Excerpt from Colonels of Truth show #41, December 8, 2021

https://www.facebook.com/progressky/videos/953369531949085

Nate Orshan:

As much of Kentucky knows by now, District 4 Congressman Thomas Massie succeeded in getting a lot of attention last Saturday, December 4, when he tweeted a holiday picture of himself with his family, smiling and sitting or standing in front of their Christmas tree, each of them brandishing very lethal-looking rifles. The caption read, “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.” Cue the retweets, rageful responses, and accompanying hot takes, to which I must regrettably now add my own.

I say “regrettably” because, on a fundamental level, people on both sides of the gun issue (pro-regulation vs. anti-restriction) were manipulated by Massie’s post. If you believe that every American has a right to as large and massively lethal an arsenal as they want, the post was an affirmation of your beliefs and something you’ll always remember fondly, especially when it comes to Massie’s appeals for campaign funds or votes.

If, on the other hand, you believe that there are too many BEEP-BEEP guns in the Commonwealth and that there are too many yahoos for whom a firearm is a deadly solution in search of a problem, the post was custom-made to turn your personal level of outrage up to 10.

And in both these scenarios, Massie wins. He gets attention, he gets to reinforce his reputation as an ultra-conservative extremist, and he gets a ready-made group of public enemies at whom he can point and tell his supporters, “Those people frothing at the mouth. THEY’RE the extremists. THEY’RE the ones who want to prevent you from posing in front of your Christmas tree with what appears to be an M-60 machine gun.” (Well, what LOOKs like one, at any rate; hat tip to the Santa Rosa Press Democrat for that tidbit).

And that’s not the worst of it. Massie released his photo just days after yet the latest shooting in a school which took the lives of four high schoolers in Oxford, Michigan.

So I regret that I’m here, adding my voice to a chorus of disapproval that only ends up perversely helping this Congressionally useless little troll with a fetish for ludicrously large firearms.

So let’s end with something else that’s blindingly obvious: for a Christian, Christmas is one of the holiest of holy days of the year. Even many Americans who aren’t Christians still observe Christmas in one way or another, and the holiday’s message of peace on earth and goodwill to men (OK, all people) likely resonates strongly with them as well.
So what in the literal hell is Massie and his family doing with those rifles? Would Jesus really approve of violence? Isn’t Massie desecrating –desecrating– one of the holiest days for Christians by promoting the use and, frankly, the fetishization of ultra lethal firearms?

So what can you and I do? Other than keep supporting progressive organizations in the Commonwealth such as Progress Kentucky, do what I should have done instead of this little story: don’t retweet him. Don’t write about him. Don’t share anything about him. Deprive that sad little murder Muppet of the oxygen that he so desperately wants.

And don’t get me started about Lauren Boebert…