{"id":101257,"date":"2017-10-03T18:40:41","date_gmt":"2017-10-04T01:40:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/?p=101257"},"modified":"2017-10-03T18:40:41","modified_gmt":"2017-10-04T01:40:41","slug":"dear-friend-clear-mind-cant-samuel-johnson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/markshea\/2017\/10\/dear-friend-clear-mind-cant-samuel-johnson.html","title":{"rendered":"My dear friend, clear your mind of cant. – Samuel Johnson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Yesterday, we were instructed \u201cIt\u2019s too soon!\u00a0 Don\u2019t politicize this tragedy and insult the dead by trying to prevent the next tragedy that will create more dead\u201d by the people who then instantly took advantage of the silence of decent people to bray, as Bill O\u2019Reilly did, that mass murder is the \u201cprice of freedom<\/a>\u201c.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for that disgraced sex predator, the Onion<\/em>, not feeling itself bound by the phony speech codes of the Right Wing Noise Machine, was way ahead of him with a headline reading \u201cNRA Says Mass Shootings Just The Unfortunate Price Of Protecting People\u2019s Freedom To Commit Mass Shootings<\/a>\u201c, demonstrating what an absurd (and now completely predictable) joke the allegedly \u201cprolife\u201d Right Wing Culture of Death has become.<\/p>\n

Onion<\/em> staff writers are not supernaturally gifted prophets who somehow read O\u2019Reilly\u2019s mind. They are simply people who have been to this rodeo multiple times a year for the past 35 years and know the by-now-completely-dog-eared playbook the apologists for gun slaughter read from every single time.<\/p>\n

We all know the absurd lies. I tossed out a little request for readers on FB to hit me with them and and they instantly hit \u201cplay\u201d on the file of lies, fallacies, denials, excuses, evasions and defenses of the status quo:<\/p>\n