Dr. Jules Hilbert: Alright. On a scale of one to ten, what would you consider the likelihood you might be assassinated?
Harold Crick: Assassinated?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: One being very unlikely ten being expecting it around every corner.
Harold Crick: I have no idea.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: O.k. let me rephrase.
[takes a deep breath]
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Are you the king of anything?
Harold Crick: Like what?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Anything. King of the lanes at the local bowling alley.
Harold Crick: King of the lanes?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: King of the lanes, king of the trolls,
Harold Crick: King of the Trolls?
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Yes, uh uh uh a clandestine land found underneath your floor boards.
Harold Crick: No.
Dr. Jules Hilbert: Huh?
Harold Crick: No. That’s ridiculous.
I’ve been thinking a lot about presidential assassinations since I saw this speech:
No matter where you stand, this was undoubtedly a shining moment in the history of political oratory. It’s incredible that this guy is now the president. It’s also really scary because guys like this (that is, people who are thoughtful, intelligent and interested in change), historically, don’t do well in high profile positions.
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I feel like there’s a common perception of the leftist agitators as the violent resistors. It’s always a bunch of dudes with bandanas around their faces throwing Molotov cocktails at the police. But of the four presidents assassinated in the history of America, only one (William McKinley) was a right-wing conservative killed by a leftist, and I don’t even know if I count that. Is an anarchist really left? It’s sort of unfair, I think, unless we also get to put Nazis in with the right (I don’t mean that to be inflammatory, it’s just, that’s the extreme ends of either political view).
Quick note: The only apolitical assassination was James Garfield. He was shot by a very lonely and very crazy guy because his office refused to give the man a job, basically.
Either way, the right-wing, conservative nuts are leading the left-wing, anarchist nuts 2-1. If we add other high profile political assassinations to the mix, the red team is WAY ahead.
This seems pretty predictable to me. The right-wing guys are the ones who are mad all the time and they have all the guns. Rush Limbaugh screamed and shouted his way through 8 years of the most socially conservative government this country has even seen, and, to be sure, he’ll be screaming and shouting until the day he dies. The modern left, on the other hand, is intimately tied with artists and intellectuals. Spokesmen for the blue team are guys like Noam Chomsky. Sure, he’s mad about stuff, but he doesn’t scream and shout about it. He takes hours to make his point and he comes off like, well, like a whiny Jewish intellectual.
I mean, I love whiny Jewish intellectuals, and I’m happy to be on their team. But this is all really coming into focus because of the comparisons drawn between Obama and Lincoln and Kennedy. The analogies are founded, to be certain, but those are tough odds. All three were/are extraordinary speakers. They were/are a perfect mix of intelligence and approachability. And all three really believe(d) that they stood on the precipice of some fundamental shift in the political and day-to-day reality of living in America. For Lincoln and Kennedy we know now that they really did stand on that precipice, and I think there’s reason to believe Obama does too. But the former two were killed for exactly these reasons.
I mean to say: PLZ DONT KILL MAH PREZ K? THX!!!
Another quick note: I realize that JFK was shot by a communist, but does anyone really believe that a little skirmish with Cuba was the reason for Kennedy’s assassination?