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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   33969 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 9, 2024

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That was my initial reaction to the first attempt.

I was then horrified at the lack of interest and muted reactions on the left.

I then recognized the lack of interest as analogous to the lack of interest and muted reactions by republicans after a school shooting.

Both sides are disgusting.

Why are you making such a comparison?

Because both events involve guns being used in ways we don't want guns to be used?

School shootings aren't normally politically driven. Assassination attempts targeting politicians always are.

Which is precisely why assassinations are less horrifying?

The OP was discussing the reactions of Democrats (well, OK, technically not them specifically, but their side) and Republicans - that is, political parties. Why should their reactions be the same to politically motivated and not politically motivated events?

Careful selection of "politically driven" rather than "politically motivated." July 13th doesn't seem to have an agenda aligned with either of the political sides.

Another reason for the comparison: they both have the same direct solution.

That was my initial reaction to the first attempt.

I was then horrified at the lack of interest and muted reactions on the left.

I then recognized the lack of interest as analogous to the lack of interest and muted reactions by republicans after a school shooting.

what exactly am I supposed to do about either of those things? I'm not in the secret service and I'm not a cop. I'm just a regular guy. there's nothing I, personally, can do to stop these things.

Usually when people get worked up they mean "we as a society should change things to stop it." meaning, ban guns. Well, even if I agreed with that, I'm still just one voter, so I can't actually ban guns.

So what it really means is "I want you to spend all your time posting political memes on social media and being a nervous wreck." Well, been there and done that. It's a waste of time.

I think it's healthy that more people are starting to realize you can read about these things in the news and then just... move on with our lives. The news media wants us to obsess over these things, but there's no good reason we should.

There's a difference between a lack of reaction from someone who doesn't react to other things, and a lack of reaction from someone who does. You are in the former category. The leftists who are being criticized here are in the latter. When people obsess over a lot of anti-Trump political causes, it's not an answer to say "what can they do about the assassination, obsess over it?"

(Of course the school shooting is a false equivalence. The school shooting is not done for political reasons, and failure to support gun bans isn't to failure to react.)

I mean, I think this is just par for the course. The entire system is starting to collapse and as such nearly catastrophic systems failures are normal. We’re used to crime, drugs, shitty roads school shooters, random spree shooters, and a dozen other things that would shock people if they visited from 1950 or before. I mean or swan song is so bad at this point that we had congressional hearings about UFOs and the reaction was fairly muted. At this point, Mr. Spock could land on the White House lawn and most people would have muted reactions. We’re used to things being completely messed up.

The entire system is starting to collapse and as such nearly catastrophic systems failures are normal.

You've had assassination attempts on Presidents and much worse violence than this before back in the 60's and 70s and it did not lead to the system collapsing. And the economy was worse then as well. Maybe it is different now, but it's certainly something the US has been through before.

Yeah, we had assassination attempts, but we didn’t have two nearly successful attempts on the same political figure within two months of each other. That’s pretty unusual. And especially as by the second time, the SS had intelligence and knew that there was an Iranian plot to get Trump. They still can’t get their act together.

Actually... Ford had two almost successful attempts against him 17 days apart in 1975. One missed, the other forgot to chamber a round. Both women, which is doubly unusual. And in the former case it wasn't even the Secret Service who pushed the gun away so it missed, a bystander had to intervene!

Its unusual, but its not unheard of. And Ford was President then, not just a candidate. Unfortunately high profile attempts can spawn further attempts and perfectly securing spaces like golf courses and rallies is hard.

I'd agree with this, but also note that two of the main things that has changed since the 60s and 70s is the nature of how we know of eachother in an information sense, and for Americans in particular a collapse in shared trust in systems.

On the information front, something that's changed for everyone is the rise of social media. For all the worries of disinformation or misinformation or foreign interference, one of the other negatives of it is that it truly does allow people to see and hear what others may think of them- and that it's often both vocal and vitriolic disapproval. In the 60s and 70s, when countries had only a handful of centralized media presenters at a national level of visibility, the centralized news would tend to be... maybe not consensus based, but rarely radicalized, and radical-fringe views would be more limited to local media that simply couldn't be conveyed across a country in real time. People who might have had heated political fights in person were functionally physically separated in the information sphere. With the rise of the internet and social media, people in political segment A can absolutely know the loathing/mockery/opposition/subversion of their fellow citizens in segment B, often aided by the highly public organized acts of meanness that comes with such partisanship. The toxicity or violent might have been worse in the 60's and 70's, but the information flow and prevalence was much 'better' (in the sense of being less immediate and pervasive). In the 70s, if you didn't want to be bothered by news and views from other parts of the country, you could change the channel- now you can't open up most social media platforms without an algorithmic push of some variation of a sneer club / outrage bait of how bad-stupid-evil your outgroup citizens are... or, if you dare to be heterodox and observe another tribe, how bad-stupid-evil your ingroup is.

Combine that with a collapse of trust in shared systems- from religious to governmental to even informational- and even if the individual behaviors are 'better' than in the 60's/70's, you're working from a worse position in terms of social coping mechanisms to deal with the issues that are there.

I know this is a typical argument from dissident righties that world is a failing state and everything is collapsing, but conservatively, the world is a better place for approximately 70% of the world's population. Even using a purely American perspective, the median American city is still wealthier and for instance, has less crime than broad swathes of the 70's and 80's. Yes, if you truly think the fact there are more non-white people and that non-straight people of all sorts are open about it is truly a disastrous thing, OK, but this happened to Gerald Ford in '76.

less crime than broad swathes of the 70's and 80's

I see what you did there . From the OP:

We’re used to crime, drugs, shitty roads school shooters, random spree shooters, and a dozen other things that would shock people if they visited from 1950 or before.

The unprecedented crime wave of 1967-94 (roughly) was the consequence of policies (the "Great Society" etc.) enacted by entrenched political forces that are still in a hegemonic position today.

Also, "70%"? Where does that figure come from? Who are the other 30%?

there are more non-white people and that non-straight people of all sorts are open about it

My I ask why you're spinning the whole issue like this? The OP didn't make any such references anywhere.

How did Great Society policies lead to high crime waves?

Mainly by enabling and normalizing single mother households i.e. fatherlessness, as far as I know. There was also a tendency of more lenient sentencing.

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