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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   42839 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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I'm not really going to debate the matter by trading anectdotes of individual acts.

The point is that ACCORDING TO THE LEFT its the righties doing most of the violence.

Here.

Here. (who invented the term "stochastic terrorism," anyway?)

Here.

Here. Mr. Donie O'Sullivan, directly says:

"And while America's roots are soaked in bloodshed, violence in the country today is mostly from right-wing extremism. From Oklahoma City to Charlottesville to January 6th. There is simply no equivalent on the left..."

Yes, the consistent message the left/liberals likes to assert is "Those loony right wingers are a threat to us all, there is no real danger from the left!" That's the narrative 'enforced' by the entire mainstream media.

And that is just an abject lie. Those same sources of course downplayed an entire summer of violent and deadly riots in 2020. That's when the 'switch' flipped for me. The level of dishonesty about what I could see with my eyes of course leads me to assume they're lying about stuff that I can't see, too.

If you intend to keep repeating the lie, all you're doing is giving me cause to ignore you. I'm not pretending that e.g. Timothy McVeigh weren't ideologically motivated terrorists.

And certainly not using 'mental health' as an excuse.

But I'm not going to give any more benefit of the doubt to those desperate to convince me that the right, in the U.S., is the greater danger to regular people.

I'm not pretending that e.g. Timothy McVeigh weren't ideologically motivated terrorists.

IMO McVeigh is a terrorist, but it's complicated because I'm not sure what the correct response should be to the government murdering 86 people, including 54 women and children, without much remorse. Koresh wasn't a good guy, but the lack of a government investigation to doing so seems at least parallel to the perceived lack of concern for the Floyd incident. If I squint enough, the responses of "choosing violence against the system" at least rhyme a bit.

Not that I would endorse violence in either of these cases, but the abstract "how to hold one's government accountable?" question in answer to an atrocity maybe does rightfully call for violence at some point: "When in the course of human events..."

because I'm not sure what the correct response should be to the government murdering 86 people, including 54 women and children, without much remorse.

Ideally, you strike out directly at the responsible parties, if you're enacting violence.

My main critique (by no means ONLY) of these sorts of smallish scale rebellion is they're simply not targeted at the people who were actually responsible for the acts you're trying to punish. Sometimes you can't actually hit them, which is often true in asymetric wars. But I genuinely do not think it an excuse for going after unrelated members of their organization, or civilians who are at best tangentially connected.

That's gangland tactics, of course.

That's also why, JUST AS AN EXAMPLE, Israel's repeated successful destruction of the entire leadership structure of their biggest enemies is impressive to me. If every war could be fought such that really only the heads of the respective states/organizations were killed it'd be a vast improvement across the board. Its about the only 'moral' way to prosecute such a conflict.

Ideally, you strike out directly at the responsible parties, if you're enacting violence.

Fun fact: after reading Unintended Consequences McVeigh actually said that he might have gone with sniper attacks rather than the bombing, had he read the book first.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unintended_Consequences_(novel)#Timothy_McVeigh_controversy

I would like to subscribe to receive more "McVeigh Facts".

If every war could be fought such that really only the heads of the respective states/organizations were killed it'd be a vast improvement across the board.

Have you seen any pictures out of Gaza recently, or seen any of the stories about what's happening? I don't think you're making the point you think you're making if you've actually seen what the strip looks like now.

That doesn't contradict my point.

Indeed, I would make the same grievance about the Ukraine situation.

My sympathy for Hamas in particular is in short supply since they targeted bystanders/civilians to kick off festivities.

There's ample room for EVERYONE involved to be horrible.

I noticed something rather spooky a while back, reading up on McVeigh's case, which is that the total death count from the OKC bombing, 168, was exactly double the combined death count from Waco (82) and Ruby Ridge (2), excluding the federal agents who themselves died in those incidents.

Outside of the general ethical problem with 'government agents did bad things, these guys are also government agents' -- it's hard to overstate how indiscriminate -- McVeigh specifically evaluated the daycare situation in the building he targeted. That's a good part of the point of the original charcoal briquettes rant.

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