Today’s Dorothy Rabonowitz Award for Disingenuous Equivalencies© goes to….Dave Shiflett, writing in The National Review…

And it is impossible not to agree that [Andrea Yates] was sick.

Then again, there are a lot of sick people in this world. Weren’t those Texans who dragged that poor fellow to death a few years back sick as well? You do have to be profoundly warped to chain a human being to your true bumper and drive off into the sunset. One doesn’t recall nearly as much sympathy for them as for Mrs. Yates. Perhaps if they had dragged five people to death, the response would have been: Poor devils. They were clearly crazy. Let’s check them in for 40 years and see if we can clear up their issues.

Sure, Dave. That’s exactly right. We squishy criminal-coddling empathics can’t be bothered to worry about mental illness unless there’s a sufficiently high body count and the case itself garners a sufficiently high media profile. Then we come darting out of the woodwork, squeaking like mice, wringing our li’l mouse paws, whining about “issues.”

None of which has anything to do with the two drunken Rednecks who consciously and knowingly dragged a man to his death behind their truck. Shiftlett knows this, of course — but how can he resist? After all, dragging a man to death is a “sick” act, right? And what Andrea Yates did, that was sick, too! See? Dave’s used the same word to describe both acts! Clever, huh?

Or better, “yo, that’s just stupid, Dog!”

By some estimations, anyone who would slit a person’s throat and then cut off his head is way off the farm. Interestingly enough, when one considers the likely motive for that crime, it appears somewhat associated with the motive that inspired Andrea Yates. Our adversaries, like Mrs. Yates, are clearly haunted by the idea of eternal damnation.

Fascinating! “Haunted by the idea of eternal damnation, you say?” Filthy Catholic adversaries…

And you know, Dave, “by some estimations,” anyone who’d run electricity through a blindfolded human who’s strapped to a chair (as a gallery of onlookers sits idly by waiting for the sparks) is way off the farm, too. Ditto anyone who’d sanction dropping bombs that suck the air out of caves, pressure-cooking cowering humans in a heated vacuum until they implode…

What? Silly analogies? You don’t say…

[…] We are currently at war with people — and probably a very large group of people — who believe that our way of life is an abomination and that our presence on earth is a corrupting one, to the point of leading countless people to perdition. Ergo, we must be destroyed. One assumes the killers of Daniel Pearl fit into this category. Indeed, these people assume that if they kill us, they not only rid the world of a problem, but earn themselves a ticket to Nirvana. A more formidable foe can hardly be imagined.

The president calls our adversaries evil, which is a word with vast theological overtones. Another way of looking at the problem is that these people were raised from infancy to hate us, and to delight in our murder even if they must die in its commission. You could argue that these people are crazed — by design, but crazed nonetheless.

Ah, but there’s the rub, Dave, yes? Our adversaries choose by design their political and ideological affiliations. They consider their options and weigh their allegiances. And then they plan their murderous strategies — all “actions” firmly within the camp of free will. Unlike, say, the chemical-addled determinism of a brain suddenly removed from anti-pyschotic drugs…

Tell you what: Find me the member of Al Qaida who wakes up one morning and proclaims to his buddies, “You know what? Them Jews is alright! I’m serious — we should give this whole democracy thing a try, y’know? I mean, who gives a camel’s dump about that little strip o’ land the Jews are living on? The ‘Palestinians’ can move in with us — o-or move back to Jordan! Whaddya say, y’all? Anyone up for a penis trim this morning?”

Find me this loco fuck, and I’ll concede you’ve found an analogue to Ms. Yates among our Islamofascist adversaries. Of course you won’t find such a man, because his erstwhile buddies would turn on him instantly and lop his filthy Jew-lovin’ head off, then eat lamb stew from his hollowed-out skull cavity…

…Had they merely decided to lock him up for the rest of his miserable life, they wouldn’t be Islamofascists at all. They’d be… well, a Texas jury…!

—–