SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A gunman opened fire at U.S. Congressmen and others who were gathered at a practice this morning for the Congressional Baseball Game. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and at least four others were reportedly injured. The gunman, who has been identified by unnamed sources as James T. Hodgkinson III, was taken to a local hospital where he died from his injuries:
A gunman unleashed a barrage of gunfire Wednesday at a park in Alexandria, Va., as Republican members of Congress held a morning baseball practice, wounding at least five people, including House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (La.).
The suspected gunman is James T. Hodgkinson III, 66, from Illinois, according to multiple law enforcement sources. President Trump announced that the gunman, who was wounded in a shootout with officers, has died at an area hospital.
The wounded also included two Capitol Police officers and a congressional aide, according to one law enforcement official and witness accounts.
Congressman Scalise was shot in the hip and is in stable condition.
Hodgkinson's motive may have already been identified by the media:
A Facebook page belonging to a person with the same name includes pictures of Democratic presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders, and rhetoric against President Trump, including a post that reads: "Trump is a Traitor. Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It's Time to Destroy Trump & Co."
Charles Orear, 50, a restaurant manager from St. Louis, said in an interview Wednesday that he became friendly with Hodgkinson during their work together in Iowa on Sanders's campaign. Orear said Hodgkinson was a passionate progressive and showed no signs of violence or malice toward others.
Also at LA Times, Reuters, The Atlantic, The Hill, and CNN.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Thursday June 15 2017, @01:08PM (3 children)
Why do the people hung up on immigration now presume immigration and the tensions surrounding it is a new phenomenon? It's more or less a constant in American history (and perhaps elsewhere, but the rest of the world is beyond scope in this post). Previously it was protestants in America decrying all the Irish and Italian immigrants who would bring their "popery" with them and subvert religious freedom in the United States. Or the Yellow Peril (aka all the Chinese brought in to work on the transcontinental railroad). Yet as it happens those waves of immigrants did come, and they did stay, and the United States of America endures.
So, there seem to be two general paths to take on the immigration issue: accept that America evolves, and is not a static state. Or, we can acknowledge that all immigration is and always has been a mistake and roll the country back to earlier versions. That means that all current citizens with unacceptable ancestry should self-deport or be sent packing by Immigration. So all the O'Reilly's, DiMaggios, Kennedys, Marilyn Monroes, etc shall have their statues dashed and names stricken from the records. Every Taco Bell shall be razed, every PF Chang's, every Pizza Hut, every Chipotle, every box of pasta shall be purged.
What's that? Oh, wait, that's not what you meant? That's going too far? Well, unless that is what you're advocating, you're a hypocrite.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @12:42AM (2 children)
It's not new, but the level of danger is new. We are facing violent people who are extremely resistant to cultural integration. They self-isolate and self-police the isolation, attacking any of their own to dare to integrate with the surrounding society. They use distinctive clothing restrictions to help enforce this.
It mostly wasn't like that with prior immigrants. We had minor problems. Some of the German-speaking populations took a century to switch to English. We have lingering problems with a distinct black culture. Right now we are having trouble with Spanish-speaking immigrants; they might be a problem for much longer than the German-speakers due to numbers and due to proximity of a Spanish-speaking country.
Also, the country is full. We no longer have a western frontier. We have a country full of people, many of them poor and unskilled. Conditions change, and policy should be adjusted as needed.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday June 16 2017, @04:48PM (1 child)
You mean like Hasidim do [wordondastreet.com]? They have regressive morals (Halacha [momentmag.com]) they try to impose on others and also speak a weird language and dress weird and have been known to riot [nydailynews.com]. They have their own religious police force, the Shomrim [nytimes.com], and run their own ambulances. Surely they must also be forcibly deported according to your definition?
It was like that with prior immigrants. Germans were held collectively responsible for WWI. Japanese were sent to concentration camps in WWII; you can still see one at Manzanar in California, east of the Sierras and not far from the entrance to Death Valley.
The country is full? Where do you live, downtown Chicago? Ever been to North Dakota? You could cram several Europes into that state and still want to shoot yourself in the head to escape the tedium of its landscape.
China, which has a much, much greater claim to being 'full' than the United States still has plenty of room for more people because most of those billion Chinese live on about 25% of the total land area.
If you chose to go by how much food there is to go around instead of the vast empty acreage America does have, then it could support at least double the number it does because it wastes about half of its food every year.
All of which is to say the racially/ethnically/culturally pure America you imagine is achievable has never existed at any point in its history, not even in its pre-history, and moreover you would not recognize or welcome such a country even were you to purge all non-conforming elements. For the rest about what the country is and can do I encourage you to hop in your truck and take an extended drive around and note how really huge America still is.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 16 2017, @06:42PM
It does look like the Hasidim are taking active and effective measures to prevent integration into the larger society, so yes. They do not belong.
The fact that Germans were held collectively responsible for WWI was not a problem with the Germans; it was a problem with the rest of us. There was at least a benefit though: the Germans quickly ditched the German language. To solve our problems with Spanish, perhaps we need a WWIII that can be blamed on Mexicans.
As far as I know, the Japanese hadn't been a problem. The security measures were cruelly excessive.
By "full", I don't mean that the addition of more people will cause starvation. I mean that we don't need any more, and the downsides outweigh the upsides. There are no natural resources that are going untapped due to lack of manual labor.
We might benefit from a total of a million foreign-born high-value workers (scientists for example), as long as none are from a self-isolating culture and we don't get too many of the same non-English language in the same location. We don't need it though, and if we are politically unable to filter out trouble then we shouldn't bother. Bringing in a few good people isn't worth bringing in hoards of useless people with permanent anti-American hostility.