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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 3, 2024

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More of Audrey Hale's Manifesto has been leaked

Audrey Hale, if you don't remember, was a nutjob who shot up a private school, and was also trans. Her manifesto was suppressed, although pieces of it got leaked to Louder with Crowder and confirmed, yep, this nutjob was actually trans. This has been a minor, recurring culture war item. Well, more of it got leaked to the media(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13505849/Nashville-school-shooter-Audrey-Hale-trans-kill-puberty-blockers.html):

The Tennessee Star obtained some four dozen pages of Hale's writings that shed light on her female-to-male transition and why she shot and killed six people at the elementary school in March 2023

Obviously this is an interesting story for the media to cover. I'm not sure we've learnt anything new, other than further confirmation that she was indeed crazy. The main culture war angle seems to be that, yes, she was angry at conservative Christians(it was an orthodox Presbyterian school), and also this:

But both city police and the FBI later said the material shouldn't be released because it could hurt the investigations.

There doesn't appear to be any explanation behind that. Some conservative commentators have opined that the decision to suppress the manifesto was taken to try to paint trans in a better light; I'm not sure I buy that, but today's releases are, well, definitely evidence supporting that interpretation.

There's surely culture war hay to be made out of the contents of the manifesto; it's certainly something to cite for the 'trans is really just a mental illness' crowd, and she explicitly blames lack of affirmation for her lashing out.

It seems like common sense to suppress the manifesto. Same reason you don’t publicize suicides. These things all have a huge amount of social contagion.

I agree there is nothing where releasing it interferes with the investigation, but that is a good reason to declare as the reason not to release. She was a crazy person who did crazy person things. It was unlikely she had co-conspirators.

It seems like common sense to suppress the manifesto. Same reason you don’t publicize suicides. These things all have a huge amount of social contagion.

This is one of those things that seems like a good principle but when not applied evenly is a weapon. If the Christchurch shooter's manifesto was suppressible do you think it would be suppressed?

Wasn't it heavily suppressed to the point of people being prosecuted for not deleting it fast enough when totally different people posted it to a website they moderated?
The difference is in the media coverage using the suppressed manifesto as an excuse to hurt their political enemies.

Sure. In New Zealand. In America a PDF of the entire thing was on the front page of Drudge Report for a full week and various mainstream outlets were discussing it for months.

I meant to add that point. So I agree. Everything is shown in a partisan politics mode now.

If someone that can be called right does something bad it’s used to bludgeon the right. If the left does bad it’s like peaceful protest or something and covered up.

A better would would not publicize these things.