what they did, and who deserves condemnation? I think we need to look at the assassin, not just their victim. WHY did they do it? Did they make sure to be well informed, consider consequences? Could they reasonably conclude that it was for the best for the most people? In many cases, yes, they could. But DID they? As near as I can tell, the answer is almost always, “No.” The word ‘delusional’ comes to mind. There is no rationality to be seen in any of the attempts on Trump’s life. Only delusion. I’ve read Allen’s manifesto. It is a testament to delusion. There is no calculation considering what an assassination would accomplish. There are references to Trump’s sins that are entirely false, representing nothing more than belief in the disinformation being routinely spewed by Trump’s political opponents, including the MSM.
Is it the media’s fault, then? To some extent, yes. Yet millions of people watch/listen to that crap, and they don’t go shoot anyone. I think the truth, the mathematical calculation, is that nearly all assassins are mentally unstable. Perhaps they have delusions of grandeur or, quite the opposite, feelings of inadequacy. Assassination meets a need within themselves. That is the true motive.
I have noticed that many people need to hate. But they want to feel justified in it, so they hate whoever it is socially acceptable to hate. That varies from year to year, and they follow right along, based not on principle, but on the need to hate. Some of these people graduate into assassination.
Having written this, I find that I have solved nothing. I was hoping for more, weren’t you?
We are the same people as were our ancestors, going back for millennia. You’d think we’d learn.
Perhaps we can at least do this: Allen clearly did none of his own evaluation. He followed the prompt laid down by others, but acted differently than normal. He expresses not one unique thought, observation or rationale regarding his hatred of Trump. He seems to be the real life embodiment of the Manchurian Candidate, programmed to mindlessly kill.
His family is shocked, simply shocked, that the did this. But I wonder if they in fact contributed. Did they caution him concerning propagandistic indoctrination coming from the media, or did they feed it to him?
Do not be the fodder that feeds such minds.
p.s I just heard what that idiot comedian on ABC said. Why does anyone watch him? Let me know in the comments.
Don’t forget to visit my other site, The Radical Individualist
Hashassins
Let me remind you that you can "justify" anything to a specific audience, that "justice" is a process, not just a result you like, and that one man's traitor/assassin is another's liberator/hero. Every assassin in history felt a need to do what they did, whether we like it in the fullness of time or not. The four who have fired on Trump (so far) have all had their reasons that made sense to them and to those who inspired them.
What is troubling is all those calling for violence but who don't get their hands dirty. Think Hacky-Sack Jeffries will do anything physical more that his calls for violence? How about Tampon Timmy Waltz? Think he'll stand in front of a mob with a mask and club? What about Barmaid Alex?
If you talk the talk, walk the walk. Otherwise, shut up.