Granted, the internet is prone to hyperbole. Sure, hyperbole is a traditional rhetorical means of making a point that might otherwise be overlooked. And in this e-barrage of information, the use of hyperbole can distinguish a story that might otherwise be missed.
But nobody was going to miss the story about some whackjob named Dear shooting up Planned Parenthood in Colorado Springs. Especially when he murdered a police officer, Garrett Swasey, in the process.
While it might have been noted that Swasey’s death was no more tragic than those of Ke’Arre M. Stewart, a 29-year-old former soldier, and 35-year-old Jennifer Markovsky, a mother of two, married to an Army veteran, it wasn’t a good time to draw such distinctions. There was no need to argue over whose death mattered more.
But that wasn’t good enough to stop the other side’s crazies from going to town.
That’s right, Greenleaf is not merely a professor, but the director of criminal justice at Elmhurst College. And in the aftermath of carnage, his first thought is to blame Mike Adams, a prof at another college.
On the day that a gunman attacked a Colorado Planned Parenthood facility, Mike Adams was in North Carolina.
Yet, Adams, a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington notorious for his anti-abortion and Christian views, was on the receiving end of an inquiry from a fellow professor who wondered about Adams’ potential involvement with the shooting suspect.
No, no, no. This was not “an inquiry from a fellow professor who wondered about Adams’ potential involvement with the shooting suspect.” This was a manifestation of insanity toward an academic who failed to share his religious beliefs, an ideological heretic. And if someone, somewhere, no matter how insane, engaged in an act of violence, then the point must be driven home that Mike Adams’ expressed views are responsible.
Even if they had nothing whatsoever to do with it, Adams was somehow to blame.
According to Adams, the two professors have never actually met, but he has received many emails from Greenleaf in the past. A columnist for Townhall, Adams has even shared one of Greenleaf’s unsolicited emails regarding a class syllabus. Adams told TheBlaze that Greenleaf regularly sends him emails to ask about his involvement any time there is a mass shooting or tragedy.
But for the fact that Greenleaf plays on the progressive team, his conduct would be denounced as that of a stalker, a sicko, the sort of person who should be shunned rather than allowed to be anywhere near young people. Greenleaf has issues.
“The fact that a professor would email me repeatedly accusing me of being involved in multiple murder conspiracies is truly mind boggling,” Adams told TheBlaze. “The fact that he is a criminal justice professor moves it beyond parody. Greenleaf falls short of any reasonable standard of professional competence. His conduct is simply inexcusable.”
And, indeed, Greenleaf’s position as a criminal justice professor is relevant. Where an academic in some other, unrelated, discipline might be forgiven the indulgence into batshit crazy thoughts in furtherance of their passionate ideology, because they lack any self-control and exist in an atmosphere where blind adherence to the faith trumps reason every time, Greenleaf gets no such pass.
There is an expectation that someone entrusted with the mantle of expressing valid, if not knowledgeable, opinions on the subject of crime not be caught up in their own ideology so the point of falling down a sinkhole of stupidity and insanity. A professor of criminology, the friggin’ director of criminal justice for a college, cannot hold such thoughts. And, it goes without saying, should not hate the idea that someone like Mike Adams expresses views inconsistent with his so much that he seeks to hold him accountable for horrific murders.
And yet, a series of twits showed me that this level of stupidity runs beyond the ideologically-challenged in Academe to the lowest common denominator of the legal profession as well.
Can the initiation of this series of twits be chalked up to overly emotional hyperbole devoid of anything remotely approaching intelligent thought? Sure, because Hanlon’s Razor.
But what lawyers are not entitled to do, even if they are neither practicing, knowledgeable nor well-regarded, is spread ignorance. Lawyers are no more entitled to indulge their feelings than academics; indeed, we are less entitled, as our world isn’t mired in abstractions.
On the bright side, three out of four lawyers demonstrated intelligence, and sought to prevent the spread of mindless stupidity. On the dark side, there is no excuse why any lawyer should ever be engaged in validating ignorance. Greenleaf isn’t entitled to do it. Neither are lawyers. Not even one.
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I’m probably stepping in it here, but, as to:
“But what lawyers are not entitled to do, even if they are neither practicing, knowledgeable nor well-regarded, is spread ignorance. Lawyers are no more entitled to indulge their feelings than academics; indeed, we are less entitled, as our world isn’t mired in abstractions.”
By your own standards, what about political leaders and/or public figures? Or wannabe leaders/public figures? Will Carly Fiorina bear any responsibility, whether legal, moral, or otherwise, for spreading demonstrably false information off as truth, which this shooter may reveal was a motivating factor? We already know it was on his mind at the time of the shooting.
So what part of “lawyers” made you think I meant that it applied to non-lawyers? Yes, you most assuredly stepped in it here. I really should have trashed your comment, but that would mean I couldn’t post this:
“falling down a sinkhole of stupidity”
THE RABBITS ARE SAFE TODAY
Change of pace. You know how it gets.
Well, it is Cho, so we can be fairly confident there wasn’t any intelligent thought…
Fueling the emotion of the “debate”, as much as the issues themselves, is the sense of tribe, calling out to one’s own crowd. So much of the Net is one big “holler back” to one’s tribesmen. I am no better than anyone else in this regard.
Following Mayer’s note, which charge Mr. Dear wears probably matters little if he is responsible for three homicides, and “terrorism” isn’t a precise charge. Turkewitz offers one definition but recognizing that the term has many definitions actually strengths his point: not only are some the facts unclear but the very definition of “terrorist” is a parlor game – useful not for defining principles or forensics, but to signal to one’s tribe and against one’s counterparts. Whether he gets a capital charge (technically on the books though rare in CO, possible under federal jurisdiction perhaps) does matter but it won’t turn on “terrorism.”
The emotional need to holler to one’s tribe this may be greater in modern life due to the disappearance of tribe in modern life. We evolved in tribes; we live in cities of millions. One thinks of Constantinople’s “green” and “blue” chariot race fans, derived of different religious heresies (sorry, one heresy and one ultimately triumphant tribe), different social classes, even different musical tastes. It was by the standards of its day a huge city. Both old Brooklyn – the Brooklyn of Crown Heights, of Bensonhurst and Bed-Stuy, as well as modern neo-tribal hipster Brooklyn – make more sense when one recalls that we evolved in tribes. So does English football hooliganism in London. My tribe won big last night on Monday Night Football on the last play; I am an instance, not an exception, to this.
Cho, like so many of us, wants to connect to her tribe. She did. Others responded intellectually. How great an offense calling out in the darkness to one’s tribe in this instance may be against lawyerdom – may others enjoy that parlor game. I’ll be in my living room, watching the Ravens block that field goal a couple hundred times.