The problem is that anyone who waits "to learn more before expressing themselves loudly, and often angrily" misses out on the lifeblood of social media, which is: Attention, _ATTENTION_, *ATTENTION!!!*. Thus, the people who take your advice, select themselves out of (algorithmic) power. And those who do the opposite get to become "influencers" and algorithm-favored. You're not just yelling at a cloud, you're yelling at a hurricane (of likes/retweets/restacks/retruths/retreads/repercussions ...).
The confirmation bias of the FBI during the initial hours shocked me. They had already written a story that failed to match the evidence. The Cowboy Apocalypse: Religion and the Myth of the Vigilante Messiah by Rachel Wagner (NYU Press 2024) offers insights the media overlooks into gamer culture, white Christian nationalism, and the "good guy with a gun" mythology which permeates dominant culture.
Improbable, unpredictable events occur all the time. Anyone who lives long enough will experience several. On at least three occasions: once on a cross-channel ferry from UK to France, once in the interior of Argentina in a small town, and once in a bar in Singapore I ran into, totally by accident, either a close friend or a friend or relative of a close friend. None of these were evidence of stalking, prior arrangement or anything else but pure chance!
Shootings in the US seem to be overwhelmingly the action of disturbed people acting as "lone wolves". The only obvious conspiracy was January 16!
So why so many shootings in the US as compared to other countries?
There seem to be just two overwhelming factors.
One is cultural: the myth of the strong, male fixer with a gun who sets everything right: whether Mat Dillon, Dirty Harry, or your TV or movie hero of choice. The second is the overwhelming availability of powerful guns that are totally unrelated to any use (e.g. hunting) other than killing people. And very few of these guns are in possession of members of a "well-regulated militia" (i.e. the National Guard) and so should bot be allowed under the second amendment!!!
Charlie Kirk is the face of False Faith Christianity in the U.S.. False Faith Christianity takes many forms, but the most powerful and insidious form comes from the melding of Church and State (expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution). False Faith — or “Cultural Christianity”— is not true religion. Religion in its original sense refers to the act of binding ourselves to a spiritual teaching in order to separate ourselves from the world. It’s not a means for controlling it. Religion today is nothing more than a forced and enforced arbitrary moral code. If U.S. citizens would have respected the Establishment Clause, and had they recognized the emerging foundation of a theocracy, Charlie Kirk never could have attained his position of power (which continues posthumously), let alone Donald Trump. Trump appeals to people’s basest instincts, as does False Faith religion. Both attract the uneducated.
But gee is it not an amazing coincidence that in the last 10 years all of the political targets are on the right?
Well of course, with the exception of the Minnesota state ones. Except it turns out there the motive appears to be a leftist angry that the Dem in question voted insufficiently leftist.
So again, on any given one, you are quite correct.
But the pattern is there. The odds of it being a coincidence are… quite slim indeed.
You missed the attack on the home of Josh Shapiro. And the kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer. And the near-murder of Nancy Pelosi’s octogenarian husband in her home. And probably others I can’t recall
Top-of-mind.
So, yeah, all the targets are the on the right. Except all the targets on the left.
Look, I don’t want to be too critical. This is human psychology at work. It’s called confirmation bias.
But now that you have been informed your perceptions were wrong, are you going to change your thinking accordingly?
The attack on Shapiro was from someone not obviously on the left or the right, but who explicitly did it for a highly leftist position (pro-Palestine). So again the attack on the Dem is for being insufficiently leftist. There is *no* reasonable way to characterize this as being an attack from the right.
Re: Whitmer, there was no physical attack. And the plot was kidnapping, not mayhem. So you are now resorting to changing the subject in order to try to make your point.
I never claimed there were no bad actors or wingnuts on the right; my claim was that the political assassination attempts are *mostly* coming from the left, rather than anything like equal.
I said pattern, I didn’t say uniformly. In response you came up with 1.5 examples from the right, to go with the much larger number from the left.
But now that you have been informed your claims were mostly wrong, are you going to change your thinking - that this is a both sides thing at this point, rather than primarily from the left - accordingly?
You said "is it not an amazing coincidence that in the last 10 years all of the political targets are on the right?" You said nothing about motivations of the attackers. But now motivations of the attackers are relevant because ... why? Because you want them to be relevant so you can take items off the list?
However, if you insist on this new criterion, OK. I'll give it to you. But now let's remove the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump from the list because the attackers weren't motivated by leftist politics.
But I suspect you would say, "it's not reasonable to remove the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump for that reason." And I would agree -- and ask you to apply the same reasoning to all cases or admit you are just rationalizing.
As to excluding the kidnapping plot on the grounds that "the plot was kidnapping, not mayhem," I'm, well, I hope I'm going to be polite. You are inventing a distinction (kidnapping doesn't qualify as "mayhem") any reasonable person would think makes no sense, again, simply in order to take an item off the list. We're talking about major violent crimes. Kidnapping is a major violent crime. The incident belongs on the list.
But you don't strike me as someone with a burning passion for logic so I doubt any of these words matter. Accordingly, sir, I bid you a good day.
The problem is that anyone who waits "to learn more before expressing themselves loudly, and often angrily" misses out on the lifeblood of social media, which is: Attention, _ATTENTION_, *ATTENTION!!!*. Thus, the people who take your advice, select themselves out of (algorithmic) power. And those who do the opposite get to become "influencers" and algorithm-favored. You're not just yelling at a cloud, you're yelling at a hurricane (of likes/retweets/restacks/retruths/retreads/repercussions ...).
Yep. It’s like we’ve optimized communication for our worst tendencies.
The confirmation bias of the FBI during the initial hours shocked me. They had already written a story that failed to match the evidence. The Cowboy Apocalypse: Religion and the Myth of the Vigilante Messiah by Rachel Wagner (NYU Press 2024) offers insights the media overlooks into gamer culture, white Christian nationalism, and the "good guy with a gun" mythology which permeates dominant culture.
The reference to Huey Long is important. Putting current events into historical perspective is always a good thing, and severely lacking today.
Improbable, unpredictable events occur all the time. Anyone who lives long enough will experience several. On at least three occasions: once on a cross-channel ferry from UK to France, once in the interior of Argentina in a small town, and once in a bar in Singapore I ran into, totally by accident, either a close friend or a friend or relative of a close friend. None of these were evidence of stalking, prior arrangement or anything else but pure chance!
Shootings in the US seem to be overwhelmingly the action of disturbed people acting as "lone wolves". The only obvious conspiracy was January 16!
So why so many shootings in the US as compared to other countries?
There seem to be just two overwhelming factors.
One is cultural: the myth of the strong, male fixer with a gun who sets everything right: whether Mat Dillon, Dirty Harry, or your TV or movie hero of choice. The second is the overwhelming availability of powerful guns that are totally unrelated to any use (e.g. hunting) other than killing people. And very few of these guns are in possession of members of a "well-regulated militia" (i.e. the National Guard) and so should bot be allowed under the second amendment!!!
As a friend used to say; PUT ATTENTION!
Excellent and timely.
Charlie Kirk is the face of False Faith Christianity in the U.S.. False Faith Christianity takes many forms, but the most powerful and insidious form comes from the melding of Church and State (expressly prohibited by the U.S. Constitution). False Faith — or “Cultural Christianity”— is not true religion. Religion in its original sense refers to the act of binding ourselves to a spiritual teaching in order to separate ourselves from the world. It’s not a means for controlling it. Religion today is nothing more than a forced and enforced arbitrary moral code. If U.S. citizens would have respected the Establishment Clause, and had they recognized the emerging foundation of a theocracy, Charlie Kirk never could have attained his position of power (which continues posthumously), let alone Donald Trump. Trump appeals to people’s basest instincts, as does False Faith religion. Both attract the uneducated.
To address your last point: all our solutions are wrong because we’ve failed to correctly define the problem.
All well and good.
And quite correct on any given shooting.
But gee is it not an amazing coincidence that in the last 10 years all of the political targets are on the right?
Well of course, with the exception of the Minnesota state ones. Except it turns out there the motive appears to be a leftist angry that the Dem in question voted insufficiently leftist.
So again, on any given one, you are quite correct.
But the pattern is there. The odds of it being a coincidence are… quite slim indeed.
You missed the attack on the home of Josh Shapiro. And the kidnapping plot against Gretchen Whitmer. And the near-murder of Nancy Pelosi’s octogenarian husband in her home. And probably others I can’t recall
Top-of-mind.
So, yeah, all the targets are the on the right. Except all the targets on the left.
Look, I don’t want to be too critical. This is human psychology at work. It’s called confirmation bias.
But now that you have been informed your perceptions were wrong, are you going to change your thinking accordingly?
I’ll give you the Pelosi one, yes.
The attack on Shapiro was from someone not obviously on the left or the right, but who explicitly did it for a highly leftist position (pro-Palestine). So again the attack on the Dem is for being insufficiently leftist. There is *no* reasonable way to characterize this as being an attack from the right.
Re: Whitmer, there was no physical attack. And the plot was kidnapping, not mayhem. So you are now resorting to changing the subject in order to try to make your point.
I never claimed there were no bad actors or wingnuts on the right; my claim was that the political assassination attempts are *mostly* coming from the left, rather than anything like equal.
I said pattern, I didn’t say uniformly. In response you came up with 1.5 examples from the right, to go with the much larger number from the left.
But now that you have been informed your claims were mostly wrong, are you going to change your thinking - that this is a both sides thing at this point, rather than primarily from the left - accordingly?
You said "is it not an amazing coincidence that in the last 10 years all of the political targets are on the right?" You said nothing about motivations of the attackers. But now motivations of the attackers are relevant because ... why? Because you want them to be relevant so you can take items off the list?
However, if you insist on this new criterion, OK. I'll give it to you. But now let's remove the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump from the list because the attackers weren't motivated by leftist politics.
But I suspect you would say, "it's not reasonable to remove the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump for that reason." And I would agree -- and ask you to apply the same reasoning to all cases or admit you are just rationalizing.
As to excluding the kidnapping plot on the grounds that "the plot was kidnapping, not mayhem," I'm, well, I hope I'm going to be polite. You are inventing a distinction (kidnapping doesn't qualify as "mayhem") any reasonable person would think makes no sense, again, simply in order to take an item off the list. We're talking about major violent crimes. Kidnapping is a major violent crime. The incident belongs on the list.
But you don't strike me as someone with a burning passion for logic so I doubt any of these words matter. Accordingly, sir, I bid you a good day.