January 16, 2013 6:35 AM

Better to be thought an unmedicated fool than to be Alex Jones....

Infowars.com and Prison Planet pundit Alex Jones, host of the Internet-only radio show, “The Alex Jones Show,” went on another unhinged rant while appearing Friday on “HuffPost Live.” He shouted, “You’re in danger! You’re in danger!” at host Alicia Menendez while ranting about fluoride in the nation’s drinking water and, of course, Hitler. For most of the appearance, Jones was decidedly more low-key than in his now-infamous wild-eyed, faux British accent sporting dust-up with CNN’s Piers Morgan and its paranoid follow-up, the video he later shot in his hotel room warning darkly that he may be “killed by crackheads” who work for New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg. It wasn’t until the end of the segment, just as the camera was about to turn away, that Jones let fly with a spittle-flecked rant that combined mangled quotes from the character Howard Beale’s famous rant from the movie “Network” and a rant about fluoride in the water straight from the 1964 dark comedy film “Dr. Strangelove.”

It would be difficult to catalogue and do justice to some of Alex Jones’ epic rants, not that any sane, lucid personal would want to, I suppose. Jones’ interview style is predicated on ranting like a maniac whose last dose of Thorazine has worn off, so it’s difficult to take the man seriously- except that he’s somehow become a chief spokesperson for the gun nuts. Like James Yeager, Jones seems bent on demonstrating how thoroughly demented and dangerous the “you can have my guns when you pry them from my cold, dead fingers” truly is.

It was one thing screaming at Piers Morgan about how Hitler, Stalin, and Castro “took the guns” (never mind that none of that is true). At least the conversation was nominally about gun control. In his latest piece of performance art, though, Jones channels (and butchers) Howard Beale and, among other things, launches into a rant about the evil of fluoridation in our water.

What fascinates me is that Jones (and Yeager) are becoming the face of the pro-gun movement…which doesn’t exactly seem like a recipe for changing hearts and minds. It’s not as if the NRA is about to throttle Jones, though; that 800-lb. gorilla is run by the same type of paranoid conspiracy theorists.

Who speaks on behalf of reasonable, rational gun owners, whom I believe constitute an overwhelming majority? So far, the debate is being monopolized by RWNJs like Jones, who couldn’t have rational debate if he was heavily sedated. How are we supposed to have a discussion about gun control when the gun nuts refuse to engage anyone who doesn’t communicate in rage-filled hateful rants?

When Alex Jones is your spokesman, you have bigger problems than you know…and you’ll have no right to claim you’ve been ignored if the President goes ahead and takes some measure of executive action to institute some measure of increased gun control.

Blame Alex Jones…and yourself for allowing such an intellectual and moral lightweight to speak for you. You could have participated in a reasoned and rational debate, but you made your choice. Like any choice, there are consequences that flow from it. Sometimes, those consequences can be…unpleasant.

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This page contains a single entry by Jack Cluth published on January 16, 2013 6:35 AM.

A good reason to ban assault weapons...as if we need another one was the previous entry in this blog.

One political party's insane? I wonder which one that could be? is the next entry in this blog.

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