Posted on 12/19/2012 10:33:01 PM PST by lbryce
You’ve heard about Erik Loomis, the University of Rhode Island assistant professor of history who launched an almost psychotic, foul-mouthed Twitter tirade against the NRA, accusing it of being a terrorist organization, of complicity in and criminal culpability for murder, and a host of other invectives culminating in his wish to see Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick.”
This is the same Loomis who laughed when Sarah Palin was smeared with the Gabby Giffords shooting because of an electoral map the insane Jared Loughner never even saw. He didn’t mind when the left-wing mob sought to destroy Palin over nothing. Loomis insisted, however, that a different standard be applied to his metaphor of a head on a stick, clarifying that he only wanted life imprisonment for LaPierre.
The NRA and LaPierre’s transgressions which warranted imprisonment or worse? They exercised their constitutional rights to petition the government for redress (the often forgotten right, often disparaged as “lobbying”) and to their own speech in favor of policies they favored. Because he disagreed with those policies, and made illogical jumps to claims of culpability in murder, Loomis wanted them imprisoned, at a minimum.
Soon after the controversy broke I took the position that Loomis’ employer should not be contacted, because that is the tactic frequently used against me by liberals.
Yet apparently a lot of people did contact Loomis’ employer, or the employer otherwise became aware of Loomis’ Twitter vituperation, resulting in the President of URI issuing a statement distancing the University from Loomis’ tweets.
Now a variety of people are signing on to a statement at Crooked Timber rallying around Loomis on the grounds of academic freedom and free speech.
The statement focuses on the narrow issue of the “head on a stick” tweet and whether it was an incitement to violence. The statement also creates a distraction by trying to blame Prof. Glenn Reynolds for properly characterizing Loomis’ invective as “eliminationist rhetoric” using the standard applied by the media and Democrats to the Tea Party.
The Crooked Timber statement has been signed by hundreds of people, some of whom identify as academics, others who show no institutional affiliation, and a variety of left-wing bloggers.
I don’t think Loomis should be fired, but that doesn’t mean he should be free from criticism.
And he certainly is not a hero of anything.
He’s just a guy who wanted to deprive others of the rights he claims for himself.
Update – Here’s the comment I posted at Crooked Timber:
Crooked Timber Comment
Douche bag leftists like Erik Loomis are exactly the reason we need assault weapons. their plansa and machinations are clear as the blue sky.
As a history professor, he should know that it is head on a pike.
It sounded more like a direct death threat than incitement to me.
I wish more people understood that.
Loomis and his adherents are totalitarian stooges. In another time at another place, they would have made reliable henchmen for Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.
“A savage is one who laughs when he hits you, and screams when you hit him.”
—???
Does free speech include “First f*ker to say the solution is for elementary school teachers to carry guns needs to get beaten to death”
Perhaps as an outburst, but he seems very angry in general. It would be too bad if his rants turn out to foreshadow violence.
I don’t use twitter. It probably wouldn’t hurt to verify what is attributed to Loomis.
“academic freedom”?
He was not engaged in any academic activity.
Was he using state property? Wouldn’t that be nice to know?
“In another time at another place, they would have made reliable henchmen for Stalin, Mao or Pol Pot.”
Their time may be coming yet, and sooner than we want to think about in a place we absolutely don’t want to think about.
How does a History Professor not know or understand that without guns this Nation would not exist?
Funny, but if a STUDENT had tweeted such, especially substituting a favored group, they would have been expelled IMMEDIATELY. . .
>> The Left doesn’t give a rat’s ass about free speech.
>> I wish more people understood that.
bttt
If all of the firearms in the world disappeared overnight, do you really think you would be safe?
I've been watching the History Channel series "Mankind: The Story of All of Us". One episode included the year 1453. That was the year that Sultan Mehmed II, ruler of the Ottoman Turks, used huge cannons to breech the walls of Constantinople and bloodily "convert" the city to Islam. That same year, Aztec religious pyramids were were literally bathed in blood as their priests used Stone Age weapons to glory in the death of their enemies by cutting out the hearts of still-living defeated warriors. Please note that no firearms were involved.
The gun is civilization, because it can be used to convince murderous barbarians to stay away from the gates. The citizens of Constantinople had no guns, no cannons. They died. Badly. So did the Stone Age people of the Americas.
“The Left doesn’t give a rat’s ass about free speech....I wish more people understood that.”
Absolutely correct in what you wrote. The left is ONLY for “free speech” for themselves.
Great graphic! I’m going to make a decal with that.
Is the the history and gender study professor that reportedly made such irrational comments? Or, are there two such ill-educated professors running around?
. . . and journalists care only about freedom ofthetheir own presses.As far as they are concerned, membership in their club might as well be a title of nobility - they have privileges.
Same person in both cases I think.
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