Pete Santilli’s Hate Speech

Radio host Pete Santilli made shocking remarks about former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, claiming she should be “shot” for being “involved in the killings of American troops.”

Santilli hosts a show on his website, but says he’s “ready to take my show to national syndication; that is, of course, if the FCC regulated AM/FM radio stations can handle my truth & honesty.” Personally, I don’t think his type of hateful diatribes belong on the public airwaves, and certainly would not attract mainstream sponsorship.

“Hillary Clinton needs to be convicted. She needs to be tried, convicted and shot in the vagina,” Santilli said, Right Wing Watch reports. “I want to pull the trigger.”

Santilli criticized Clinton over the Sept. 11, 2012 attack on the U.S. consultate in Benghazi, Libya. He also slammed Clinton over what he called “the fake hunt down of this Obama bin Laden thing”:

“I want to shoot her right in the vagina and I don’t want her to die right away; I want her to feel the pain and I want to look her in the eyes and I want to say, on behalf of all Americans that you’ve killed, on behalf of the Navy SEALS, the families of Navy SEAL Team Six who were involved in the fake hunt down of this Obama, Obama bin Laden thing, that whole fake scenario, because these Navy SEALS know the truth, they killed them all. On behalf of all of those people, I’m supporting our troops by saying we need to try, convict, and shoot Hillary Clinton in the vagina.”

Santilli also criticized Obama, saying he deserves the same punishment as Clinton.

“Barack Obama needs to be tried, convicted, and shot for crimes against the United States of America,” Santilli said. “And if anybody has a problem with that, then you are an enemy of our state.”

In my book, anyone who advocates the things Santilli spews out is really the enemy of the state. He is also the enemy rational discourse, humankind, and common sense. He is apparently just a hate-filled gasbag who is seeking attention by making outrageous and dangerous statements.

And most of us thought it couldn’t get any worse than Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Michael Savage.

Catch-22

For those who don’t know, a Catch-22 is “a set of circumstances in which one requirement, etc., is dependent upon another, which is in turn dependent upon the first”.

“Catch-22″ was coined by Joseph Heller in his 1961 novel, Catch-22, which is set during WWII in Italy. In this story, “Catch-22″ is a military bureaucratic rule invoked in several places (sometimes explicitly and sometimes not), and is more or less a catch-all rule to justify anything. For instance, in one example in the book, army MP’s are harassing some women and justify it with the Catch-22 rule. When asked about how Catch-22 makes their actions acceptable, one of the MP’s states: “Catch-22 states that agents enforcing Catch-22 need not prove that Catch-22 actually contains whatever provision the accused violator is accused of violating.”

The rule is explicitly explained by the narrator in chapter 5 of the book:

There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr (one of the men trying to get out of flying missions) was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be crazy to fly more missions and sane if he didn’t, but if he was sane he had to fly them. If he flew them he was crazy and didn’t have to; but if he didn’t want to he was sane and had to. Yossarian (one of the other men trying to get out of flying missions) was moved very deeply by the absolute simplicity of this clause of Catch-22 and let out a respectful whistle.

“That’s some catch, that Catch-22,” he observed.

“It’s the best there is,” Doc Daneeka agreed….

Yossarian strode away, cursing Catch-22 vehemently even though he knew there was no such thing. Catch-22 did not exist, he was positive of that, but it made no difference. What did matter was that everyone thought it existed, and that was much worse, for there was no object or text to ridicule or refute, to accuse, criticize, attack, amend, hate, revile, spit at, rip to shreds, trample upon, or burn up.

Using “Catch-22″ to describe no-win situations ultimately caught on after the 1970 movie, Catch-22, came out, based on the book. Interestingly, the phrase was almost “Catch-18″, but the historical fiction, Mila 18, also set in WWII, was published not long before and Heller’s publisher decided it would be confusing for people to have two such WWII books with “18″ on the end released so close together, so made him change it to “22″.