Beto O'Rourke 1, Laughing Asshole 0
If you're going to laugh at a mass murder, you deserve to be called a "motherf****r"
One of the things I’ve long admired about Beto O’Rourke is his occasional willingness to go off on someone before his political filter engages. There are times when, as someone once said, “people need killing.” While O’Rourke isn’t about to do that in the literal sense, one of his verbal assassinations can be fun to watch. Because if there’s one thing that Beto O’Rourke does well, it’s dancing with righteous indignation.
A perfect example of this was when he confronted Texas Gov. Greg Abbott in the aftermath of the mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, TX. O’Rourke made some excellent points and calmly (or as calmly as could be done under the circumstances) demanded to know what Abbott planned to do. Abbott, of course, had no response, and the people surrounding him treated O’Rourke as if HE was the problem.
O’Rourke, who is polling 5 percentage points behind Abbott, has long made gun control a core issue.
Earlier this year, O’Rourke interrupted a news conference held by Abbott after the Uvalde mass shooting to demand action.
“You’re doing nothing. You’re all doing nothing,” O’Rourke told Abbott and other officials gathered on a stage for the event.
O’Rourke was escorted out.
“This is on you,” he said before leaving. “Until you choose to do something different, this will continue to happen. Somebody needs to stand up for the children of this state or they will continue to be killed just like they were killed in Uvalde yesterday.”
It illustrated what a small, compassion-free, and deeply ineffectual person Greg Abbott truly is. His silence demonstrated demonstrated that he planned to do nothing in response to the massacre of 19 children and two teachers.
Second Amendment, don’tchaknow? Guns uber alles.
Gov. Abbott is concerned with his political prospects above all else. Nothing matters to him more than keeping his job in Austin. Beto O’Rourke is trying to ensure that the people of Texas hold Gov. Abbott accountable for turning the Lone Star State into a free-fire zone that’s left so many innocents dead.
The problem is that so many Proudly Closed-minded Gun Control Foes don’t care about anything except their guns. That’s truly pathetic, but the person who laughed at O’Rourke during his speech deserved to be called out, and O’Rourke calling him a “motherf****r” was perfect…and spot on.
After the Uvalde mass murder, Gov. Abbott’s reaction was to say that it could have been worse. He did nothing to console the families, nothing to show compassion to those who had lost loved ones, and nothing to show the community that he gave a damn.
O’Rourke has made it clear that he’s tired of mass shootings. He’s sick of Texas communities burying loved ones who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. O’Rourke knows of which he speaks. On August 3, 2019, in his hometown of El Paso, a shooter killed 23 people and injured 23 more at a Walmart. Because of Texas’ permissive gun laws, the Lone Star State is a mass shooting looking for a place to happen, and Beto O’Rourke wants to change that. Unfortunately, Greg Abbott doesn’t see a problem with the current state of affairs. Sure, people are dying, but his poll numbers are looking good. Why should he change anything?
No civilized people can continue to live in a legal environment that allows citizens to purchase weapons whose only purpose is slaughtering soldiers in combat. As long as Texas state law remains unchanged, the Lone Star State will careen from one mass shooting to the next. As a result, more innocent civilians will die, their lives ended horrifically by a weapon that belongs on a battlefield- not in a school, store, coffee shop, or other public space.
Precisely for this reason, Texans deserve better than Greg Abbott. They deserve a Governor who gives a damn, and that isn’t Abbott, who’s concerned only with his political prospects.
Beto O’Rourke will help move Texas in a better and safer direction. It won’t be easy- The Texas GOP controls the state legislature, and most of them are crazy enough that they should be on a court-ordered Thorazine drip.
Still, O’Rourke as Governor would be a good start toward restoring sanity to the Lone Star State.
Now, if only someone could sedate Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and drop him off in a country with no formal relations with the US. I hear Iran’s beautiful this time of year. ;-)
