Deleted Comments Of The Day: Gun-Humpers, More Gun-Humpers, And David Brooks

Welp, time for another of our periodic muckings-out of the old comments queue. Friday's piece on David Brooks and his explanation of why "income inequality" ain't no thing was not well-received by "DavDar," whose pseudonym suggests they have an uncanny ability to spot any Daves in the room at a glance. DavDar is one of those free-market cheerleaders who occasionally wander into Wonkette, write a dozen comments taking issue with every other comment on a story, and then flounce out with a grumble about how Wonkette Hates Free Speech -- and indeed, the last thing we heard from DavDar was,

Another cowardly leftist site that won't post opposing arguments. Quelle surprise!

Ah, but here is vôtre comment, right ici! It is quite la surprise, non? Needless to say, DavDar does not think this "income inequality" is anything to worry about either, since poor people mostly bring it on themselves by not planning well:

This "hard work" meme is taken out of context deliberately by those on the Left. Obviously you can't just dig ditches all day and expect them to be filled with money when you get up the next day. Hard work has to be accompanied by working smarter, setting realistic goals, making plans, having patience and avoiding stupid mistakes.

Silly poors -- if they want to get ahead in life, they should be stockbrokers.

DavDar also shares a few other beloved rightwing memes, like reminding us that the Civil Rights movement was about "equality of opportunity, not equality of outcomes," asking another commenter if they "donate every penny you make above mere subsistence to charity?" and explaining that "A Christmas Carol didn't end with Scrooge marching on London to redistribute others' wealth," so there, ha-ha, you libs cannot ask about prisons and workhouses ever again .

More to the point, DavDar wants you to know that when David Brooks says the poors should act more like rich people, he does not mean owning two jets, because that is just silly. What he means is really a very simple formula for success that anyone can avail themselves of:

"Acting just like rich people" by starting out being frugal, saving money, making wise spending choices, getting an education in a marketable skill, putting off today's quick pleasures for a longer term gain. Is it really that hard to figure out? Not all rich people are rich because they're geniuses and not all poor people are poor because they are idiots, but a huge number of both stay the way they are by repeating the behaviors that got them there to begin with.

God, poor people sure are annoying. Why don't they get this?

In reference to a comment about North Carolina's recent tax hike on the poor, DavDar says that no such thing ever happened because 47%:

Raised taxes on the poor? The lowest 43% of wage earners pay no income tax at all, and are even negatively taxed. Who do you think pays the lions share for these wonderful social programs liberals so enjoy? the higher wage earners, who are most likely Republican voters. Then you have the audacity to complain that they're not giving enough. That's called "biting the hand that feeds you", and incidentally, it's why you see such a backlash nowadays about paying more into social programs - it never seems to be enough and it never seems appreciated. This, "You owe me because you have more than me" attitude is never going to get you anywhere.

As if the entire agenda of the right since the Reagan years has been anything other than to restructure the tax code to shift more and more wealth to those at the top -- it just never happened, this is just the natural state of the economy. As for raising taxes on the poor, it's unpossible since they don't pay taxes: screw your link, and the only taxes that exist are federal income taxes, which President Romney will cut so that Americans can get back to work.

And of course, in reply to another commenter's joke about "come the revolution," DavDar pointed out -- and we hope you are sitting down, 'cause this one's a shocker -- that comments on the interwebs will not bring about no revolutions, buddy:

What revolution would that be? The one where you sit around on an internet forum all day wishing you had some of Teh Ebil Rich™'s money? Maybe if you spent about half that time and energy on educating yourself in a marketable skill or improving and applying the ones you have, you wouldn't have all this envy-based angst. You may now proceed to list all the myriad reasons you can't do this and you can't do that and the deck is stacked against you and the corporatists are turning you into a serf and the Bilderberg Group is meeting and blah blah blah blah blah...

"Bilderberg group"? Is this something we leftists are worried about? We thought we were a lot more worried about things that operate right out in the open, like, say, CitiGroup and BP. One learns so much about one's own politics in this job.

And just before their final "You guys are mean and I'm leaving" flounce, DavDar explains that they are taking the long view on this whole income inequality thing:

I've been around for the entire 50 years of the so-called "War On Poverty". i haven't seen a whole lot of lives improved by it. In fact, it's probably wrecked more families than any other single cause. It has bought a lot of votes for pandering Democrat politicians though, so there's that, I suppose.

Congratulations, we suppose, for resisting the urge to use the phrase "keeping the blacks on the Democrat plantation" there, and goodbye!

And now, for equal time, we have a clueless leftish person, "airjackie," who has a few choice words to share with Megyn Kelly after Kelly told Mitch McConnell he should get up off his plastron and impeach Obama already. Actually, airjackie seems to think she's talking to a completely different blonde Republican named Meghan:

Megyn might want to read up on the US Constitution and the laws needed to impeach a President. She would have grounds with proof beyond a reasonable doubt to impeach President Bush even Co-President Cheney. Megyn knew to keep her mouth shut due to the retaliation the Bush Administration did and they showed her Dad he either do what he is told or he would no longer be a Senator. But its a free for all of nuts and clowns attacking Obama and making themselves look stupid. War Crimes and Torture are grounds for Impeachment and Megyn was a loyal Republican like her Dad and said nothing.

Leaving aside the confusion of Megyn Kelly with Meghan McCain (Kelly's father was a professor, not a senator, and he died when she was a teen), this comment did spark a fun bit of nerding-around in the Sekrit Wonket Chatcave. Yr Doktor Zoom pointed out that it's difficult to impeach people who've been out of office since February 2009, and then Kaili said that it actually can be done -- the only real effect is that they'd lose their pension, but it is something that could be done to make a point. So, trivia for the win, we guess.

Our story on retired police captain and Responsible Gun Owner Curtis Reeves, who murdered a man for texting in a theater, received a few comments from outraged gun fondlers. One clever fellow, "bossmanham," suggested that our hed, "Heroic Armed Citizen Stops Movie Texting With Gun, Murder," was somehow inaccurate:

Crappy Leftist "Journalist" Burns Straw Man; Gets Cramp Patting Self on Shoulder. Fixed the headline for you, loser.

We must take exception to this, sir! We have never claimed to be a journalist! (As we keep reminding the Editrix when she is astonished that we've never heard of some person that all journalists are supposed to know.) As for the rest, it seems a bit nonspecific -- we need to be able to tell the articles apart, you know.

Reader "ChipWatkins," on the other hand, carefully explains to us that Mr. Reeves was not, in fact, a responsible gun owner, and that we had erred in suggesting that he was:

Nice try, but equating Mr. Reeves wkth those gun owners who actually defend themselves or others from death or serious bodily injury falls flat. With rights come responsibilities. The fact that Mr. Reeves failed to restrain his impulse to shoot Mr. Oulson is no reason to strip other law-abiding citizens of the rights preserved in the Second Amendment. Mr. Reeves has already justifiably lost his gun-owneship rights, and if he is convicted, he will justifiably lose his liberty for a long time, and hopefully for life. As a retired policeman, he has a higher responsibility to use his gun responsibly, and he failed.

Well, then, nothing to worry about! Reeves is utterly unlike all other Responsible Gun Owners, who are perfectly safe until such time as they lose their temper in a theater or accidentally blow away a family member, and the only possible choices are to either put up with the current deadly state of affairs or to trash the Constitution. Lord knows anything in between, like requiring safety training and regular proficiency checks, would only lead to tyranny, just as it has with, say, pilots' licenses.

And finally, a note from "Textopcat" on the poor school board member who lost his job after using a work computer to publicize his cute way of memorializing Sandy Hook:  he gave 26 of his friends a box of ammunition (we wonder if he chose smaller-caliber rounds to remember each of the dead children -- that would have been so touching). Textopcat just wanted us to know that there is actually only one accurate conclusion that can be drawn from the Newtown massacre:

I can understand that the gun grabbers would not be pleased, but he is actually on the right track. Anyone that has studied the Sandy Hook event has to come to the conclusion that the only thing that would have saved the lives of these children is trained and armed teachers/staff. Any other conclusion, is just political agenda and not based on logic or fact.

Yes. Because the notion that "not selling semiautomatic rifles with enormous magazines to civilians" is utterly outside the realm of logic and facts. Thanks for setting us straight on that.

 Follow Doktor Zoom on Twitter. His shoulder cramp is just about gone now.