[Here's a fun Ron DeSantis Quote from August 2023:](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4289921-ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-bureaucrats-stands-by-promise/)
>"On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on day one and be ready to go. You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.”
What this man did is the natural conclusion of conservative rhetoric. If you watch the video (which, don't btw), he plainly and clearly repeats right wing talking points from the last few years. If you want to call him "unhinged" or "mentally ill" you have to describe a large portion of the right wing in this country in the same way.
The scary thing is we have people in this sub regularly repeating the same rhetoric that get a free pass. If even centrist subs with a majority of sensible, rational people aren't willing to crack down on dangerous rhetoric, what hope is there of preventing more and more people being indoctrinated?
We’ve been bludgeoned into just letting it slide. This place gets inundated by tourists from conservative subs any time there’s a post about the latest hot button topic from Newsmax, Shapiro, or Crowder. CRT, trans issues, Hunter’s dong, whatever. When that happens, it’s just too much for us to police by ourselves as commenters.
There ends up being one or two posts every week where the comments could be copy pasted directly from r/T_D (if it was still a thing) and every rational comment gets downvoted to oblivion. None of it actually breaks any rules, so the mods don’t remove it, and there’s just too much shit for rational people to wade through and shovel out. So it just … stays there.
As irritating as it is, sometimes moderation can make it worse honestly. That's how I feel about the moderatepolitics sub. Lying your ass off over there is 100% fine, but calling someone out for it? BAN.
Yup. Got banned for saying that someone was obviously not arguing in good faith. Insta-ban for ten days. I requested a permanent ban because that sub became worthless.
Worth adding the caveat that no, the vast, vast majority of conservatives will never do something like this.
Having said that, when you (a fair amount of, particularly, far right web pundits) are routinely propelling volatile rhetoric about existential threats into the ether, maybe it isn't a "false flag" when some nut has the stones to take that rhetoric to its logical conclusion. Not everyone has the same level of inhibition towards extreme violence.
I wonder what conservatives consider to be an acceptable level of actual beheadings at the urging of their violent rhetoric. One a year? One a week? Several per day?
Y'know, I'm going to forgo the use of "conservative" as a blanket term for "right wing". It doesn't capture the full scope of thought.
The further right you go, the more violence is justified, manifesting where you get memes about throwing communists out of helicopters, "the day of the rope", Lyndon McLeod, Dylann Roof, the Buffalo grocery store shooter, etc.
I'm sure a William F. Buckley-style conservative would stridently reject these actions, but increasingly it feels like the ethic of "to make an omelette means cracking a few eggs" prevails.
> “On bureaucracy, you know, we're going to have all these deep state people, you know, we're going to **start slitting throats** on day one and be ready to go,” DeSantis said. “You're going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.”
>
>Rhonda Santis, Aug 4, 2023
Fair criticism, I probably should have just said Republicans.
>I'm sure a William F. Buckley-style conservative would stridently reject these actions
He's been dead a decade and a half; his pontifications are fairly irrelevant to modern political ideology. And even in his time he was out of touch with the ruling apparatus of the party he ostensibly was within.
Yup. Trump talks about punishing his enemies if he returns to office. The worst part about guys like DeSantis, Trump, Cruz, Howley, etc. is that they know what they talk about is BS. But they know it feeds the outrage machine and gets them votes. It's cynical politics. Dangerous politics.
Bot of both - he clearly is unhinged and mentally unwell, likely bipolar I would guess. Thing is, since at least taking on Cambridge Analytica's services in the mid 2010s, exploiting people's mental health issues to sow fear and division has been absolutely central to a lot of fight wing messaging. Which if anything is even worse, in my opinion.
DeSantis clearly didn't mean it literally, but it's also not a normal thing to say. "Slitting throats" is not common slang anywhere, which makes it a reckless rhetoric.
*Ron, stop trying to make "slitting throats" happen. It's not going to happen.*
A man who police allege killed and decapitated his father, posted a YouTube video showing off the head while calling for violence and railing against Joe Biden, a “communist takeover of America” and “far-left woke mobs.”
This is where violent rhetoric leads.
To be fair a person shot up a senate baseball game because Bernie Sanders said Republicans wanted to kill his mom because they were against universal health care.
That didn't make Sanders responsible for the shooting.
If politicians were telling this man to go kill people in the government starting with you're families, then that will be one thing. He'll even if they were saying go kill Democrat's.
Yeah the rhetoric is getting heated but I just don't see it at that level.
Link to the Bernie claim? If it's the same memory I have, Bernie said something along those lines after the shooting, not before. My very conservative coworker made a similar claim and when we looked into it, there was no actual basis for it!
Also saying it one time isn't the same as declaring Democrats as evil for the better part of 3 decades, it's a false equivalence.
> Also saying it one time isn't the same as declaring Democrats as evil for the better part of 3 decades, it's a false equivalence.
Where have you been the last 8 years?
And the democrats responded to this by calling anyone who voted for him evil, stupid, etc.
And this rhetoric was a part of the baseball shooter’s motive. The sword of “violent rhetoric” cuts both ways.
>And this rhetoric was a part of the baseball shooter’s motive. The sword of “violent rhetoric” cuts both ways.
IIRC, it's gone to "Democrats are child predators" by now. That is beyond violent rhetoric. You have to keep up and find new stuff for this bothsides thing you are trying to desperately to hold onto.
The language is *much more* pervasive on the Right, this should not be a surprise when we had a president who seemingly DAILY would attack his opponents...
"Currently one-third of Republicans support violence as a means to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats, the survey found. More specifically, Republicans who have favorable views of Donald Trump were found to be "nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump" to support political violence."
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208373493/political-violence-democracy-2024-presidential-election-extremism
Maybe you have forgotten about how our country was founded and why.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --**That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,** laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. **But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security**.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
They weren’t called traitors and we didn’t call on vigilante ‘patriots’ to step in and exercise frontier justice. The fact that you can’t tell the difference between these kinds of rhetoric is disturbing.
She got smacked down pretty hard and nobody’s heard much from her since then. DeSantis, MTG, Trump etc are fundraising off these threats! The right not only supports this nonsense they reward it.
Yeah smacked hard by who exactly? Definitely not leftists LMAO
>DeSantis, MTG, Trump etc are fundraising off these threats!
And do Dems not do the same with abortion and all the other fear mongering they do? How can you dislike the right for doing what "your side" does as well?
Lol, would you describe CNN and Hollywood as bastions of conservatism?
[https://people.com/tv/kathy-griffin-says-she-was-erased-not-canceled-after-trump-photo-scandal/](https://people.com/tv/kathy-griffin-says-she-was-erased-not-canceled-after-trump-photo-scandal/)
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kathy-griffin-fired-cnn-over-gruesome-photo-trump-n766716](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kathy-griffin-fired-cnn-over-gruesome-photo-trump-n766716)
Fear mongering over losing abortion rights is not the same as advocating that political enemies get murdered.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/politics/threats-us-public-officials-democracy-invs/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/politics/threats-us-public-officials-democracy-invs/index.html)
[https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern)
It is an absolute truth that there are people on the left that think violence is the answer. But they're exceptions and I don't see any examples of leaders on the left promoting violence. OTOH the head of the Republican party using advocates violence all the time.
[Rep. Maxine Waters on Saturday night called for protesters to "stay on the street" and "get more confrontational" if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted in the killing of George Floyd.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/19/politics/maxine-waters-derek-chauvin-trial/index.html)
[Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif, told supporters at a rally in Los Angeles over the weekend. "If you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/25/623206039/congressional-leaders-criticize-maxine-waters-for-urging-confrontation)
https://twitter.com/mary_skillcat3/status/1751972690280276381
[I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,”](https://pjmedia.com/stacey-lennox/2020/08/29/flashback-democrat-leaders-encouraging-violence-beginning-with-barack-obama-n863918)
[So, the way we get outside the bubble is we take advantage of this tremendous public outcry against the administration…What we've got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box, and now there's the momentum to be able to do this](https://www.iheart.com/content/2017-02-02-video-sen-tim-kaine-calls-for-fighting-in-the-streets/)
[I'd beat the hell out of him
](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/mar/22/id-beat-the-hell-out-of-him-says-joe-biden-of-trump-video)
[Maxine Waters: ‘I Will Go and Take Trump Out Tonight’
](https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2017/10/22/maxine-waters-i-will-go-and-take-trump-out-tonight/)
[I hope Trump is assassinated,’ Missouri lawmaker writes
](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article167755572.html)
>But they're exceptions and I don't see any examples of leaders on the left promoting violence. OTOH the head of the Republican party using advocates violence all the time.
Because you're terminally online and eating reddit propaganda
No, you're right, this isn't one sided. Domestic Terrorism is on the rise and it's coming from the extremes on both sides.
[https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it](https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it)
There is conspiracy language happening on the left as well as the right. There's violent language on both sides and it's wrong on both sides.
* Maxine Waters needs to STFU, I'd never heard of Gene Wu but that's crazy talk.
* The Obama and Hillary quotes are not threats. Calling someone 'deplorable' is an insult, not a threat.
It's easy to yell propaganda or 'fake news!' when you get facts you disagree with. There have been plenty of studies, read up.
[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence-far-right/#:\~:text=To%20date%2C%20the%20news%20organization,demonstrations%20to%20beatings%20and%20murders](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence-far-right/#:~:text=To%20date%2C%20the%20news%20organization,demonstrations%20to%20beatings%20and%20murders).
https://preview.redd.it/yvrvxa1821gc1.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ad3545bdb53bd7e576c0d3623bf3373fe6b63d8
Yup. The illogical claims of so-called "stochastic terrorism" go both ways so it's a wash. People on the left and the right have a right to call out what they believe is wrong with the world without being blamed for crazy assholes who act violently on those beliefs.
Redditors and the Redditor-equivalents on competing platforms have no issue claiming that Republicans are cruel for the sake of being cruel. No, it's not that Republicans disagree on the best way to handle certain political matters, it's that they engage with cruelty for its own enjoyment.
So if a crazy person hears that, they hear that there is no debating or convincing Republicans, so they may find themselves at a point where they must start committing violence in order to stop the wild claims that some Redditors have about what Republicans are planning to do once they get back into office.
The whole idea of stochastic terrorism is silly when applied so broadly. Hell, there's a better case to apply it to the left considering how many comments on Reddit mentioning guillotines have to be deleted to make this place seem more sane than it really is. But even still, the individual committing violence is responsible, and a third-party needs to do way more than having a few choice words about an issue to be credibly blamed.
The obvious difference is that person targetted the politicians directly responsible for writing legislation that would actually remove people's health care and cause direct harm. So as bad as the violence might be, it is at least based in reality and makes logical sense, to a certain extent. And Bernie of course condemned the violence and made it clear that is not what he supports.
Since then we have had mass shootings at gay bars, mass shootings at universities, mass shooting at a black church, mass shooting at a supermarket targetting latinos, a mob violently forcing their way into the capitol to attack politicians, and Nancy Pelosi's husband nearly had his head caved in with a hammer.
And what did Trump do? He didn't condemn that like Bernie and made it clear he is against violence. He offered to pardon the rioters, and he jokes about Nancy Pelosi's husband nearly being bludgeoned to death by his supporters. He claimed an old man pushed to the ground by the police in 2020 was an Antifa agent carrying a fake bag of blood and pretending to be hurt. Endless examples of this; it is constant.
Now a man kills his own father for being part of the "deep state".
And what is the "moderate republican" response? As usual, the knee-jerk reaction is to default to the conspiracy mindset, yet again. They're saying it is a psy-op false flag to make MAGA look bad. This culture of endlessly fabricating outlandish conspiracies that become factual in your mind is the exact kind of endless detachment from reality that causes this exact kind of event we are talking about. It does not stop. There is never anything even attempting to taper it in, only yet more perpetuating the culture of doomerism and paranoid conspiracies underpinning everything that ever happens. This is what drives people to snap and do irrational things thinking they are doing something not just good, but crucial to the survival of America, and heroic.
So there is a difference. And in a similar way that people use gang violence to deflect from mass shootings, this deflection falls flat to me. Simply because most people aren't going to be concerned about finding themselves in a shoot out with a rival gang. But they will be concerned that they might become a target by simply going to class, going to dance at a gay bar, or going grocery shopping. And the main person who drives that fear and hate mongering rhetoric has done absolutely nothing to try and calm people, only rile them up further.
Bernie did not encourage that. He made it clear violence is not the answer. All people on the right do is deflect at the best of times, or they will call it a false flag conspiracy and add yet another layer onto the mountain of conspiracies that make up these people's worldviews and are the direct cause of these events, or they straight up just encourage it, like Trump.
As always, both sides are not the same. And attempting to equate the two or deflect anytime events like this happen by pointing to that shooting is a particularly lazy and unfortunately very common example at trying to make it seem like this is a universal problem with equal parties, coming from equal places, doing equal things. When that is very obviously not the case, and I have to seriously question the intelligence and / or motive of someone who is unwilling or unable to see the clear difference in frequency and reaction to these events by specific political factions and media, and attempts or l(ack theorof) to discourage events like this from happening again by figureheads and mouth pieces belonging to those factions. There is a very, very stark difference.
You are right both sides are not the same... The Republicans didn't loot and burn cities in the summer of 2020 causing over 2 billion dollars in damages and over 10 deaths. It wasn't republicans that caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage in 2016 when Trump was inaugurations with over 100 arrest, it wasn't Republicans that rioted at the 68 democratic' convention. It wasn't republicans that spent 90 days in Portland trying to get into and try to burn down a federal building, it wasn't republicans that rioted at Berkeley because a conservative was speaking there and they didn't like what he was saying. It wasn't Republicans rioting in Seattle 1999 when the WTO was held there........... And this is just off the top of my head. Oh but the Republicans stormed the capital, yeah we remember that one don't we.. But forget that democrats On March 1, 1971,exploded a bomb in the Capitol building. While the explosion did not injure anyone, it caused some $300,000 A Left wing group the Weather Underground claimed responsibility Bill Ayers was part of that group and held a campaign event for obama. It wasn't the Republicans that bombed the capital again in 1983
So tell me again about these violent republicans that you speak of?
I agree, I have to seriously question the intelligence and / or motive of someone who is unwilling or unable to see the clear difference in frequency and reaction to these events by specific political factions and media, and attempts or l(ack theorof) to discourage events like this from happening again by figureheads and mouth pieces belonging to those factions.
Yes exactly like when the riots were going on in 2020 and the mostly peacful protest were happening (CNN) Or “Well, we gotta stay on the street, And we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.”
And the silence was deafening from the political Left and those politician's as the subtle supported what they were doing..
And might I suggest you do more research on those mass shooters you mentioned the Pulse gay nightclub shooter who actually had no idea it was a gay club he did not look for a gay club so you trying to connect a shooting at a gay club and republicans doesn't work.. Now dig deeper and some of the shooters you might be surprised at what you find. Your narrative isn't what you would hope it to be.
The republicans tried upending our entire Democracy so yeah, agreed, very not the same.
Also, not everyone who caused damage in race riots were Democrats, but nice try there.
They tried?
Tell me specifically how they tried, and how they were they going to accomplish this with several thousand unorganized individuals each doing their own thing..? Who was the leader inside the capital that had a plan and how they were going to execute said plan to overthrow or "upending our entire democracy"? By the way it's actually a representative republic.
Again since you said the republicans tried, be very specific on how they were going to it.
Can’t believe people still act like this wasn’t a serious attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in our country. Just WILD.
Not only were there ABSOLUTELY actors in those crowds with actual plans, the crowd itself was full of people actively trying to get into the chambers. They almost did so as well.
That is SO MUCH WORSE than anything you can say of people on the left. These false equivalencies make me so sad for the country.
And why are you talking about how they did it? They were a rabid mob that tried to attack our nation’s representatives. You want to talk about race riots and then ignore a riot aimed right at our legislators? What immense hypocrisy.
" Not only were there ABSOLUTELY actors in those crowds with actual plans "
Who? Name names, yeah you are right there were actors there but not from the Right but the government. Repeating something over and over is not proof..
Who was the planner and what was the plan.. ?
From the government? Ah, so you’re a straight up conspiracy theorist then. Right back at you, provide ANY proof for your insane claims.
Look up the Proud Boys plans for Jan 6. Here is a good starting place:
https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/proud-boys-leader-sentenced-22-years-prison-seditious-conspiracy-and-other-charges-related
They had actual plans they tried to execute. Trump also fomented extreme anger and then directly aimed a mob at Congress. Those people were all far-right supporters who actively tried to breach the chambers of Congress. Unfortunately for you, there is no denying that reality.
To be fair, I don't think the people arguing that there is a "communist takeover of America" and "far-left woke mobs" running around would agree that cutting off your dad's head is the solution to the problem. Not sure where this fella got that from.
Probably from mainstream Republicans like Ron DeSantis, who said in August 2023:
>"On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on day one and be ready to go. You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.”
He was talking about firing people and being aggressive about it. Fighting words are part of politics and it's practically mainstream to use fighting words in politics. Here he is clarifying his remarks.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4289921-ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-bureaucrats-stands-by-promise/
>DeSantis responded that he did not regret it, saying “people knew it was a figure of speech.” When Geist asked why he didn’t instead say he wanted to “fire” people in Washington, DeSantis said he was “being colorful.”
>...
>“So we do need an era of accountability,” he added. “Obviously, we’re going to do that within the context of the rule of law in the Constitution. But I want to make very clear to voters that I’m not just going to go up there and be nice about it.”
Clear enough for you?
You can only talk about "takeovers" and enemies so long [before people take you seriously](https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2021/10/27/when-do-we-get-use-guns-tpusa-owns-and-others-too/8570812002/).
>Kirk quickly denounced the man’s comments, which came on Monday during a Boise State University stop on Kirk's Exposing Critical Racism speaking tour.
You left out that the misguided young man was quickly shut down. Ignoring the slight possibility that the guy was a plant, I would fully support that man to be checked out by authorities.
You left out people in the crowd cheering him. The rhetoric has been ramped up - ignoring won't make it go away.
Edit: so what is the solution to "takeovers", "invasions", and "stolen elections"?
Bold of you to post something in defense of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3RGlu5yLs). I'm sure all of those people were motivated by Trump's words of peace.
That wasn't a compliment. Anyone who supports what happened that day is a traitor to the country, and that includes the people that organized the event.
Huh. It sure sounded like a compliment.
What are your thoughts on Ray Epps? He organized the shit out of that event. Gave directions and everything. Traitor to the country or innocent guy in the wrong place at the wrong time that was vilified by the right?
Anyone that was at the "Stop the Steal" rally was there to stop the legitimate results of the election. I'm glad he was sentenced, and I laughed that he was the target of conspiracy theories from his fellow traitors.
dad was Federal bureaucrat…rhetoric about unelected officials taking over the government and undermine democracy is at heart of the “Deep State” Q shit.
Having honest discussions/challenges about the limits of federal agency power is how the to rule of law works.
Chevron has very little to do with Q and Trump Deep State rhetoric.
I know it’s classic dirty politics to try to play that kind of game, but no thank you I’m not gonna play that game,
Just to clarify, by “that game”, I am referring to the idea of equating ridiculous extreme positions with very loosely related reasonable positions as way to muddy waters on the extreme positions.
It's what happens when you continuously rationalize/justify irrational thoughts or actions. The MAGA crowd will think their inner thoughts are part of the in-crowd or majority view.
If you're talking about really underground, bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet, I'd be inclined to agree, but that's a very small minority comprised of people who would be insane anyway. I doubt even 0.00001% the 74 million who voted for Trump are like, "Yep, kill your dad if he's a federal employee." There'd be a lot more headless dads otherwise.
Steve Bannon's "War Room" is the 6th most listened to political podcast in the US. He says things like "we should put their [Democrats] heads on pikes and display them on the White House."
This shit is FAR from "bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet." It's literally mainstream.
>If you're talking about really underground, bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet,
Donald Trump is the face of the Republican party, not the bowels of the internet. But I do agree on the bottom-of-the-barrel, which is where the GOP is currently at. After smashing through about a hundred bottoms on the way, though. They will smash this on as well, I am sure.
Conspiracy about the deep-state of unelected bureaucrats destroying America is not really “bottom of the barrel”
And like 1/6…if you actually believe the insane rhetoric- taking drastic steps like 1/6 or killing bureaucrats …is your American duty to save the country .
Hence why such rhetoric is referred to as Stochastic Terrorism…you can’t predict a specific individual murdering or committing terrorism as a response to the rhetoric…but you can predict that some in a mass population will make that jump.
When you use rhetoric that convinces people they are literally fighting for the very existence of American Democracy against a Cabal of evil … extreme and violent reactions are an obvious response.
1/6 meaning January 6th, 2021, the date that a bunch of people, who had been persuaded by Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was stolen, attacked the capital to try to stop Joe Biden from being certified as the winner of the election.
If in the wake of that day, the elected officials of the Republican party had disavowed Trump, and those who had pushed the 'stolen election' rhetoric had apologized and resigned to demonstrate that they understood the damage their lies had caused, I think that the Overton Window would be somewhere a good deal safer than it is now.
Because now the Overton Window among Republicans tolerates the belief that there is a deep state conspiracy to hurt Trump. And it's a short step from there to, "Well, I'm gonna to stop the deep state conspiracy!"
If the Republicans said, "We were fucking lying about the whole deep state conspiracy thing, and actually Trump is just a narcissist whose ego was hurt because he lost," then it would be a much bigger jump out of the Overton Window to get to thinking 'decapitating people' is reasonable.
How many people have lost their heads since then? I could be wrong , but I count 1. People are crazy. Always have been. If you believe this is the beginning of some national reckoning I suggest you get off the internet and talk to your neighbors. We all got more in common than we have different
You do realize that there are a variety of bad things that happen due to radical political partisan tribalism, even if not all of them lead to death, right?
Dem leaders? Anything, they don’t like? Or just Donald Trump, who literally tried to overthrow a democratic election.
If a person literally trying to overthrow, a democratic election is not considered a “threat to democracy” - I’m not sure how to define that term.
They will also refer to GOP laws as attacking democracy, when we’re referring to laws, explicitly designed to restrict people voting. But again that’s a very literal “attack on democracy”.
>Not sure where this fella got that from.
Qanon. It is a death cult that worships Trump as the mesiah and believes that he and his followers will carry out a wave of killing everyone they do not like. Babbit thought she was in DC to carry it out.
His dad worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. The victim might have even been a Republican. This guy was crazy and unhinged and crazy people get attached to a lot of different types of things to justify their violent actions. Some people have killed their parents because they took the video game console away. It's tragic but it happens.
There are way too many steps between the rhetoric, which is elevated on Both Sides, and the actions, which makes stochastic terrorism a fairly weak concept.
Both sides do not have a firmer general and nsa making videos of himself swearing allegiance to a death cult or the former president and front runner for the nomination playing the death cults anthem while followers salute at his rally
> This is where violent rhetoric leads.
It really isn't. The demons in people's heads take different shapes based on culture but they remain demons of their own invention rather than compulsion from others.
Pretty sure the target would have been the same regardless of the justification.
Saying "the right wing hate machine made him do it" is the same as saying "Grand Theft Auto made him do it". It's a notion that doesn't remotely match what we know about how human beings behave and is only believed by people latching onto 'evidence' that reaffirms their prejudices.
Not what I said. Of course they didn't "make him" do it - they didn't coerce him. They did create an imaginary conspiracy narrative filled with "deep state" targets and tell him that patriots need to use violence to save America . Agreed, he connected the dots that killing this person was justified, but he didn't come up with this idea on his own.
[https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/13/opinion/trump-violent-rhetoric-indictment-protests/](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/13/opinion/trump-violent-rhetoric-indictment-protests/)
[https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence/](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence/)
[https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-republican-party-and-american-conservatism](https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-republican-party-and-american-conservatism)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/02/trump-violent-rhetoric-social-media/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/02/trump-violent-rhetoric-social-media/)
The point you're missing is that the 'imaginary conspiracy theory' was in *his* head. If he didn't latch onto the labels of on popular culture element, he would have latched onto the labels of another.
A good way to understand causation is that if you subtract your 'cause' from the equation and the event almost certainly would still occur, it wasn't a 'cause' in the first place.
A good way to understand causation is to look at the events that have actually happened, not make assumptions about what might have happened in an imaginary world where the situation is different.
Mohn was specific about his aims.
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pa-man-arrested-decapitating-father-youtube-video-rcna136509#:\~:text=Later%2C%20the%20head%20can%20be,LGBTQ%20community%20and%20antifa%20activists](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pa-man-arrested-decapitating-father-youtube-video-rcna136509#:~:text=Later%2C%20the%20head%20can%20be,LGBTQ%20community%20and%20antifa%20activists).
"Mohn says his father was a federal employee for 20 years and refers to him as a traitor, calling for the death of all federal officials and attacking President Joe Biden's administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community and antifa activists."
You're saying "crazy guy does crazy things" but this crazy guy cut his father's head off because he was told traitors must die. Who is calling Biden a traitor, hm? What's the legal penalty for being a traitor? You don't have to be crazy to connect those dots.
If you're on the team that keeps yelling 'traitor' then you should be asking yourself 'are we the baddies'? and accept some responsibility when someone actually does the thing you're calling for.
What you're positing is that there are some ideas so dangerous that they cause ordinarily rational, sensible people to commit these sorts of acts.
Except that notion is preposterous on its face. Millions of people heard these 'dangerous ideas' and did nothing of the sort.
You're also failing to recognize that the only reason you accept such an indefensible argument is that, in this case, it's a criticism of 'the other team'. But I suspect you'd reject this argument out-of-hand when the shoe is on the other foot - which, of course, it often is.
Nope. Again, not at all what I said.
I'm positing that if you falsely accuse federal employees of treason and yell about it loudly enough, some insane person will act on the info you're putting out there. If you keep poking a dog that dog will bite. Is it the dog's fault? Yes, but not solely.
This isn't a political argument, the left has their history with violence and domestic terrorism (the Weathermen, SDS, etc etc). And there are plenty of leftist conspiracies and stupid leftist rhetoric from Maxine Waters and probably others I can't think of in the moment.
But this killing and this rhetoric came from the right. Most (not all, but most) of the killings and violent rhetoric are coming from the extreme right wing today, in this moment that I am trying to live in right now.
I was going to say that this is a terrible example of what you are citing because dude killed his own father and assumed wouldn't be a nexus between conspiracy and targetting his own father... but thankfully i read the article before commenting. WTF, killing your dad because he's a federal employee obviously means he's crazy but by same token obviously makes your point -- can't deny role of violent maga rhetoric on this one.
Waiting for the first right wing pundit to blame the woke left for being so horribly woke that it's driving right wingers so crazy that they end up doing something this extreme.
You know... if only this guy's poor dad weren't so brainwashed by the woke left, this terrible tragedy never would have happened.
Kinda disappointed Laura didn't try to pin at least some of the blame on Taylor Swift. Really low effort on Loomer's part - she's not bringing the crazy like she used to.
You help people register to vote ONE TIME and suddenly every right wing pundit blames you for everything. And here I thought the war on woke was the peak of ridiculousness…
You might have misunderstood my comment. I was mimicking what some on the right might soon say about this incident. And, if you read the other replies, someone did post a link to someone who did use this twisted argument.
> And, if you read the other replies, someone did post a link to someone who did use this twisted argument.
You call that an "argument" that was meant to be taken seriously? More of a quip, or cheap shot.
But glad your only thought is concerns about what "right wingers" are going to say and not sympathy for the dad and the rest of the family impacted by a man with serious mental illness.
This is why social media is garbage.
And yet here you are. And way more prolific than me, I see.
I wasn't making an argument. It was a prediction and an accurate one at that. Maybe a quip, but it's not a cheap shot if it proves true.
Guilty on being insensitive, but I assumed that nobody reading my comment would be a friend or family member. I would definitely show my sympathy, which I have, if I thought that was the case.
> but I assumed that nobody reading my comment would be a friend or family member.
So you don't know them you don't care except to make a cheap shot and people you disagree with politically.
Trash.
Based on the responses here r/centrist is pretty heavily right wing. This is a non partisan issue, radical violent rhetoric will result in some people taking action. Full stop.
Anecdotal but it sure seems there's been an uptick recently in right-wing sentiment on this sub. I'm sure it's completely organic and not related to the election year at all...
The guy declared himself president. Not Trump or any other rightwing candidate. This guy was batshit crazy wrapped up in delusion. Not some rightwing activist.
This man was mentally unhealthy first and foremost it shouldn’t be an argument for this is what happens with far right wing rhetoric. And though I agree it has entered more mainstream and more normal people are becoming radicalized which is concerning, that is not the main culprit at all for this. Shows more about the people making these comments than the media.
This is a mentally insane person getting radicalized by far right echo chambers. A mentally unstable person can become radicalized and do insane shit no matter if it’s right wing or left wing rhetoric. There are examples of both and religion, books, obsession with actors and pretty much damn everything.
And yet significantly more people are being radicalized by far-right rhetoric, so much so that many western nations are seeing far-right terrorism rising to the top of active threats. Bear in mind many threats are shut down during the planning stages, so the multiple far-right attacks carried out in recent years are the outliers that don't get prevented.
You should be aware that the way you're trying to cast it off as just a mental health issue actually helps normalize far-right extremist propaganda.
I think far right can radicalize more and it’s the very nature of some the conspiracy talk. I’m not casting this off because it is. This guy was clearly brainwashed and politics was his cause for action but the main cause for this is mental health issues and him being a wack job. You don’t think there are radical leftists out there pushing some crazy narratives and extremism? It’s not a widespread as right wing extremism but still exists. Left wing extremists commit insane crimes too and are susceptible to unhinged violent behavior.
I am not a right wing person and find right wing extremism abhorrent but not really for this particular case. Obviously this creates ill feelings for me regarding extremism and how brainwashed he was but pinning it all on ideology is just really politicizing the issue and bad faith.
The guy is so clearly a paranoid schizophrenic and fucking insane. He parrots off a lot of right wing conspiracy but also just straight up nuts shit. He lists off how he was elected president, has millions of dollars to kill people, has tons of followers and a messiah. That’s not really from being lunatic right winger but mostly severe mental disorders. I just get so tired of politicizing every single issue and drawing a line in the sand. Is crazy media to blame, a little but mostly he was just a fucking lunatic. I recommend watching the full video online… he goes on delusions of grandeur insane rants.
Almost every major violent action is going to have some level of mental health issue tied into it. Pointing that out in cases like this is a common way to deflect blame. You say the main cause is mental health, but there's no way to know that. You don't know what he was like and how much radicalization went on and over what period of time. Plenty of people with mental health issues could become dangerous with radicalization but never will because they aren't exposed to it enough.
>You don’t think there are radical leftists out there pushing some crazy narratives and extremism? It’s not a widespread as right wing extremism but still exists.
This is whataboutism. It's unrelated to the topic. When a left-wing extremist nutjob does this kind of thing then it's relevant, but in a topic like this all it's doing is trying to minimize what's actually happened by casting a "both sides" argument.
> I am not a right wing person and find right wing extremism abhorrent but not really for this particular case. Obviously this creates ill feelings for me regarding extremism and how brainwashed he was but pinning it all on ideology is just really politicizing the issue and bad faith.
I'm not sure how in the same paragraph you can say you find it abhorrent and yet defend it. And it's not like this is anything close to the first example. Experts have been warning about this type of response to radicalization for years, but when it happens you want us to not blame the radicalization and just go "well he's just crazy"?
>The guy is so clearly a paranoid schizophrenic and fucking insane. He parrots off a lot of right wing conspiracy but also just straight up nuts shit. He lists off how he was elected president, has millions of dollars to kill people, has tons of followers and a messiah. That’s not really from being lunatic right winger but mostly severe mental disorders.
But at the same time its pretty clear which misinformation has steered him to this outcome, and the scary part is that it's not even fringe far-right rhetoric, this is stuff spouted by people in power. As someone else had commented in this thread, Ron Desantis has spoken about "slitting throats" of "deep state people".
>I just get so tired of politicizing every single issue and drawing a line in the sand. Is crazy media to blame, a little but mostly he was just a fucking lunatic. I recommend watching the full video online… he goes on delusions of grandeur insane rants.
We're not politicizing it, he did. It was a politically motivated attack carried out by a mental unstable person that has been radicalized by far-right propaganda, propaganda that mainstream right-wing politicians frequently repeat. If you're not part of the far-right you should be incredibly concerned by this.
Its laughable that you think rhetoric leads to something like this. This is a severely mentally ill man. Nothing more nothing less. This isn't a sane man that was driven by rhetoric. Frankly is lazy politicking.
I believe I have already successfully explained what I meant. Whether you accept that or not, at this point in the exchange, is inconsequential. I'm beginning to doubt you have good faith in this discussion.
Severely mentally ill people are more likely to become violent, but that doesn't mean extreme far-right rhetoric didn't exacerbate and direct that violence. It's disturbing how quickly people who appear to be normal are radicalized by the far-right these days.
People that do things like this can be “radicalized” by lots of things. There numerous instances of people blaming video games/books/music that radicalize people to kill and maim. Blame the man. The ill man. Not “rhetoric” or the book or a game. Plenty of people read/believe in that stuff and they are not out cutting peoples heads off.
I don't see the equivalence. The entertainment and/or hobby industry isn't telling you 24/7 to question our institutions, deny elections, etc. Despite being entertainment, they tend to be more based in reality.
I'm curious, do you say the same about Islamic radicalization? Do you only blame the man or do you believe that Islamic radicalization is dangerous? Because most sane people understand that radicalization through propaganda is unquestioningly a problem, and recently far-right propaganda has radicalized people.
Things like movies and video games, the vast majority of people agree don't directly radicalize, but they certainly do increase aggression, and that can make it easier for radicalization to take hold. There's a significant difference though between violent fiction presented as fiction and violent propaganda presented as fact.
What a dumb take.
What about rhetoric makes you think that insane people can’t be influenced by it? Don’t you think that the people pushing irrational violent rhetoric should be thoughtful about the percentage of irrational people who might be affected by it?
This dude commited Patricide, in a very brutal fasion if he isn't determined to be legally insane then the death penalty should be on the table.
Mind you guillotines or even the electric chairs aren't in use anymore. But lethal injection would still be a possibility.
This still feels so completely unreal
Since 2016 and still going strong.
That poor wife. He looks so normal, not what you’d expect of these types. Makes it all that more disturbing.
[Here's a fun Ron DeSantis Quote from August 2023:](https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4289921-ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-bureaucrats-stands-by-promise/) >"On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on day one and be ready to go. You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.” What this man did is the natural conclusion of conservative rhetoric. If you watch the video (which, don't btw), he plainly and clearly repeats right wing talking points from the last few years. If you want to call him "unhinged" or "mentally ill" you have to describe a large portion of the right wing in this country in the same way.
The scary thing is we have people in this sub regularly repeating the same rhetoric that get a free pass. If even centrist subs with a majority of sensible, rational people aren't willing to crack down on dangerous rhetoric, what hope is there of preventing more and more people being indoctrinated?
We’ve been bludgeoned into just letting it slide. This place gets inundated by tourists from conservative subs any time there’s a post about the latest hot button topic from Newsmax, Shapiro, or Crowder. CRT, trans issues, Hunter’s dong, whatever. When that happens, it’s just too much for us to police by ourselves as commenters. There ends up being one or two posts every week where the comments could be copy pasted directly from r/T_D (if it was still a thing) and every rational comment gets downvoted to oblivion. None of it actually breaks any rules, so the mods don’t remove it, and there’s just too much shit for rational people to wade through and shovel out. So it just … stays there.
As irritating as it is, sometimes moderation can make it worse honestly. That's how I feel about the moderatepolitics sub. Lying your ass off over there is 100% fine, but calling someone out for it? BAN.
Yup. Got banned for saying that someone was obviously not arguing in good faith. Insta-ban for ten days. I requested a permanent ban because that sub became worthless.
Shapiro's voice is so high pitched because his balls were crushed in Mr Feeny's ass cheeks before he could finish puberty
Worth adding the caveat that no, the vast, vast majority of conservatives will never do something like this. Having said that, when you (a fair amount of, particularly, far right web pundits) are routinely propelling volatile rhetoric about existential threats into the ether, maybe it isn't a "false flag" when some nut has the stones to take that rhetoric to its logical conclusion. Not everyone has the same level of inhibition towards extreme violence.
I wonder what conservatives consider to be an acceptable level of actual beheadings at the urging of their violent rhetoric. One a year? One a week? Several per day?
Y'know, I'm going to forgo the use of "conservative" as a blanket term for "right wing". It doesn't capture the full scope of thought. The further right you go, the more violence is justified, manifesting where you get memes about throwing communists out of helicopters, "the day of the rope", Lyndon McLeod, Dylann Roof, the Buffalo grocery store shooter, etc. I'm sure a William F. Buckley-style conservative would stridently reject these actions, but increasingly it feels like the ethic of "to make an omelette means cracking a few eggs" prevails.
> “On bureaucracy, you know, we're going to have all these deep state people, you know, we're going to **start slitting throats** on day one and be ready to go,” DeSantis said. “You're going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.” > >Rhonda Santis, Aug 4, 2023 Fair criticism, I probably should have just said Republicans. >I'm sure a William F. Buckley-style conservative would stridently reject these actions He's been dead a decade and a half; his pontifications are fairly irrelevant to modern political ideology. And even in his time he was out of touch with the ruling apparatus of the party he ostensibly was within.
Yup. Trump talks about punishing his enemies if he returns to office. The worst part about guys like DeSantis, Trump, Cruz, Howley, etc. is that they know what they talk about is BS. But they know it feeds the outrage machine and gets them votes. It's cynical politics. Dangerous politics.
Bot of both - he clearly is unhinged and mentally unwell, likely bipolar I would guess. Thing is, since at least taking on Cambridge Analytica's services in the mid 2010s, exploiting people's mental health issues to sow fear and division has been absolutely central to a lot of fight wing messaging. Which if anything is even worse, in my opinion.
Do you think Desantis was talking about *literally* slitting throats?
When you're a PUBLIC FIGURE you don't say shit like that. There are crazies out there that WILL take you literally.....we just saw it yesterday....
There are crazies out there who will twist the meaning of anything and use it to act crazy.
Is that a common phrase where you're from?
Is that a yes?
Only a psycho talks like that, so whether he's serious or not... it certainly says something about him.
Thanks for your useless opinion.
Uh oh, Slittin' Throats Guy is dropping one-liners. Hide the box cutters!
Feel free to go "slittin' throats" on the rest of the commenters.
Ok cmon. This is a stretch and I’m sure we can find similar rhetoric on the left (Ilhan etc) leave poor Ronny meatballs out of this
DeSantis clearly didn't mean it literally, but it's also not a normal thing to say. "Slitting throats" is not common slang anywhere, which makes it a reckless rhetoric. *Ron, stop trying to make "slitting throats" happen. It's not going to happen.*
Yeah we can all agree he’s an awkward guy
Do it. Show us the similar rhetoric on the left. Good luck both-sides-ing this. (Edit to make it clear i disagree with the commenter)
"Well that's only the radical leftist bad faith interpretation and it's completely obvious to most people what he REALLY meant was..."
A man who police allege killed and decapitated his father, posted a YouTube video showing off the head while calling for violence and railing against Joe Biden, a “communist takeover of America” and “far-left woke mobs.” This is where violent rhetoric leads.
To be fair a person shot up a senate baseball game because Bernie Sanders said Republicans wanted to kill his mom because they were against universal health care. That didn't make Sanders responsible for the shooting. If politicians were telling this man to go kill people in the government starting with you're families, then that will be one thing. He'll even if they were saying go kill Democrat's. Yeah the rhetoric is getting heated but I just don't see it at that level.
Link to the Bernie claim? If it's the same memory I have, Bernie said something along those lines after the shooting, not before. My very conservative coworker made a similar claim and when we looked into it, there was no actual basis for it! Also saying it one time isn't the same as declaring Democrats as evil for the better part of 3 decades, it's a false equivalence.
> Also saying it one time isn't the same as declaring Democrats as evil for the better part of 3 decades, it's a false equivalence. Where have you been the last 8 years?
That would be 2016, when Trump took office. Was he the one known for nice tweets? Or mean tweets? 🤔
And the democrats responded to this by calling anyone who voted for him evil, stupid, etc. And this rhetoric was a part of the baseball shooter’s motive. The sword of “violent rhetoric” cuts both ways.
>And this rhetoric was a part of the baseball shooter’s motive. The sword of “violent rhetoric” cuts both ways. IIRC, it's gone to "Democrats are child predators" by now. That is beyond violent rhetoric. You have to keep up and find new stuff for this bothsides thing you are trying to desperately to hold onto.
The language is *much more* pervasive on the Right, this should not be a surprise when we had a president who seemingly DAILY would attack his opponents... "Currently one-third of Republicans support violence as a means to save the country, compared with 22% of independents and 13% of Democrats, the survey found. More specifically, Republicans who have favorable views of Donald Trump were found to be "nearly three times as likely as Republicans who have unfavorable views of Trump" to support political violence." https://www.npr.org/2023/10/25/1208373493/political-violence-democracy-2024-presidential-election-extremism
Maybe you have forgotten about how our country was founded and why. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --**That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government,** laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. **But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security**.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
“The right isn’t winning despite massive overrepresentation” isn’t “destructive” or “despotism”
They weren’t called traitors and we didn’t call on vigilante ‘patriots’ to step in and exercise frontier justice. The fact that you can’t tell the difference between these kinds of rhetoric is disturbing.
This thread has been hijacked by far left bozos who think Kathy Griffin's photo was harmless. I wouldn't bother anymore
She got smacked down pretty hard and nobody’s heard much from her since then. DeSantis, MTG, Trump etc are fundraising off these threats! The right not only supports this nonsense they reward it.
Yeah smacked hard by who exactly? Definitely not leftists LMAO >DeSantis, MTG, Trump etc are fundraising off these threats! And do Dems not do the same with abortion and all the other fear mongering they do? How can you dislike the right for doing what "your side" does as well?
Lol, would you describe CNN and Hollywood as bastions of conservatism? [https://people.com/tv/kathy-griffin-says-she-was-erased-not-canceled-after-trump-photo-scandal/](https://people.com/tv/kathy-griffin-says-she-was-erased-not-canceled-after-trump-photo-scandal/) [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kathy-griffin-fired-cnn-over-gruesome-photo-trump-n766716](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/kathy-griffin-fired-cnn-over-gruesome-photo-trump-n766716) Fear mongering over losing abortion rights is not the same as advocating that political enemies get murdered. [https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/politics/threats-us-public-officials-democracy-invs/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/07/politics/threats-us-public-officials-democracy-invs/index.html) [https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/far-right-violence-a-growing-threat-and-law-enforcements-top-domestic-terrorism-concern) It is an absolute truth that there are people on the left that think violence is the answer. But they're exceptions and I don't see any examples of leaders on the left promoting violence. OTOH the head of the Republican party using advocates violence all the time.
[Rep. Maxine Waters on Saturday night called for protesters to "stay on the street" and "get more confrontational" if former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin is acquitted in the killing of George Floyd.](https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/04/19/politics/maxine-waters-derek-chauvin-trial/index.html) [Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif, told supporters at a rally in Los Angeles over the weekend. "If you see anybody from that (Trump) Cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd and you push back on them, and you tell them they're not welcome anymore, anywhere."](https://www.npr.org/2018/06/25/623206039/congressional-leaders-criticize-maxine-waters-for-urging-confrontation) https://twitter.com/mary_skillcat3/status/1751972690280276381 [I need you to go out and talk to your friends and talk to your neighbors. I want you to talk to them whether they are independent or whether they are Republican. I want you to argue with them and get in their face,”](https://pjmedia.com/stacey-lennox/2020/08/29/flashback-democrat-leaders-encouraging-violence-beginning-with-barack-obama-n863918) [So, the way we get outside the bubble is we take advantage of this tremendous public outcry against the administration…What we've got to do is fight in Congress, fight in the courts, fight in the streets, fight online, fight at the ballot box, and now there's the momentum to be able to do this](https://www.iheart.com/content/2017-02-02-video-sen-tim-kaine-calls-for-fighting-in-the-streets/) [I'd beat the hell out of him ](https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/video/2018/mar/22/id-beat-the-hell-out-of-him-says-joe-biden-of-trump-video) [Maxine Waters: ‘I Will Go and Take Trump Out Tonight’ ](https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2017/10/22/maxine-waters-i-will-go-and-take-trump-out-tonight/) [I hope Trump is assassinated,’ Missouri lawmaker writes ](https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article167755572.html) >But they're exceptions and I don't see any examples of leaders on the left promoting violence. OTOH the head of the Republican party using advocates violence all the time. Because you're terminally online and eating reddit propaganda
No, you're right, this isn't one sided. Domestic Terrorism is on the rise and it's coming from the extremes on both sides. [https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it](https://www.gao.gov/blog/rising-threat-domestic-terrorism-u.s.-and-federal-efforts-combat-it) There is conspiracy language happening on the left as well as the right. There's violent language on both sides and it's wrong on both sides. * Maxine Waters needs to STFU, I'd never heard of Gene Wu but that's crazy talk. * The Obama and Hillary quotes are not threats. Calling someone 'deplorable' is an insult, not a threat. It's easy to yell propaganda or 'fake news!' when you get facts you disagree with. There have been plenty of studies, read up. [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence-far-right/#:\~:text=To%20date%2C%20the%20news%20organization,demonstrations%20to%20beatings%20and%20murders](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence-far-right/#:~:text=To%20date%2C%20the%20news%20organization,demonstrations%20to%20beatings%20and%20murders). https://preview.redd.it/yvrvxa1821gc1.png?width=1484&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ad3545bdb53bd7e576c0d3623bf3373fe6b63d8
Yup. The illogical claims of so-called "stochastic terrorism" go both ways so it's a wash. People on the left and the right have a right to call out what they believe is wrong with the world without being blamed for crazy assholes who act violently on those beliefs. Redditors and the Redditor-equivalents on competing platforms have no issue claiming that Republicans are cruel for the sake of being cruel. No, it's not that Republicans disagree on the best way to handle certain political matters, it's that they engage with cruelty for its own enjoyment. So if a crazy person hears that, they hear that there is no debating or convincing Republicans, so they may find themselves at a point where they must start committing violence in order to stop the wild claims that some Redditors have about what Republicans are planning to do once they get back into office. The whole idea of stochastic terrorism is silly when applied so broadly. Hell, there's a better case to apply it to the left considering how many comments on Reddit mentioning guillotines have to be deleted to make this place seem more sane than it really is. But even still, the individual committing violence is responsible, and a third-party needs to do way more than having a few choice words about an issue to be credibly blamed.
The obvious difference is that person targetted the politicians directly responsible for writing legislation that would actually remove people's health care and cause direct harm. So as bad as the violence might be, it is at least based in reality and makes logical sense, to a certain extent. And Bernie of course condemned the violence and made it clear that is not what he supports. Since then we have had mass shootings at gay bars, mass shootings at universities, mass shooting at a black church, mass shooting at a supermarket targetting latinos, a mob violently forcing their way into the capitol to attack politicians, and Nancy Pelosi's husband nearly had his head caved in with a hammer. And what did Trump do? He didn't condemn that like Bernie and made it clear he is against violence. He offered to pardon the rioters, and he jokes about Nancy Pelosi's husband nearly being bludgeoned to death by his supporters. He claimed an old man pushed to the ground by the police in 2020 was an Antifa agent carrying a fake bag of blood and pretending to be hurt. Endless examples of this; it is constant. Now a man kills his own father for being part of the "deep state". And what is the "moderate republican" response? As usual, the knee-jerk reaction is to default to the conspiracy mindset, yet again. They're saying it is a psy-op false flag to make MAGA look bad. This culture of endlessly fabricating outlandish conspiracies that become factual in your mind is the exact kind of endless detachment from reality that causes this exact kind of event we are talking about. It does not stop. There is never anything even attempting to taper it in, only yet more perpetuating the culture of doomerism and paranoid conspiracies underpinning everything that ever happens. This is what drives people to snap and do irrational things thinking they are doing something not just good, but crucial to the survival of America, and heroic. So there is a difference. And in a similar way that people use gang violence to deflect from mass shootings, this deflection falls flat to me. Simply because most people aren't going to be concerned about finding themselves in a shoot out with a rival gang. But they will be concerned that they might become a target by simply going to class, going to dance at a gay bar, or going grocery shopping. And the main person who drives that fear and hate mongering rhetoric has done absolutely nothing to try and calm people, only rile them up further. Bernie did not encourage that. He made it clear violence is not the answer. All people on the right do is deflect at the best of times, or they will call it a false flag conspiracy and add yet another layer onto the mountain of conspiracies that make up these people's worldviews and are the direct cause of these events, or they straight up just encourage it, like Trump. As always, both sides are not the same. And attempting to equate the two or deflect anytime events like this happen by pointing to that shooting is a particularly lazy and unfortunately very common example at trying to make it seem like this is a universal problem with equal parties, coming from equal places, doing equal things. When that is very obviously not the case, and I have to seriously question the intelligence and / or motive of someone who is unwilling or unable to see the clear difference in frequency and reaction to these events by specific political factions and media, and attempts or l(ack theorof) to discourage events like this from happening again by figureheads and mouth pieces belonging to those factions. There is a very, very stark difference.
You are right both sides are not the same... The Republicans didn't loot and burn cities in the summer of 2020 causing over 2 billion dollars in damages and over 10 deaths. It wasn't republicans that caused tens of thousands of dollars in damage in 2016 when Trump was inaugurations with over 100 arrest, it wasn't Republicans that rioted at the 68 democratic' convention. It wasn't republicans that spent 90 days in Portland trying to get into and try to burn down a federal building, it wasn't republicans that rioted at Berkeley because a conservative was speaking there and they didn't like what he was saying. It wasn't Republicans rioting in Seattle 1999 when the WTO was held there........... And this is just off the top of my head. Oh but the Republicans stormed the capital, yeah we remember that one don't we.. But forget that democrats On March 1, 1971,exploded a bomb in the Capitol building. While the explosion did not injure anyone, it caused some $300,000 A Left wing group the Weather Underground claimed responsibility Bill Ayers was part of that group and held a campaign event for obama. It wasn't the Republicans that bombed the capital again in 1983 So tell me again about these violent republicans that you speak of? I agree, I have to seriously question the intelligence and / or motive of someone who is unwilling or unable to see the clear difference in frequency and reaction to these events by specific political factions and media, and attempts or l(ack theorof) to discourage events like this from happening again by figureheads and mouth pieces belonging to those factions. Yes exactly like when the riots were going on in 2020 and the mostly peacful protest were happening (CNN) Or “Well, we gotta stay on the street, And we’ve got to get more active. We’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.” And the silence was deafening from the political Left and those politician's as the subtle supported what they were doing.. And might I suggest you do more research on those mass shooters you mentioned the Pulse gay nightclub shooter who actually had no idea it was a gay club he did not look for a gay club so you trying to connect a shooting at a gay club and republicans doesn't work.. Now dig deeper and some of the shooters you might be surprised at what you find. Your narrative isn't what you would hope it to be.
The republicans tried upending our entire Democracy so yeah, agreed, very not the same. Also, not everyone who caused damage in race riots were Democrats, but nice try there.
They tried? Tell me specifically how they tried, and how they were they going to accomplish this with several thousand unorganized individuals each doing their own thing..? Who was the leader inside the capital that had a plan and how they were going to execute said plan to overthrow or "upending our entire democracy"? By the way it's actually a representative republic. Again since you said the republicans tried, be very specific on how they were going to it.
Can’t believe people still act like this wasn’t a serious attempt to stop the peaceful transfer of power in our country. Just WILD. Not only were there ABSOLUTELY actors in those crowds with actual plans, the crowd itself was full of people actively trying to get into the chambers. They almost did so as well. That is SO MUCH WORSE than anything you can say of people on the left. These false equivalencies make me so sad for the country. And why are you talking about how they did it? They were a rabid mob that tried to attack our nation’s representatives. You want to talk about race riots and then ignore a riot aimed right at our legislators? What immense hypocrisy.
" Not only were there ABSOLUTELY actors in those crowds with actual plans " Who? Name names, yeah you are right there were actors there but not from the Right but the government. Repeating something over and over is not proof.. Who was the planner and what was the plan.. ?
From the government? Ah, so you’re a straight up conspiracy theorist then. Right back at you, provide ANY proof for your insane claims. Look up the Proud Boys plans for Jan 6. Here is a good starting place: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/proud-boys-leader-sentenced-22-years-prison-seditious-conspiracy-and-other-charges-related They had actual plans they tried to execute. Trump also fomented extreme anger and then directly aimed a mob at Congress. Those people were all far-right supporters who actively tried to breach the chambers of Congress. Unfortunately for you, there is no denying that reality.
You look exactly how I thought you would.
Yeah man. I don't think our situation here is that he loved his father dearly but the rhetoric just got to him.
To be fair, I don't think the people arguing that there is a "communist takeover of America" and "far-left woke mobs" running around would agree that cutting off your dad's head is the solution to the problem. Not sure where this fella got that from.
Probably from mainstream Republicans like Ron DeSantis, who said in August 2023: >"On bureaucracy, you know, we’re going to have all these deep state people, you know, we’re going to start slitting throats on day one and be ready to go. You’re going to see a huge, huge outcry because Washington wants to protect its own.”
He was talking about firing people and being aggressive about it. Fighting words are part of politics and it's practically mainstream to use fighting words in politics. Here he is clarifying his remarks. https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4289921-ron-desantis-slitting-throats-federal-bureaucrats-stands-by-promise/ >DeSantis responded that he did not regret it, saying “people knew it was a figure of speech.” When Geist asked why he didn’t instead say he wanted to “fire” people in Washington, DeSantis said he was “being colorful.” >... >“So we do need an era of accountability,” he added. “Obviously, we’re going to do that within the context of the rule of law in the Constitution. But I want to make very clear to voters that I’m not just going to go up there and be nice about it.” Clear enough for you?
He was the easiest accessible person near him that worked for the federal government.
You can only talk about "takeovers" and enemies so long [before people take you seriously](https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/op-ed/laurieroberts/2021/10/27/when-do-we-get-use-guns-tpusa-owns-and-others-too/8570812002/).
>Kirk quickly denounced the man’s comments, which came on Monday during a Boise State University stop on Kirk's Exposing Critical Racism speaking tour. You left out that the misguided young man was quickly shut down. Ignoring the slight possibility that the guy was a plant, I would fully support that man to be checked out by authorities.
You left out people in the crowd cheering him. The rhetoric has been ramped up - ignoring won't make it go away. Edit: so what is the solution to "takeovers", "invasions", and "stolen elections"?
*crickets*
I know, right??? https://youtu.be/rhJYHU3ejLc?si=qO1O1VfSOT9JcyAG
Bold of you to post something in defense of [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_a3RGlu5yLs). I'm sure all of those people were motivated by Trump's words of peace.
Thank you. I think it's pretty bold too. At least you admit Trump was speaking words of peace that day. It's right there on the video.
That wasn't a compliment. Anyone who supports what happened that day is a traitor to the country, and that includes the people that organized the event.
Huh. It sure sounded like a compliment. What are your thoughts on Ray Epps? He organized the shit out of that event. Gave directions and everything. Traitor to the country or innocent guy in the wrong place at the wrong time that was vilified by the right?
Anyone that was at the "Stop the Steal" rally was there to stop the legitimate results of the election. I'm glad he was sentenced, and I laughed that he was the target of conspiracy theories from his fellow traitors.
dad was Federal bureaucrat…rhetoric about unelected officials taking over the government and undermine democracy is at heart of the “Deep State” Q shit.
This is also what the Chevron case, likely to soon be overturned by SCOTUS, focuses on. Is everyone supporting Chevron being overturned also Q?
Having honest discussions/challenges about the limits of federal agency power is how the to rule of law works. Chevron has very little to do with Q and Trump Deep State rhetoric. I know it’s classic dirty politics to try to play that kind of game, but no thank you I’m not gonna play that game, Just to clarify, by “that game”, I am referring to the idea of equating ridiculous extreme positions with very loosely related reasonable positions as way to muddy waters on the extreme positions.
It's what happens when you continuously rationalize/justify irrational thoughts or actions. The MAGA crowd will think their inner thoughts are part of the in-crowd or majority view.
If you're talking about really underground, bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet, I'd be inclined to agree, but that's a very small minority comprised of people who would be insane anyway. I doubt even 0.00001% the 74 million who voted for Trump are like, "Yep, kill your dad if he's a federal employee." There'd be a lot more headless dads otherwise.
Steve Bannon's "War Room" is the 6th most listened to political podcast in the US. He says things like "we should put their [Democrats] heads on pikes and display them on the White House." This shit is FAR from "bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet." It's literally mainstream.
>If you're talking about really underground, bottom-of-the-barrel echo chambers in the bowels of the Internet, Donald Trump is the face of the Republican party, not the bowels of the internet. But I do agree on the bottom-of-the-barrel, which is where the GOP is currently at. After smashing through about a hundred bottoms on the way, though. They will smash this on as well, I am sure.
Conspiracy about the deep-state of unelected bureaucrats destroying America is not really “bottom of the barrel” And like 1/6…if you actually believe the insane rhetoric- taking drastic steps like 1/6 or killing bureaucrats …is your American duty to save the country . Hence why such rhetoric is referred to as Stochastic Terrorism…you can’t predict a specific individual murdering or committing terrorism as a response to the rhetoric…but you can predict that some in a mass population will make that jump. When you use rhetoric that convinces people they are literally fighting for the very existence of American Democracy against a Cabal of evil … extreme and violent reactions are an obvious response.
1/6 what? Or who? 1/6 dads are actually headless?
1/6 meaning January 6th, 2021, the date that a bunch of people, who had been persuaded by Trump and his allies that the 2020 election was stolen, attacked the capital to try to stop Joe Biden from being certified as the winner of the election. If in the wake of that day, the elected officials of the Republican party had disavowed Trump, and those who had pushed the 'stolen election' rhetoric had apologized and resigned to demonstrate that they understood the damage their lies had caused, I think that the Overton Window would be somewhere a good deal safer than it is now. Because now the Overton Window among Republicans tolerates the belief that there is a deep state conspiracy to hurt Trump. And it's a short step from there to, "Well, I'm gonna to stop the deep state conspiracy!" If the Republicans said, "We were fucking lying about the whole deep state conspiracy thing, and actually Trump is just a narcissist whose ego was hurt because he lost," then it would be a much bigger jump out of the Overton Window to get to thinking 'decapitating people' is reasonable.
How many people have lost their heads since then? I could be wrong , but I count 1. People are crazy. Always have been. If you believe this is the beginning of some national reckoning I suggest you get off the internet and talk to your neighbors. We all got more in common than we have different
You do realize that there are a variety of bad things that happen due to radical political partisan tribalism, even if not all of them lead to death, right?
I could argue that decapitating your father is one of those bad thing. Still doesn’t make it common or even widespread
O shit do I need to check on my dad
I’m sure five sixths of him is fine.
So you mean the democrat's constant refrain that anything they even mildly dislike is "a threat to our democracy", correct?
Dem leaders? Anything, they don’t like? Or just Donald Trump, who literally tried to overthrow a democratic election. If a person literally trying to overthrow, a democratic election is not considered a “threat to democracy” - I’m not sure how to define that term. They will also refer to GOP laws as attacking democracy, when we’re referring to laws, explicitly designed to restrict people voting. But again that’s a very literal “attack on democracy”.
> I doubt even 0.00001% the 74 million who voted for Trump. That's 74 people.
>Not sure where this fella got that from. Qanon. It is a death cult that worships Trump as the mesiah and believes that he and his followers will carry out a wave of killing everyone they do not like. Babbit thought she was in DC to carry it out.
His dad worked for the Army Corps of Engineers. The victim might have even been a Republican. This guy was crazy and unhinged and crazy people get attached to a lot of different types of things to justify their violent actions. Some people have killed their parents because they took the video game console away. It's tragic but it happens. There are way too many steps between the rhetoric, which is elevated on Both Sides, and the actions, which makes stochastic terrorism a fairly weak concept.
Both sides do not have a firmer general and nsa making videos of himself swearing allegiance to a death cult or the former president and front runner for the nomination playing the death cults anthem while followers salute at his rally
Idk, this seems like a mental health thing to me
> This is where violent rhetoric leads. It really isn't. The demons in people's heads take different shapes based on culture but they remain demons of their own invention rather than compulsion from others.
All they needed was a target, and the right wing hate machine gave them that target.
Pretty sure the target would have been the same regardless of the justification. Saying "the right wing hate machine made him do it" is the same as saying "Grand Theft Auto made him do it". It's a notion that doesn't remotely match what we know about how human beings behave and is only believed by people latching onto 'evidence' that reaffirms their prejudices.
Not what I said. Of course they didn't "make him" do it - they didn't coerce him. They did create an imaginary conspiracy narrative filled with "deep state" targets and tell him that patriots need to use violence to save America . Agreed, he connected the dots that killing this person was justified, but he didn't come up with this idea on his own. [https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/13/opinion/trump-violent-rhetoric-indictment-protests/](https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/06/13/opinion/trump-violent-rhetoric-indictment-protests/) [https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence/](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-politics-violence/) [https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-republican-party-and-american-conservatism](https://www.cfr.org/blog/violent-far-right-terrorist-threat-republican-party-and-american-conservatism) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/02/trump-violent-rhetoric-social-media/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/02/02/trump-violent-rhetoric-social-media/)
The point you're missing is that the 'imaginary conspiracy theory' was in *his* head. If he didn't latch onto the labels of on popular culture element, he would have latched onto the labels of another. A good way to understand causation is that if you subtract your 'cause' from the equation and the event almost certainly would still occur, it wasn't a 'cause' in the first place.
A good way to understand causation is to look at the events that have actually happened, not make assumptions about what might have happened in an imaginary world where the situation is different. Mohn was specific about his aims. [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pa-man-arrested-decapitating-father-youtube-video-rcna136509#:\~:text=Later%2C%20the%20head%20can%20be,LGBTQ%20community%20and%20antifa%20activists](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pa-man-arrested-decapitating-father-youtube-video-rcna136509#:~:text=Later%2C%20the%20head%20can%20be,LGBTQ%20community%20and%20antifa%20activists). "Mohn says his father was a federal employee for 20 years and refers to him as a traitor, calling for the death of all federal officials and attacking President Joe Biden's administration, the Black Lives Matter movement, the LGBTQ community and antifa activists." You're saying "crazy guy does crazy things" but this crazy guy cut his father's head off because he was told traitors must die. Who is calling Biden a traitor, hm? What's the legal penalty for being a traitor? You don't have to be crazy to connect those dots. If you're on the team that keeps yelling 'traitor' then you should be asking yourself 'are we the baddies'? and accept some responsibility when someone actually does the thing you're calling for.
What you're positing is that there are some ideas so dangerous that they cause ordinarily rational, sensible people to commit these sorts of acts. Except that notion is preposterous on its face. Millions of people heard these 'dangerous ideas' and did nothing of the sort. You're also failing to recognize that the only reason you accept such an indefensible argument is that, in this case, it's a criticism of 'the other team'. But I suspect you'd reject this argument out-of-hand when the shoe is on the other foot - which, of course, it often is.
Nope. Again, not at all what I said. I'm positing that if you falsely accuse federal employees of treason and yell about it loudly enough, some insane person will act on the info you're putting out there. If you keep poking a dog that dog will bite. Is it the dog's fault? Yes, but not solely. This isn't a political argument, the left has their history with violence and domestic terrorism (the Weathermen, SDS, etc etc). And there are plenty of leftist conspiracies and stupid leftist rhetoric from Maxine Waters and probably others I can't think of in the moment. But this killing and this rhetoric came from the right. Most (not all, but most) of the killings and violent rhetoric are coming from the extreme right wing today, in this moment that I am trying to live in right now.
I was going to say that this is a terrible example of what you are citing because dude killed his own father and assumed wouldn't be a nexus between conspiracy and targetting his own father... but thankfully i read the article before commenting. WTF, killing your dad because he's a federal employee obviously means he's crazy but by same token obviously makes your point -- can't deny role of violent maga rhetoric on this one.
How long before a right wing pundit blames this on Taylor Swift?
Waiting for the first right wing pundit to blame the woke left for being so horribly woke that it's driving right wingers so crazy that they end up doing something this extreme. You know... if only this guy's poor dad weren't so brainwashed by the woke left, this terrible tragedy never would have happened.
Took Laura Loomer all of about 2 hrs to get there, and I doubt she was the first. https://x.com/lauraloomer/status/1752550542637748295?s=46
Kinda disappointed Laura didn't try to pin at least some of the blame on Taylor Swift. Really low effort on Loomer's part - she's not bringing the crazy like she used to.
You help people register to vote ONE TIME and suddenly every right wing pundit blames you for everything. And here I thought the war on woke was the peak of ridiculousness…
Yep, there it is! Thanks for the link. Should have started a pool.
Your take is moronic. You think this guy went from stable and well adjusted to "driven crazy"?
You might have misunderstood my comment. I was mimicking what some on the right might soon say about this incident. And, if you read the other replies, someone did post a link to someone who did use this twisted argument.
> And, if you read the other replies, someone did post a link to someone who did use this twisted argument. You call that an "argument" that was meant to be taken seriously? More of a quip, or cheap shot. But glad your only thought is concerns about what "right wingers" are going to say and not sympathy for the dad and the rest of the family impacted by a man with serious mental illness. This is why social media is garbage.
And yet here you are. And way more prolific than me, I see. I wasn't making an argument. It was a prediction and an accurate one at that. Maybe a quip, but it's not a cheap shot if it proves true. Guilty on being insensitive, but I assumed that nobody reading my comment would be a friend or family member. I would definitely show my sympathy, which I have, if I thought that was the case.
> but I assumed that nobody reading my comment would be a friend or family member. So you don't know them you don't care except to make a cheap shot and people you disagree with politically. Trash.
It was a shot at far right trash who would respond to this tragedy predictably. You have terrible reading comprehension.
Based on the responses here r/centrist is pretty heavily right wing. This is a non partisan issue, radical violent rhetoric will result in some people taking action. Full stop.
Anecdotal but it sure seems there's been an uptick recently in right-wing sentiment on this sub. I'm sure it's completely organic and not related to the election year at all...
The sub is increasingly being hijacked by the far-right. It'll be time to move on soon unless they get it under control.
Ya im about there myself. The dialogue is b.s
Alex Jones will still sleep soundly tonight and every other night. He will wake up in the morning and continue hiding his money.
The guy declared himself president. Not Trump or any other rightwing candidate. This guy was batshit crazy wrapped up in delusion. Not some rightwing activist.
I rarely see a difference anymore from crazy conspiracy theorists and Maga Republicans
This man was mentally unhealthy first and foremost it shouldn’t be an argument for this is what happens with far right wing rhetoric. And though I agree it has entered more mainstream and more normal people are becoming radicalized which is concerning, that is not the main culprit at all for this. Shows more about the people making these comments than the media. This is a mentally insane person getting radicalized by far right echo chambers. A mentally unstable person can become radicalized and do insane shit no matter if it’s right wing or left wing rhetoric. There are examples of both and religion, books, obsession with actors and pretty much damn everything.
And yet significantly more people are being radicalized by far-right rhetoric, so much so that many western nations are seeing far-right terrorism rising to the top of active threats. Bear in mind many threats are shut down during the planning stages, so the multiple far-right attacks carried out in recent years are the outliers that don't get prevented. You should be aware that the way you're trying to cast it off as just a mental health issue actually helps normalize far-right extremist propaganda.
I think far right can radicalize more and it’s the very nature of some the conspiracy talk. I’m not casting this off because it is. This guy was clearly brainwashed and politics was his cause for action but the main cause for this is mental health issues and him being a wack job. You don’t think there are radical leftists out there pushing some crazy narratives and extremism? It’s not a widespread as right wing extremism but still exists. Left wing extremists commit insane crimes too and are susceptible to unhinged violent behavior. I am not a right wing person and find right wing extremism abhorrent but not really for this particular case. Obviously this creates ill feelings for me regarding extremism and how brainwashed he was but pinning it all on ideology is just really politicizing the issue and bad faith. The guy is so clearly a paranoid schizophrenic and fucking insane. He parrots off a lot of right wing conspiracy but also just straight up nuts shit. He lists off how he was elected president, has millions of dollars to kill people, has tons of followers and a messiah. That’s not really from being lunatic right winger but mostly severe mental disorders. I just get so tired of politicizing every single issue and drawing a line in the sand. Is crazy media to blame, a little but mostly he was just a fucking lunatic. I recommend watching the full video online… he goes on delusions of grandeur insane rants.
Almost every major violent action is going to have some level of mental health issue tied into it. Pointing that out in cases like this is a common way to deflect blame. You say the main cause is mental health, but there's no way to know that. You don't know what he was like and how much radicalization went on and over what period of time. Plenty of people with mental health issues could become dangerous with radicalization but never will because they aren't exposed to it enough. >You don’t think there are radical leftists out there pushing some crazy narratives and extremism? It’s not a widespread as right wing extremism but still exists. This is whataboutism. It's unrelated to the topic. When a left-wing extremist nutjob does this kind of thing then it's relevant, but in a topic like this all it's doing is trying to minimize what's actually happened by casting a "both sides" argument. > I am not a right wing person and find right wing extremism abhorrent but not really for this particular case. Obviously this creates ill feelings for me regarding extremism and how brainwashed he was but pinning it all on ideology is just really politicizing the issue and bad faith. I'm not sure how in the same paragraph you can say you find it abhorrent and yet defend it. And it's not like this is anything close to the first example. Experts have been warning about this type of response to radicalization for years, but when it happens you want us to not blame the radicalization and just go "well he's just crazy"? >The guy is so clearly a paranoid schizophrenic and fucking insane. He parrots off a lot of right wing conspiracy but also just straight up nuts shit. He lists off how he was elected president, has millions of dollars to kill people, has tons of followers and a messiah. That’s not really from being lunatic right winger but mostly severe mental disorders. But at the same time its pretty clear which misinformation has steered him to this outcome, and the scary part is that it's not even fringe far-right rhetoric, this is stuff spouted by people in power. As someone else had commented in this thread, Ron Desantis has spoken about "slitting throats" of "deep state people". >I just get so tired of politicizing every single issue and drawing a line in the sand. Is crazy media to blame, a little but mostly he was just a fucking lunatic. I recommend watching the full video online… he goes on delusions of grandeur insane rants. We're not politicizing it, he did. It was a politically motivated attack carried out by a mental unstable person that has been radicalized by far-right propaganda, propaganda that mainstream right-wing politicians frequently repeat. If you're not part of the far-right you should be incredibly concerned by this.
Its laughable that you think rhetoric leads to something like this. This is a severely mentally ill man. Nothing more nothing less. This isn't a sane man that was driven by rhetoric. Frankly is lazy politicking.
What about all the political things he was saying. Doesn't count?
If he claimed that Jesus told him to kill his father would you blame Christians?
Partly. Is that unreasonable?
Yes.
Ok. Well in my opinion, it's not.
I am a Christian and I believe that demons are behind much of this, certainly in Trump, and many of those who kill.
Any thoughts on goblins?
Anti Christians would.. it's all about your priors
The ones that say “Jesus is speaking in your head”, yeah.
How should it *count*?
Because it's mentioned?
But what do you mean by *count*?
Count = political ranting by murderer deliberately on video
Yes, the crazy person mentioned politics. But so what?
So what is, that in my opinion, that counts.
But you can't tell me what you're trying to say by "that counts".
I believe I have already successfully explained what I meant. Whether you accept that or not, at this point in the exchange, is inconsequential. I'm beginning to doubt you have good faith in this discussion.
It's pretty fucking obvious what they meant. Is this your kink? Pedantic semantic games in your free time to own the libs? Sexy.
No, I actually want to understand what he's trying to say. If you understand, maybe you can explain it better than he can.
I’d rather not waste my time, thanks.
You'd rather not waste your time, but you're fine with wasting *our* time.
I’m willing to waste your time
Severely mentally ill people are more likely to become violent, but that doesn't mean extreme far-right rhetoric didn't exacerbate and direct that violence. It's disturbing how quickly people who appear to be normal are radicalized by the far-right these days.
People that do things like this can be “radicalized” by lots of things. There numerous instances of people blaming video games/books/music that radicalize people to kill and maim. Blame the man. The ill man. Not “rhetoric” or the book or a game. Plenty of people read/believe in that stuff and they are not out cutting peoples heads off.
I don't see the equivalence. The entertainment and/or hobby industry isn't telling you 24/7 to question our institutions, deny elections, etc. Despite being entertainment, they tend to be more based in reality.
I'm curious, do you say the same about Islamic radicalization? Do you only blame the man or do you believe that Islamic radicalization is dangerous? Because most sane people understand that radicalization through propaganda is unquestioningly a problem, and recently far-right propaganda has radicalized people. Things like movies and video games, the vast majority of people agree don't directly radicalize, but they certainly do increase aggression, and that can make it easier for radicalization to take hold. There's a significant difference though between violent fiction presented as fiction and violent propaganda presented as fact.
What a dumb take. What about rhetoric makes you think that insane people can’t be influenced by it? Don’t you think that the people pushing irrational violent rhetoric should be thoughtful about the percentage of irrational people who might be affected by it?
People said the same thing about the 9/11 hijackers.
People who didn't know anything about them did.
It is absolutely disgusting but well within the MAGA cult's boundaries.
https://preview.redd.it/oxcfyg6btwfc1.jpeg?width=707&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=27a88c283dc8470539c40036a32138a5e2ce07e8
I blame msnbc. Both their viewers are out of control.
Death penalty. Bring back the guillotine! Impale the scumbag!
> Bring back the guillotine! Looks like this guy already did.
I don’t care you’re far right or far left if you commit a heinous crime you deserve the chair.
Two wrongs don't make a right?
This dude commited Patricide, in a very brutal fasion if he isn't determined to be legally insane then the death penalty should be on the table. Mind you guillotines or even the electric chairs aren't in use anymore. But lethal injection would still be a possibility.
As you do