Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

  On 8/5/2019 at 11:12 PM, Braintree said:

Umm, that portion of his manifesto makes him sound pretty average, as far as writing ability. He does seem paranoid as fuck. He mentions that our democracy is eroding and non-violent action doesn't help, yet he thinks shooting and killing a couple dozen people is going to solve the problem? What? He's obviously delusional, but I don't think he's stupid.

I assume he sees himself as someone that's a catalyst for a cause, but the truth is that his actions are random and inconsequential to the "problem" he sees.

Killing a couple of dozen people is more than just the death of these people, it's a symbolic act. And this symbol is understood everywhere inside and outside the country. The symbolism of the act in fact has a way larger momentousness than the act itself (on a societal level of course; for the victims' next of kin all of this is indescribably terrible and none of the greater implications matter at that point). In that sense he did exploit his means to have the greatest impact that he could possibly have at his point in life in regard to his ideology. All I read in his manifesto is blood and soil. And if that's the only thing you know and think about then his actions actually make a lot of sense, it definitely isn't stupidity in terms of cognitive ineptitude. It is dehumanization of whole ethnicities in the face of ideological delusion

  On 8/5/2019 at 11:37 PM, darreichungsform said:

Killing a couple of dozen people is more than just the death of these people, it's a symbolic act. And this symbol is understood everywhere inside and outside the country. The symbolism of the act in fact has a way larger momentousness than the act itself (on a societal level of course; for the victims' next of kin all of this is indescribably terrible and none of the greater implications matter at that point). In that sense he did exploit his means to have the greatest impact that he could possibly have at his point in life in regard to his ideology. All I read in his manifesto is blood and soil. And if that's the only thing you know and think about then his actions actually make a lot of sense, it definitely isn't stupidity in terms of cognitive ineptitude. It is dehumanization of whole ethnicities in the face of ideological delusion

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Yeah, I understand what his actions were intended to do, but he doesn't understand that they're ultimately futile.

  On 8/5/2019 at 11:47 PM, Braintree said:

Yeah, I understand what his actions were intended to do, but he doesn't understand that they're ultimately futile.

Are they if they bring fear to the people he wants to fight?

  On 8/5/2019 at 11:52 PM, darreichungsform said:

Are they if they bring fear to the people he wants to fight?

His intentions were to fight back an "invasion." It's clearly stated in the manifesto. It's not just to terrorize.

If he thought about the result of his actions and the impact they would have, he would realize that it wouldn't amount to much. Just some dead people and a galvanized community. He's delusional.

That he is, yeah. Fair point

I honestly don't see where "mental health" or whatever Trumpkin and the Republicants like to pin incidents like this on comes into play - the fact that any US citizen can legally get their hands on weaponry meant for the battlefield is the real core issue.

Want a shotgun or pistol to defend yourself/your property? Sure, go for it.

I personally don't think individual gun ownership is necessary, but I can respect that some people feel they need to.

Want a weapon designed for indiscriminate mass-killing because you feel it's your right to own for no other reason than just because? No.

And this shit will continue to happen and repeat itself until somebody with the authority and willpower to do so decides to take a stand.

Trump could secure his legacy as a President by doing just this, which is akin to the hollow promises he made to get elected about "draining the swamp, etc." - if he enacted a nationwide, permanent ban on civilian ownership of semiautomatic weaponry, he'd go down in history as a President that made a lasting and effectual change on American society.

Ironically though if he took that stance, he'd probably be assassinated by the very weapons he would try and ban.

The NRA is weak right now; this would be the perfect time to launch such an initiative.

^^^ or as David Frum puts it

  On 8/5/2019 at 11:56 PM, Braintree said:

His intentions were to fight back an "invasion." It's clearly stated in the manifesto. It's not just to terrorize.

If he thought about the result of his actions and the impact they would have, he would realize that it wouldn't amount to much. Just some dead people and a galvanized community. He's delusional.

note first that i haven't read the manifesto (i tend not to with things like this)...but just the general idea there, i'm not sure you're right. or at least, we can't say yet. ...just his one act alone perhaps, but his one act is most definitely not in a vacuum. it's part of a growing movement of people from his status right up the current president trying and generally succeeding to mobilize and enact mental and physical trauma (including death) upon certain persons because of their skin color/origin/ethnicity. just because it's vile and racist and reprehensible and so on does not mean it isn't achieving the goal: people will still seek refuge where they think they best have a chance to, if they're in a situation that forces them to that decision....but Trump and his administration and millions of racists screaming at, attacking, and killing people has to factor in to the decision of that person deciding what options they have: "i need a better life for myself and my family, we're in danger here, where can we go that is less dangerous? America? idk...." i wouldn't blame a single one of them at this moment if they chose to try and seek help elsewhere before coming to this country. i don't know any statistics directly related to the reasons given but i'd be honestly shocked if the border camps and literal mass murders are encouraging new people to try to immigrate/seek refuge here. 

  On 8/5/2019 at 8:53 AM, Zeffolia said:

if you mean the manifesto above, it's not autistic at all, the guy's clearly low iq. 

expand upon this statement please.

  On 8/5/2019 at 4:28 AM, bitchroast said:

fair

 

yoinked from - https://twitter.com/BFriedmanDC/status/1158025780233986048

also - https://twitter.com/natijomartinez/status/1158049182877458433

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I'm always impressed by the mental gymnastics these people go through

  On 8/6/2019 at 12:16 AM, Joyrex said:

I honestly don't see where "mental health" or whatever Trumpkin and the Republicants like to pin incidents like this on comes into play - the fact that any US citizen can legally get their hands on weaponry meant for the battlefield is the real core issue.

Want a shotgun or pistol to defend yourself/your property? Sure, go for it.

I personally don't think individual gun ownership is necessary, but I can respect that some people feel they need to.

Want a weapon designed for indiscriminate mass-killing because you feel it's your right to own for no other reason than just because? No.

And this shit will continue to happen and repeat itself until somebody with the authority and willpower to do so decides to take a stand.

Trump could secure his legacy as a President by doing just this, which is akin to the hollow promises he made to get elected about "draining the swamp, etc." - if he enacted a nationwide, permanent ban on civilian ownership of semiautomatic weaponry, he'd go down in history as a President that made a lasting and effectual change on American society.

Ironically though if he took that stance, he'd probably be assassinated by the very weapons he would try and ban.

The NRA is weak right now; this would be the perfect time to launch such an initiative.

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As a gun owner myself, that's pretty much how I see it. For civilian ownership of firearms, I see no need to have a gun for any purpose other than hunting, self-defense, or recreational target shooting. And on top of that, any weapon with an ammunition capacity exceeding 10 rounds.

Prime Minister Ardern swiftly enacted the assault weapon ban in New Zealand immediately following the Christchurch massacre. Why can't we?

imho people who end up doing these kinds of things are often out for blood first, and come up with their reason second. It's like they're trying to convince themselves they did it for a reason, but really they just wanted to shoot people with guns.

  On 8/6/2019 at 2:06 AM, ambergonk said:

As a gun owner myself, that's pretty much how I see it. For civilian ownership of firearms, I see no need to have a gun for any purpose other than hunting, self-defense, or recreational target shooting. And on top of that, any weapon with an ammunition capacity exceeding 10 rounds.

Prime Minister Ardern swiftly enacted the assault weapon ban in New Zealand immediately following the Christchurch massacre. Why can't we?

NRA, capitalism. lot's of guns are sold in USA. we're 4% of the worlds gun owners but own like 50% of all the guns in the world. lot's of dollars bring pause to congress and obviously the president. 

i just saw a story about trump admin trying to shift responsibility to social media companies and mental health workers for finding people who might move to violent action because mental illness. derp. it was followed by a story about 'soft targets' and what to do to protect them and putting cops everywhere.. bars, malls, parks etc to police for shooters.. the answer seems to be let's make everyone miserable so some people who like assault weapons can have assault weapons. 

  On 8/6/2019 at 1:04 AM, auxien said:

expand upon this statement please.

First off Texas was originally Mexico, so if his delusional scenario he's thought up were true, it would actually be Mexico reclaiming land lost during the grand White Invasion of centuries ago.  He claims that the natives failed in their duty to protect their homeland, but they did not, instead mant tribes defended it through war, and the US killed them.  So he's essentially justifying a scenario where Mexico invaded the US with military force to retrieve their land.  His position in his first paragraph isn't even self-consistent

He's right about unchecked corporatism taking over the US government, but his ideas about how the Democratic party is planning to take over the entire country by importing immigrants to distort the democratic process is not only racist in its implications that hispanic immigrants don't deserve the right to vote because they are new to the country, but ignoring the fact that it's in fact Republicans taking over the US through gerrymandering and stacking the courts nationwide.  He's extrapolating potential end-states of Democratic policy into political doomsday scenarios and pointing out how bad he thinks those scenarios would be, while ignoring the fact that Republicans are in fact already in the end-stages of their plans to do what this manifesto writer is accusing Democrats of trying to do

I don't feel like going on further and the fact that people in this thread think the manifesto is high IQ is startling

^^^ also worth mentioning is that many spanish speaking immigrants end up becoming republicans once they settle in and assimilate 

  On 8/5/2019 at 7:19 PM, joshuatxuk said:

i think ambermonk Zeffolia (EDIT: sorry everyone) is hitting on something valid about the shooter in terms of various abnormal mental and personality traits that hyper-identity fringe movements exploit, same could be said of incels, super angry gamergate folks, right-wing boomers and retirees, etc. They're had their baseline abilities to interact with people logically and rationally completely decimated. IQ levels and abilities like problem solving, strategy, planning, etc. are all still there. 

 

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On the topic of incels, I disagree, and there is a legitimate social issue happening where relationships are becoming statistically difficult to find for many young millennial men, due to the existence of things like Tinder and the modern acceptance of female sexual promiscuity.  To claim that their interactive abilities are decimated is maybe true for the majority, but not a refutation of the impetus behind their typical claims when they aren't trolling and being intentionally and knowingly misogynistic.

At the same time, this shooter does have points which are indeed indicating sociological changes to the country which he takes up issue with.  His reasons for thinking it's okay to take up issue against this particular change are the problem, mostly because they're inherently racist and white supremacist reasons.  

He's built an identity around whiteness because he's most likely a loser with nothing else going for him in life, so when he sees that identity not only questioned but being disregarded as important, it causes him emotional pain because he has externalized his sense of self worth around his white identity and has nothing to fall back on, so he feels helpless and like he has to make his final point.  In essence these white supremacist mass murderers are insecure losers with nothing going for them except a sense of superiority around being white, otherwise they'd be happy to live in a more multicultural world.  I grew up in an area with one of the densest populations of Mexicans in the US and never saw any issues with it, because there are none, but for some reason this guy does see issues, so it's not inherently an issue about the country but rather a personal issue that he has.  

Online communities built around oddly-specific issues to complain about turn into echo chambers where shared personal issues are rationalized into external sociological issues.  How can it just be us if this entire big website full of people are all expressing the same thing? asks the newly-converted Nazi who initially joined 8chan's pol to fill in an empty social hole due to a lack of racists surrounding him in the real world.  Well because they all have mental issues surrounding unresolved racism, but by joining a group of other racists they can collectively come up with explanations for why it's actually a greater sociological issue.

  On 8/6/2019 at 3:49 AM, Zeffolia said:

people in this thread think the manifesto is high IQ is startling

no one said that.

edit: goDel got close to saying it but he walked it back somewhat.

no matter, why does his IQ matter at all? like usagi got at, that's not a particularly relevant metric. the kid wasn't an idiot, beyond that unless he was unabomber levels of intelligent, it's not really interesting. the gray area between idiot and near-genius is where we're mostly all at.

  On 8/6/2019 at 4:17 AM, auxien said:

no one said that.

Don't be pedantic, by "high IQ" I meant "not low IQ" since it's clearly low IQ.  Numerous people defended him as supposedly being not low IQ.  Who cares about "above average IQ but not high" and other technicalities to defend a mass murderer?

  On 8/6/2019 at 4:19 AM, Zeffolia said:

Don't be pedantic, by "high IQ" I meant "not low IQ" since it's clearly low IQ.  Numerous people defended him as supposedly being not low IQ.  Who cares about "above average IQ but not high" and other technicalities to defend a mass murderer?

i was wanting you to define your terminology and stance. see my edit^

no one is defending him. are you high?

  On 8/6/2019 at 3:49 AM, Zeffolia said:

First off Texas was originally Mexico, so if his delusional scenario he's thought up were true, it would actually be Mexico reclaiming land lost during the grand White Invasion of centuries ago.  He claims that the natives failed in their duty to protect their homeland, but they did not, instead mant tribes defended it through war, and the US killed them.  So he's essentially justifying a scenario where Mexico invaded the US with military force to retrieve their land.  His position in his first paragraph isn't even self-consistent

He's right about unchecked corporatism taking over the US government, but his ideas about how the Democratic party is planning to take over the entire country by importing immigrants to distort the democratic process is not only racist in its implications that hispanic immigrants don't deserve the right to vote because they are new to the country, but ignoring the fact that it's in fact Republicans taking over the US through gerrymandering and stacking the courts nationwide.  He's extrapolating potential end-states of Democratic policy into political doomsday scenarios and pointing out how bad he thinks those scenarios would be, while ignoring the fact that Republicans are in fact already in the end-stages of their plans to do what this manifesto writer is accusing Democrats of trying to do

I don't feel like going on further and the fact that people in this thread think the manifesto is high IQ is startling

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Yeah New Mexico, El Paso, and the Texas valley have very complicated and nuanced dynamics in terms of immigration, ethnic and national identity, and local culture and trends. He was methodical enough to quickly figure out El Paso was majority Hispanic / Latino and on the border but def completely out of touch with the actual history and demographic makeup of the city and region. But the layers of irony and complete detachment of reality in terms of El Paso's actual day to day life and this delusional vision he and many on the far-right have is immense. It's one of the safest cities in the US. People have been living there for almost 400 years. It's never really been part of Mexico or Texas in terms of firm affiliation, many consider themselves "Tejano" or Spanish and in the valley. They predate both the the USA and Mexico as residents. I have a friend from Corpus Christi and he has family that goes back to Canary Islanders who came over in the late 1600s / early 1700s and sure enough he's a tan skinned Hispanic guy with a giant red beard. It's not unusual for people to speak "Tex-Mex" English-Spanish slang instead of formal Mexican Spanish or Southern accent afflicted English. 

  On 8/6/2019 at 3:51 AM, ignatius said:

^^^ also worth mentioning is that many spanish speaking immigrants end up becoming republicans once they settle in and assimilate 

This is stuff a lot of educated liberals outside of the border state are completely clueless about, besides maybe the Cuban trend of voting GOP for decades. Hell a lot of Texans I know in other parts of the state don't even have a grasp of this. I've known a few Mexican-Americans who are as flippantly racist toward central american and Mexican undocumented workers as white rural Texans. On the flip-side most from the valley are iffy on the border wall and strict border policies as they literally have family, friends, clients, and business partners across the border. Most Rio Grande properties are private. Some farms and even a university lay on both sides. Many commute over the border daily. Some US citizens live in Juarez and some Mexican nationals live in El Paso. Pre-9/11 it wasn't much different than crossing into another US state.

Anyway, I don't want to call him low IQ but I agree he wasn't higher IQ either in anyway. 

  On 8/6/2019 at 3:57 AM, Zeffolia said:

On the topic of incels, I disagree, and there is a legitimate social issue happening where relationships are becoming statistically difficult to find for many young millennial men, due to the existence of things like Tinder and the modern acceptance of female sexual promiscuity.  To claim that their interactive abilities are decimated is maybe true for the majority, but not a refutation of the impetus behind their typical claims when they aren't trolling and being intentionally and knowingly misogynistic.

oh boy, here we go again 

  Quote

  On 4/17/2013 at 1:45 PM, Alcofribas said:

afaik i usually place all my cum drops on scientifically sterilized glass slides which are carefully frozen and placed in trash cans throughout the city labelled "for women alco" with my social security and phone numbers.

Alco has seen the future!

a CIVILIZED discussion on gender issues