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El Paso, Dayton, and Us
A white nationalist murdered 20 shoppers in El Paso Saturday. Hours later, an angry progressive murdered nine people in Dayton’s entertainment district. Cable TV, politicians, and social media “experts” offered simple fixes conveniently aligned with their policy preferences and dealt sick burns to those who disagreed.
Everyone who supports the Second Amendment, strong borders, or Donald Trump was blamed for the Texas terrorist. Anyone who supports socialism, Liz Warren, or AOC is aligned with the Ohio terrorist. The other villains were 8Chan, video games, males, weak mental healthcare, family breakdown, white people, and loose firearm laws.
As awful as Twitter can be, post-shooting Twitter is a misery. A few share links to donate blood, money, and support, adding the inspiring stories of heroism from people on the crime scene. But the most amplified voices respond to hateful massacres with even more hate. Instead of uniting around grieving communities, they further divide traumatized Americans. “Someone shot people in another state? I’ll help by screaming at a stranger on the other side of the country!”
What’s to blame for this increasing cycle of mass shootings: guns, radical internet forums, mental issues, media violence, or eliminationist rhetoric? It’s all those things and many, many more, which is why bumper-sticker legislation will do little to prevent future attacks.
The ultimate blame is on two violent cowards who chose evil. If you don’t like the religious connotations of that word, replace it with “dark psychic force of collectivized hatred.” If you wonder why Marianne Williamson gained traction with that phrase, wonder no more.
However you phrase it, legislation can’t end human evil. Eliminate guns; murderers will use knives, airplanes, and fertilizer-filled trucks. Mandate mental health care; technically “sane” murderers will commit crimes sanctioned by twisted rationality. Ban 8Chan; the radicals will gather on countless other websites. That’s why Twitter’s 280-character policy pitches fall far short of ending future massacres.
At most, politicians can mitigate the threat around the edges. Treat white nationalists and Antifa as terror groups. Tighten up the enforcement of gun laws. Enhance access to mental health in all 50 states.
To the social media warriors, responding to hateful actions with hateful speech only makes things worse. Unleash your invective at the murderers all you want, but vilifying entire categories of your fellow Americans? You’re only contributing to the Ghostbusters river of slime coursing coast-to-coast.
Any meaningful change will come from each of us as individuals. Reaching out to the isolated, lending an ear to your neighbor, volunteering in your community. None of those will get retweets or likes on social media, let alone give a politician more power. Instead, you’ll be sacrificing your own time and energy to help someone you don’t even know. It beats screaming at them.
Published in General
If media blacked out names and faces of shooters, there would be fewer of them.
By actively targeting the proponents of said ideologies. Many of them are subtle criminals in their own right and so can be taken down on those counts. But equally and more importantly you can actively preach and educate against said ideologies. A practice of ignoring and sweeping them under the proverbial rug just offers them a chance to fester under the radar. You can also engage in closer monitoring of groups which spread such ideologies. So, yes you can’t have no people ever influenced by crazy ideologies but by actively working to argue against, marginalize and disrupt these ideologies you can greatly limit their reach and impact.
But many Democrats think it can. You just need to legislate or regulate certain ideas with which they disagree out of the public discourse.
Therein lies the schism
Subtle criminals?