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Some Questions for David Hogg
“Blessed are the young,” said Herbert Hoover, “for they shall inherit the national debt.” Whatever the shortcomings of the Hoover administration, he was right about the debt, and might have suggested a great many other things which America’s youth appear destined to inherit, including a stunted understanding of their nation’s history and culture.
To a large extent, the now-tenured countercultural revolutionaries of 40 and 50 years ago have been so successful at denigrating the national character and distorting American history that they’ve all but stolen a rich and deeply meaningful cultural heritage from tomorrow’s adults, leaving them rudderless in the stormy seas of the here and now.
On that count alone, the young gentleman David Hogg could be forgiven for speaking platitudinous confusion. Add to that the unspeakable terror and horrific loss that he and his classmates endured on Valentine’s Day as 17 innocent people in their school were slaughtered by a 19-year-old murderer, and a certain amount of deference and respect toward Mr. Hogg and his friends are in order. Further, the insinuations from some quarters that he is some sort of “crisis actor,” and playing the part of a grief-stricken student strike me as half-baked at best, and malicious, idiotic nonsense at worst.
All the same, when someone enters the arena of policy debate and asks to be taken seriously, decent respect requires that their concerns and prescriptions be addressed soberly. And while it is neither reasonable nor fair to Mr. Hogg or his listeners to insist that his status as a victim should remove his ideas from the arena of respectable debate (we wouldn’t, after all, automatically confer the status of aeronautic safety expert to survivors of a plane crash, nor would we appoint someone as secretary of state solely because they managed to get out of the World Trade Center alive on 9/11), as Charles C.W. Cooke observed over at National Review:
It is condescending to ignore somebody arguing about politics, not to take them on. Far from being “mean,” those contending with Hogg’s pronouncements are accepting that he has an opinion, and that it is worth countering — that is, they are doing exactly what Hogg’s boosters have asked: treating him as the leader of a movement.
Very well then. A few questions, respectfully tendered, for Mr. Hogg:
1) Given your apparent disapproval of proposals to provide more armed protection for your school, and given your and your classmates’ recent experience of being powerless at the hands of an armed killer, would you please enumerate and explain the virtues of defenselessness in the face of deadly evil?
2) In 2007, a young lady named Amanda Collins was attacked and raped at gunpoint on the campus of the University of Nevada-Reno, a gun-free zone. Ms. Collins had a concealed carry permit, but could not legally carry her firearm on campus. Her attacker, James Biela, went on to rape two other women and murder another. “Had I been carrying that night, two other rapes would have been prevented and a young life would have been saved,” Amanda later said. How does making Amanda Collins’ defenseless protect her, or you and your friends for that matter, from armed criminals?
3) Both you and President Trump evidently favor raising the legal age for gun purchases to 21. Please explain to the 20-year-old single mom whose enraged ex is presently ignoring the judge’s restraining order and kicking in the door to her apartment how this makes her and her children safer.
4) Is it your belief that at the moment of peril, Amanda Collins, or Carol Bowne, whose ex-boyfriend stabbed her to death at her New Jersey home (despite a restraining order), preferred to be unarmed and defenseless? Take as much time as you need on that one.
5) Was a national assault weapons ban in force at the time of the Columbine shooting?
6) According to Dr. Thomas Sowell, the rate of gun ownership in rural America is higher than in urban America. In which of the two is the murder rate the highest?
7) What percentage of mass shootings have occurred in gun-free zones?
8) Since 1950, how many shootings in which three or more people were killed have occurred in other than gun-free zones?
9) You claim that politicians are constrained by the “shock collar” of the NRA, and lament the existence of an “oligarchy that are owning this country and not letting the citizens’ voices being heard.” According to the Washington Post, the NRA has contributed $4.1 million since 1998 to current members of Congress. Meanwhile, the Center for Responsive Politics, using data from the Federal Election Commission, reports that the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) contributed $39.2 million in 2016 alone. The National Education Association contributed $29.7 million, the Laborers Union contributed $28.8 million, the Soros Fund Management coughed up $28.7 million, the AFL-CIO furnished $19 million, and the American Federation of State, City, and Municipalities Employees Union (AFSCME) bestowed some $15.6 million to politicians … all in 2016 alone. Oh yes, and Planned Parenthood, whose motto ought to be “No Child Left Unharvested,” has lavished politicians with $50 million since 2012. Please explain again just who owns who in this “oligarchy?”
10) According to CNN (a source you will perhaps approve of), there were 650 murders in Chicago in 2017, with a total of 2,785 shooting incidents involving 3,457 shooting victims during that same year. As a deadly irony, Chicago, where there are no gun shops or civilian gun ranges, has some of the most stringent gun control laws in the country including an “assault weapons” ban. Is the criminal element or the law-abiding element that is more likely to abide by these gun restrictions? (Hint: The answer to question 7 above is 98 percent.)
11) Bonus Question: What is the functional difference between the AR-15 and a standard hunting rifle?
In his book The Closing of the American Mind, the late Professor Allan Bloom writes:
The very fact of their fury shows how much Plato threatens what is dear and intimate to them. They are little able to defend their experience, which had seemed unquestionable until questioned, and it is most resistant to cool analysis. Yet if a student can- and this is most difficult and unusual- draw back, get a critical distance on what he clings to, come to doubt the ultimate value of what he loves, he has taken the first and most difficult step toward the philosophic conversion. Indignation is the soul’s defence against against the wound of doubt about its own; it reorders the cosmos to support the justice of its cause. It justifies putting Socrates to death.
Perhaps Mr. Hogg will have the presence of mind to also take a step or two back and, as much as possible so soon after a traumatic experience, make a critical evaluation of his more absolute pronouncements in the light of the evidence of the human experience. Otherwise, the progressive experiment will have swallowed yet another restless and vibrant spirit. I truly hope it is never said of David Hogg, what Professor Bloom observed of others:
Published in GeneralWe are like ignorant shepherds living on a site where great civilizations once flourished. The shepherds play with the fragments that pop up to the surface, having no notion of the beautiful structures of which they were once a part.
Dave, this is a wonderful piece: Well written; well reasoned; and well argued. It is indeed wrong, in my judgement, to accuse the young man of insincerity, after having undergone such a horrible experience. But it is equally wrong, I submit, to allow him not be held accountable for his behavior, because of that experience. He has been rude. To not only people twice his to age, but, by speaking to a Senator the way he did, as if he himself had pulled the trigger, he has shown how public discourse in this country has degenerated to such an extent that a boy who would have once been considered a punk, can now aspire to high office – which I suspect is his goal.
Thank you, Dave, for submitting this thoughtful piece.
Damn Dave, did you have to nuke the kid? Answer: Hell yes!
“Camera Hogg” is the latest “15 minutes of fame” person the left has propped up recently. Anyone remember Cindy Sheehan? Sandra Fluke?
A fair and balanced pair of voices – yours and CCW Cooke’s – amid the hyperbole, hysteria, and exploitation…Thank you!
I agree. When you enter the public arena, and the political arena in particular, everything is fair game. Remember Khizr Khan, the father of the gold star family? He was rightfully criticized by Trump because of his speech and behavior at the 2016 Democratic convention. Kahn did not have any moral authority to lecture Trump about the Constitution (and he was wrong on what he said too), and neither does Hogg.
I want Hogg held accountable for his public rhetoric. He needs to learn (as well as other high school students across the country), that when you enter the public life, you are opened up to blowback for your words and actions, and it’s fair game . . .
Mr. Hogg has been subject to liberal indoctrination in the government schools since kindergarten. Is it any wonder that he spouts liberal platitudes? Is it any wonder that his primary emotion is rage? That’s a hallmark of progressivism.
Very good: Now we need to figure out how to present these questions to Mr. Hogg.
And he will be cast aside once he has outlived his usefulness. “Useful idiot” indeed . . .
According to a piece which Massad Ayoob cited in his blog yesterday, Mr. Hogg was in a different building of the school than the one in which the shooting took place. His claims to victimhood are a bit of an exaggeration. It seems by his standards, I, as a Seattle Public School teacher, could have claimed some form of victimhood following the shooting of a teacher years ago as he entered his building. I would grant that the district had grief counselors out in all of the school buildings around the district to handle those staff and students who considered themselves somehow victimized by the event, but my view is that if you weren’t present at the place where the shooting took place, and you aren’t a near relative of any of the victims, you are pushing the point pretty far to call yourself a victim. Mr. Hogg is an opportunist who is using and being used by the media. If anyone in that school has a right to the position David Hogg has taken it is one or all of the kids who actually survived the gunfire, most particularly ones who were actually wounded. David Hogg is asking for a participation award for an event in which he did not participate. He is capitalizing on the suffering of others. The fact that he was in the vicinity of the shooting, in actual fact less in danger than Scott Peterson who hid behind his car, makes his grandstanding anything but admirable. I don’t believe he deserves even a particle of the consideration you have given him in your piece Dave.
Here is a link to Massad’s post
https://www.backwoodshome.com/blogs/MassadAyoob/new-revelations-on-massacre-further-erode-the-arguments-of-the-prohibitionists/
be sure to read the links cited in the post.
Brilliant and beautiful.
With that said I dislike this kid and his messages. Heck, his very look bugs me.
This is great. A clear, direct, and irrefutable series of questions that take the arguments seriously.
Thank you sir.
Well, I really didn’t intend to “nuke” anyone, but thanks. Seems to me that someone as outspoken as David Hogg really wants to be taken seriously and not coddled. My goal was to that without patronizing the young man. I’ll leave it to others to divine or assign a motive. He lost classmates, and I can’t speak to the level of danger or fear he was in since A), I wasn’t there, and B), different people react differently traumatic events (both during and after the event).
My goal was to try and illuminate the issues he raises from perspectives he perhaps has not adequately considered. He’s a young guy, with much to learn. Hopefully he listens.
Thank you!! Alphonse sends his kind regards. ;)
I can’t speak to what kind of consideration others ought to show to him, but I wanted to pose straightforward and pointed questions to the young man while still treating him with a measure of deference and courtesy. Perhaps he won’t look at my questions and mistake them for the barrel of an AR-15. Then again, perhaps he might! Either way, I’m willing to be civil.
His look? From a guy whose photo looks like he has horns? If you weren’t such a swell fellow, and if I weren’t such a refined “coonass”…. Which reminds me, we gotta get you back on the podcast.
Thank you kindly.
Great post, Dave. I found Hogg just a little irksome, but then he only ratcheted up the venom and invective. Now I want to see someone take this preening, self-important, underage media…darling and get him skin up.
No, he wants to be kowtowed to and coddled. There are also skilled professionals and well funded organizations ready and waiting to capitalize on events and give the David Hoggs an outsized platform while using him and others who are or can be portrayed as victims as a shield against any criticism.
David Hines at The Federalist addresses this:
RTWT
Dave,
As I noted elsewhere in Ricochet, Mr Hogg is a one person example of why the age for voting should be raised to at least 21, the age of majority for most other activities where society has deemed the youthful mind is still tender and not fully formed. The only exemption should be to those who serve in the uniformed services since they have a less theoretical skin in the game posture.
He is prime example why the founders structured a republic rather than a straight up democracy.
I really am curious, is there a good reason for me to hope he will in fact get these questions? If so, what is it?
Not sure what he wants, but I imagine he’s not prepared for anything but kowtowing and coddling.
There is something especially galling about an older person being mau-maued by the sophomoric and self-regarding, and something contemptible about the ignorant beating up on someone for whom decorum demands silence, said beating wrapped in a tattered truth-to-power sign.
Maybe I’ve passed some age Rubicon but I don’t see that yammering children have anything to teach us.
May I clarify something, in case some think I was not clear? While I do not take back my inference that the boy will someday run for high office, there is no reason, as Dave stated, to demonize him. He did lose classmates. No one knows how he or she would react in those circumstances. First of all, to come out full-throated against him would not make us look good. It would make us look petty. And CNN would do their damnedest to make sure that perception sticks. David is doing what he has learned: Not to truly engage with people; to shout them down; and be accusetory. And for that we must blame the grown-ups – if that in fact is what they are, in this superficial-turning-into-shallow time.
One can only hope. I write the stuff, but don’t have a great deal of control over where it goes afterward.
Oh I’ve no doubt that David Hogg and others are being manipulated by others to advance their own agenda. In fact, DC McAllister and I talked about exactly that facet of it all on my most recent podcast. And perhaps you’re right,…perhaps he does want to be coddled. He won’t get that from me,..but neither will he get the sort of dripping condescension that so often alienates youth from adults, negating the ideas and messages adults try to get across to them. As I said, my questions were polite, but forcefully point to the full implications of Hogg’s ideas and pronouncements.
Ok. Those of us that can’t write can share.
You rock.
Even if he does, there will be a leftist advisor to tell him how to answer them.
However, there is every reason to “demonize” his position, and his promoted rise to spokesman for the Florida high school students. What about his fellow students who know the gun wasn’t the problem? They are the ones truly demonized (“How can you think that way after this?“).
No, we don’t have to launch explicit ad hominem attacks, but logical rebuttals to everything he says will result in Hogg ad hominem attacking himself. Lock and load . . .
Dave, your more general point about taking young people seriously by not giving them a pass on their uninformed statements is causing me to think about how I respond when young people at church make equally uninformed statements about various topics. I typically just stay silent, thinking, “They’re young and un-(or ill-)informed. Don’t make trouble by challenging them.” But, maybe it shows them more respect to ask them questions about the bases for their statements, or the consequences of their proposals.
I don’t see what the difference is between us. Dave and I both agree that we should not speak ill of this young man (other than, perhaps, that he is very rude. But that is very common nowadays). Of course he is wrong. That is a given. But, if start to speak badly of him, the biggest loser will be us.