Has Justine Landed Yet

It's been almost two years since Justine Sacco pressed "send" on the tweet that would change her life forever. On her way to Africa, she wrote, "Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!" At the time, she had a decent job as senior director of corporate communications at IAC, and 170 followers.

While she was in the air, sleeping, twitter exploded with the white-hot rage of ten thousand social justice warriors, thanks largely to an anonymous tip sent to Gawker's Sam Biddle. The hashtag #HasJustineLandedYet was trending, with people gleefully asking if there would be anyone there to greet her when she touched down in Cape Town.

Justine's story is at once a cautionary tale about prudent use of social media, and proof that saying the wrong thing can get you fired. Progressives shrugged off the public shaming, by saying that nobody is entitled to be protected from the consequences of their speech.

That's precisely what leads progressives like John Kerry to insist that the islamic butchers who murdered the staff of Charlie Hebdo were provoked by the prophet-mockery. Kerry believes that the killers had a "rationale" to their barbarism.

And that's what leads to progressives like Linda Stasi of the New York Daily News to claim that the attack in San Bernardino on Wednesday only left "13 innocent people" dead. Nicholas Thalasinos was not innocent, she contends, because he was a bigot.

Thalasinos, according to Stasi's in-depth investigation of his Facebook account, was an "anti-government, anti-Islam, pro-NRA, rabidly anti-Planned Parenthood kinda guy, who posted that it would be 'Freaking Awesome' if hateful Ann Coulter was named head of Homeland Security." Well guess what? I agree at least in part to each of those sentiments. According to Stasi, if someone burst into my workplace and shot me to death, well, I had it coming. That is somewhat disconcerting.

I never heard of Linda Stasi before yesterday, and I don't care to learn more about her now. But I bet she is against the death penalty, and in favor of physician-assisted suicide.

Let's do a thought experiment. Imagine that a hypothetical young woman posts on her Instagram account that she is against the two-state solution, and wants to defund Planned Parenthood, and that she is a member of the NRA. Suppose one of her followers stalks her, attacks her, and kills her.

Was she asking for it?

Of course not. The person who perpetrated the crime is solely responsible for his actions. What Linda Stasi has demonstrated is a good example of psychological displacement, a defense mechanism which gives her a way to deal with unpleasant thoughts. There has been a great deal of this coming from the progressives in the last few days. They have to find a way to demonstrate that the San Bernardino massacre had nothing to do with Islam, while at the same time maintaining the position that the Planned Parenthood killings were committed by an anti-abortion fanatic representative of the entire pro-life movement.

People are noticing this disconnect. Evan Sayet used to be a huge liberal. All his friends were liberal, parents, and so on, and Sayet noticed something in the aftermath of 9/11. All his liberal friends were blaming America, saying that America deserved it.

Evan Sayet realized then that liberals really do hate America. Reactions to San Bernardino like Linda Stasi's are going to make a lot of people come to the same realization.