A man who admits he ran down a Muslim family said he did so because he believed anti-Muslim conspiracies he found on fringe websites like Alex Jones’ Infowars.
I think that members of a cult are partly responsible for some evil they do. Like I don’t care if you’ve been raised to believe that Warren Jeffs is a prophet, if you marry your prepubescent daughter to him you did that. And you bear some responsibility for not walking away beforehand (and frankly that’s more intense than condervativism because they will actively try to ruin your life over it). I think the people holding guns at Jonestown bore some responsibility too. David Miscavage isn’t some innocent duped by L Ron Hubbard, he chose to stick with Scientology and then act on it in evil ways. And as an adult he could’ve made a better decision.
Some victims bear no responsibility, but once you move to doing fucked up shit to others over it you do bear some responsibility. Because you could’ve walked away at any point and while it requires a lot of strength to do it, when it comes to choosing between being strong and hurting others we have a responsibility.
When you do a mass shooting after partaking in your own radicalization you are partly responsible for it.
You’re obfuscating the issue here. I never said people aren’t partially responsible. You are the one stripping all nuance from the conversation.
Is Alex Jones not culpable for radicalizing people? In order to believe that, you have to believe that his influence influences their agency at least to some degree.
I said partly. No fucking shit Jones was influencing him. You don’t get drug addicts without both a supplier and consumer. Jones sells hate and delusion, this guy bought it and took it to deadly extremes. What I’ll also add is that jones sells normalization, militarization, and justification of it. Together they made this problem, both bear the responsibility.
That is literally all I am trying to say. You can’t sit here and go “he made decisions.“ Yes, I agree to a large extent, which is why he is facing legal ramifications. Justice is being served. But you have to be willing to take a step back and ask yourself, “what caused this? What drew someone to this? Were there external influences that maybe drove them down a different path than they otherwise would have gone down?”
I mean we saw a military veteran attack the capitol on Jan 6th and get killed as a result. You can’t just sit here and go “she made her bed.” That is an oversimplification and just a variation of what the right does when it comes to our wild drugs->prison pipeline. “Well, they sold drugs, so these are the consequences.” Im sure you are very willing to go “it’s more complicated than that.” But now the shoe is on the other foot suddenly you’re unwilling to. It’s a nasty look.
I absolutely firmly disagree with your second paragraph but your first is absolutely correct.
What I interpreted from you was absolving him of his responsibility to walk away. It doesn’t mean we throw away the key or we don’t try to resolve the other causes, it means we also work to create a society that encourages walking away from content that radicalizes people to violence and hate. That we create alternatives for them. That we establish the understanding that one behavior is the right thing to do in a situation. We do this in addition to breaking apart the alt right pipeline because we need to develop more societal resilience to hate sellers.
I apologize for misinterpreting you initially.
I don’t want him in prison for the sake of punishment, but to keep society safe from him until rehabilitation can happen. And I’m going to continue fighting to reform prison so it actually attempts to use evidence based rehabilitation instead of just hurting people stuck in cages.
Now frankly I’m done here because it’s late and I really don’t like accusatory arguing for several paragraphs over moral responsibility with strangers on the internet.
I am ok with him going to prison. I’m just saying the job isn’t done if we want to actually fix this problem. I’m sorry you disagree with my second paragraph but so be it. Have a good night man.
Yep. The guys a piece of shit but pieces of shit are not born that way. That level of hate is learned.
Yes, but it’s partly learned through conscious choice. He continued engaging with it, he chose his content.
Do you think all members of a cult are culpable or are some victims?
I think that members of a cult are partly responsible for some evil they do. Like I don’t care if you’ve been raised to believe that Warren Jeffs is a prophet, if you marry your prepubescent daughter to him you did that. And you bear some responsibility for not walking away beforehand (and frankly that’s more intense than condervativism because they will actively try to ruin your life over it). I think the people holding guns at Jonestown bore some responsibility too. David Miscavage isn’t some innocent duped by L Ron Hubbard, he chose to stick with Scientology and then act on it in evil ways. And as an adult he could’ve made a better decision.
Some victims bear no responsibility, but once you move to doing fucked up shit to others over it you do bear some responsibility. Because you could’ve walked away at any point and while it requires a lot of strength to do it, when it comes to choosing between being strong and hurting others we have a responsibility.
When you do a mass shooting after partaking in your own radicalization you are partly responsible for it.
You’re obfuscating the issue here. I never said people aren’t partially responsible. You are the one stripping all nuance from the conversation.
Is Alex Jones not culpable for radicalizing people? In order to believe that, you have to believe that his influence influences their agency at least to some degree.
I said partly. No fucking shit Jones was influencing him. You don’t get drug addicts without both a supplier and consumer. Jones sells hate and delusion, this guy bought it and took it to deadly extremes. What I’ll also add is that jones sells normalization, militarization, and justification of it. Together they made this problem, both bear the responsibility.
That is literally all I am trying to say. You can’t sit here and go “he made decisions.“ Yes, I agree to a large extent, which is why he is facing legal ramifications. Justice is being served. But you have to be willing to take a step back and ask yourself, “what caused this? What drew someone to this? Were there external influences that maybe drove them down a different path than they otherwise would have gone down?”
I mean we saw a military veteran attack the capitol on Jan 6th and get killed as a result. You can’t just sit here and go “she made her bed.” That is an oversimplification and just a variation of what the right does when it comes to our wild drugs->prison pipeline. “Well, they sold drugs, so these are the consequences.” Im sure you are very willing to go “it’s more complicated than that.” But now the shoe is on the other foot suddenly you’re unwilling to. It’s a nasty look.
I absolutely firmly disagree with your second paragraph but your first is absolutely correct.
What I interpreted from you was absolving him of his responsibility to walk away. It doesn’t mean we throw away the key or we don’t try to resolve the other causes, it means we also work to create a society that encourages walking away from content that radicalizes people to violence and hate. That we create alternatives for them. That we establish the understanding that one behavior is the right thing to do in a situation. We do this in addition to breaking apart the alt right pipeline because we need to develop more societal resilience to hate sellers.
I apologize for misinterpreting you initially.
I don’t want him in prison for the sake of punishment, but to keep society safe from him until rehabilitation can happen. And I’m going to continue fighting to reform prison so it actually attempts to use evidence based rehabilitation instead of just hurting people stuck in cages.
Now frankly I’m done here because it’s late and I really don’t like accusatory arguing for several paragraphs over moral responsibility with strangers on the internet.
I am ok with him going to prison. I’m just saying the job isn’t done if we want to actually fix this problem. I’m sorry you disagree with my second paragraph but so be it. Have a good night man.