The facts:
According to ADL’s Center on Extremism, 73.3% of U.S. extremist-related murders in the past decade were committed by right-wing extremists, including white supremacists. Leaders must immediately take concrete steps to curb this alarming trend. #ElPaso pic.twitter.com/3MPbvzXo6e
— ADL (@ADL) August 4, 2019
I’m not confused Scoop. Have you read any reports by those who read the killer’s manifesto? If anthing, he was anticorporate. Byron York, a journalist respected by those on both sides of the aisle, did read it, concluding much of the “conventional” reporting wrong.
Yes, the killer was anti-immigrant, I never disputed that. I said he had political views “in all directions.”
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/08/has-anyone-actually-read-the-el-paso-killers-manifesto.php
You do seem to have the two confused. The Dayton guy had some kind words for Warren. The El Paso guy has no kind words for any liberal or Democrat. I’ve read the manifesto and his Twitter feed.
While Mr. El Paso doesn’t follow the straight Trump line, who does? Trump loves corporations, this guy hates them. That’s predictable. The vast majority of White Nationalists hate all giant banks and corporations because they feel they are controlled by Jews. That’s part of their standard weltanschauung. But even White Nationalists are not a monolith. Some of them agree with certain Bernie-type positions, just as long as they go to white people.
His Twitter feed was abandoned some years ago, and is just a standard pro-Trump feed, like millions of others.
The manifesto, on the other hand, is just basically a crazy rant.
While his thoughts might align with liberals in some ways, all of his positions basically stem from anti-immigration and anti-miscegenation. That’s the only thing he really cares about.
He doesn’t love Republicans, but he hates all liberals, and the only thing he REALLY cares about is Keeping America White. He would support anyone who stood for that, irrespective of all other issues.
Here is his summary statement:
They (the Democrats) intend to use open borders, free healthcare for illegals, citizenship and more to enact a political coup by importing and then legalizing millions of new voters. With policies like these, the Hispanic support for Democrats will likely become nearly unanimous in the future. The heavy Hispanic population in Texas will make us a Democrat stronghold. Losing Texas and a few other states with heavy Hispanic population to the Democrats is all it would take for them to win nearly every presidential election. Although the Republican Party is also terrible. Many factions within the Republican Party are pro-corporation. Pro-corporation = pro-immigration. But some factions within the Republican Party don’t prioritize corporations over our future. So the Democrats are nearly unanimous with their support of immigration while the Republicans are divided over it. At least with Republicans, the process of mass immigration and citizenship can be greatly reduced.
You don’t have to call him “right,” I suppose. You can just call him a White Nationalist and let that position fall wherever it should be on the political spectrum.
Got to give the Republicans credit though. I do agree that nutcases come in all political stripes, but the Republican policy of the last couple of decades to welcome the nutcases in with open arms has done them quite well — at least for now. I’m hoping for a backlash in the next few years myself, but who knows? Ignorant autocrats might just be what we want as a country.
I do remember when the crazies mostly loved the Dems though. Free love and drugs were a hell of a draw, but not as good as hate and puritanism, it would seem.
So, you don’t read things for yourself, but parrot what you’ve been told, without question.
That explains a lot.
Ryan, why are you eager to say right wing extremists are not as bad as they are depicted? Or that certain people are not right wing extremists at all? Given that they are extremists, how can they reflect badly on you>
Answering those questions are a trap. I said the report was bullshit, and that the El Paso and Dayton shooters are not examples of right-wing extremists. The El Paso shooter was a anarchist and/or political troll. He took extreme positions on all sides, and supported Elizabeth Warren. The Dayton shooter was a member of AntiFa, yet targeted in an apolitical way.
The El Paso shooter didn’t support Elizabeth Warren. He declared that Democrats “intend to use open borders” to make Texas “a Democrat stronghold.” He was an ultra-right nutbag, and Trump supporter.
“In general, I support the Christchurch shooter and his manifesto. This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas. They are the instigators, not me. I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.”
I think you have him confused with the Dayton guy.
Again, guys like that have nothing to do with liberal and conservative. They are just deranged nutcases who are easily swayed by the last other nutcase they encountered. I would call the El Paso guy a white nationalist and the Dayton guy an extreme socialist, but even white nationalists and socialists shouldn’t be defending such people. If they happened to hear the opposite arguments first, they probably would have been on the other side. Crazy “true believers” are always there, hovering on the fringe of the political discourse.
We should be trying to figure out how to better protect society from them. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to have any ideas we can agree upon. (1) It’s not difficult to find extremist websites, or to hear extremist arguments on TV, or to obtain firearms, but the first and second amendments mandate that situation. (2) Society doesn’t seem to have any good mechanism to identify dangerous people like these in advance.
And refusing to answer the question, or even address it (beyond claiming it is a trap), does not also say something? So you feel there IS a connection between right wing extremists, or those portrayed as such, and causes you support? Why is that, Ryan?
Gfy
Joe McCarthy would be vary proud of you.
Oh, is this like that “perjury trap” that Trump was worried about falling into if he so much as said “hello” to Mueller? You know, something that doesn’t really exist (unless you’re lying) but you use as an excuse to avoid answering questions that don’t have an truthful answer that makes you look good?
Yes, you said it. And your fallacies were pointed out.
Standing by a point that has been disproven is a weird flex.
“Woke” Scoopy strikes again!
Actually, the main reason I come to this blog is for the political commentary. The nudies of D-level celebrities are just a bonus.
Looking at nudes and arguing politics?
Sounds like it goes together like ice cream and apple pie to me!
Ryan –
If you’re going to cherry-pick, you haven’t chosen well. El Paso guy drove 10 hours so he could shoot some immigrants. Dayton whacko looked at some sites, but didn’t target anyone over their politics. A certain fraction is genuinely “and the rest” – for instance the Vegas shooter (who hated…country music?)
Scoopy –
I’ll go you one better: Muslim extremists ARE right-wing extremists. Working toward a theocracy with optional lip-service to the 1st Amendment? Desire to return to a past that never was? Eagerness to censor? Check, check, and check. Trump’s hatred (or “hatred”, hard to tell with this tool) of them is expedient scape-goating. He needed to cross out “Jews” in the Hitler playbook and write in someone else. He found a two-fer – immigrants and Muslims. That doesn’t make either of these groups left-wing.
Nature, you’re correct.
Really, what it boils down to is not being able to accept others and let them live their life. Be it religion, nationalism, or ethnicity – those right-wing nutjob groups pick something out that they could easily ignore and use it to try to enforce their belief system on. As if just everyone in this country were white, heterosexual, Christian, and ultra-nationalistic all of their problems in life would go away.
Question them, and they’ll throw in the usual logical fallacies. The tolerance paradox, false equivalency, what-about-isms, and strawman arguments. No real facts to back up their point of view – essentially just point the finger to others instead of looking in the mirror.
Right wingers just can’t accept they don’t have to open their piehole and comment on everyone else in the world. If a minority or female feels they were done wrong, and mentions it on social media, then ignore it!
If a person feels the national anthem or a confederate statue doesn’t represent them and wants to protest against it – ignore it!
For fucks sake, LET IT GO. It’s not like they are forcing you to join them, or anything else. You are NOT them, and you don’t have to roleplay if were them how you would feel or wouldn’t feel.
Get over it, and move on, and do something productive with your lives. 99% of your problems are self inflicted by what you choose to focus on.
That’s a good point for everyone, not just right- or left-wing is extremists. Speaking as a center-right/movement conservative I would ask you to reread what you wrote and apply it to your views of those opposite your politics as well.
If making them participate to bake a cake, tolerate them and move on. Leave theme alone. Don’t like guns, don’t buy one, but don’t infringe on someone else’s right to do so. Don’t like what they write or espouse, ignore it.
I would agree in instances where the safety of the public isn’t at stake. And anyone, period, I would recommend staying off of social media. I think everyone should have the right to logically question authority or tell their story with facts, however.
I don’t have a problem with people who have been responsible gun owners for years doing whatever they want. The problem is, even the SLIGHTEST movement towards trying to stop shootings in Congress by making higher standards that have worked in other countries never goes anywhere. It is more difficult to get a commercial truck license or a ‘public’ clearance to military data than it is to get a gun and shoot someone.
When the second amendment was put in the constitution, arms then were muskets that had an accuracy of about 10 yards, held one round, and could reload to do about three rounds in a minute. There were outposts where they needed to protect themselves from wildlife, it wasn’t anything like life as we know it today, it was an entirely different world.
Research what has worked in the rest of the world where these issues do not occur frequently, and at least ATTEMPT to study and apply some of them here. I think that can apply to many things this country has issues with. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable strategy.
Yes, but …
You’re ignoring WHY the second amendment exists. It’s not about wildlife. Firearms are needed to maintain a well-regulated militia.
In 1787, muskets were sufficient to do that.
Today – not so much.
So, absent a constitutional change, the second amendment protects the right of citizens to be part of a militia force.
In other words, if the USA were subjected to a land attack from China, the people’s arms should be sufficient to repel that attack.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying I agree with the words of the second amendment, but merely outlining what those words are, and what the intent behind them was.
It’s boils down to what is defined as right-, or left-wing extremism.
The two most recent examples were not committed by right-wing extremists. The El Paso perp took extreme positions in all directions, which defies labels, and the Ohio incident was committed by an AntiFa nut; he was a left-wing loon.
Except there was nothing in the Dayton shooting that was related to politics. A random shooting of people, including his sister, at a place he visited isn’t exactly ‘politically motivated.’
In the end, the issue is authoritarianism and generalization. The attackers, be it white supremacist, Muslim, or whatever motivation – want to assert authority over a group of people and either subjugate or eliminate them.
Those types people are alike ACROSS groups, more than any people WITHIN the same group. Which is why Trump needs to stop with the generalization bullshit. You can’t generalize a group by what a fraction of them do, because you’ll always find extremists within groups.
So he needs to stop talking about immigrants being criminals or Muslim travel bans, because they don’t accomplish anything, as the El Paso shooting shows.
That’s the entire point. Trump needs to shut the fuck up about it. We all know if those were religious or minority shootings, he would generalize the entire group and try to push some sort of ban of entire people when that’s not the cause.
That report by the Anti Defamation League is fucking bullshit, and ironic too.
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-adl-murder-and-extremism-report-is-a-fraud/
The report is not without flaws, but the criticism of the report in that article is incorrect. The critic attacks a straw man which is not even in the report. (Actually several, but I’ll only focus on one.) He says, “The terminology of ‘extremist-related murders’ creates a false impression that the report is exclusively devoted to racially or politically motivated murders.”
It does not do any such thing.
It only creates that impression in his mind, and only because he apparently can’t read. The report is clear in what it defines as extremist-related murders. The actual report says that the crimes were committed by right-wing extremists. At no time does it say that the actual murders were ideological, or that they were hate crimes.
The very example given in the criticism is an example of just how incorrect the criticism is. His best example directly disproves his own point. He argues that the Parkland murders should not be included, but he is wrong because he simply ignored (or never read) the definition in the original report. That crime clearly WAS committed by a right-wing extremist, whether or not his political views were involved in the actual murders, and therefore precisely fits the definition in the report, which is about crimes “committed by right-wing extremists.”
The report shows what it is supposed to show – that right-wing extremists are responsible for more domestic killings than Muslim extremists.
The report does not claim that those killings are hate crimes. It does not claim that we should no longer be wary of Islamic extremism.
Moreover, his claim that this report is meant to disgrace conservatives is just plain ridiculous. The report IS meant to disgrace right-wing extremists. They are not conservatives. They are nutbags. I’m shocked that anyone who considers himself a conservative would be thinking that criticism of murderous right-wingnuts is criticism of him, just as no liberal should think criticism of violent anarchists or Muslim extremists is some kind of attack on liberalism.
Those crazies at all extremes have nothing to do with politics. They’re just delusional “true believers” on the fringes of society, many of whom are mentally ill, and many of whom are conditioned by their immediate echo-chamber environment. Many right-wing crazies would probably have been left-wing crazies, and vice-versa, given different stimuli.