Is It ‘Metaphor’ to Suggest Erik Loomis Should Be Sodomized by Orangutangs? UPDATE: Is Professor ‘Head on a Stick’ Now Under State Police Protection?

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Who knows? Maybe he’d enjoy it. At any rate, University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History Erik Loomis seems to consider colorful language acceptable in political discourse, so that it’s OK to say that the National Rifle Association is a “terrorist organization” and that he wants NRA chief Wayne LaPierre’s “head on a stick,” among other thought-provoking figures of speech:

A professor of history turned to Twitter over the weekend to call for the death of National Rifle Association (NRA) CEO Wayne LaPierre, branding the gun rights group he heads as a terrorist organization.
A professor used twitter over the weekend to call for the death of the NRA’s CEO.
“[I] want Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick,” Erik Loomis, a professor at the University of Rhode Island (URI), tweeted.
It “looks like the National Rifle Association has murdered some more children,” he added.”
Can [we] define NRA membership as dues contributing to a terrorist organization?” he  asked in a separate tweet.
Loomis’ comments come on the heels of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, which left 20 young children and six faculty members dead.
The professor contended Democratic lawmakers should exploit the tragedy to force more restrictive gun control measures into law.
“You are goddamn right we should politicize this tragedy,” Loomis tweeted. “[F]uck the NRA.”
“Dear Republicans, do you know the definition of family values?” he continued. “It’s not having our kids FUCKING SHOT AT SCHOOL! Fuck the NRA.” …

See, the problem here is not that Erik Loomis is on Twitter. The problem is that you’re too stupid to understand academic literature:

Dear right-wing morons, saying you “want someone’s head on a stick” is a metaphor. I know metaphor is hard for you to understand.

Dear rightwingers, to be clear, I don’t want to see Wayne LaPierre dead. I want to see him in prison for the rest of his life. #nraterrorism

Erik Loomis deleted that Tweet already, and also deleted a Tweet in which he claimed to be the victim of a “right-wing intimidation campaign.” He apparently deleted his entire Twitter account. Because he’s a Ph.D., and you’re too stupid understand what a “metaphor” is.

UPDATE: Before he deleted his Twitter account, University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History Erik Loomis re-Tweeted this message from another blogger:

First fucker to say the solution is for elementary school teachers to carry guns needs to get beaten to death.

So we can add “needs to get beaten to death” to the repertoire of progressive metaphors that are approved by University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History Erik Loomis. However, if you criticize University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History Erik Loomis with such colorful metaphors, he might call the cops:

Being attacked by a David Horowitz wannabe for saying I wanted to see Wayne LaPierre’s head on a stick has led to a world of fun, ranging from a meeting with the Rhode Island State Police last night to people inundating the University of Rhode Island community with warnings of their murderous colleague in their midst.

What kind of insult metaphor does he mean by “David Horowitz wannabe,” and to whom does this phrase refer?

UPDATE II: It appears from comments at University of Rhode Island Assistant Professor of History Erik Loomis’s blog that his “meeting with the Rhode Island State Police last night” was perhaps not because he called the cops, but that someone call the cops on him.

Perhaps they were worried the professor might commit seppuku.

Metaphorically, of course.

46 comments

  2. God god, what makes you think an Orang Utan would be remotely attracted to Loomis? Besides, it would be animal abuse.

  3. Any decent orangutang would ensure he returns books to the library on time.

    On a more serious note, blaming the access to firearms is the wrong idea; it’s an effect not the cause. The cause is having let all of the violently insane out into the general public.

  4. I would further add that the cause is letting the violently insane out into the general public when they know that there are plenty of places where they can wreck havoc with relative impunity while society indulges in magical thinking that simply stating that a place is “safe” makes it so.

  5. Liberals always bitch and whine that conservatives don’t ‘understand’ them, when the problem they have is that conservatives understand them far too well.

  16. The swirling toiletbowl of comments at Loomis’ site are a hoot. McCain is “stormfront” to these ugly bags of mostly douche.

    A lot of calls for better treatment of the mentally ill come from the same lefties that helped shut down institutions in the first place. But hey, if we’re going to fire them back up, they should definitely include a regimen for these poor souls who seem to find raaaaacism! every place they look.

  17. If liberals completely take over it may be like “Lord of the Flies” and the heads of those they disagree with WILL be on sticks. Even with Obama winning the mask is slipping. I’m angry that this spawn of Satan killed so many innocents too but I’m not shouting about putting people heads on a pike who don’t have the same political views I do.

  21. Loomis is the kind of guy that comes slinking out of the bottom of a septic tank, like most liberals, after fermenting for a long, long time. And then stinks up the rest of the world. And he passes that stink onto his students.

  22. Unfortunately not an unusual approach for the modern progressive ‘Professor’.

    Old Socratic Method: Asking questions to illuminate a topic and seek the truth

    New Socratic Method: I disagree with you, so go kill yourself

  26. If he really didn’t a head on a stick, then Mr. Ph.D. was using hyperbole not metaphor. Although I’m an engineer, I have enough of a liberal arts education to know the difference between them.

  27. Under police protection, or were the State Police obligated to contact him based upon a report of him making specific death threats?

  30. Oh, I dunno. Is it metaphor to suggest that you all are more upset over metaphorical violence than a bunch of dead kindergarteners?

  31. Dr. Erik Loomis

    Assistant Professor
    Contact Information:
    Department of History
    University of Rhode Island
    80 Upper College Road, Suite 3
    Kingston, RI 02881
    Office: 217B Washburn
    Phone: 401.874.4079
    Email: [email protected]

    Department
    of History
    113 Washburn Hall80 Upper College Road
    Kingston, RI 02881
    Phone: (401) 874-2528
    Fax: (401) 874-2595
    Hours:
    MWF 8:30 am – noon
    TTh 1:00 – 4:30 pm

  40. Calling for someone’s “head on a stick” not being a death threat…

    Nor, apparently, an assertion that someone “needs to get beaten to death.”

    Behold the English language, or at least the leftist variant. How the fuck does that work?

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