Witty things do not go well with massacres

Luke Russert points out that we came very close to suffering a national catastrophe of almost unlimited scope two days ago, and that why we came that close is still in large part unknown:

This last point is especially worth considering. A terrorist conspiracy attacked an essentially undefended joint session of Congress, and only failed because it was largely — although not completely, see the photos of at least a few (ex?)military wielding zip ties etc. — an amateur operation. (Also don’t underestimate the effect of DC’s gun laws, which kept the amateur hour coup from being a flat-out massacre of Congress. Imagine if some of these ammosexuals had brought their various toys with them.)

What if the attack had been just a little more sophisticated and slightly better organized? Pelosi, Pence, and Schumer could be dead or held captive. The government would be in collapse, our foreign enemies would be completely unconstrained — the country would simply be disintegrating.

Think how close this came to happening, through at a minimum gross negligence on those entrusted with protecting our government’s leaders. And what happened was quite possibly something much much worse than gross negligence, which is one thing that a comprehensive Biden administration investigation needs to determine.

Meanwhile, despite all the outrage, we still can’t seem to wrap our heads around what we know happened, because it happened right out in the open: The president of the United States incited/commanded a mob to attack a joint session of Congress, in order to stop through murderous violence — a police officer was beaten to death with a fire extinguisher: this somehow gets sanitized in news reports into “died from being hit by fire extinguisher,” as if it fell off the wall or something — the legal installation of his successor. The president of the United States is quite literally guilty of felony murder, as well as sedition. He came close to getting his own vice president murdered in front of the man’s own family.

How can there continue to be “prudential” discussions of whether this murderous seditious tyrant should be removed from office? Has this country completely lost its mind?

This is no longer a time for jesting: witty things do not go well with massacres. What? These Busirises in wigs destroy in the midst of horrible tortures children of sixteen! And that in face of the verdict of ten upright and humane judges! And the victim suffers it! People talk about it for a moment, and the next they are hastening to the comic opera; and barbarity, become the more insolent for our silence, will to-morrow cut throats juridically at pleasure. Here Calas broken on the wheel, there Sirven condemned to be hanged, further off a gag thrust into the mouth of a lieutenant-general, a fortnight after that five youths condemned to the flames for extravagances that deserved nothing worse than Saint Lazare. Is this the country of philosophy and pleasure? It is the country rather of the Saint Bartholomew massacre. Why, the Inquisition would not have ventured to do what these Jansenist judges have done. What, you would be content to laugh? We ought rather to resolve to seek vengeance, or at any rate to leave a country where day after day such horrors are committed…. No, once more, I cannot bear that you should finish your letter by saying, I mean to laugh. Ah, my friend, is it a time for laughing? Did men laugh when they saw Phalaris’ bull being made red-hot?

Voltaire replying to d’Alembert’s letter describing the execution of La Barre.