Get a tall oak tree
He really does say that.
"There's old sayings in Texas about find all the rope in Texas and get a tall oak tree. You know, we take justice very seriously, & we ought to do that. Round up the bad guys." — here's Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) glorifying lynchings during hearing on violence against Asian-Americans pic.twitter.com/uy5irfmJCo
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) March 18, 2021
It’s rather disturbing to hear this guy segue smoothly from murders in Atlanta to the citizens at the southern border supposedly being “decimated”, and then bring up concerns about rioting and looting. It sounds an awful lot like “I’ll switch from the actual topic, a left-wing issue, immediately to right-wing issues”.
I gather from his words at the end that he was about to talk about people taking the law into their own hands, abandoning rule of law. If so, I suspect he brought up lynching as an example, poorly worded, of people doing exactly that, and that he was criticizing it. I gather from his comments that he was about to talk about people taking the law into their own hands in regard to objectionable rhetoric, and it’s possible i might agree with him, although his example was extreme and poorly chosen, and I have little idea how it relates to the topic of the murders. I’ll have to find a longer clip.
A brief search did not turn up a full recording, but I did find this article about his remarks, and he was all over the place. Lots of “whataboutism”, and, as I had gathered, a primary concern about policing rhetoric. I think he was using lynching in two ways: as a wistful memory of how he wishes things could be done, and an example of what we are supposed to say is wrong, the failure of rule of law. I don’t think he values rule of law.
Other information I encountered about Chip Roy leads me to think that meandering right-wing “whataboutism” is his normal way of speaking.
https://www.businessinsider.com/chip-roy-complains-about-china-at-anti-asian-violence-hearing-2021-3
On top of the grotesquery of lynching… why is a lawmaker – a writer of law – reminiscing over lawlessness?