It’s best to try to engage your opponents’ best arguments; that makes your own arguments stronger.
David Sirota’s Salon piece, “Let’s hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American“, is not one of our opponents’ better arguments:
As we now move into the official Political Aftermath period of the Boston bombing — the period that will determine the long-term legislative fallout of the atrocity — the dynamics of privilege will undoubtedly influence the nation’s collective reaction to the attacks. That’s because privilege tends to determine: 1) which groups are — and are not — collectively denigrated or targeted for the unlawful actions of individuals; and 2) how big and politically game-changing the overall reaction ends up being.
According to Sirota, “white privilege” has prevented white males from coming under the sort of scrutiny that, say, Arabs have for ghastly crimes.
This has been most obvious in the context of recent mass shootings. In those awful episodes, a religious or ethnic minority group lacking such privilege would likely be collectively slandered and/or targeted with surveillance or profiling (or worse) if some of its individuals comprised most of the mass shooters. However, white male privilege means white men are not collectively denigrated/targeted for those shootings — even though most come at the hands of white dudes.
Likewise, in the context of terrorist attacks, such privilege means white non-Islamic terrorists are typically portrayed not as representative of whole groups or ideologies, but as “lone wolf” threats to be dealt with as isolated law enforcement matters. Meanwhile, non-white or developing-world terrorism suspects are often reflexively portrayed as representative of larger conspiracies, ideologies and religions that must be dealt with as systemic threats — the kind potentially requiring everything from law enforcement action to military operations to civil liberties legislation to foreign policy shifts.
Yeah, it could be the “white privilege”.
Or it could be the fact that nearly all of the Arab mass murderers – from Major Hassan up to the 9/11 hijackers – have actually been members of, or allegedly explicit sympathizers with, major extranational military/terror movements, while the white males have represented tiny fringes of tiny fringes of our society:
By contrast, even though America has seen a consistent barrage of attacks from domestic non-Islamic terrorists, the privilege and double standards baked into our national security ideologies means those attacks have resulted in no systemic action of the scope marshaled against foreign terrorists.
“Consistent barrage?”
The examples Sirota gives (drawn from the lefty idiotblog Crooks and Liars – the only blog in the world that can’t shake its head at what dolts the Daily Kos diary writers are) are largely lone crazies, many of them implicated in “white supremacy” by the thinnest of threads; some of them (John Patrick Bedell) are actually lefties; the article itself considered the Gabby Giffords shooting a “terror attack”.
And beyond that?
In fact, it has been quite the opposite — according to Darryl Johnson, the senior domestic terrorism analyst at the Department of Homeland Security, the conservative movement backlash to merely reporting the rising threat of such domestic terrorism resulted in DHS seriously curtailing its initiatives against that particular threat.
Sirota is apparently writing to an audience of the addled; DHS Secretary Napolitano’s “reporting” (along with her camp followers at the Southern Poverty Law Center) was less “reporting” than “releasing a list of groups that opposed the Democrats”. The right was correct to mock both “efforts”.
Is there an element of “racism” in the way our society treats crime? Sure – although the term might better be called “we-ism”. Everyone in the world is a “we-ist”; they’re more tolerant of people who look, speak and act more like them, and less tolerant of those who don’t. It’s true of everyone; middle-class black professionals are twitchy around urban Latinos; alpaca-clad Volvo-driving fashionably-gray NPR-listening upper-middle-class white liberals get nervous around leather-wearing Bud-drinking bikers. Our society is still largely white, and the male half of that majority is, well, male; to the extent that the idea of a “white male majority” includes both David Sirota and, well, me, I guess you could say “we” are more forgiving of people like “us”, whoever they are.
So you could chalk this up to “white privilege”.
Or maybe to the fact that so many Arabs who’ve attacked us have expressed sympathy with the goals of the groups that attacked us in 9/11 (notwithstanding the fact that the vast majority of American Arabs are no less American than anyone in Bemidji), while the vast majority of “white terror” suspects have indeed been lone wolves (I mean, if you’re going by evidence rather than Sirota’s fervent, nearly evidence-free wish that it were otherwise) might have something to do with it.
I wonder what his twisted mind will come up with on the ricin laced letter sent to a GOP Senator? I don’t hear usual ignorant left wing bobble heads on the Obama propaganda networks speculating that “it was probably a left wing commie.” Of course, even after they are continually proven wrong, they never correct their stories.
Time to ban all high capacity pressure cookers and nails. That will solve the problem.
I’m with Emery on this one, there’s nothing in the constitution about an inalienable right to cookware… and certainly not cookware invented after 1797. I think cookware user licensing and cookware registration are in order. And as a common sense precaution requiring a photo id to purchase nails and ball bearing should be made law.
Sirota is about as openly leftist with his views as can be. He doesn’t bother me as much as, say, Times columnists like Friedman who claim to be non-ideological and just in favor of “what works” (in Friedman’s case, “what works” for him is marrying an heiress from an extremely wealthy family that made its fortune in suburban shopping malls).
As Mitch notes, Sirota’s writing is bad in a way designed to maximize polemic impact at the expense of clarity. “Consistent barrage” is a meaningless construction. Sirota probably wants his readers to see it as “constant barrage”, but that construction would be indefensible instead of just dumb. A study on the quantity of adjectives used by liberal columnists versus conservative would be fascinating reading. Liberal columnists just seem to toss them in randomly. It’s more difficult to write a column that argues why Bush was wrong to invade Iraq than it is to write ‘the disastrous Iraq War, promoted by oil-men Cheney and Bush to line their pockets with blood money . . .’
Yeah, I saw this yesterday. I wonder if self-loathing is a natural symptom of liberalism…maybe something in the atmosphere of the fever swamp, I dunno.
Anyway, Sirota went further than simply excusing Arabs, yesterday he was tweeting his hopes and dreams that the bomber(s) turn out to be white male(s).
Said it before; lefties are some fucked up people.
If I’m white male, live according to the laws, pay my taxes, try to be a positive influence on society, adhere to social norms and try to treat my neighbor as myself – regardless of color – am I still a racist?
The left, as usual, sees the enemies of America only within its borders, it wants them to be the Americans that they despise.
How could you possibly wish that a terrorist bomb was set off by one of your countrymen rather than a foreigner? It’s sick. I mean, it’s really mentally ill.
Not just a countryman Terry…a racially specific countryman. Key component there.
I think some of that was code, Swiftee. When Sirota wrote ‘white American’, he wasn’t thinking of anyone like him or Bill Ayres. Say, maybe Obama could call up his good friend Mr. Ayres to get get some insight on how people who like to blow up innocent people think?
Wow, pigs do fly! I am actually going to agree with something Emery had said!
Hoss, now that a similar ricin letter was addressed to 0bumbler, you can expect a full court MSM press with expected conjectures.
Interesting position for you kooks to assume. After yesterday when Mitch posted the comically inaccurate NY Post “scoop” about the Saudi suspect and the 12 people killed in the blast, occasioning much poop-flinging among you benighted Mitchketeers. No way to know until we know, of course, but Angryclown’s money is on one of yours – a crazed teabagger as in Atlanta and Oklahoma City.
Given that I’d have to assume that most actual “teabaggers” (using the Urban Dictionary definition) would be homosexual, I have to wonder what Angry Clown has against homosexuals. It’s bad enough to accuse them of giving us Culture Club and the Village People, but accusing them of a bombing, AC?
Quite gauche of you.
Given the ricin letters, maybe they can ban that, too. Seriously, it appears that getting enough into someone’s system from a letter would be something of a trick…..thankfully.
angrylown, true to your name (similar to most on the left) you omitted that Mitch actually pointed out that it was only a report, and the source…and it’s possible inaccuracy that the suspect was a Saudi national.
I suspect you, like most of the media, will be thouroghly disappointed if it turns out that the suspect is not only NOT domestic or white…but it’s really gonna piss you off if he isn’t on the right side of the political spectrum.
You’re laying money on your own hate based speculation…me? I’ll wait for actual facts.
angryclown…wetting yourself in anticipation to assign blame to a group you obviously despise (and I’m quite certain actually know nothing of) sounds actually quite “kooky” to me…not to mention wholly intolerant and bigoted.
Adrian: are you a dude or a chick? What’s with all you Mitchketeers with gender-neutral names? (Angryclown is looking at you, Terry.) Naturally Angryclown assumes you’re yet another pissed-off middle-aged white guy. So get yourself an angry white guy name, why don’t you? “Adrian” is what Rocky shouts at the end of the fight. And he’s tryna hook up with a lady.
I’ma call you “Felix.” That work for you?
Adrian is the masculine spelling of the name, otherwise it’s Adrianne or Adrienne. Most people actually know this, and understand that it really doesn’t matter…except, for some strange reason, to you.
To quell your inane, moronic consternation over it, you’d have to take it up with my parents.
angryclown, just in case you need to look up some of the “big words” people use…to aid in the very unlikely event you might actually understand what anyone is talking about…
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary.htm
Poor Sirotta, doesn’t he know?
“The Klan doesn’t really do all that much bad stuff any more, there are too many FBI double agents in it”. – PJ O’Rourke, “Holidays in Hell” page 96.
We have had a few decades of government agents infiltrating ‘white guy’ movements from the Klan to the militia’s to the cults to organized crime to the Chicago Board of Trade and the New York Stock Exchange. And if that’s not enough, numerous plots of TV dramas have good white guy characters infiltrating ‘white guy’ sanctums – country clubs, board rooms, as well as meth labs and hillbilly/biker bars to root out the many fictional crimes committed by the evil white guys.
And the SitD comments section features white guy (extra white, if you include the greasepaint) Angryclown affecting a black dialect. How precious. If that isn’t a Stuff White People Like entry, it should be.
Did AssClown & Sirota forget that the most prolific white-guy bomber was a lefty that parlayed a career of blowing shit up into a “teaching” career with Barry Sotero?
Yeah, you moonbats might want to tighten up your wish lists. “White & American born” leaves a hole as big as the one connecting the AC’s earlobes, and unlike the occasional moth that flies through that cavern, strict racism won’t get ya from here to there this time.
Salon is on a roll. Besides publishing the whitey-bomber musings it currently features another article claiming the furor over the Gosnell non-coverage is a right-wing, white-guy plot to outlaw abortion. Perhaps they’ll go for the trifecta by the end of the day with an article claiming that Obama’s invitation to the Thatcher funeral was intercepted by the white brotherhood to purposefully make the president look bad.
They’re scrounging for something since – darn the luck – the police have arrested a suspect in the murders of the Texas DA and ADA, and it’s not a white supremacist.
and if it does turn out to be a white, domestic “right-wing extremist”, or an Islamic extremist, an apolitical, narcissistic media whore nut like Jared Laughner…my reaction would be the same: Try them via a fair military tribunal, and if guilty a quick, inexpensive execution.
Was McVeigh white?
I thought he was Irish.
Americans can’t get enough from articulate and long-winded versions of “I know you are but what am I?” If only 3rd grade could last a lifetime.
The preznit’s gun bill . . . DOWN IN FLAMES!! BECAUSE THE GUN LOBBY LIES!! AND PLAYS POLITICS!!
Lol, Obama’s despair is my joy.
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/gallup-only-4-americans-think-gun-control-important-problem
Immigration is #7, gun control is #9, both at 4%.
The feds are totally focused on immigration and gun control. They are congress and the Prez’s highest priorities.
Hard to believe that we are a republic any more.
It was predictable and doomed from the start.
The shorter Obama: ‘It’s a sad day for America, when a grass-roots group of activists, interested in preserving their constitutional rights, can defeat the goals of the federal government’
Bill Ayers was an American left-wing terrorist who killed nobody. Timothy McVeigh was a right-wing terrorist who killed 168 and injured hundreds more. Right-wing terrorist Eric Rudolph killed two and injured more than 150. Swiftee is a ridiculous right-wing moron whose opinions only make him look foolish.
Adriaaaaaaaaan!!!
Ain’t gonna be no rematch.
Adrian: as an adult, did you totally kick your dad’s ass like “A Boy Named Sue”?
You don’t know much about Ayres, Angry Clown.
“Bill Ayers was an American left-wing terrorist who killed nobody.”
That’s not strictly true AssClown. Although Ayers wasn’t present at the time, his fellow members of the Bag of Assholes Secret Moonbat Society did manage to blow themselves to pieces.
Ayers set dozens of bombs, and failed with all of them. McVeigh got it right the first time. Seems to me you’re making the case that lefties are just as stupid in action as they are sitting behind a computer keyboard.
I agree.
Ayers (and his wife) is a criminal…if one attempts to kill and maim and fails, they’re still criminal. In this case we make him a college professor.
McVeigh was an anarchist criminal that succeeded and was put to death, rightly so.
And there is no possible way we would ever elect a friend and associate of McVeigh to the office of President of the United States…but…we did for a failed Marxist criminal.
Talia Shire makes an excellent, if obvious, point. Whoever blew up the Boston Marathon should be terminated with extreme prejudice. Angryclown proposes strapping the culprits in the electric chair while He douses them with His seltzer bottle of justice.
“Angryclown proposes …blah, blah, blah…”
Another attribute of most lefty dimwits we see on the internets is they follow some insipid remark with some tuff clown talk.
Well played Assclown, well played. Your work here is done, son…them shoes ain’t gonna shine themselves.
Nah, dumbass, Angryclown just needed an excuse to call Adrian “Talia Shire.” Now go crawl back in yer spider hole before Angryclown sics that scary Bill Ayers on ya.
“Angryclown just needed an excuse to call Adrian “Talia Shire.”
Early morning wank in the coffee shop bathroom, eh? And leave it to you to threaten me with a proven bungler…pffft.
Your clueless display of stupidity never fails to provide me with amusement AssClown.
See ya later, there, Nancy Drew. Always fun to stop by to point and laugh for awhile.
Swift by name, stupid by nature, eh?
“Angryclown proposes strapping the culprits in the electric chair while He douses them with His seltzer bottle of justice.”
Notice AC capitalizes “His” when referring to himself. Looks the President isn’t the only one in the country with messianic pretensions outside of a mental hospital. Do you think you’re Napoleon, too, AC?
Ayres is a person of no discernible talents, the son of privilege (Dad was an executive at Commonwealth Edison, Ayres attended Lake Forest Academy & U of Mich.). He became a high ranking member of a domestic terrorist group responsible for armed robbery, the deaths of several Americans, and conspiracy to kill many, many more. He was freed by the government because of a technicality (tainted investigation and evidence).
After his release he attended Columbia and then became a faculty member at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He sat on the board of a powerful non-profit financed by the Annenberg foundation (where he worked with Obama). Ayres has taken credit for launching the political career of Barack H. Obama.
Timothy McVeigh was the child of a factory worker in NY. His parents divorced when he was young. He did not attend college, but he did join the army.
If you believe Sirota, the beneficiary of ‘white privilege’ was Timothy McVeigh.
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