On June of 2016, a Muslim man committed a mass shooting in a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing 49 people, and wounding 58. He made his motivations completely clear prior to, and even during the shooting (via a phonecall to 9-1-1). He committed the mass murder because of ISIS and his religion.
On October of 2017, a Muslim man plowed into a crowd of people in New York with a truck, killing 8. Once again he made his motivations completely and absolutely clear: ISIS and his religion.
These are just two prominent recent examples of similar attacks. The actual number of such attacks is actually staggering.
ISIS itself has made their motivations completely clear and unambiguous: They hate the west because they are non-Muslims and engage in all sorts of behaviors that are condemned by Islam. They have published several publications making this completely and absolutely clear, without the shadow of a doubt. Their major motivation is the secularism, liberal values, and non-Islamic beliefs of the west. They will not stop until the west has been subjugated under Islam. Attacks by the west on Islamic countries is only a secondary motivation. (This is not interpretation, or making it up. It's their own explicit words, in their own publications. They explicitly state that the attacks by western countries is only a secondary reason, using that exact word. Their primary motivation is Islam, and the subjugation of the entire world under it. Again, their words, not mine.)
Every single time there is such a clearly-motivated terrorist attack by a Muslim, who himself makes his motivations absolutely clear and unambiguous, the leftist media and overall the regressive left is quick to distance the act and the motivation from Islam. They always hurry to claim that the attack is unrelated to and against the religion, and that it's a religion of peace, and that the perpetrator does not represent the religion, and that ISIS does not represent the religion. They are never able to present actual concrete arguments how the terrorist act, or ISIS, is unrepresentative of Islam; it just is, period. But the attack is always, apparently, just committed by a lone perpetrator who doesn't represent the religion.
Now compare all that with the incident that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017: A car rammed into a group of left-wing protesters. Several people got injured. One person died in the incident, although she was not one of the people hit by the car (she died of heart attack, and it's unclear why that happened; she was not hit by the car.)
In this case the man who was driving the car has not expressed his motivations, or any reason. We don't know why he did it, or even if it was intentional (while unlikely, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that he had a panic attack. We just don't know at this moment.) Even though this happened several months ago, as far as I know the man has still not stated any motivation or reason for what happened. (Some people even suspect that he wasn't actually driving the car, that he's just a scapegoat, but this goes into unfounded conspiracy theory land. Of course the possibility is not zero, but it's highly unlikely.) He might still state his actual motivation, but so far I have not heard that he has.
The attitude of the regressive left is, of course, the polar opposite of what it is with Islamic terrorists: They assign blame to the entirety of the right wing, and use this case as representative of the entire right side of the political spectrum, to vilify them and consider them dangerous, and as a motive to attack them (often physically). This even though it's still unclear whether the perpetrator himself is right-wing, or what his motivations were.
But even if he were an extremist alt-right conservative, and he suddenly came out and directly stated that he did it because he hates the regressive left and wants them all dead, it would still make little difference: Why does he suddenly represent the entirety of the political spectrum, while those Islamic terrorists do not, apparently, represent the religion of Islam? Even the most radical right-wing ideology in the United States does not condone killing of people. Radical Islam does.
Why does a Muslim gunning down dozens of people, while clearly expressing his religious motivations, not represent the religion, but a man plowing through a crowd of people with a car, without having stated any motivation for it, represents the entirety of the right-wing political spectrum?
On October of 2017, a Muslim man plowed into a crowd of people in New York with a truck, killing 8. Once again he made his motivations completely and absolutely clear: ISIS and his religion.
These are just two prominent recent examples of similar attacks. The actual number of such attacks is actually staggering.
ISIS itself has made their motivations completely clear and unambiguous: They hate the west because they are non-Muslims and engage in all sorts of behaviors that are condemned by Islam. They have published several publications making this completely and absolutely clear, without the shadow of a doubt. Their major motivation is the secularism, liberal values, and non-Islamic beliefs of the west. They will not stop until the west has been subjugated under Islam. Attacks by the west on Islamic countries is only a secondary motivation. (This is not interpretation, or making it up. It's their own explicit words, in their own publications. They explicitly state that the attacks by western countries is only a secondary reason, using that exact word. Their primary motivation is Islam, and the subjugation of the entire world under it. Again, their words, not mine.)
Every single time there is such a clearly-motivated terrorist attack by a Muslim, who himself makes his motivations absolutely clear and unambiguous, the leftist media and overall the regressive left is quick to distance the act and the motivation from Islam. They always hurry to claim that the attack is unrelated to and against the religion, and that it's a religion of peace, and that the perpetrator does not represent the religion, and that ISIS does not represent the religion. They are never able to present actual concrete arguments how the terrorist act, or ISIS, is unrepresentative of Islam; it just is, period. But the attack is always, apparently, just committed by a lone perpetrator who doesn't represent the religion.
Now compare all that with the incident that happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, in August 2017: A car rammed into a group of left-wing protesters. Several people got injured. One person died in the incident, although she was not one of the people hit by the car (she died of heart attack, and it's unclear why that happened; she was not hit by the car.)
In this case the man who was driving the car has not expressed his motivations, or any reason. We don't know why he did it, or even if it was intentional (while unlikely, it's not completely out of the realm of possibility that he had a panic attack. We just don't know at this moment.) Even though this happened several months ago, as far as I know the man has still not stated any motivation or reason for what happened. (Some people even suspect that he wasn't actually driving the car, that he's just a scapegoat, but this goes into unfounded conspiracy theory land. Of course the possibility is not zero, but it's highly unlikely.) He might still state his actual motivation, but so far I have not heard that he has.
The attitude of the regressive left is, of course, the polar opposite of what it is with Islamic terrorists: They assign blame to the entirety of the right wing, and use this case as representative of the entire right side of the political spectrum, to vilify them and consider them dangerous, and as a motive to attack them (often physically). This even though it's still unclear whether the perpetrator himself is right-wing, or what his motivations were.
But even if he were an extremist alt-right conservative, and he suddenly came out and directly stated that he did it because he hates the regressive left and wants them all dead, it would still make little difference: Why does he suddenly represent the entirety of the political spectrum, while those Islamic terrorists do not, apparently, represent the religion of Islam? Even the most radical right-wing ideology in the United States does not condone killing of people. Radical Islam does.
Why does a Muslim gunning down dozens of people, while clearly expressing his religious motivations, not represent the religion, but a man plowing through a crowd of people with a car, without having stated any motivation for it, represents the entirety of the right-wing political spectrum?
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/01/politics/trump-nyc-attack-las-vegas-reaction/index.html
ReplyDeletehave you read the article above? They also claim Trump or conservatives also have double standarts towards different terror attacks.
I think it's reasonable to not politicize an attack that had no clear political motivations with it, while politicizing attacks that did have such clear motivations.
DeleteIf the attacker clearly declares that he's doing it because he hates the US, and the west, and he supports ISIS, and wants to make a socio-religious-political statement with this attack, talking about the socio-political implications sounds reasonable.
If the motives of the attacker are unclear, and he has not made any statement of his motivations or reasons, then politicizing it is jumping to conclusions, and using the tragedy for political purposes would be opportunistic.
I don't often agree with Trump because he oftentimes says really stupid shit, but in this particular instance I have to agree with him.
Yes I agree your point of difference between politicizing politicized attacks and politicizing unpoliticized attacks.
ReplyDelete