Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktI’m tired of hearing about how someone became radicalized. It’s a completely backwards way of viewing this problem.
“Counterterrorism officials also told NBC News that Farook and Malik were making preparations for some time to “take care of both grandma and the baby.” The couple lived in a Redlands, California residence with their 6-month-old daughter and Farook’s 62-year-old mother, Rafia Farook. They left their daughter with Rafia Farook on the morning of the attack.
Nobody radicalized them. They had a choice. And they choose to be evil. That’s all there is to it. Nobody twisted their arm or filled their head with nonsense. They went looking for an excuse and found one ready made.
Also, the press lies on mass shootings. And the only reasons this even matters, is we can’t even decided what rights are.
I hear “my right not to be shot outweighs your right to own a gun.” This strikes me as perfectly idiotic. But it’s no more idiotic than an imagined right not to be criticized or offended, which is far more popular in modern America.
We’ve lost the plot. We don’t know where rights come from, we don’t know or care from whom they protect us, we don’t know how to analyze proposed restrictions to them, and brick by brick we’ve built a culture that scorns rights in the face of real or imagined risks. It is therefore inevitable that talk about Second Amendment rights will be met with scorn or shrugs, and that discussions of what restrictions on rights are permissible will be mushy and unprincipled.
So here’s how this places out ..
Two people who looked for a justification to kill are stripped of their agency by Western liberals (aka paternalistic racists), who then lie about the extent of a different problem so they can preen in front of their credentialed but ignorant peers and post pithy, yet asinine things on Facebook about how we need to curtail rights they do not understand and would happily surrender because they reject the idea that evil exists and think that things would be great if we just gave peace a chance.
Filed under: guns |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist, here, too!
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Brent:
I still stand by my quip about the left: aside from abortion, gay marriage, and maybe pot, the progressive left just isn’t all that into freedom..
I would argue that, with the exception of pot, even those are mostly unrelated to notions of freedom. The pro-abortion position is grounded in beliefs about the humanity (or lack thereof) of pre-born humans, not in notions of freedom, and a desire for SSM is a desire for government provided benefits, not a desire to be “free” of government interference.
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Frist. For once…
I still stand by my quip about the left: aside from abortion, gay marriage, and maybe pot, the progressive left just isn’t all that into freedom..
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Radicalization is a word word in that, as you say, it denies the agency of the actual terrorist/shooter. THEY chose to go out and kill people. I find the parallels between Dylann Roof and Syed Rizwan Farook to be interesting. Both found their philosophy convincing enough to go kill a bunch of people on the assumption it would incite even more people, or something.
The wild card for Farook is the influence of his wife. One theory floating around is that she was a honey pot specifically determined to find an American to marry and to ‘radicalize’. But as they say, you can’t rape the willing.
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yello:
But as they say, you can’t rape the willing.
Unless you are on a college campus and she’s had a couple drinks.
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Real or parody? That we even have to ask the question is a sad commentary on the times we live in. That it seemingly is not a parody at all is even sadder.
http://www.pennlive.com/news/2015/12/naming_of_lebanon_valley_colle.html#incart_river_home
Students at the private college in Annville have demanded administrators remove or modify Dr. Clyde A. Lynch’s last name, as it appears on a campus hall, due to the associated racial connotations.
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Nobody radicalized them. They had a choice. And they choose to be evil.
Another noun that should never have become a verb. Unless you can show me brainwashing (which does, actually, happen) I have to agree with you, though, NoVA.
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People in a group can become radicalized (peer pressure! social proof!) but it happens because the group/cult intends it and designs their organization around the processes required for brainwashing/radicalization. People aren’t “radicalized” by poverty or broken hearts or unrequited lust. And cult radicalization is not flawless (just look at the folks who have left scientology).
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The theory du jour where it’s all about inequality:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/11/30/why-inequality-is-to-blame-for-the-rise-of-the-islamic-state/
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jnc:
The theory du jour where it’s all about inequality:
You are slipping. I linked to that a week ago!
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“Also, the press lies on mass shootings”
This is why I like Mother Jones:
I’m a lot more willing to consider arguments from the opposing side if they aren’t lying when they try to make them. Mother Jones has had my respect ever since they debunked the Haliburton rape scandal.
And judging by this, Aletheia’s approach to (re)defining Weapons of Mass Destruction is standard fare on the left:
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well, it’s nice to see that one man can, in fact, make a difference.
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And he did. The MJ editor nicely points out how a bunch of Reddit posters got their definition bootstrapped into the MSM because it fit the narrative that they wanted to go with the mass shooting stories, and now it’s considered the conventional wisdom because they all cross cite each other.
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One of the nice things about Twitter is that you can see the journalist groupthink and narrative setting in real time
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You are slipping. I linked to that a week ago!
Aw–give the guy a break. He’s been working like a dog! (Can I still say that, or will that radicalize jnc?)
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had i cited an anonymous internet user as a source of anything, i’d have flunked out of J-school.
“journalist groupthink and narrative setting in real time”
also something i was taught to avoid.
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Scott’s correct, but I thought it germane to bring up in the context of NoVA’s post.
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