As Usual, Ted Nugent Will Have To Save America’s ‘Soul’ – Maybe By Playing ‘Jailbait’ For Us

By Robyn Pennacchia as originally published over at Wonkette and reposted here with permission 

With all of the gross and terrible people going around saying gross and terrible things about the Parkland survivors, you may have been wondering where Ted Nugent is. Well, wonder no more because he has arrived on the scene to say some pretty gross and terrible things himself!

In an interview on Newsmax’s The Joe Pags Show (yeah, I don’t know either), Nugent – in his capacity as a member of the NRA’s board of directors – went on a disturbing tangent about how he thinks the children who survived the Parkland Shooting “have no souls.”

Transcript via Media Matters:

TED NUGENT: The level of ignorance goes beyond stupidity. Again, the National Rifle Association are a bunch of American families who have a voice to stand up for our God-given Constitutionally-guaranteed right to keep and bear arms. We have no blood on our hands. No NRA member have ever been involved in any mass shootings at all, in fact the National Rifle Association is the lone organization that has taught firearm safety in schools, and for law enforcement, and for military, and for childrens organizations and family organizations around the country for 100 years. So once again, this poor pathetic individual is a liar.

JOE PAGLIARULO (HOST): I’m going to pick it up from there. And then she continues and then the David Hogg kid who everybody’s talking about lately jumps in.

[…]

NUGENT: The dumbing down of America is manifested in the culture deprivation of our academia that have taught these kids the lies, media that have prodded and encouraged and provided these kids lies. I really feel sorry for them because it’s not only ignorant and dangerously stupid, but it’s soulless. To attack the good law-abiding families of America when well known predictable murderers commit these horrors is deep in the category of soulless. These poor children, I’m afraid to say this and it hurts me to say this, but the evidence is irrefutable, they have no soul.

Now, technically, I agree – but only because I don’t believe in the concept of a “soul” to begin with. But clearly, Ted Nugent does – and what he’s saying here, really, is that these children are irredeemably evil because they are not very fond of the NRA.

I suppose one could understand his ire if all the NRA were doing was peacefully going around teaching gun safety. That is not what goes on and we all know it. No one is mad at the NRA for teaching gun safety! In fact, they should probably do more of that given the many accidental shootings that happen in this country. Perhaps that is a thing that can actually help people. You know what doesn’t actually help people?

Shit like this.

Lobbying against gun control doesn’t help much either. Suggesting that people just deal with all these mass shootings because someday there might be tyranny and the only way to stop that from happening is guns – also not helpful! Or something that is going to endear you to anyone who is very, very sick of this happening.

It is gross to call these kids soulless for opposing that. And, you know, when you’re a guy who once wrote a song about the joys of gangraping a 14-year-old girl with the help of a police officer, you don’t really have room to talk about what is and is not evil!

However, I’d like to draw your attention to another phrase in this rant.

The dumbing down of America is manifested in the culture deprivation of our academia that have taught these kids the lies…

This is the part that makes it possible for him to say such horrid things and never be held accountable for it. If he were just going around calling these kids “soulless,” it wouldn’t impact his audience all that much. The thing that makes his rant effective is the part where he tells people that they are smarter than those kids are. He knows what he’s doing. He can say anything he wants, no matter how vile, as long as he tells those people that they are smart and good – and all those people making them feel badly are stupid and evil. He is telling them the story they want to believe about themselves.

Or, you know, he really is that stupid and evil himself and so are they. One of the two!

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