I understand, Dave, and I'm not upset with you. You have always been pretty restrained even when you disagree with folks here. I do hear what you're saying about demonization and I know I can be guilty of it. But sometimes stereotypes exist for a *reason*. The gun obsession is primarily on the right, and when ideology is involved (when w…
I understand, Dave, and I'm not upset with you. You have always been pretty restrained even when you disagree with folks here. I do hear what you're saying about demonization and I know I can be guilty of it. But sometimes stereotypes exist for a *reason*. The gun obsession is primarily on the right, and when ideology is involved (when we know of it, we don't always), it's almost always someone screaming about blacks or Jews or some damn right-wing bogeyman. There are a few exceptions - I remember one exception of a liberal engaging in a mass shooting:
If you know of others let me know. The 'non-binary' guy who shot up the gay nightclub was less 'non-binary' than advertised (it was fairly recent) and he also came from a right-wing family, fucked up for reasons arguably other than ideology (substance abuse, emotional abuse, Dad was a porn actor). Some, like the Las Vegas shooter, we STILL don't know what his motive was. Some simply share some elements of 'traditional' thinking without necessarily being terribly political (like the incels going after women who won't have sex with them because they feel so entitled, plus there's the love affair with violence, killing, guns, weapons, etc.)
It's interesting that liberals are way under-represented in mass shooters, along with women. The exceptions exist, but they're pretty small. (One liberal I can name so far, and four women).
Other than the guy who shot up the Republicans at the practice for a charity ball game which was obviously about politics, I'm not certain about the degree of political influence on shootings. Disgruntled teenagers who shoot up a school are probably not politically motivated since at that age they are likely oblivious to partisan politics. I have some very Democrat friends who are highly anti-gay. People tend to look for political connections in such things to support the demonization process.
Does our fascination with violent movies and video games play into it? I think it does. How many people, left and right, have paid money to watch a war or police/crime movie that is all about violence? Perhaps most people. Where is huge sums of money spent making movies? Violent scenes. That fascination is for the most part apolitical.
In Steve's most recent commentary he mentioned people fearing different things. I don't fear firearms, probably because they have been a presence for my entire life. I'll confess that I fear the potential tyranny of governments. No individual nutjob can come within orders of magnitude of the horror's governments are capable of and they use demonization to get their citizens to do their bidding. Does this play into our views? I think so, and at a very fundamental level.
I don't think many people shooters go into a public place, fire away, screaming, "Death to liberal scum!" or "Republicans must die!" But sometimes they belie certain stereotypical traits, like Dylann Roof (A suthun boy) screaming about how blacks are going after 'our' women and they all must go. Not sure what his politics are or if he voted but i'll bet they're somewhere to the right of Obama.
I don't see the jones for violence, or responding to violence, on the left the way I've seen it on the right. Which is not to say that the left *can't* be violent (there were violent left-wing groups in America in the 60s and 70s) or that they can't be again. If you like violence, support violence, or *are* violent, you'll find more welcoming arms on the right than the left. Even the far left today isn't anywhere near as violent as the right, whose bogeymen are Antifa (who still are pretty much guilty of micro-violence) and Black Lives Matter, which is guiltier of misappropriating donations than any real violence, and the right points to some of the riots and vandalism that took place during some protests which can likely mostly be attributed to violent people taking advantage of the situation.
Like it or not, politics is a huge driver of the violence spike we're seeing. The angry teenage shooter kills a classroom or shopping center and shoots himself might have been apolitical himself, but if I'd put a finger on where he'd go politically if he lived long enough, I'd wager he'll be more conservative than liberal. Although it might be a moot point for those who will stay in jail. Not sure if any mass shooters have been allowed out of jail, or what happened later if they did. Most of them die either by their own hand or by police bullets. AFAIK, none are out of jail so far although i could be wrong.
Yes, violent movies and video games play into our oh-so-American love affair with violence, although I don't know how apolitical it is. It's kind of a broad topic. I think serial killer movies are more apolitical than military & action hero movies. I love Sylvester Stallone but I haven't seen most of his movies because it's a lot of right-wing violent military crap (First Blood being an exception, and I thought it was a very good movie). He lost me for a long while in the '80s because of the right-wing-pandering he did to Reagan conservatives, but I know he himself is less partisan than one might think, he tends to skew Republican but has also voiced more socially liberal opinions and likely opens himself up to charges of being a RINO. He also has a sweetly quaint traditionalist view of marriage that comes out in his movies that he lives himself - he's spent most of his life married, and believes in all that happily-ever-after stuff. He hasn't ever, to my knowledge, been accused of domestic abuse or a lot of cheating, but I'm no expert on his private life.
I don't fear firearms either, I fear nutjobs with firearms. I think a LOT of people are not mentally stable enough to own firearms but I'm not going to get into what to do about it because no one's going to do it anyway, and I don't have to live there anymore so my feeling is just sort of, "Fuck it, people, *you* live there, *I* don't, fix it or just fucking die a lot. The ability is there, you decide."
I understand, Dave, and I'm not upset with you. You have always been pretty restrained even when you disagree with folks here. I do hear what you're saying about demonization and I know I can be guilty of it. But sometimes stereotypes exist for a *reason*. The gun obsession is primarily on the right, and when ideology is involved (when we know of it, we don't always), it's almost always someone screaming about blacks or Jews or some damn right-wing bogeyman. There are a few exceptions - I remember one exception of a liberal engaging in a mass shooting:
https://www.cnn.com/2017/06/14/homepage2/james-hodgkinson-profile/index.html
If you know of others let me know. The 'non-binary' guy who shot up the gay nightclub was less 'non-binary' than advertised (it was fairly recent) and he also came from a right-wing family, fucked up for reasons arguably other than ideology (substance abuse, emotional abuse, Dad was a porn actor). Some, like the Las Vegas shooter, we STILL don't know what his motive was. Some simply share some elements of 'traditional' thinking without necessarily being terribly political (like the incels going after women who won't have sex with them because they feel so entitled, plus there's the love affair with violence, killing, guns, weapons, etc.)
It's interesting that liberals are way under-represented in mass shooters, along with women. The exceptions exist, but they're pretty small. (One liberal I can name so far, and four women).
Other than the guy who shot up the Republicans at the practice for a charity ball game which was obviously about politics, I'm not certain about the degree of political influence on shootings. Disgruntled teenagers who shoot up a school are probably not politically motivated since at that age they are likely oblivious to partisan politics. I have some very Democrat friends who are highly anti-gay. People tend to look for political connections in such things to support the demonization process.
Does our fascination with violent movies and video games play into it? I think it does. How many people, left and right, have paid money to watch a war or police/crime movie that is all about violence? Perhaps most people. Where is huge sums of money spent making movies? Violent scenes. That fascination is for the most part apolitical.
In Steve's most recent commentary he mentioned people fearing different things. I don't fear firearms, probably because they have been a presence for my entire life. I'll confess that I fear the potential tyranny of governments. No individual nutjob can come within orders of magnitude of the horror's governments are capable of and they use demonization to get their citizens to do their bidding. Does this play into our views? I think so, and at a very fundamental level.
I don't think many people shooters go into a public place, fire away, screaming, "Death to liberal scum!" or "Republicans must die!" But sometimes they belie certain stereotypical traits, like Dylann Roof (A suthun boy) screaming about how blacks are going after 'our' women and they all must go. Not sure what his politics are or if he voted but i'll bet they're somewhere to the right of Obama.
I don't see the jones for violence, or responding to violence, on the left the way I've seen it on the right. Which is not to say that the left *can't* be violent (there were violent left-wing groups in America in the 60s and 70s) or that they can't be again. If you like violence, support violence, or *are* violent, you'll find more welcoming arms on the right than the left. Even the far left today isn't anywhere near as violent as the right, whose bogeymen are Antifa (who still are pretty much guilty of micro-violence) and Black Lives Matter, which is guiltier of misappropriating donations than any real violence, and the right points to some of the riots and vandalism that took place during some protests which can likely mostly be attributed to violent people taking advantage of the situation.
Like it or not, politics is a huge driver of the violence spike we're seeing. The angry teenage shooter kills a classroom or shopping center and shoots himself might have been apolitical himself, but if I'd put a finger on where he'd go politically if he lived long enough, I'd wager he'll be more conservative than liberal. Although it might be a moot point for those who will stay in jail. Not sure if any mass shooters have been allowed out of jail, or what happened later if they did. Most of them die either by their own hand or by police bullets. AFAIK, none are out of jail so far although i could be wrong.
Yes, violent movies and video games play into our oh-so-American love affair with violence, although I don't know how apolitical it is. It's kind of a broad topic. I think serial killer movies are more apolitical than military & action hero movies. I love Sylvester Stallone but I haven't seen most of his movies because it's a lot of right-wing violent military crap (First Blood being an exception, and I thought it was a very good movie). He lost me for a long while in the '80s because of the right-wing-pandering he did to Reagan conservatives, but I know he himself is less partisan than one might think, he tends to skew Republican but has also voiced more socially liberal opinions and likely opens himself up to charges of being a RINO. He also has a sweetly quaint traditionalist view of marriage that comes out in his movies that he lives himself - he's spent most of his life married, and believes in all that happily-ever-after stuff. He hasn't ever, to my knowledge, been accused of domestic abuse or a lot of cheating, but I'm no expert on his private life.
I don't fear firearms either, I fear nutjobs with firearms. I think a LOT of people are not mentally stable enough to own firearms but I'm not going to get into what to do about it because no one's going to do it anyway, and I don't have to live there anymore so my feeling is just sort of, "Fuck it, people, *you* live there, *I* don't, fix it or just fucking die a lot. The ability is there, you decide."