What particularly concerns me is that some of the selected tweets included in the story are basically calling the...
What particularly concerns me is that some of the selected tweets included in the story are basically calling the report of a gunman and shots fired false and an attempt to stop people from protecting children.
At what point do we need to get concerned that there's some physiologic problem with people who've essentially self-brainwashed and appointed themselves vigilantes?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/?utm_term=.f8a3c82d7c82
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/?utm_term=.f8a3c82d7c82
At what point do we need to get concerned that there's some physiologic problem with people who've essentially self-brainwashed and appointed themselves vigilantes?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/?utm_term=.f8a3c82d7c82
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/?utm_term=.f8a3c82d7c82
I do not dispute-- at all-- your right to be more disturbed by one aspect of this or another. But... holy shit is there a lot to be disturbed by in this story.
ReplyDeleteIt's just-- shit, I've used the fractal badness analogy, already-- it's, I dunno, a Gordian Knot of insanity made out of rattlesnakes.
If someone actually, genuinely believes that children are being tortured and the police won't do anything about it, taking action is a reasonable response. Which is why this kind of rhetoric is so dangerous. (Also applies to anti-abortion propaganda.) But yeah, fractional badness...
ReplyDeletetl;dr:
ReplyDeleteDecades of brainwashing rhetoric are having an effect.
Expanded:
Sure, in some dystopian hellscape, or other parts of the world that are not this country generally speaking. Who in their right mind thinks this actually happens in the US?!?
I mean, this is my point! NONE OF THIS IS REAL. And yet thousands of people, probably millions, are so disconnected from reality that they believe this and act on it.
I am totally not kidding that these people's brain patterns/brain chemistry have been altered. I vaguely remember something about trying to de-program people who had been in a cult, and stuff about brainwashing.
We're talking about how to approach the presumed still sane just angry majority in this country and find a way to talk with and work with each other going forward. Yet we have a very loud, present, and refusing to be ignored minority of people, frankly some of whom got elected to Congress and are now being appointed to the next government who are not different from this person and those people on the internet who insist, in spite of any possible form of evidence, that it's all fake. They'd rather believe the horror, than the reality which is not horrible.
You can't have normal discourse with people who are brainwashed, or programmed, or whatever. They aren't dealing in the same reality. And some of them obviously are more than ready to engage in real violence against totally innocent people to destroy a threat that isn't real but they not only won't believe that, I think they can't. I don't know how you fix that.