Aaron Worthing performed a fisking of former LA cop Christopher Dorner's strange, self-serving manifesto, yesterday. A lot of conservative bloggers and pundits have had some fun turning the tables on all the left-leaning talking heads that Dorner praised in his diatribe, many of whom had either participated in blaming Limbaugh/the TEA Party/Palin/right-wing rhetoric for a variety of shootings performed by lunatics who had no credible affiliations with any of those parties. Jesse Jackson, Jr., fresh off of inking a plea bargain for embezzling campaign funds for his personal use, issued a statement expressing an understanding of the alleged murderous nutjob's hurt feelings.
Just as disturbing as Dorner's murder-justifying manifesto are the reactions of his sympathizers. I'm not going to say that there isn't systemic corruption in the LAPD, but I will say that I don't see how it could possibly exonerate Chris Dorner from having executed the daughter of a man against whom he holds a grudge and her fiance. Even the Cosa Nostra frowns on whacking daughters of enemies. But here's what one moral idiot posted in comments to an LA Times article outlining some of Dorner's many complaints against fellow officers:
LAT Top Commenter Joseph Tolman, one would like to believe, is an isolated idiot supporter of the homicidal griefer, but the number of thumbs up for Mr. Tolman and the gist of the vast majority of comments to the article suggest that that would be wishful thinking. It seems that there are many people who think that this sociopath is completely justified in liquidating whoever he wants to as a result of the indignities he feels he has suffered, as long as his victims can be somehow viewed as having some connection with the folks that Dorner blames for his troubles. Whether those connections constitute complicity is a matter that his sympathizers feel they are uniquely qualified to judge, pretty much the same way that these same people will have pinned other atrocities on their ideological opponents, on the basis of torturous pathways of causality. Much of the MSM shares these delusions of grandeur.
In his screed, as Worthing points out, Dorner repeatedly defends his motives by expressing his belief that many bad characteristics of other people are "not in his DNA," while all the good ones are. We see this trick in the more ridiculous versions of feminism, and in every racialism. By contrast, Ms. Quan's DNA must necessarily have been tainted by her father's, which justifies her killing. The long and the short of it is that Dorner must not be held responsible for his rampage, because he has been genetically pre-programmed to act, out of the purest motives, as a punisher of the ills of society, particularly as they express themselves in the LAPD. On the other hand, Ms. Quan, whose father Dorner blames for having provided him ineffective representation in the disciplinary hearings that led to his dismissal from the LAPD, is guilty of having exercised her choice to be the daughter of a PD corruptocrat, in Dorner's eyes.
I could make a case that Dorner is a Frankenstein's Monster patched together from the charnel-house materials of grievance ideology and animated by critical race theory, but even those pernicious doctrines aren't guilty of Dorner's atrocities. Only Dorner is, at least insofar as American society still believes in individual agency. If it no longer does, and goodness knows that there are segments of it that don't, or that believe that only some people, who are racially or otherwised privileged, are responsible for their actions—then it really is every man for himself. In that case, buy more guns and ammo.
I recall when the appeal to DNA was fundamentally racist. I believe that the label the academics liked to wield against it was 'essentialism.' Well, that was then, this is now.
jefferson101 on February 9, 2013 at 7:59 pm said:
He's a monster that the Left created.
They educated him that he was being "abused". They taught him his greviances in College. They were the ones who made someone who apparently had serious temper fits his whole life into a poster boy for affirmitave action. And now, when he grabs their ideology and runs with it, they will not mention where he got all his collection of greviances, you will note.
Bottom line, LAPD didn't fire him because he filed a "false" report. They fired him because nobody could work with him, and they all knew it. The report thing was a convenient excuse that they knew the Courts would uphold. He was a loose cannon, and a danger to everyone in his path, every day. That's why they tossed him over the side.
'Nough said.
John on February 10, 2013 at 2:18 pm said:
This episode also demolishes the narrative of the left that we'll all be safer if only policemen have guns. While Dorner was a policeman, he was exempt from every gun control law that we are now urged to accept.
As we can now see, he is even more dangerous than an ordinary citizen with guns and a mental condition.
W.C. Taqiyya on February 11, 2013 at 6:02 pm said:
I believe you may have been a bit harsh in your condemnation of LA Times commentor Tolman. He did not express support for the actions of Chris Dorner, he merely made the cogent point that the LA cops are trigger happy. Which, at this point, like their high level of corruption, is more in the nature of a well established fact. Yes, Tolman is incorrect to state that ordinary people have nothing to fear from Dorner. However, his point that ordinary citizens are at risk from the LA police is valid. So, to paint Tolman as some idiot supporter of Dorner is way off base. As for the support you mention for Tolman's comment, I am not surprised. There are many people in this society who feel alientated from it and who see that the system doesnt work for them. And, not all of them are unjustified in thier feelings. Of course, fortunately, most of them don't declare war either. What you opine about Dorner's reasons and justifications is OK. Not that it matters, people are capable of rationizing anything. The fact that Dorner spends so much time and effort justifying his actions mainly just indicates that he hasn't completely broken from reality, and not much more. If some people choose to read deep, complex political messages into Mr. Dorner's comments and actions, so what? I wouldn't waste a lot of time getting upset by that, stupid people's opinions hardly ever matter. I mean, how much sense does it make to blame his musical tastes on the left or his movie preferences on the right? That's just silliness.
Dan Collins on February 11, 2013 at 7:17 pm said:
I think he goes beyond saying that people have nothing to fear from Dorner. I think he's claiming that Dorner's motivated by a desire to root out police corruption, whereas I think Dorner's a vengeful asshat motivated by butthurt. Otherwise, I largely agree with you.
Starless on February 12, 2013 at 7:37 am said:
Mr. Ironic 19th c. Moustachebeard gives himself away in his last sentence.
Which people "aren't questioning this"? Who? Where? How many aren't enough? From what I can tell, plenty of people are outraged that in their zeal the cops shot up innocents and will expect that the cops involved will get more than a suspension for their dangerous and precipitous actions. There are plenty of people, both Left and Right, who believe that police departments which have moved more and more towards paramilitary responses have gone too far and have started to casually abuse their power.
Mr. Ironic 19th c. Moustachebeard's faux shock that supposedly more people "aren't questioning this" proves that what he's expressing is nothing more than standard Leftist reactionaryism. I don't think it goes too far to assume that he likely believes that the evil Dorner has (allegedly) perpetrated is at least somewhat justifiable based on this idiotic and misguided "Black Rambo" folk hero meme. I mean, seriously, to believe Dorner was in any way justified you'd have to believe that he was forced into a partnership with Denzel Washington in Training Day and Worthing (and Dan) is pointing out that that, based on the evidence he provides in his manifesto, is utter bullshit.
By accepting Dorner's "corruption" red herring, people like Mr. Ironic 19th c. Moustachebeard are only serving to bolster this (alleged) madman's self-justification.
The fact that Dorner spends so much time and effort justifying his actions mainly just indicates that he hasn't completely broken from reality, and not much more.
There was another — much, much smarter — guy who spent a lot more time and effort justifying his heinous terrorist actions. His name was Ted Kaczynski.