In the USA, 24 hour talking heads on our cable news channels, social media and politicians using vile names to denigrate their opponents have unleashed a radicalization of certain personality types who glory in denigrating name calling that leads them to violence.
It appears the killer of Charlie Kirk was radicalized in some way by someone or some ideological group to assassinate the young leader of a conservative political movement in this country. He wanted to kill not just a man but a political movement with which he disagreed and hated.
The loose use of the terms of Nazi, fascist, dictator, king, oligarch and God knows what else, gives those Lone Rangers, radicalized by these words and what they mean, to take action. Kirk’s assassin saw him as a fascist. That was reason enough to do what he did thinking he was doing his country a service.
It’s one thing to feel passionate about your political opinions, its quite another thing to call your opponents by names that suggest they should be eliminated because these names are associated with the most vile and sick ideologies Europe has ever experienced.
My father fought during World War II to end Nazism and Fascism. He knew what it was and it isn’t anyone in the Republican Party. He would be sickened by anyone using those terms against their political opponents in this country.
My mother as an adult experienced Fascism and Nazism in her city of Livorno, Italy. Nazis in uniform were stationed in her city. If she were living, she would decry the flippant name calling of the President and others associated with him Nazis or fascists.
I’m impressed with the governor of Utah and his call to tone down the political ideology of vile name calling using names associated with the Holocaust which provoke the radicalized to take action as did the assassin of Charlie Kirk.
It’s all a part of the contempt for the sacredness of human life and the respect due to men and women created in the image and likeness of God. And the greater problem is that politics and political affiliations have become an idol replacing true religion and true morality.
51 comments:
I saw someone refer to our present environment as a “rage economy,” meaning that radical viewpoints are essentially monetized (and so incentivized) for influencers, podcasters, etc. That’s one side of the coin — mostly the “right” side as far as I can tell.
On the other side, we have the liberal radicalization that happens (seemingly naturally and unfailingly) in young people who then go to universities where the more radical expressions of that are solidified and honed in the liberal academic echo chamber.
What has seemingly been lost is the foundational idea that it is possible to simply disagree with other people without feeling personally attacked by that different perspective. I suppose that might be because in our times people’s identities are so wrapped up in their opinions that to disagree with someone is to undermine their perception of their very existence. We’re no longer able to differentiate between people are their opinions—so everything is black and white, good or evil. And all of this in a palpably existential way to the individual.
A solution would be to somehow relearn the fundamental idea of freedom of speech and opinion as the fundamental thing that we’re all agreed upon despite possible differences in every other sphere.
Sophia here:Excellent post, Father! And here is Fr. Alar’s excellent commentary!
https://youtu.be/RobA-j8yMJ0
What has seemingly been lost is the foundational idea that it is possible to simply disagree with other people without feeling personally attacked by that different perspective.
This is true except the views of some people are a direct attack on others.
Father McDonald:
I agree with you 100% insofar as your post goes. But it doesn’t go far enough. Please, I beg you, do not fall into the trap of just blaming those on the Left as President Trump does. Hateful rhetoric emanates just as much, if indeed not more so, from the Right (for example, calling opponents communists or traitors or Judge Pirro’s characterization of Democrats as “Demon-rats” on her Fox News Channel show). The remainder of this comment will reinforce and complement what Marc says in his comment.
In chapter 8 of my book Professions and Politics in Crisis (2021), I wrote the following when discussing how our politics has become so degraded (although I claim no great originality in voicing these sentiments, which many others have also expressed in their own ways):
“The symptoms of the crisis of well-being, distress, and dysfunction in the Republic mentioned in Chapter 1—hyper-partisanship, political gridlock, deepening economic, cultural, and racial divisions, an identity politics of fear, suspicion, and outrage, social media tribalism, poisonous incivility and dishonesty, and so on—manifest in the political relationships with our fellow citizens, not just in relationships among our elected political leaders. If modern politics was ‘civil war carried on by other means’ when [Alasdair] MacIntyre originally wrote those words in After Virtue in 1981, it is now ‘civil war carried on by other means on steroids.’ How do we, the ordinary citizens of the Republic, ‘take our country back’ from the political, social, and technological forces that have divided us into social and political tribes—frequently, it seems, even invading and poisoning relationships among family members and erstwhile friends? How do we overcome our mutual alienation and find our way back to one another, re-enabling meaningful political conversation to occur? . . . [page 381]
Consider how [our] ‘false and inauthentic’ identities are typically reflected in ‘labels’ or ‘slogans’ used to describe various groups. The intent behind such descriptions may be positive or negative, depending on whether they are in-group self-descriptions or other-directed descriptions of an opposing out-group. Examples come readily to mind. Thus, those who see themselves as protecting the lives of babies in the womb through restricting access to abortions use sympathetic language such as ‘pro-life’ for in-group self-description and pejorative language such as ‘pro-abortion’ or ‘baby killer’ for out-group other-directed description, but those who see themselves as protecting reproductive freedom through preserving a woman’s access to legal abortion use radically different language such as the sympathetic term ‘pro-choice’ (not ‘pro-abortion’) for in-group self-description and the pejorative slogan ‘war on women’ (not ‘pro-life’) for out-group other-directed description. Another example would be the use by Trump supporters of the sympathetic term ‘freedom-loving nationalist’ for in-group self-description and the pejorative term ‘freedom-hating socialist’ for out-group other-directed description, in contrast to their opponents’ use of the sympathetic term ‘seeking economic justice’ for in-group self-description and ‘deplorable white supremacist’ for out-group other-directed description. The very same person then, may be described as ‘pro-life’ and engaged in a ‘war on women’ or as ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-abortion’ and ‘baby killer,’ or as a ‘freedom-loving nationalist’ and a ‘deplorable white supremacist’ or as ‘seeking economic justice’ and a ‘freedom-hating socialist,’ depending on who is doing the describing.
[continued]
Political conversation conducted in such superficial and trivial terms just will not do. We must get beyond language that paints cartoonish caricatures more suited to the school playground than mature political conversation, and instead use language that articulates and engages with the deeper justifications for our political beliefs and positions. Although the superficial and trivial language by which, and in which, we are currently trapped gestures toward these deeper justifications, it is woefully incomplete or misleading or both, so that we see through a glass darkly. In the case of other-directed pejorative language used to describe out-groups, we see very darkly indeed because such language tends to demonize ‘the other,’ and this, when sufficiently pervasive, naturally tends toward universal mutual demonization. It is terribly injurious to the body politic, representing as it does the deployment of language as a weapon in our ‘civil war . . . by other means on steroids.’ And, of course, it is intended to be irrationally manipulative, relying predominantly on the triggering of emotional responses.” [pp. 384-85]
My own position in political conversation draws on MacIntyre’s Thomistic Aristotelianism and looks hopefully toward a republic of virtue in which all can flourish in response to a recognized (or on the part of many an unrecognized) divine calling. But even more fundamentally, prior to this, and drawing on the work of Jack Sammons, it is necessary that we humanize, not demonize one another, which means, dare I say, that we divinize one another in recognition of our authentic identities as children of God.
Mark J.
P.S. My final paragraph is resonant with yours, which I hope you intend to apply, as I intend mine to apply, to everyone, wherever they are on the political left-right continuum.
Mark J.
Thank you for your comments Mark. I agree that the name calling on all sides, even on this blog by some commenters, is the symptom of a serious moral illness, not to mention, bad manners. The lack of charity is a mortal sin. And like those who flaunt their sexual sins seeking acceptance of them, those who regularly resort to denigrating those they dislike or disagree are the source of one of the most serious moral morals we have in our country today.
As well, I agree that the name calling by Trump of those with whom he disaagrees is horrible for a president to use and all of this is a provocation for others to follow suit. However, as bad as the silly, sophomoric names used by the President and his supporters to their detractors, I have not heard the right using terms like Nazi, fascist, dictator and the like. These are politically charged terms that this nation, and the country of your origin valiantly fought against and say as demonic. I think another problem we have is democracy derangement syndrome. There are those who want to overturn what the electorate has wrought. Trump wanted to do that when he lost the presidency. And now those who hate Trump resent that the electorate sent him back to office.
I disagree with you about cleaning up the language concerning abortion. It is murder pure and simple and when the foundation of what it means to respect life is wiped away by politics and law, then that makes it an open season on all of us. When I first heard Pope Francis refer to abortion as the hiring of a hitman to murder an innocent child, I cringed a bit; but it’s the truth. The Democrats use language to assuage their guilt over this moral crime and sin. It is wrong and needs to be called out for what it is—the murder of innocents.
Just one other aside. Before his assassination, I only occasionally heard Charlie Kirk interacting with students on short videos that somehow showed up on my facebook feeds. I always thought he was honest in answering questions and making comments to those he allowed to participate in his forums. I thought too he was a bit brutally too honest. His shows, and that is what they are are shows for entertainment with politics and religion as the foundation. Since he was assassinated, I’ve watched more of his brief videos. I also happen to see him a month ago when he filled in as a co-host on Fox and Friends Weekend. The Fox fill in showed the real person more than the short videos and I liked him as a co-host and wondered if it was an audition for him to take that position. But, when I heard some of the students spar with Kirk at his forums, those who disagree with him, I was shocked that so many college age kids have no ability to think clearly and critiqually for the positions they hold, especially as it regards LGBTQ+++ ideologies that they have eaten hook, line and sinker and their inability to cogently talk about religion and its morals and ethics and see no problem with the moral crime and sin of abortion. The lack of critical thinking skills for those on college and university settings is astounding. The colonization of these kids thinking and worldview is being corrupted on the various campuses where they should be exposed to a variety of thought that challenges their own shallow conceptions.
The lack of critical thinking skills for those on college and university settings is astounding. The colonization of these kids thinking and worldview is being corrupted on the various campuses where they should be exposed to a variety of thought that challenges their own shallow conceptions.
Perhaps it’s you that you who lacks critical thinking skills and needs your worldview challenged?
You keep mentioning colonization - how are they being colonised exactly?
Actions can attack people. Opinions can’t.
For example, you have been colonized by them in the UK where the “phobic” meme is meant to shut down discussion and engagement with other ideas and political/relgious points of view. There is a crass censorship in your country not allowed in our Country due to the trouncing we gave you with the American Revolution, a violent event, btw, and our First Amendment. From what I have seen in the news, even praying against abortion might get you arrested there and calling out the LGBTQ+++ colonizing ideologies will get you labeled and by you too, as homo/transphobic. That’s the colonization I speak of, clamping down on free speech, alternate thinking and going against the state or political meme that one belongs to or is under. In your case, leftist politics of the UK.
"Perhaps it’s you that you who lacks critical thinking skills"
Splinters and planks come to mind.
Nick
Hate is being taught at "American" colleges and universities by a swarm of leftwing loon "professors." A casual glance at the news and there are a plethora of articles where academics and administrations are cheering Charlie Kirk's death. But the consumer will have the last laugh as these garbage indoctrination centers fail and these "professors" find they are no longer employable because leftwing propaganda isn't marketable outside of "academia" any longer. When I was in college in the 1970s, I could not have told you the politics of my professors, we just learned the subject matter they were assigned to teach.
My daughter, a Harvard MBA, and head of recruiting for an international securities firm with offices throughout the world, commented that college graduates over the past 10 years are severely deficient in basic work skills. This is particularly troubling because her firm only hires the "top students" from the allegedly most highly ranked universities in the US and throughout the world. But they know DEI nonsense, transgenderism and their pronouns. She told me they are seriously considering turning instead to hiring smart high school students and training them because academia turns out a highly inferior product today.
Hate speech is protected by the First Amendment in the United States, as decided in R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul, (1992) in which the Supreme Court ruled that hate speech is permissible, except in the case of imminent violence.[87] The First Amendment to the United States Constitution contains more detailed information on the Supreme Court decision and its historical background.
Perhaps you need to tighten up your laws against hate speech coz it’s precisely the combination of the “right to hate speech” with “right to bear arms” that leads to your epidemic of violence.
In the uk you can pray as much as you like against abortion but not outside an abortion clinic where people find it intimidating.
I doubt the unborn are intimidated by prayer at a clinic hired as hit men to execute them. For the others intimidated, tell them to grow up and make murder of children illegal! How fascist has your country gone in terms of prayer and free speech! Your liberal party promotes this shit I guess?
BB if I wanted the rubbish laws of the UK, I would go and live with my relatives in Nova Scotia. No thank you!
Well there’s all party consensus on abortion access whether we like it or not.
It’s not the unborn who find it insulating but those attending / working at the clinics.
Isn’t it the other way round ie the west exported their viewpoint on homosexuality on other cultures who had more fluid understandings of sexuality during colonisation?
There are two distinct and opposing perspectives regarding LGBT identity and colonialism. On the one hand, a robust body of research and activism argues that homophobia was systematically exported to colonized regions, making it a legacy of colonialism. On the other hand, some critical theorists, particularly in the Global South, argue that certain forms of Western LGBT activism and identity politics impose neo-colonial dynamics.
The anti-LGBT laws as a colonial legacy
The argument that anti-LGBT oppression is a colonial legacy highlights the destructive impact of European empires on diverse indigenous cultures that often had more fluid conceptions of sexuality and gender.
My comment was sarcasm. If there are Catholics working in those clinics, they are automatically excommunicated. I wonder if that intimidates them. And since when have Britt’s become snowflakes? Prayer before a clinic is intimidating! Really. What rubbish!
The actual epidemic of violence in America has nothing to do with speech since the vast majority of violent crime takes place in inner cities filled with gangs, drugs, and poverty.
I wholeheartedly agree with your description of the problem and your proposed solution. What are the concrete steps that lead to that solution, though?
Officer, officer, there's a man standing around the corner... eyes closed... hands in his pockets... menacing me!
Everything I hear about Britain makes me less and less convinced it's an actual place.
Nick
I guess Pelosi never heard of Maxine Waters and her other violent speech party members. But when you love killing the unborn for profit, I guess this makes sense.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) appeared to defend the violent rhetoric on the left after the founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated and said her party "cannot take responsibility for the minds that are out there."
I will reply later today to Father McDonald and also attempt to answer Marc's question about what can be done by discussing what else I say in Chapter 8.
Mark J.
Sophia here! I am reposting this link in which the Very Reverend Chris Alar, Provincial Superior of the Blessed Virgin Mary Mother of Mercy Province of the Marian Fathers of the Immaculate Conception in the United States , England, and Argentina!
It is clear, and incontrovertibly accurate! There is absolutely no moral equivalency between the behavior on one side of the political divide and the other!! As patently false and viciously dangerous statements coming from politicians on the left and their allies are, and even when acts from some of their followers are absolutely deadly
( only Divine Providence prevented more deaths!) there is no retaliatory rioting or violence- eg. after the Bernie supporter attempted to assassinate the Republican Members of Congress while they were at their baseball practice and the relatively recent attempts on Candidate Trump’s life!
In addition, quite often violence from the one side is in response to false demonizing rhetoric against Conservatives or the truth being proclaimed by Conservatives! This is certainly true in Charlie Kirk’s case! What the left had against him was his God given talent to so brilliantly and successfully defend Christianity and his Country and win over even many brainwashed college students on their own turf!
As Fr. Alar says, “ He was killed for what he stood for…. His platform was the truth, so how do you prove the truth wrong?…. “
Fr. Alar also quote a friend with whom he was watching Charlie’s videos , “When one side realizes they cannot defeat the truth, they turn to violence!”
I think this cogent talk will refocus your mind on what is actually going on in our country!!!
The title of a book written about the wonderful Lover of God and Country, St Joan of Arc, by one of the faithful, orthodox Priests in our Diocese,
Fr. Michael Cerrone , proclaims, “ For God and Country”! That, along with family, sums up Charlie Kirk’s life!!!
https://youtu.be/RobA-j8yMJ0
Father McDonald and Marc:
This comment responds to you jointly because the points you raise are related.
To Father McDonald’s point that Trump and his supporters have used “silly, sophomoric names” but not terms like “Nazi, fascist, dictator and the like,” those on the MAGA Right have called those on the Left “communists” and “traitors.” Are such terms really any better than those used by some on the Left? Here is an account by AI in response to my search query “who has called those on the left communists and traitors?” After mentioning Senator Joseph McCarthy, the AI entry goes on to say:
“Donald Trump and contemporary conservative figures
• Targeting the Democratic Party: While not explicitly labeling every leftist as a communist or traitor, Donald Trump has frequently used rhetoric that invokes and connects these accusations. For example, he has suggested that Democrats "hate America," which aligns with the "traitor" accusation by implying a lack of loyalty to the country.
• Connecting with the modern far-right: Accusations of leftists being communists and traitors are common among modern far-right media and commentators. Some media outlets have suggested that the modern Democratic Party has been taken over by extreme left-wing ideals and that any disagreement with the conservative agenda is a betrayal of the nation.”
To Father McDonald’s disagreement with me about the use of language over abortion, Pope Francis was not engaging in political conversation when he talked about obtaining an abortion being like hiring a hitman but stating a moral position in graphic terms as leader of the Roman Catholic Church. If we use such language in political conversation, however, we will alienate immediately those we are trying to persuade. Understandably they will regard such language as shutting down conversation and thus will not “hear” us. Consequently, in this as in other areas, if the goal is persuasion, as surely it must be in mature democratic political conversation, the use of such language as I have described in my earlier comment is a strategy destined to fail if it is used at the outset to “label” the other side. No hearts or minds will be converted; and the only recourse left is the use of force in the form of legal coercion backed up by the physical coercion of the state to compel them to accept what we say—and any “victory”, of course, is likely to be reversed when the other side gets power itself.
[continued]
Turning, then, to Marc’s question about concrete steps we can take, a better--and I submit more effective--strategy is for both sides arguing over an issue to “use language that articulates and engages with the deeper justifications for our political beliefs and positions.” This where the importance of what I call the “prior” stage in which we humanize/divinize one another comes in. I am persuaded by Jack Sammons’ position on this prior stage. If I may, I will quote from the book again and include a passage from him in which he recommends a specific procedure for us to follow:
“What we need to do, then, is to ‘go beyond [our current dead language] to the point of judgment.’ However, such judgment can only be attained if we prepare for and engage in ‘repeated, long, face-to-face talks with opposing others about matters that [are truly] serious’ because they are about ‘who we are.’ Here Sammons seems to be proposing that we need to listen to and try to understand one another as we simultaneously seek to persuade. Thus:
'[We need to] talk more. We need to talk, face-to-face, with those we oppose; talk about political matters far more serious than what level of taxation is optimal, or how to deliver health care, or more serious than abortions, gay rights, immigration, race, or what to do about various other social inequalities. Pick the issue you care most about right now, ask why anyone, you included, should care about it at all aside from self-interest; take your most thoughtful answer to that question and ask why anyone, you included again, should care about the value(s) upon which it rests; take your most thoughtful answer to that question and ask what the words you just used to describe these value(s) mean, where they come from, and why and how they prompt your caring. Now offer this thought in as persuasive and as personal a manner as you can in a face-to-face political conversation with someone with whom you typically disagree, someone about whom you might now say you do not understand how he could hold the views he does.'
Sammons stresses that ‘the last question, the one requiring you to examine the language you are using’ is of critical importance because ‘the idea is to get to the openings that language, and only language, can provide.’ We need to get to these openings because ‘for language . . . to have the potential of uncovering truthful aspects of our identity in political conversation, we have to reach the point at which language itself opens and even threatens to unravel.’ Although these truthful aspects of our identity can be uncovered by language, they cannot be ‘articulate[d]’ or ‘conceptually mediated.’ In this way, such ‘serious’ conversations will take us to the place where the conversation will point beyond itself to the ‘ordinary mystery and silence that surrounds us,’ to the ‘mysteriousness of our being’ which is ‘not us but defines us,’ to the ‘imagined communit[y]’ or ‘polity’ that constitutes our truer, more authentic identity and that informs our judgments. By engaging in such conversations with humility before this mystery and with faith in, and hope for, what it might reveal to us, we will discover more of the truth about ourselves, recover the art of rhetoric, and find our way to an honest and genuine civility. And we will know what to do” [pp. 385-87]
[continued]
The remainder of the discussion in Chapter 8 elaborates further on this strategy (especially the critical way in which the strategy depends upon those we seek to persuade recognizing something resonant in their own experiences) as well as additional stages in political conversation, but this will suffice for now at least to begin to illuminate one way in which we can try to achieve the fundamental, first stage of humanizing/divinizing one another in such conversation. I believe there are many initiatives across the country that are attempting something like this approach. What worries me most, and what I firmly believe should worry all of us, is that a significant percentage of our fellow citizens have given up on democracy and would be content to live in an authoritarian regime—as long as it is led, of course, by their own preferred leader.
Mark J.
If I may, let me add this further thought. One very important reason we need to find a better way to engage in political conversation is that our minds have indeed been colonized by unhealthy thoughts and attitudes toward those with whom we disagree—and this applies to minds across the left-right political continuum—thoughts and attitudes that are frequently fomented, if we are to believe those in our security establishment, by foreign influencers seeking to divide citizens in Western countries. In this perspective, to resist such divisiveness and to “take our country back” from forces that seek to divide us is an act of patriotism.
Mark J.
Mark, the name calling on both sides is a disgrace. In no way am I minimizing, though, the acts of violence and/or killing of those in the Democrat Party. However, it seems that the killings were directed towards individuals rather than a political movement also. They were angry individuals, although not necessarily radicalized. Their acts do not appear to be motivated by the language of Republicans as repugnant as that language might be.
In terms of the two assassination attempts on Trump, those appear to be politically motivated and those who did it radicalized not necessarily by what Trump has said, but others in the digital world that ramp things up. One also has to wonder if there isn’t a conspiracy to radicalize others and intentionally so to accomplish the overthrow of the president and his political ethos. That is far, far more serious. The same with the young man who murdered/assasinated Charlie Kirk. He had to be radicalized not by the name calling but the fear that Kirk was effective in his arguments and influencing young people to use their minds and reason to debate him. He was effective. It turns out too, that the assassins’ partner is a man who is transitioning to a female. Kirk had cogent arguments against the ideology that one can choose a gender, when in fact science, biology, DNA evidence and the like rebuts and dissolves that erroneous thinking. Evidently this young man was conflicted too in his own sexuality. I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the psychology of a man in love with a man but his a heterosexual, so to speak, so he wants his male partner to become a women??? BTW, when I was at St. Joseph I counseled a married man with children, who divorced his wife and was transitioning to become a “woman.” I asked if he was homosexual. He said no and that when he became a “woman” he would be a lesbian. Tell me, that doesn’t have a psychiatric cause needing counseling not surgery and/or chemical assistance. But you can see how this man could easily be radicalized (he wasn’t) by things on the internet that could tip him over.
Father McDonald,
Thank you for your response. I appreciate your condemnation of “name calling” perpetrated by those on the right, but I have to say I am disappointed that you and others, like Sophia, go to great pains to distinguish it in ways that appear to seek to minimize it so that hateful political rhetoric and political violence perpetrated by those on the Left is so much worse.
I do not, and will not, venture into the cesspool of social media but it is not surprising that those who do, across the political spectrum, get covered in muck that poisons their minds.
Here is the Wikipedia entry on the shootings on the Democratic Minnesota legislators, including discussion of the assassin’s motives as well as the conspiracy theories propagated on the right. You and readers can draw your own conclusions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_shootings_of_Minnesota_legislators
Mark J.
The discourse, such as it is, on the internet is totally poisonous. The discourse in real life, in my experience, is quite different. I work in an office filled with ultra-liberal people (such is the nature of my area of practice). When I have discussions with folks, they are always quite cordial, and usually, we find some common ground, at least in terms of the goals for a better society. We typically disagree strongly on the means to achieve those goals, though. I suspect my experience is a microcosm of the current political situation in America: most working adults want a successful country with a functioning government, etc. but we disagree about the path forward and some specifics.
Now I will say that it is common for people to openly mock Republicans and Trump voters as “stupid” and unworthy of having a voice. And yes, they do this to my face! I used to shrug it off, but now I confront it (politely), and healthy conversation ensues.
Anyway, this is all anecdotal. My takeaway is this: both sides feel emboldened to say out loud that the other is stupid and has an opinion unworthy of having a voice. But during actual conversations, common ground is easily achieved. So, it seems to me that having conversations is the only way to remember that people are not their ideas. And hearing other people’s ideas, even when they’re wrong, can be very interesting!
Marc, you just explained succinctly what synodality in the Catholic Church is suppose to be!
Father McDonald:
Further to my last comment, perhaps I should post some quotes from the Wikipedia article on the attacks on the Minnesota Democratic legislators and their families because I suspect many readers will not read the Wikipedia entry and will miss the point:
The section on “Motive” states:
“Federal charging documents described Boelter as acting with "the intent to kill, injure, harass, and intimidate Minnesota legislators". His anti-abortion views are considered a possible motive. Boelter was registered to vote in Oklahoma as a Republican for the 2004 United States presidential election, though on a state document in 2019, Boelter wrote that he had "no party preference". A longtime Sleepy Eye, Minnesota, resident who knew Boelter as a fourth-grade student in his childhood town since 1976, told reporters he was stunned to learn that Boelter is a suspect in the attacks. He described Boelter as "a conservative who voted for President Donald Trump and was strongly against abortion rights", and said Boelter was having financial problems and struggling to find work, adding that "he was looking around but immediately gave up and decided to go out in the blaze of glory" and saying that "there was darkness inside of him". Boelter's wife told investigators their family "prepared for major or catastrophic incidents" and that, after the shootings, he warned her by text message that "they should prepare for war, they needed to get out of the house and people with guns may be showing up to the house". . . .
An unmarked black fifth-generation Ford Explorer equipped with an orange and white LED lightbar was left in the Hortmans' driveway and contained a list of about 70 potential targets, including "abortion providers, pro-abortion rights advocates, and lawmakers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other states". Hortman and Hoffman were on the list, as were Walz, U.S. representatives Angie Craig, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Mark Pocan, Gwen Moore, Kelly Morrison, and Hillary Scholten, U.S. senators Amy Klobuchar, Tina Smith, and Tammy Baldwin, and Minnesota attorney general Keith Ellison.”
[continued]
And the section on “Right-wing misinformation” explains that:
“Many prominent right-wing and far-right figures falsely claimed that the suspect, Vance Boelter, was left-wing, a Democrat, and an ally of Governor Tim Walz. Elon Musk shared tweets saying that 'the left' had killed Hortman and tweeted, 'The far left is murderously violent.' U.S. senator Mike Lee tweeted multiple times that the suspect was a 'Marxist' and blamed the assassination on Walz. Donald Trump Jr. claimed the suspect 'seems to be a leftist' and 'was a Democrat'. U.S. senator Bernie Moreno and U.S. representative Derrick Van Orden both suggested that the shooter was a far-left extremist. Large right-wing social media accounts began spreading similar misinformation. Right-wing commentator Mike Cernovich suggested that Walz had ordered the assassinations, and Laura Loomer called Boelter one of 'Walz's goons' and called for Walz to be 'detained' and 'interrogated' by the FBI. YouTuber Benny Johnson claimed the suspect was a 'Tim Walz associate'. Other posts falsely claimed that a photo of a man at a No Kings protest in Texas was that of the suspect.
The Guardian called this 'the latest example of a right-wing media ecosystem that swiftly spins up narratives that serve their political agendas after tragic events, regardless of accuracy, and does not correct them after further information shows them to be untrue or incomplete'.
The misinformation was condemned by Minnesota state lawmakers, Republicans and Democrats alike, who said that intensely partisan rhetoric was harmful. Unlike their state legislature counterparts, Minnesota's Republican congressional delegation did not address Mike Lee's comments.
After it became known that the suspect was a Trump voter, unsubstantiated claims that the killings were a 'false flag' by the 'deep state' and a 'psyop' spread on social media. Alex Jones claimed Boelter was a 'patsy' who was 'being framed'. Laura Loomer suggested that Boelter was not the actual perpetrator.”
As for Trump’s reaction, we are told that:
“President Donald Trump, himself the target of two assassination attempts in 2024, said the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation were investigating the shooting and that 'horrific violence will not be tolerated'. After initially saying he might call Walz, on June 17 Trump said he had no plans to do so, calling Walz 'whacked out' and 'a mess'.
I am not trying to be partisan here, just fair minded. What I and others, including the commendable Governor of Utah, are attempting to do is to find an off-ramp from the binary and dualistic thinking that has landed us in this sorry ultra-polarized state in the first place. And if we think that one side has moral truth on its side and there is no moral equivalence between this side and the other side, I ask simply, in the well-worn cliché, “What would Jesus do?” or more to the point “What would Jesus have US do?” Correct me if I am wrong, but as I understand it, Jesus was far harsher on the self-righteous than He was on the sinners, publicans, and tax collectors, with whom He consorted and whom I am sure He got to know as human beings as He shared the Good News of the Kingdom of God with them. Put another way, instead of condemning those on the Left, perhaps all of us, not just those who are formally ordained, need to adopt more of a pastoral approach in our conversation with those with whom we disagree.
Mark J.
Being radicalized right or left is the rot in our country. It’s one thing to hold right or left political ideologies, but those can be tempered by faith in God, regardless of the faith. It’s when ideology becomes religion that we enter the danger zone. Much of the ideologies of the Democrat party are also godless. There is a desire not only for the ground on which our country was created, seperation of Church and State, but now a suppression of Church taking a place in the public square and with politicians elected to office allowing their faith to guide their political decisions. Anything that is a threat to the ideologies of various parties is to be eliminated in one way or another. For the democrats, any threat to the right to choose to murder an unborn child becomes sacrosanct in a godless religious way and now many democrats think a mother can murder her child as she is being born or immediate after birth if he is in any way compromised. That’s fanaticism, not religious, but political. The same with the LGBTQ+++ ideologies. The in your face promotion of transgenderism, which is a choice, by the way, not an orientation, is preposterous. It is an insult to true females and males. For example, Jeopardy had a man playing the part of of a woman and saying he was a woman, winning more money on that show that any woman had won before. He’s not a woman and he did not win more money than any other woman it was the woman who was a woman who won the most of any other woman who still has the record! That is the type of colonization that this leftist ideology proselytizes the world in politic and the media.
We need to look at the mental health the individuals who recently turned to violent means and murder on both sides of the political spectrum and decide what radicalized them, what ideologies, from abortion to transgenderism to thinking only violence can solve any threat to my particular ideology.
Most violence in US is committed by far right / racists
Source?
I suspect benny is referring to political violence.
I also suspect he won't invite any examination of the statistics of crime committed where the victim is of a different race from the criminal.
Nick
My priest had a good sermon on a Christian response to current events: https://youtu.be/3ieW393tVno?si=2AZsnxad0yoiKDEH
Yes I meant political violence.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/amp/politics/how-recent-political-violence-in-the-u-s-fits-into-a-long-dark-history
https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america
Gender “ideology”
Employed by prominent anti-LGBTQ accounts and similar to the trope “transgenderism,” “gender ideology” is a malicious rhetorical construct that falsely asserts that LGBTQ — notably trans — people are an ideological movement rather than an intrinsic identity.
The Southern Poverty Law Center notes: “Like the term ‘gay agenda,’ the term is used as a talking point to demonize LGBTQ+ people. Anti-LGBTQ+ groups often employ the term to claim any kind of positive affirmation of trans young people is a nefarious method of creating or recruiting new trans kids.” On X, for example, far-right outlet The Daily Wire widely promoted a speech by anti-trans commentator Matt Walsh, who said in April 2023, “I truly see the fight against gender ideology as the last stand for Western civilization.” Other extremist accounts have used the phrase as a dog whistle to spread animus against trans people. That same month, Gays Against Groomers posted across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter/X: “Gender ideology must be completely abolished and destroyed.”
According to some studies researching the origin of the phrase, “gender ideology” as an anti-LGBTQ trope can be traced back to Catholic conservative groups in the U.S. in the 1990s.
As a global institution, the Catholic Church operates in hundreds of countries, including many with lower gun-death rates than the United States. As an American with global experience—including in Peru, which has one of the lowest gun-death rates in South America—Pope Leo should be particularly attuned to this matter and should think seriously about speaking up about it himself. His initial statement on the tragedy was in the “thoughts and prayers” vein, but in his Angelus address on August 31, he prayed for a stop to the “pandemic of arms.” Is it unrealistic or naïve to expect the new pope to use his influence and popularity to raise the issue with American bishops, perhaps in the style of Francis’s letter on immigration?
LGBTQ is an ideological movement, not an intrinsic identity. And the SPLC is a crackpot organization.
Conclusions of numerous studies since the mid-20th century have found the following variables affecting the rate of lynchings in the South: "lynchings were more numerous where the African-American population was relatively large, the agricultural economy was based predominantly on cotton, the white population was economically stressed, the Democratic Party was stronger, and multiple religious organizations competed for congregants."[32]
In the 1940s, the Klan openly criticized Truman for his efforts to promote civil rights. Later historians documented that Truman had briefly made an attempt to join the Klan as a young man in 1924, when it was near its peak of social influence in promoting itself as a fraternal organization. When a Klan officer demanded that Truman pledge not to hire any Catholics if he were re-elected as county judge, Truman refused. He personally knew their worth from his World War I experience. His membership fee was returned.
Citing the SPLC as a serious source is yet another reason to not take your comments all that seriously. Even honest leftists say that it is biased and ideologically-motivated.
Nick
Marc:
“The discourse in real life, in my experience, is quite different.”
I am very pleased to hear this. It is certainly borne out by my own experiences. Having spent most of my professional life in legal academia, I am well used to moderating discussions among students who disagree with one another ideologically and in other ways, sometimes quite strongly, and have been given reason to believe they think I do this well. So, this experience has always given me hope, but I realize that the classroom is a somewhat artificial environment and have never been quite sure how far this positive experience is replicated elsewhere. This said, even though I am no Trump supporter, I know many people who are. Almost without exception, I have found them to be very decent human beings and have always got on well with them. But then the same is true of my interactions with those who are quite liberal in their views, including several who are LGBT+++.
In an article I wrote in 2016 I proposed a thought experiment:
“Let’s assume that there has been a cataclysm of some kind and you are the last human being left alive on the planet, or so it seems. I am sure you are familiar with the idea from various sci-fi movies. Fukuyama entitles his book The End of History and the Last Man and his ‘last man’ refers to the paradigmatic type of human being that lives in liberal democracy at the end of History. But I am proposing that we imagine a literal last man (or woman).
Imagine, then, that you find one other human being alive. How have things changed? Unless the other person is really insane or psychopathic, wouldn’t you be ecstatically grateful to have found someone to be your companion? And would it matter any longer if that person was of a different religion, or a different race, or if they had supported the other political party, or had accepted same-sex marriage and you had not, or vice-versa? Indeed, would it even matter if they had been one of the enemy with whom your country had been at war? In other words, would any of those things that used to divide you from one another be of any importance? If not, doesn’t that show that these causes of division are all social constructions—and even if you didn’t believe this and believed instead that at least some of those divisions were rooted in some transcendent truth, would that really matter any longer? Instead of caring about all those things that used to divide you, wouldn’t you cherish the other person? Wouldn’t that other person now be the most important thing in the world to you? Indeed, wouldn’t they be of immeasurable worth to you? Wouldn’t you want to listen to them and really get to know them and to work with them so you could help one another face your post-apocalyptic world together? And if you would feel that way, isn’t it likely that the other person would feel the same? . . . All you have is each other.
So, if you are unable to see the other person, your antagonist in conflict, or people more generally, as another child of God or as having special human dignity for other reasons, and even if you can, perhaps you could try to see them in this way, imagining that they were the only other human being left alive on the planet. And perhaps this could supply the motivation, or the additional motivation, you need to make the effort to be empathetic and compassionate and to try to achieve justice and peace between you.”
I think we see this somewhat less dramatically, though dramatically enough, when people cooperate and help one another in the face of a natural disaster. And I still stand by those words—and yes, TJM, I am talking about you too. -:)
Mark J.
Evidence seems to indicate that it is generally true that, in the real world, people simply get along with each other. Despite what the internet would have us believe, here in the real world, we are not on the brink of civil war. People are living their lives as they have always done, for better or for worse. People of differing backgrounds work closely together without major squabbles, etc.
I don't know what the situation is in academia -- perhaps it more mirrors the internet discourse than real world experience. When I was getting my political science degree many years ago, the professors were mostly liberal, and so was I at the time. These things tend to change or, at least, soften as one encounters reality. For example, I can understand the theoretical framework on which people base certain liberal ideas and policies; however, having worked with indigent people in the criminal justice system for nearly 20 years, I have also seen that reality doesn't bend to those ideas and policies.
Marc said: Actions can attack people. Opinions can’t.
Nonsense, hate speech attacks people and incites violence
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