James Hodgkinson was a bigtime supporter of Bernie Sanders, hated Republicans and was the typical socialist. After viewing the hate and anger on the media, he decided to go on a shooting rampage against Republicans on Wednesday.
The media are going through old files to find something relating to Hodgkinson. A St. Louis-based news network has come across a video of the Congressional shooter ranting about the 1% in 2011 and uttering the usual OWS income inequality talking points.
“[The] 99% are getting pushed around, and the 1% are just not givin’ a damn. So we gotta speak up for the whole country,” he said.
Here is the video embedded below:
A reporter from our sister station in St. Louis interviewed James Hodgkinson at an Occupy Wall Street event in 2011. #congressionalshooting pic.twitter.com/n3dEcF7dK2
— Ben Bradley (@BenBradleyTV) June 14, 2017
According to the Daily Wire, he also wrote letters to the editor regarding the income gap:
I just want to let everyone know that income inequality was a factor in the causes of the Great Depression as well as the greed of Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon under the Republican Presidents Harding, Coolidge and Hoover … This is what the Republican Party wants to do today.
I don’t want a president who won’t even keep his money in American banks. I don’t want a president who will lower taxes on the rich and raise them on the other 99 percent.
If the rich paid their fair share of taxes today, we wouldn’t be in this predicament. We need to vote all Republicans out of Congress.
I would wish all people under an annual income of $1 million to get behind the 99 percent, and back the push for tax reform. My motto is: “Tax em like 1938.” God bless the 99 percent.
Whether he was encouraged by the violent leftist rhetoric or not, political discourse is turning violent, and it isn’t safe to hold right-of-center or libertarian opinions these days.
I admire the passion Mr. Hodgkinson apparently felt about economic inequality. I also share what might be his frustration in finding a realistic path to reform. During the presidential campaign, Senator Sanders spoke eloquently about wealth inequality but his socialist solutions lacked imagination and promise. Hodgkinson had traveled far to promote Wall St. as a scapegoat and eventually found it easier to lump all Republicans and their misguided tax reforms as the larger enemy. His apparent disrespect for the right to life and mental instability with respect to guns pushed him further onto a reckless and lonely path of indiscriminate and misguided vengeance.
Hodgkinson will be a cult hero to elements on the fringe, just as the Isis suicide bombers are encouraged by the prayers of the hopeless. I wish there were organizations and forums that sought solutions rather than political and legal polarization. Universities no longer teach students how to recognize the good and reject every kind of evil. Business may offer some good but the competition can be cut throat.
I wish I could have told Mr. Hodgkinson that reforms were possible. The inverse taxation of wealth and income is one method of separating the good stewards from the crony capitalists and reversing the negative wealth trends of too many American families. Mandatory gun liability insurance is another policy that would price the risk of particular weapons in the hands of particular persons so as to encourage training and maximize gun safety.
Of course, few have heard of inverse taxation or gun liability insurance because they are non-partisan solutions. Our universities don’t teach and the media no longer promotes solutions unless they promote the extreme left or extreme right agendas. Our thinking is becoming as narrow and hopeless as that of Mr. Hodgkinson.