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Notes -
More of Audrey Hale's Manifesto has been leaked
Audrey Hale, if you don't remember, was a nutjob who shot up a private school, and was also trans. Her manifesto was suppressed, although pieces of it got leaked to Louder with Crowder and confirmed, yep, this nutjob was actually trans. This has been a minor, recurring culture war item. Well, more of it got leaked to the media(https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13505849/Nashville-school-shooter-Audrey-Hale-trans-kill-puberty-blockers.html):
Obviously this is an interesting story for the media to cover. I'm not sure we've learnt anything new, other than further confirmation that she was indeed crazy. The main culture war angle seems to be that, yes, she was angry at conservative Christians(it was an orthodox Presbyterian school), and also this:
There doesn't appear to be any explanation behind that. Some conservative commentators have opined that the decision to suppress the manifesto was taken to try to paint trans in a better light; I'm not sure I buy that, but today's releases are, well, definitely evidence supporting that interpretation.
There's surely culture war hay to be made out of the contents of the manifesto; it's certainly something to cite for the 'trans is really just a mental illness' crowd, and she explicitly blames lack of affirmation for her lashing out.
It's a strange side effect that whether or not the shooter is killed impacts whether or not their writings are kept private.
If she was alive this material would be discoverable and likely submitted as evidence in the eventual case against her.
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I have a personal policy of not engaging deeply with the writings of individual loons whose main claim to public attention is some atrocity they committed. I typically don't even read manifestos of random people who manage to not shoot up elementary schools, so why would I give preference to the ones who don't even clear that very low bar of basic human decency?
That being said, I can totally see the cops deciding to hold back the manifesto based on the content, in a way which they might not have done if the perp was a right wing loon instead.
For CW purposes, I think both sides would spin it.
Either you have the young woman caught in the dangerous culturally transmitted delusion that gender is malleable which set her on a path which eventually saw her kill kids (bonus points if she was on testosterone at the time of the crime).
Or you have the trans-man who was denied essential medical interventions for religious/ideological reasons while he was a minor, which eventually lead him to snap in a most unfortunate way.
The purpose is not to engage with the arguments in the manifesto, but to understand the circumstances behind the shooting. If a shooter is motivated by politics, that's important to know, especially if the shooting is used by politicians and activists to promote something that the actual politics of the shooter might disprove.
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It seems like common sense to suppress the manifesto. Same reason you don’t publicize suicides. These things all have a huge amount of social contagion.
I agree there is nothing where releasing it interferes with the investigation, but that is a good reason to declare as the reason not to release. She was a crazy person who did crazy person things. It was unlikely she had co-conspirators.
This is one of those things that seems like a good principle but when not applied evenly is a weapon. If the Christchurch shooter's manifesto was suppressible do you think it would be suppressed?
Wasn't it heavily suppressed to the point of people being prosecuted for not deleting it fast enough when totally different people posted it to a website they moderated?
The difference is in the media coverage using the suppressed manifesto as an excuse to hurt their political enemies.
Sure. In New Zealand. In America a PDF of the entire thing was on the front page of Drudge Report for a full week and various mainstream outlets were discussing it for months.
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I meant to add that point. So I agree. Everything is shown in a partisan politics mode now.
If someone that can be called right does something bad it’s used to bludgeon the right. If the left does bad it’s like peaceful protest or something and covered up.
A better would would not publicize these things.
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The police should tell us the motivations of terroristic acts against all protected classes. They shouldn’t hold press conferences only when it is anti-asian, or motivated against women, or some minority religion. That winds up biasing political discourse. They would never withhold this information if other protected classes were targeted. A Christian targeting transgender people would absolutely get wall to wall coverage.
No evidence of her being crazy. She was radicalized but in a sane mind. Her writings do not seem far from the median young transgender activist’s writings. “I hate parental views; how my mom sees me as a daughter — and she'd not bear to want to lose that daughter because a son would be the death of Audrey.” This is an intelligent, orderly sentence structure that shows forethought and consideration. This is not something a crazy person would write.
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I think the thinking of manifesto suppression is based on the idea that one of the motivations for shooters is getting their views signal boosted in the media. If you don't allow them that it may disincentivise future attacks.
The funny thing is, that this sort of damnatio memoriae never seems to actually work. Despite the best efforts of the legal system, we still know about Herostratus of Ephesus. (Though, of course, if wiping out the memory of someone or their manifesto was successful, we'd never actually know, would we?)
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Is there a case in the last 15 years where police had the opportunity to suppress a manifesto, but released it anyway? If the option to suppress it is there, then it seems like this is becoming more standard. Most manifestos that make it into the public get directly uploaded somewhere, posted to 4chan, mailed to a newspaper if you're a 20th century terrorist, and so on. Seems like poor form to forget to post your deranged manifesto publicly before committing a heinous act. ** Also, her diary seem less like a philosophical statement, or call to action, than they are the weird doodles and thoughts of a mentally ill individual.
As for the police, Nashville PD, and most police departments, probably don't contain many cops that are too interested in protecting trans ideology. I can buy FBI involvement or pressure decreases the likelihood of a single cop leaking it as it pertains to trans-y ideas versus white nationalist ones. As a counter example, Brenton Tarrant and his manifesto was heavily suppressed in New Zealand and elsewhere following the Christchurch shooting. His manifesto was banned on lots of sites places if I recall. New Zealand also suppressed his name, face, and manifesto, albeit not very effectively.
For media coverage, yes I think it's fair to say there's a bias here. Googling Audrey Hale gets me this which includes a few right wing rags and the Post which may or may not qualify as one. On the flip side, here's one NPR article on Dylann Roof's manifesto. Dylann had his manifesto read out loud in court, but the NPR article predates that. If this was instead white nationalist rage manifesto, then yes it's fair to say there would be American media all over this shouting at the roof tops. Crazy trans radical kills children just doesn't have the same ring to it.
Is there a good argument for police to release every crazy's manifesto? Is there a good argument for media to cover the contents and proliferate the ideas in every manifesto?
Offering free national publicity for each person that gets the bright idea to impose their bullshit on others by killing kids creates a perverse incentive. If the options are coordinate a memory hole or offer them an free publicity-- one seems better than the other. A media ecosystem that could effectively coordinate this would be pretty scary though, wouldn't it?
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Isn't it common practice for all police departments to resist releasing manifestos no matter the subject matter? From a police perspective, you'd rather release it when you can tie everything up with a nice bow a year or two later in a larger report -- on top of preventing copycats. I don't necessarily see anything culture-war unique or nefarious in that.
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