Quote (thesnipa @ 20 Feb 2020 15:35)
every time there's a shooting in America you drool. :drool:
as to this topic very sad, sorry to hear it.
i wont speculate on his motives with crackpot theories of radicalization or anything else. his motivation doesnt matter to me, nor should it matter to most people.
in america we have millions, literally millions, of people who wish violence on people of certain religions or races. KKK sympathizers, neo nazi cucks, black supremacists, plain old racists, etc. If they could flip a switch and kill off the entire race they hate they would. and yet with millions, MANY millions, of guns readily available, and all the supplies to make a bomb at the local hardware store, almost none do. these lost souls are as guilty of indulging a perverse hate as much as they are having the hate in the first place. this is why when i see a manifesto i dont think of what ideology radicalized this person, because millions are infected with the same ideology and didnt senselessly murder others. i see someone mentally ill and desperate for attention. and they should be rewarded by tossing their manifesto in a fire and salting their ashes.
the problem with the 'these are just sick individuals, nothing we can do about it' narrative is that we have one political side that actively fuels this hatred and bigotry - not even necessarily because their elected leaders want to directly eliminate the 'others', but because division and a more or less clearly defined bogeyman (immigrants, muslims, non-whites...) helps their goals of gaining (political) power. the rise of right wing populism and the increasing frequency of such incidents is hardly a coincidence...
that doesn't make what you said entirely wrong, fortunately only a very small percentage of people who think that way, actually act upon it, and obviously that is several degrees more fucked up than the already disgusting underlying world view, but not calling that out absolves the demagogues and the fear- and hate-mongers of their responsibility (ofc not legal, but moral), and it somewhat legitimises extremist views by suggesting 'it's not really the ideology that does the damage' (reminds me a bit of the 'guns don't kill people, people do' talking point).
and yes, in an ideal world, we would just ignore their 'legacy' which i am convinced would be effective in preventing some of the copycat terrorists, looking for similar 'fame' - but that'd still not address the underlying problem. we often talk about the very real problem of radicalisation of young muslim men through islamist propaganda - so why should we ignore the problem that far right ideology and propaganda poses in that regard? that makes no sense to me...