~Burs from NY

A few words from a (friendly – promise!) American lurker…

O’Reilly is definitely more popular than any of the other right wing commentators you listed simply because he is a) on television and not solely in print and b) because he regularly makes controversial statements, he gets more press.

But this sort of thing happens everywhere – but when it’s white vs. brown/black/yellow it becomes racial. What if an undocumented Bangladeshi immigrant committed a crime in West Bengal?

The sad thing is that this particular crime hasn’t been widely publicized here in the States, maybe because of the VA Tech tragedy.

The christian wingnuts will put up a rethuglican candidate, who will “win” as convincingly as the Shrub did in 2000 – it will be disputed, and there will be a convenient emergency.
Styate of emergency, suspension of constitution and … “Gilead” (“The Handmaid’s Tale”))

A delightful prospect, is it not?

Sunny, here is another right-wing nut-case psycho to add to the list of crazies: Michael Reagan.

here’s why…http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ntz7SWm-xWo

not sure if you’ve seen this already.

The American Conservative Train:

Hmm. could it be a terrorist attack? I wonder if the shooter was Muslim. Did the shooter selectively kill only Americans?

They say he was Asian. Well, he could still be Islamic.

So now the shooter was Korean. Do they have Muslims in Korea?

Okay, so the shooter wasn’t a Muslim. But I am sure this episode showed the Islamic terrorists how easy it is to kill Americans.

They say the killer was an immigrant student on an F-1 visa. Just like those terrorists on 9/11. Why are we letting these students into our country again?

It’s now clear that he was not on an F-1 visa and actually grew up in the US. It still doesn’t invalidate the original point that we shouldn’t be letting these foreigners into our country.

Hey, how about the Ismail Ax thing on his arm? Maybe we should continue to explore the Muslim angle.

You know, the fundamental problem with this country is that more people do not own guns. If everyone were allowed to shoot everyone else, maybe less innocent people would be killed.

The American Liberal Train :

You know, the fundamental problem with this country is all those guns.

Yes, this is a tragedy. But nothing compared to what’s happening in Iraq right now.

I am sure Bush won’t waste a minute in running to the scene and giving a speech.

Look look, there he goes.

I wonder if he’s gonna somehow find a way to link the shooting with 9/11.

The Indian Train :

Hmm. It happened in a university. A place where there are many Indians. I wonder if any Indians died in the shooting.

They say the shooter was Asian. Could he be…..Indian? I hope not.

It appears that he was on an F1 visa. I bet the anti-immigration lobby seizes this opportunity to badmouth immigration and immigrants.

So he was Korean. Are Americans smart enough to know the difference between India and Korea?

I wonder how that Chinese-looking guy in my gym feels about all this. I wonder if people look at him differently wherever he goes now. God, I am sure glad the shooter wasn’t Indian.

I really feel sad for all the Indians who died.

The American Neocon Train:

The Israeli professor who was killed in the shooting, threw himself at the gunman to save his students’ lives. On the other hand, the Palestinian student who filmed the killings on camera didn’t save any lives and compared the tragedy to the violence in the occupied territories. Just goes to show.

The Chinese Train:

You people like your guns way too much.

The Rest of the World Train:

Basically what the Chinese said. And also, such things would never happen in our country. Hunger, poverty, riots, crime yes. School shootings no.
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Sorry to say this but Indian perzpective was exactly how I felt!

“i want my daughter knocked down by a good ol american drunk driver… not no stinkin’ ilegal immigrant drunk driver.”

Thanks for explaining in a much better way than I can #19. It makes me wonder why can’t I put it such simple terms. I worry about myself!!!

Would he praise him for apostasy or damn him for illegallity ???

That’s a tabloidy headline.

TFI

It’s good that Kismet makes the point he does. The left are just as guilty of shoving their ideals down peoples throats as the right are. As for the topic at hand, I lean towards Mr Geraldo’s position, O’Reilly’s logic is too simplistic and fallacious for me to take seriously.

This guy is pure parody. I wanna dig up that faux-ad in GTA San Andreas about immigration.

Nice one bill.

Clive, I take your point that Bill O’Reilly belongs to the windbag crew, but other than Andrew Sullivan, I struggle to find many huge American conservatives who draw attention in the way that O Reilly, Coulter, Malkin and David Horowitz do.

Maybe O Reilly and others can’t differentiate between conditions and causes. OK if the guy wasn’t in the country there would not have been the incident (conditions). But that is still different from cause.
Maybe then the confusion of causes and conditions enables the issue to by pass someones edge of awareness and it then connects with an inner prejudice of the foreigner. Bingo! unconscous racism which can be denied by a rationalisation.

Robert, was that a flippent comment for is there a point of you trying to make?

TFI

Naxal 1849: Out of a population of 300 million.

Enough to swing a Presidential election, I’ll wager. Certainly enough to swing the vote on gun crime legislation.

This way of thinking is not at all exclusive to right-wingers.

In fact, your comment is a pretty stupid one.

That’s not what it says on the tin of this post.

Bill O Reilly is near the top of the chain of America’s rightwing establishment, along with other demagogues like Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Horowitz (FrontpageMagazine) William Kristol etc etc.

I’ve no idea who these commentators are that you mention; after all I’m not an American living in America and I’m sure that should I become informed of their views, I would some of what they think objectionable.

I’m not sure you follow your own advice?

I do, it’s a matter of labels. I damn the group “Fundamentalist Christians” because they reject dinosaurs. I damn the group “Islamists” because they believe in barbaric capital punishments.

So do you damn all American right-wingers, or do did you mess up on the title of this post?

TFI