Stupid Talk Needs to be Called Out as Stupid Talk

Let's face it, when it comes to social media a lot gets said, and a lot of what gets said is dumb. Hell, I won't fail to admit that I have probably said some dumb things in my time on social media as well. Still, if I say something dumb someone usually calls me out on it.

Not that I always agree that what I said was dumb, mind you. Nonetheless, we call things for what they are.

Take this statement made on Twitter, now X, by Barb McQuade wherein she said, "I think a strong case can be made that Trump committed 5 counts of manslaughter on Jan 6 by recklessly causing the unintended deaths of others."

That's dumb.

Granted, I may be a little bit biased on my opinion of the whole January 6th, so-called "insurrection," in that I don't agree that the events occurred as so many believe they did.

Do I think it was an orchestrated and planned event to serve as a distraction from a possible real examination of what happened with the election in 2020? Yes. As a matter of fact, I do. But I don't want to digress. I simply want to point out my bias.

Including my bias as a Trump supporter then and now.

If there is one thing that we can all agree upon, for whatever it is worth, it is that January 6th was an unpleasant event in our history. For a lot of reasons. Still, to suggest that Trump caused it, I believe, is a real stretch of the imagination.

People, with individual intent decided on that day, provided it was not a planned and orchestrated event, to act in a manner that could at best be labeled as inappropriate, and perhaps even unfortunate. Smooth transition of power has always been a tenet of our system and on that day that tenet was challenged.

The deaths that occurred on that day were also tragic and unfortunate. But to suggest that Trump should be held liable in any way for them is ludicrous beyond imagination. Were the people who stormed the Capitol Trump supporters? Who knows? But again, does it matter if they were?

If we were to take Barb McQuade's comment seriously, we'd have to consider other events in our history and assign similar culpability. In all fairness, right?

Do we go back and hold Barack Obama to account for his decision to initiate Fast and Furious that resulted in the death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent? Do we take a look at what happened in Benghazi when Hillary Clinton was serving as Secretary of State, an event that killed four Americans, and hold her accountable for those deaths?

And by the way, there is some reason to suggest maybe she should have been accountable. But even I will admit it is a bit ridiculous to suggest it. Same goes for Barack Obama and Fast and Furious.

Or what about Joe Biden? Should we, according to Barb McQuade, hold him criminally liable for the actions, or lack of actions he took which led to the death of multiple Americans on the tarmac in the withdrawal of Afghanistan?

All of these ideas are, to my mind, clutching at straws. 

The bottom line is that when things like this are said, they are said out of pure hatred for the person those things are said about. There is no real basis for the comments. And frankly, there's no thought behind them either.

It's the old forest for the trees argument. You either see the one tree you want to focus on and dismiss the entire forest for potentially having similar trees, or you have no interest in the rest of the forest. Only the one tree matters.

Clearly Barb McQuade does not like Trump, so of course she's going to make a comment like that. But she has to understand what she's really saying. She can't simply dismiss all the other bad things that have happened and target the one she perceives as having been perpetrated by one man she dislikes or disagrees with. 

And people should call her out for it. As I did, commenting back on her post. And as I have done here.

Like the way I write or the things I write about? Follow me on X at @jimbauer601 or on my Facebook page.