Our View: No bullet is acceptable
February 5, 2017
Protests in Berkeley, California, turned violent after a group of 100-150 individuals allegedly took over the demonstration to apply the black bloc strategy. This was in response to Breitbart’s senior editor Milo Yiannopoulos’s scheduled appearance at the University of California – Berkeley.
In the smouldering aftermath, Dan Adamini, Secretary of the Marquette County Republican Party in Michigan, took to political propaganda’s newest overflowing latrine, Twitter. The vitriolic, under-140-character composition deriding the protests in Berkeley included the courageously ignorant statement: “Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery.”
It is not OK, no matter how much one decides to sheath his tiny sword, to incite violence — especially at the expense of a national tragedy. Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder deserve much more than to be disgraced by Adamini and his angry thumbs.
Adamini — also an emerging Alternative Christian songwriter whose album ‘Family … Faith … (and a Little Fun)’ has a pathetic 90 views — tried walking his statements back with a maneuver known to journalists and critical thinkers alike as kettle logic. In essence, he tried defending his ideas by taking a ‘whatever-definition-necessary-to-convince-you’ line of logic.
“Sorry folks, the intent was to try to stop the violence, not encourage more,” read the backpedaling tweet from Adamini’s account the next day. There is no wiggle room with the phrase, “One bullet stops a lot of thuggery.” A bullet is meant for intrinsically violent purposes.
What’s missing from this situation is a strong response by Kent State’s administration. The university’s official response, which doesn’t even make it to 100 words, refuses to name Dan Adamini and decides his “abhorrent” post is in “poor taste.”
Poor taste can be used to describe Adamini’s musical career, not his incitement of violence and murder against an upset populus. “Poor taste” is a toothless shaming of an argument that is clearly sociopathic.
When facing hate like Adamini’s propositions, it’s vital to stand tall and speak loudly.
The statement should have specifically called out Adamini and not used ambiguous phrasing that diluted the reprimand. Say his name, denounce his hatred, and show the world how important the lives of Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, and William Schroeder were.
The above editorial is the consensus opinion of The Kent Stater editorial board, whose names are listed above.