Stochastic Terrorism: How To Spark A Tragedy And Walk Away Without Blood On Your Hands
It's easier than you think
Before I begin my discussion of the stochastic terrorists using the Colorado Springs mass shooting for their own sick and twisted ends, I wanted to begin with a rational examination of what we can expect going forward. And few folks do rational better than Beau of the Fifth Column, who’s done us the favor of breaking down how we got to this point and where we might be going.
That his contribution is made without polemics or histrionics makes it that much more valuable. Of course, that he’s spot on doesn’t hurt. Throughout his video, he breaks it down like this:
LGBTQ gathering places like Club Q have increasingly become the targets of hateful and false rhetoric from commentators and politicians.
What may have been a mitigating factor? Possibly how the person responsible for the shooting consumed hateful and false rhetoric. This could potentially be presented as a defense on the shooter’s behalf.
Those who put out hateful and false rhetoric almost certainly won’t and can’t be held criminally responsible. That’s the way the world works today…and there’s also the 1st Amendment to consider.
There are those who continue to knowingly push out hateful and false rhetoric for their own selfish reasons. (see Jones, Alex)
Unfortunately for those who continue to push false information, the Alex Jones case has demonstrated that this business model is no longer profitable over the long term.
It costs nothing to be part of the solution and to put out information that can help to decrease violence.
The GOP invested $50 million in advertising during the midterms to denigrate the LGBTQ community.
Imagine what impact that $50 million could’ve had if the GOP had invested it in something that might’ve shown a positive return? Ah, but that’s not how they think, is it?
No, it’s most definitely not. And that’s what makes all of this so desperately sad.
Why the continued emphasis on lies, propaganda, and hate speech directed at the LGBTQ community? Because they’re (usually) easy to identify. And their lifestyle and sexual practices offend a significant segment of the voting populace. That and a lot of people are WAY too concerned with what consenting adults do in private spaces…as if it’s any of their damned business.
Of course, one could reasonably inquire as to what many of the good, God-fearing, White Conservative Christian heterosexuals are afraid of (their own sexuality, perhaps?) that causes them to behave in such a hateful manner. But that would require the haters to have a degree of self-awareness that they clearly lack.
This brings me to two of the most despicable bipeds to drag their knuckles across the Earth- Candace Owens and Matt Walsh. Both are card-carrying members of the American Taliban, and neither will so much as shed a tear for any of the victims of this weekend’s mass shooting. Why? Because both are pretty certain they’re the real victims of this tragedy.
Candace Owens isn’t any more compassionate, kind, or caring than Walsh, but she knows that she’s far more intelligent than you could ever hope to be. And she’s not afraid to let you know.
She’s right, of course. It IS implausibly stupid- just not for the reasons she’s thinking. Her “blame-the-Left” logic is beyond implausibly stupid. Sadly, she lacks the intellectual agility or the self-awareness to recognize the flaws in her reasoning. What she possesses in abundance, though, is smug arrogance. That allows her to elevate herself far above the madding crowd of intellectually and morally deficient Liberals.
We can't always be certain what effect the things we say will have on people, and there will always be those who will kill or hurt people for all kinds of ridiculous reasons, ranging from their love of Jodie Foster to believing that it is just what their neighbor's dog needs them to do.
However.
There are times when we can be reasonably sure what the effect of our words will be. We know that if we yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater that people will get up and run out and potentially trample someone to death. We know that if we yell "Free beer!" that some people will probably come up to us looking for free beer. And we know that if we accuse a person or a group of people of child molestation, that someone who believes us could respond to that with violence.
Suppose you spend your time denigrating the LGBTQ community, calling them “groomers,” encouraging the harassment of Drag Queen Story Hours, and insinuating that they’re child molesters. In that case, those words may bear bitter fruit. So it was in Colorado Springs.
Can we draw a direct line between those who, like Walsh and Owen, have made a career demonizing the LGBTQ community? Unfortunately, no, but neither does it take a genius to understand the correlation between hate speech and hateful, harmful actions.
Quite frankly, that there have not been more killings like this is some pretty damning proof that not many people actually believe any of this "groomer" nonsense, and that it is primarily just being used to score political points at a time when the Right doesn't have a whole lot going for it. It did, after all, very conveniently ramp up when Florida GOP Governor Ron DeSantis was being widely criticized for his "Don't Say Gay" bill and needed something to justify it.
The thing that really trips me up here, however, is that Matt Walsh, Candace Owens and all of the false flag idiots think we're under the impression this would affect them at all. Really? Do they seriously think we don't know who they are? That we think they are moved by empathy? That we have somehow missed that they are a bunch of assholes who just straight up don't care what happens to anyone else?
That's just plain insulting.
What indication have these people ever given us that would cause us to believe have heart strings to tug on? Who would look at US Republicans, see the things they say and believe and support and think, "Yes, these people are motivated by empathy and care whether their fellow humans live or die!"?
As Beau of the Fifth Column said, it costs nothing to be part of the solution and to put out information that can help reduce violence and save lives. Compassion and kindness also cost nothing, but even that cost is too much for Candace Owen and Matt Walsh to bear. Between them, they couldn’t scrape together an ounce of human decency.
Here’s the problem with what happened at Club Q. And the Pulse Club in Orlando. And in mosques, synagogues, churches, malls, movie theaters all across America. Gun violence is an abject, senseless tragedy that has left a trail of far too many bodies in its wake. Mass shootings never have a sensible explanation, but what makes them even more senseless is when the hate behind them is fed by the words of those who trade in hate.
Do you smell what I’m cooking here? The shooter made the decision to pull the trigger, but who planted the seed? Who put the idea in his head? Who convinced him that people who are LGBTQ are “less than” and thus unworthy of living?
People like Matt Walsh and Candace Owen don’t give a damn about those who were killed or wounded at Club Q. They were LGBTQ; they deserved it. They brought it on themselves because of their sinful lifestyle and their perverted, child-molesting ways.
That’s Walsh and Owen maintain a convenient moral separation between themselves and the deadly actions their hateful words can inspire.
I don't know how many mass shootings there have been in the last 20 years or so. Too many. Enough to know by now that there ain't no mountain of dead bodies high enough to keep the "Second Amendment people" from opposing any kind of gun control. We also know that widespread popular support for gun control does not in fact lead to effective gun control happening. So how stupid would anyone have to be to keep orchestrating "false flags" for the purpose of garnering support for gun control?
The same goes for supposedly "politicizing this tragedy" or any other in hopes of getting conservatives to stop being horrible to LGBTQ people. We would all have to think much more highly of Matt Walsh or Candace Owens or Lauren Boebert than we do in order for that to really be a thing.
Sure, we'll blame them for this if it turns out that the obvious thing did happen and this man did indeed walk into a gay bar and kill a bunch of people after having been motivated by the rhetoric of people like them, motivated into believing he was saving children from being molested. They will deserve it.
Unfortunately, Conservatives have no incentive to stop being horrible to the LGBTQ community. It’s their brand. Hatred is what binds their base together, and it’s what you do when you have no positive policy initiatives to offer. You attract voters by convincing them that you hate the same people they do. And you keep them together by now and again calling upon the cleansing power of the Two-Minute Hate.
Donald Trump did win in 2016, but it wasn’t through appealing to America’s better angels. No, he won by convincing angry, undereducated Conservative White Americans and Evangelical Christians that he hated the same people they do. And people like Trump attract people like Matt Walsh, Candace Owen, Lauren Boebert, Marjorie Trailer Greene, and other bottom-feeders. In a better, kinder world these nonentities would never see the light of day. But in today’s world, the mainstream media hangs on their every word.
They use their platform to direct all manner of hateful rhetoric toward the LGBTQ community. When their words are animated in horrific fashion by a mentally unbalanced killer, they can walk away with clean hands and a clean conscience.
Because freedom of speech, don’tchaknow?
Except that Alex Jones has already tried that and has been ordered to pay the families of those killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012 close to $1 BILLION. So to say that words don’t have consequences is no longer strictly true.
Words can and often do have consequences.
People who aren’t horrible monsters don’t kill people they despise those they believe have no right to live. But there’s another part to that argument as well. People who aren’t horrible monsters don’t traffic in hateful language directed at a minority demographic knowing that there are people out there who might weaponize that language.
Remember, it’s costs nothing to be part of the solution and to spread information that can help lower the tone and temperature of public discourse and thus possibly save lives. Compassion and kindness aren’t signs of weakness, nor is kindness proof of moral impropriety.
Spreading lies, propaganda, and hate speech that can (and very often does) lead to violence and death IS a sign of moral weakness. It’s a sign that you care more for your narrow morality than the lives of innocent people. When you sink to that level, you’ve lost your claim to humanity, not unlike Candace Owen and Matt Walsh, who are about as Christian as I am a Nobel laureate.
May they enjoy their reserved parking spaces in the Hell they so richly deserve.
