On Idiots and Useful Idiots

Jim David Adkisson of Knoxville, entered the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, headquartered in Boston, with a shotgun and killed two, wounded others.

A news report from Boston:

There was one previous shooting at a Unitarian Universalist congregation. In 2001, police in Brattleboro killed a man wielding a knife in a church there, and there have been several recent shootings at churches of other denominations.

"The first reaction is, 'Why a Unitarian Universalist church, and why go in there when there are children there and try to kill people because of liberalism?' " said the Rev. Kristen Harper, minister of the Unitarian Church of Barnstable on Cape Cod.

"Even though he's crazy, you still wonder, why a liberal church, and how does shooting up liberals make sense?" she said. "For people to use violence against us, it's really sad."

http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2008/07/30/unitarians_are_rattled_by_attack_on_church/

OK, call me a heartless reactionary, but I think it's a bit more than "sad" to have people shot down in a church like dogs. If one is a brain-dead flake, then maybe "sad" is as deep as one gets. Still, in the real world where the living die and where the living live on if they survive, what good did the man do in furthering his own cause? I think it's fair to say he did nothing in his own cause, either case above. Failure. There is no welcome of failures here. It is more than sad to see people killed for no reason at all other than to satisfy ones own rage against ones own failure in life. No place here for those.

The Washington Post and Newsweek come up with this, quoting people Jim David Adkisson would likely have delighted in shooting. He didn't shoot them. They speak to the press:

The Unitarian Universalist Association might be the most liberal denomination in the country. Most members consider themselves part of a post-Christian religion that draws wisdom from all religions and philosophies. There is no central creed, but the denomination promotes a set of principles that includes a belief in "the inherent worth and dignity of every person."

David Gushee and Rachel Laser used a similar phrase earlier this month when they called on Barack Obama and John McCain "to bring a just end" to the culture wars.

"Gay and lesbian issues, like abortion, have also been tearing the nation apart," Gushee, an evangelical and professor at Mercer University, and Laser, a program director for the progressive think tank called Third Way, wrote in a guest column for On Faith.

"But on these issues too we can find a shared common value and shared path forward. That shared value is human dignity. We can all agree that all human beings are created in God's image and have and deserve an innate human dignity - even those with whom one differs or disagrees. We can all agree that honoring this human dignity is a high moral and religious calling."

"Senators McCain and Obama," they concluded, "each of you has great potential to model a new type of leadership. Each of you has the power to heal the country and carve a new path forward through our shared common values. We humbly submit our joint prayer that you, Senators McCain and Obama, help bring a just end to the culture wars."

http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/undergod/2008/07/a_whole_lotta_ugly_in_church_s.html

V.I. Lenin would have referred to Adkisson as a "useful idiot." But Adkisson was not useful. He was merely an idiot. A homicidal idiot, but an idiot nonetheless.