Righties are apoplectic about this Daily News article, which presents a hypothesis about the San Bernadino mass shooting. Apparently one of Tashfeen Malik’s c0-workers was a five-alarm loudmouth wingnut bagger who wanted Ann Coulter to be named head of Homeland Security. The Daily News writer called him “a radical Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew.” Might explain why the shooters went after the workplace, which otherwise made no sense as a terrorism target.
The author also made the point that the shooters and this victim were mirror images of each other, and the Usual Wingnuts are over-the-top indignant. But the only difference I see is that few of our whackjobs are desperate enough to go beyond the bloviating stage. They’re capable of it, though.
I wish I had the time to write properly about the intersection of several of the most common themes on Mahablog. About 15 years ago when I started Internet dating in the former USSR, I encountered a recurring theme. With the fall off the Soviet Empire, the male population had gone into a tailspin (emotionally) and a significant portion had climbed into a bottle and never returned. The occurrence of alcoholism due to the perceived crash of status as THE WORLD POWER crushed enough men, (but not women) to the point that there were no good prospects for matrimony. Which is how I hooked a good one, but that’s a different story.
AN article that Goatherd? linked to this week, posed the theory that white males have turned completely irrational about guns because it’s their sole source of consolation, as they deal with a perceived loss of dominance in a USA which (they perceive) repeatedly grants dark minorities or women a status equal to christian white males. (lower caste ‘c’ in christian is deliberate). Instead of climbing into a bottle, they’re doing the ‘clinging to bibles and guns’ thingie, as Obama imprudently mentioned once.
All the arguments in the world won’t sway these people because they are driven by demons of fear and lost status that make no logical sense, and can’t be addressed rationally. Empowering blacks and/or Hispanics and/or women and/or Muslims and/or the totally scary LGBT community is all the same frightening boogie man, and these are the recurring themes in their world because they collectively embody the perceived loss – and happiness is a warm gun – the reassurance that they still have power.
As others have observed, the enemy of these radicalized christians – radical Islam – shares THEIR values . The hatred of any value structure that’s unconventional, the obsessive domination of women and paranoia about female sexuality that’s independent of a male-dominated venue. And like their christian wack-job counterparts, there’s consolation in a warm gun.
I’m not sure about an answer. The christian wack-jobs won’t be satisfied with equality – they want a return to a white-christian-male dominated society. I’m bound by my ethical values to deny them that without compromise. Trump has managed to successfully dog-whistle all those fears better than any other candidate. I think he will win the GOP nomination and fail spectacularly in the general. Maybe that will be the moment to make the case to everyone who rejected Trump – and that will include a lot of traditionally conservative voters, that to have ANY political power, they have to reject Trump values and actually embrace equality. That leaves a lot of room for conservatism in political dialogue, but it sidelines the crazy.
I’ve always been the optimist, though.
I see, despite some initial attempts at fairness, that towards the end of her piece, Ms. Stasi is still living up to her GDR (DDR, in German) inspired last name: “Stasi” – they were the East German version of the KGB.
This being the NY Daily News and not the NY Post, she wasn’t immediately terminated from her job for mentioning that “Christian” extremist loon along with the “Muslim” extremist one.
And again, like we’re seeing something of a recent trend of more and more politically conservatve “Christian” American medical doctors (involved in GOP politics, naturally) who claim not to believe in evolution, we’re also finding more and more conservative government (in this case, municipal) workers, who hate government.
I mean, WTF?
You couldn’t quit?
How silly of me!
Obviously, this “Christian” loon hated every part of government – except the part that issued his paychecks and administered his benefits, I guess.
And this should be a lesson to companies and government offices: Religious tolerance – which need to have – is a two-way street.
So, we can accomodate the faiths of all workers, but only by setting up parameters about what is and isn’t a religious accomodation, and what is getting too close to being extremeist.
Clothing and head-coverings shouldn’t count, unless they profane another’s religious belief.
Thankfully, not only is this for greater minds than mine to solve, but it’s also getting late.
I just want to add that I deplore the loss of lives here and in other places, where people violently crossed the boundries of other’s political and religious beliefs.
I’m sure Ms. Stasi will survive this tsunami in a teabaggers’s cup.
Not that I’m her biggest fan, because she’s way too conservative for my blood.
And, sometimes – oh, hell, ALWAYS! – it’s fun to watch America’s conservatve “(Judeo-)Christian” loons start a shark-like feeding-frenzy on one of their own, for some slight slight at their zeitgeist!!!
Can you say, “Schadenfreude-nado?”
But of course, this is all fun and games until/unless someone loses an eye, an ear, some other body part, or their life.
Let’s agree to disagree – peacefully.
Good night.
Let’s agree to disagree – peacefully.
True that.
It really is necessary to tune some people out, however strenuous and long-term that may be, for the sake of human decency and to avoid falling into their traps. The “Messianic Jew,” as I have heard him called, was one of the people killed in the San Bernardino shooting. One of his predictable arguments was that Islam is by nature a violent religion (wrong: it’s fundamentalism that can be violent, e.g. the fundamentalist Jew who assassinated Rabin). Unfortunately, in this specific instance, the shooters gave the appearance of proving this guy right.
Great observations, Doug.
“All the arguments in the world won’t sway these people because they are driven by demons of fear and lost status that make no logical sense, and can’t be addressed rationally.”
This is the aspect of our predicament that drives me crazy. Sometimes I fall into a political discussion that clearly displays the character of my interlocutor’s thought process. By “thought process” I don’t mean to suggest that there is a sound logic to it. There often seem to be elements where there is an attempt at logic, but the premises are false due to misinformation, and there are the irrational and non-rational elements. Irrationality being defective logic and non-rationality being processes that bear no similarity to logic. It’s hard to say which of these drives the others, normally they work in synergy. But, misinformation and disinformation are good candidates for the driver, because if they are processed logically, they present an unacceptable conclusion. Rationality seems to lead to something that doesn’t seem possible. I won’t mention any particular conspiracy theories, but, most thrive on “facts” that “will not compute” as some sci-fi character was so fond of saying. So, you either have to accept the unacceptable, or venture a little further into the realm of the irrational and the non-rational. Once that ball starts rolling it’s like skiing downhill with a blindfold on. You’ll get somewhere, most likely not the finish line.
Logic and rationality require a lot of effort. They don’t come to us naturally, and we’re not really very good at them, or even very fond of them. Irrationality and non-rationality are much more exciting and they allow us to weave our ourselves into the storyline.
Some people seem to get caught in a positive feedback loop and the anger and fear that Doug wrote about begin to smoke and then blaze. It is absolutely pointless to discuss anything with them because they are on their own wild ride and they won’t be consoled.
I had a close friend who had a psychotic break a few decades back. They put her in the “monkey house” for a few months. She called me when they let her out. She was talking a mile a minute about her experience, when suddenly, she said, “Oh and people from outer space took over the Earth a long time ago. But, I’ll tell you about that later.”
“Okay,” I said.
I think you mean Syed Farook”s coworkers, not those of Tashfeen Malik – the former was the man who worked at the center, the latter, his stay at home wife.
“a radical Born Again Christian/Messianic Jew.â€
Who knew there even was such a thing? I saw his wife interviewed right after the murders, same day, she said her husband died a martyr to his religion. I thought it was an odd thing to say, now it makes perfect sense. Seems he was just as whacked out as the cowards who shot him, though his weapon seemed to be just hate not hate and guns. Right on cue it seems the wing-nuts aint happy with the presidents speech last night, I don’t think anything short of a nuclear strike would satisfy the scared little men in the republican party.
I don’t think anything short of a nuclear strike would satisfy the scared little men in the republican party.
SHOCKNAWE, DUDE!! ==> “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED”!!
Every red-blooded
Americanlobotomized chimp knows that.Snark only gets me stuck in moderation (too much all-caps I expect), so here’s this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/12/obama-isis-speech-terrorism/419055/
Too bad the Righties will be flummoxed by all the Big Werds.
The author also made the point that the shooters and this victim were mirror images of each other,
As evidenced by the lapel flag pin? It’s sad to say, but the GOP has made such a mockery of America’s values and ideals ( according to my upbringing) that a symbol that once represented great pride in belonging now represents a symbol of intolerance and indifference to humanity. At least in my eyes..when I see a bunch of self serving politicians running around with their little lapel flag pins, I can easily envision them wearing a white hood because the message of the symbolism is the same.
Oh, just to clarify…I’m not running down the American flag with the above comment. I respect and honor the American flag. What I am running down is the shallow display of patriotism in the form of tribalistic jewelry or political accoutrement.
That’s exactly how I feel about it, Swami. The flag lapel pin seems to share something with the phrase, “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” It had been robbed of meaning in various ways, it became an ornament and worse yet an ornament to be worn as a thoughtless requisite.
In the boy scouts, we learned the rules for displaying and caring for the flag. The flag wasn’t ever supposed to be made into clothing or adornment. (Although, the flags on military uniforms and the space suits worn by astronauts deserve a exemption.) But, the flag lapel pin seems to speak of a arrogance and self promotion that irritates me. For the “self serving politician,” it’s just a little marketing device. For them it really doesn’t stand for anything.
“What I am running down is the shallow display of patriotism in the form of tribalistic jewelry or political accoutrement”
I think we know what you meant though I did have to google accouterment! I honor the flag as well, it’s the flag waivers I have a problem with!
http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Tom%20Tomorrow/
It’s also self-aggrandizement, and says, ‘I’m a holier than thou patriot!’
No, you’re a braying jackass, who uses easily understood symbols because you lack the intellect to understand that what you’re doing is cheap self-promotion – and that cheapens the symbols you use, and makes them less dear to people who do hate the intellect to understand what you’re doing.