Sure. And we still have “constitutional sheriffs.” White supremacist biased law enforcement is not the same as upholding the laws of the US. I am anti white-supremacist-LEO. That is actually part of my rant.
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I’m struggling with blaming Catholicism, Protestantism, Christianity or even religion in general as the (ahem) genesis of this kind of violence. These are human institutions and we need look no further for the origins of evil than human beings. What we do have is large numbers of people who are willing to use those institutions for their own ends, and even larger groups of people who are willing and eager to use their god(s) to justify their atrocities.
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I have no stats to cite, but it sure does seem IME that phrases like “lone wolf” or “lone gunman” are almost exclusively applied to white shooters…along with the theories about childhood trauma and mental illness, and the he-was-such-an-unassuming-polite-guy neighbor interviews
I see this more from a linguistic-bias perspective. It all implies that these people are anomalies, radical outliers, thus addressing the unspoken question: this guy looks like me, could BE me–why’d he do this?
Whereas the unspoken counterpart for a non-white shooter for whom such elaborate details are left out is “he’s representative of what I’ve always subconsciously assumed is a group trait–no surprise there.”
I often notice the inverse implication in cases of a minority victim: that is, details emphasizing evidence of middle-class mobility, as if to say: he had a college degree, he had aspirations, he was a family man, etc…you know, unlike most of those people.
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Serial killers and deranged mass shooters and stabbers almost always do their evil alone, and while the latter often have bizarre “ideologies” and telegraph their intentions, and may loosely belong to various grievance-based movements and groups, their actual actions are almost never part of some organized movement or conspiracy. Whereas terrorists, which white supremacists who commit crimes in the name of white supremacy are, almost always act in concert with others, however loosely. There are indeed lone wolves who act on their own, but most are part of some group that discusses, incites, plans and carries out such acts, and even the lone wolves are inspired and incited by these groups.
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What you are describing would be called “woke” by the right. It is culturally ingrained bias, that the perpetrators (like me) are not even aware of. It’s less malignant than overt prejudice, but more harmful because it passively supports bias.
On the other hand, white supremacy tourism has a bright spot in the Idaho tourism industry for a while, now:
"She (MTG) then insisted that Democrats in Washington have abandoned God and truth — specifically, the “sword” of biblical truth, which she said “will hurt you.”
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Its dangerous sloppy headlines, of course.
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“Eek! Officer Krupke, you’ve done it again. This boy don’t need a job, he needs a year in the pen. It ain’t a question of misunderstood - Deep down inside him, he’s no good.” Westside Story
A satisfying refrain! But the rest of the song raises questions, how did this kid get this way? Who else is involved? Simple answers still block relevant questions like “When will humanity be civilized? How will we know?”
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I think we’ve also gotten to the point of what you might call stochastic conspiracy, where much of the planning for violent acts appears hypothetical, without specific times and places attached. People contributing to the planning can claim they had no idea one of their number would take the advice they were offering about weapons, tactics, potential targets and so forth, and act on it in a specific way. But the acts somehow get carried out and none of the social-media acquaintances think that perhaps they should stfu about killing people they don’t like.
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Even if the way in which they “organize” is different from that of past terrorists, there’s still an organizing principle, structure, method and set of goals here, which is their shared ideology, paranoia and hatred, and belief that their way of life is under threat and needs to be defended, violently if need be. I think that it’s less random or stochastic than loosely organized and run. But it’s still organized, and run. There are people behind the scenes organizing things and pulling strings, like Bannon, Flynn, Putin, Murdoch, the Kochs, whoever runs PBs and OKs, etc.
Not all support or sponsor the violence, but all contribute to the overall movement, and do so knowingly and deliberately. It’s kind of a far-right xenophobic and paranoid collective with violent offshoots and tendencies, that’s been coalescing into something more organized and traditional in recent years, but will always be somewhat disorganized and random, because at its core it’s more about what it’s against than what it’s for, and that’s always bound to be all over the place and unpredictable.
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While the names of the participants remains uncertain, the planning and the gaming out the options of their terrorist acts is effectively crowd-sourced.
You see? The internet brings people together!
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It’s the ISIS franchise model of terrorism. You don’t need to pledge allegiance to a particular leader like back in Al Qaeda more traditional times, you just need to ascribe to the ideology. Depending on level of interest, you might just skim publicly-available content, and with the “wonderful” social media algorithms that interest will self-feed additional and deeper similar content, helping to self-radicalize on your journey.
Or you might go deeper and start actively looking for folks. If you don’t happen to run into the myriad of FBI agents running sting operations, you get past that block and talk to the “real” folks with deeper connections and more organized and structured.
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Yes, exactly, that’s what I was describing, and perfect example. A loosely-organized and often violent movement with people pulling strings and giving it force behind the scenes but mostly left to followers to decide what to do with and whether, how and when to act upon. But, unlike ISIS, this movement is manifesting itself here and in the west, where it can more easily be tracked, blocked and defeated, all praise be to Allah, Jehovah and Jeebus. And of course his eminence The Donald.
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No longer are their brothers and sisters in Idaho too far away! Idaho residents should know that the mere presence of informants and embedded LEOs doesn’t negate crimes against the republic. Just makes deniability more difficult.
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Also why I wanted specifically to link in social media and the interwebs into this. It’s not an accident that the violence started spiraling as the intertubes gained traction and, as:
touches on, ability to reach like-minded or empathetic voices is just a mouse-click away. Not like the old days where you had to actively seek out and find people to join some militia group.
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A Latino who kills is a gang member.
A Black who kills is a thug.
A white who kills is “mentally disturbed.”
Case closed.
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Go there. The Lincoln conspiracy is well known, also the attempt’s on Truman, so maybe start with the attempts on Reagan and Ford. Also McKinley, Garfield, and [president elect] FDR.
And in fact, a lot of people who get radicalized online may not even discuss politics much with the people they associated with in the physical world. Add to that the relative easy of ordering guns, ammunition and interesting supplies over the open internet (much less the dark web), and you might just get a loner description for someone who was part of a thriving conspiracy, er community.
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That part needs a big caveat. By federal law, all guns ordered online have to be shipped to an FFL where the individual has to show up in person to pick it up, have the appropriate checks run and all that. There is no Amazon option for home delivery.
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