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Notes -
New Year, Same Old Culture War
At least 10 killed in New Orleans after driver ‘intentionally’ rams into crowd on Bourbon Street (CNN)
Apparently, "FBI Special Agent Aletha Duncan said the Bourbon Street attack is 'not a terrorist attack' in comments delivered after the mayor spoke." But then, later:
New Orleans mayor declares 'terrorist attack' on Bourbon Street, FBI confirms investigation (Fox)
Coulter's Law appears to be in force. As a reminder:
And indeed, this was a shooter, who died in a gunfight with cops... but so far it appears the ten deaths and dozens of injuries were vehicular, not firearm-related. Over on 8
chankun (warning: images of death) it's claimed that "FBI Director Kash Patel states killer was 'Middle Eastern Descent'" but I don't see a link to direct evidence of that. I will be interested to learn whether it is a disinformation thing, or whether 8chankun is just better at reporting news than multiple multi-million dollar corporate news media outlets. Can a failed shooting preceded by successful vehicular homicide be used as ammunition (hah) in Second Amendment debates? Probably! Apparently at least one "explosive device" was also found?There is something to be said for "wait and see," and indeed I expect to hear much more about this attack in the near future (unless, of course, we simply don't). Though clearly Special Agent Aletha Duncan did not seem to think there was any reason to "wait and see" when declaring, contra the mayor, that this was not a terrorist attack.
In unrelated news, Stocks just did something they haven’t done in nearly three decades--and in case you are unimpressed with CNN's clickbait headline,
Everything old is new again.
If the latest news from the past few minutes is accurate, the driver indeed turns out to have a Muslim-sounding name, and online Noticers were correct in identifying the wrapped up flag as an ISIS one:
There’s also at least one photo of the man lying dead in the street, and he does appear brown (or black American convert, as some commenters claim?) and bearded.
Right on cue is a Reddit comment to the tune of “that’s what upsets me most about an Islamic truck-ramming, backlash against peaceful Muslims”:
Roughly +15 net upvotes. A pesky wrongthinker asks:
Someone else replies:
I’m not sure I can figuratively roll my eyes any harder.
And, of course, lots of seething about Trump, Vance, racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, MAGA, Fox News, etc. in that thread.
Of course redditors would immediately understand the problem with this if after Dylan Roof’s shooting you had said “Damn. My heart to all White men today who will bear the racist fall-out of this mad man’s evil move” Most people just lack any self awareness or non-object level reasoning ability.
Edit: I know this is a lame boomerism “Imagine if the situations were reversed” but I can’t help it
To the extent it's lame, it's only lame because progressives insist it's lame, nor do they have a counter for it beyond "it isn't the same... because it just isn't, okay?!" and just-so explanations. A related example would be "one joke."
Even for chronic Problematic wrong-thinkers like me who are well-initiated and relatively inured to this stuff, it can be jarring to see what sentences look like when they get "find and replace"'d for Who? and/or Whom?
Here's another one:
If the Dylann Roof incident had happened recently, without prompting it wouldn't occur to me to make Norm-pilled jokes along the lines of:
Yet people say this kind of feel-good, hugboxxy shit in earnest. Reality defeats parody.
A major problem with this madlib is that the second one about being nice to "white neighbors" is somewhat nonsensical because it is now unclear who exactly "people" are. In the one about Muslims, "people" is clearly everyone non-Muslim (probably mostly presumed to be white); but in the one about whites, it is exactly these whites who are the main target audience, i.e., normal "people". A better madlib might be regarding Republicans in the aftermath of the Charlottesville riots or police officers in the aftermath of some shooting controversy. For me, it is ultimately glib rather than pithy.
As I wrote, the second one would be a joke, but even if playing both statements straight I find your quibbling to be unconvincing.
Sounds like an isolated demand for gerrymandering. Why not "people" being everyone, or at least "people" being presumably white Americans as in your non-Muslim specification? I suppose it may indeed be too tall an ask for black or latino Americans to be "nice" to white Americans when it comes to crime, rhetoric, etiquette, net-tax transfers.
There are tons of self-hating white Americans who simp for non-Asian minorities, or at least those who exhibit racial out-group preferences.
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