Stop … Hammer Time
By Charles Rein – 10/31/22
Speaker of the House (third in line for the presidency) and Democrat Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was attacked by an intruder and thumped in the head with a hammer Oct. 28. Supposedly the perpetrator, David DePape was inside the Pelosi residence shouting, “Where is Nancy?” before being apprehended by the police.
Now some of my readers may jokingly applaud this. I wish to remind them, that joking aside, this is a serious matter. Remember the Unabomber? We don’t want to go there.
According to the National Review article by Ryan Mills: David Wayne DePape, 42, appears to have sporadically published to a blog, Godisloving.wordpress.com, where he wrote about God’s love, and railed against censorship, Communists and the “elites/ruling class.” His blog has been since taken down.
I will quickly fast forward past the flippant comments left on social media. Some jokingly urge Republicans to inundate radio stations asking their local DJ’s to play a song request “for Nancy,” the 1990 hit tune, “U Can’t Touch This” aka, “Stop … Hammer Time!” in remembrance of this home invasion.
This attack on the husband of a leading Democrat like Pelosi (of whom I’m definitely not a fan) emphasizes how far off the rails we’ve gone with regards to civility. Some “D’s” and in my humble opinion, even some “R’s” are acting like rabid dogs in a fighting ring, their fangs at each other’s throats.
We need to call out extremist views or false narratives, even if it’s someone from our own party. Recently, I respectfully but repeatedly called out of a friend regarding her social media. She’s a good person – “veteran, who loves God, country, our Constitution and freedom.” But a “sort of news story” which she came across involving children, sex ed and the San Diego School Board, I surmise made her blood boil. Honestly, when we’re furious how many of us double check our sources? So without checking she re-posted this social media story. While I do admire her as a person, I urged her that we need to be responsible. Our actions have consequences.
First, it starts with being more aware of your emotions. Don’t immediately fly off the handle in an attempt to forward this outrage with others in your social media silo. Second, we can do our homework. Before re-posting social media or before re-posting “semi news” stories, remember the three V’s – verify, verify, verify. When we cannot verify sources or when we are unsure they are even real, that should be a warning light.
My friend decided to take the article down on her own. In this one instance she wasn’t canceled or censured by social media or bullied by them. I respect her for her decision.
However, up until the day she decided to remove it, she was still getting traction from followers. She wrote, “I (now) think the story is satire, but it’s a challenge when we don’t know what is real anymore.” Yet, while it was still up, it caused many other irate, Conservative individuals to comment and spew their anger and frustration toward imaginary evil teachers and imaginary school board members who had been involved with an imaginary decision that turned out to be false. Many of the comments I believe were left by sincerely good people. Yet, these concerned patriots had likely been hijacked by a satirical misleading, emotional article.
Now back to Nancy issue.
FoxNews shared the perpetrator’s ex, “Oxane Taub,” was speaking out about DePape … that he had a long history of mental illness and at one point came home thinking he was Jesus.
While I’m not a fan of their news reporting, I read in the LA Times that in (another) personal blog DePape maintained, posts include such topics as “Manipulation of History,” “Holohoax” and “It’s OK to be white.”:
DePape’s daughter, Inti Gonzalez, told The Times her father wrote the blog … DePape also shared intimate emails and texts with family members, peppering them with xenophobic ideas and conspiracy theories. He also posted personal conversations with his daughter … Gonzalez said she was aware her father posted some of their text conversations on the blog, but said she hadn’t paid very close attention to the rest of the content.
Of course, just because you’re curious about QAnon or are a follower of unproven “conspiracy theories” doesn’t mean you’re necessarily a danger and should be banned from the hardware department at Home Depot. You do of course have the right to believe what you want. It’s when we physically attack or urge violence against our neighbors, that we have a bigger problem. This becomes a danger that starts to derail the kindnesses and civility we expect from our fellow Americans.
Yes, as Americans, we can disagree. We have honest views of disagreement with respect to topics like gun rights, protection of the unborn – which I refer to as “rights with responsibility” – and other heated topics. But we just shouldn’t go into people’s homes after midnight wielding hammers at those we disagree with.
Where does this end?
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