I apologize for my late response to this news. As most of you know, I have spent the last few weeks glued to my bed bed, flaring pretty aggressively. But given that I had devoted a good amount of blog space on the Bill Sparkman death, I think an apology is certainly in order given the latest:
FRANKFORT — A part-time U.S. Census worker found dead near a secluded Clay County cemetery killed himself but tried to make the death look like a murder, authorities have concluded.
Bill Sparkman, 51, of London, apparently was trying to preserve payments under life insurance policies he had taken out, one as recently as May, which paid benefits if he died as a result of murder or accident, but not suicide or natural causes, police said.
I appear to have been entirely wrong and for that I apologize. But let's not forget how I got to my opinion on the matter. The Census worker tried to make the suicide look like a murder - a sick and twisted murder at that. Add to this already horrid scene Sparkman's well planted anti-government context. Finally, add the news reports indicating that police felt it was a political murder. It is a logical conclusion that the man was murdered. But it seems the news reports I used for sourcing were wrong and it also seems that as a result, I too was wrong.
Consider the news reports at the time. Here is one example of an article I used as sourcing for my discussions:
"He did have the word 'fed' on his chest," said Jim Trosper, the Clark County, Ky. coroner who examined the body of William Sparkman. The 51-year-old part-time Census Bureau field worker was found Sept. 12 in the Daniel Boone National Forest in southeastern Kentucky. A rope was wrapped around his neck and tied to a tree; his feet were in contact with the ground, according to the Kentucky state police and the FBI.
Trosper would not elaborate on his office's investigation.
Sparkman was naked, gagged and had his hands and feet bound with duct tape, according to an Ohio man who discovered the body two weeks ago and spoke Friday with the Associated Press.
“The only thing he had on was a pair of socks,” Jerry Weaver of Fairfield, Ohio told the AP. “And they had duct-taped his hands, his wrists. He had duct tape over his eyes, and they gagged him with a red rag or something."
Logic would rule out suicide, would it not?
But I did indeed jump the gun in calling this a murder. I never imagined that someone would do this to themselves and frame it as a hate crime. That was clearly a mistake on my part. I should have allowed for that possibility.
Overkill much?
My other reaction to the latest news on Sparkman's death is, in short, WTF? Was this suicide scene made to look like murder a bit of overkill (no pun intended)? He could have created a murder scene minus the branded, naked body hanging in a cemetery.
Seriously, Sparkman apparently branded himself, hanged himself, and carved himself in a cemetery all to make his suicide look like a political hit in order for his family to collect insurance money. This seems very much overkill to me, to the point where one has to wonder if his actual intention was not so much the money, but to frame a particular political position or sentiment. Does no one else think this extraordinary for someone to do to themselves, frame the "killer" as an anti-government extremist, and do it all to collect insurance?
But I digress, as I often do.
At the time, I felt that Rep Michelle Bachmann's ugly rhetoric may have incited someone to commit this crime as part of my examination of the relationship between hate speech and hate crimes. Since this has now been ruled a suicide, I must apologize for speculating that there could have been a connection in this particular case and the suggestion that this may have been a lynching when it was in fact a suicide. Here is what I wrote at the time:
Lynchings have far more disturbing connotations in the South because of the history of those crimes there. That history is still raw for both blacks and whites, both victims' families and the families of those who committed such horrible acts. So when I see that a man has been lynched in the South, my first thought is always to ask if he was black.
That is why this particular crime seems to me to be a message for perhaps a very specific target, not organization or entity. I think the Secret Service should consider investigating the crime for potential connections to a group of people, rather than a single individual. Although aided with a gun, a single individual could threaten a grown man into submission until he was securely bound. It would, however, take a good deal of strength to hang a full grown individual, which suggest to me that there may be multiple people involved in this crime.
But really consider the display here as the killer has arranged it. A white government worker is lynched in the deep South during the administration of the first ever black POTUS. The white government worker was marked with FED on his chest and had a badge pinned to him. Again, this is the South, so lynching is very tied to racism. Yet the victim is white and the motive appears to be political.
So while Sparkman was the sad victim of this crime, I don't think he was the target to whom the message was sent. I think this was a message, a threat left for the POTUS. Thoughts?
Was it reasonable to question the connection between hate speech and hate crimes? Yes, absolutely. Given the evidence presented in news accounts, was it difficult to imagine this to be a suicide? Absolutely. Was there a connection in this case between Bachmann's rhetoric and Sparkman's death? No, not at all.
So I would like to apologize to Rep. Bachmann for jumping the gun. I still firmly believe that Bachmann's rhetoric is ugly, even violent, sometimes racist, and always anti-Obama. I still firmly believe that her ignorance of how the Census works and her paranoid belief that Obama is not really the POTUS is enough to question her sanity openly. But I was clearly very wrong in connecting her anti-Census verbiage with the death of Bill Sparkman.
The obsessed bigot is back
On a side note, Don Douglas continues his strange obsession with me, while inserting himself somehow into this story, and as always, gets thing very much wrong:
That said, as a follow up from this afternoon, I'm reiterating my call for Larisa Alexandrovna -- who has smeared me personally as racist -- to issue an apology and retraction for her Bill Sparkman race-baiting. Ms. Alexandrovna's racist allegations against conservatives seek to delegitimized partisanship and shut down debate -- these smears are all the leftists have left, so don't expect much from these people, so intent to gain political capital from the cult of victimology.
Wonderful job there Sherlock. Douglas seems to have noticed (because he visits my blog often) that I had not apologized for my Bachmann/Census/Sparkman discussions. He even reiterated his call that I do so and on the same day too (apparently visiting my blog more than once a day).
Yet he seems to either have entirely missed or purposefully omitted something rather obvious. I had not blogged anything for over a week about any topic at all. I was entirely MIA, to the point where people were emailing me and calling me to see if I was alright.
I suppose Douglas also did not notice that I had not been on Twitter (since he follows me) for about a week either. So why make it seem as though I simply refused to apologize when the reality is that I was entirely MIA, in bed, and flaring badly?
Douglas owes me an apology for his false conclusions. I don't expect one or even need one. But if we are keeping score, then he up to bat in the apology sphere.
Douglas also continues to be a liar.
He claims I have called all conservatives racists. I have never made that claim. I challenge him to locate such a claim in my work and present it in its original context. In fact, I created a whole separate category to distinguish between conservatives on one hand and racist, openly bigoted, and openly homophobic conservatives on the other. I called the latter "glue - sniffers" so that there would be no confusion as to whom I was speaking of. Douglas knows this because he devoted a whole blog entry to my use of the term "glue sniffers," and his tantrum that I had inserted him into this latter group. He knows this and yet he makes claims contrary to the facts. But will Don apologize? More importantly, do I really care if he does? No, not hardly. An apology from someone you don't respect is entirely pointless.
So while I am more than happy to issue an apology to Rep. Bachmann for speculating on the connection between her hate speech (which it is) and Sparkman's death, I will not be issuing one to Don Douglas. Bachmann most likely does not care
about my initial comments or my apology. That is entirely okay too. But
I am not apologizing for her benefit. Rather, I am apologizing for
being wrong. Something Douglas does not need to remind me to do. I have no problem admitting my mistakes.
Douglas, on the other hand, cares far too much and is far too interested in getting an apology from someone he has little respect for. Strange, is it not?
Shall we wager on how quickly Don will pen a shiny new blog entry entirely devoted to me? I give him 48 hours. Thoughts?
