I guess you have to cut the left some slack. When the San Bernardino shootings happened, they were so excited at the prospect of a white gunman. Imagine how crestfallen they must have been when the assailants turned out not only to be Middle Eastern Muslims but ISIS sympathizers too. Not only did the shootings not really help to sell gun control, they actually affirmed the notion of Islamic terrorism as a threat on U.S. soil. Nothing is worse than murder that plays into right-wing narratives.
So boy howdy, are they excited about this militia standoff in Oregon. They've finally got one, and they can't stop talking about it on social media. Yay! White people we can call terrorists! Thank you, universe!
The Oregon protest at a federal wildlife refuge has reignited an already intense debate on social media about policing, race and terrorism.
On Saturday, an armed group of antigovernment protesters occupied a remote federal wildlife refuge in Oregon and warned that they would not leave without a fight. The authorities have held back from attempting to stop the protest.
On social media, that led quickly to questions about a double standard, particularly from liberals and the left, who asked: What if the armed men were Muslim or black? They predicted the authorities would have been more forceful.
Many or all of the protesters appear to be white. It was unclear what religion they are, but least one has made reference to a prominent (and antigovernment) Mormon figure.
Some wondered why the news media and the authorities were not calling the takeover a form of terrorism. People used the hashtags #YallQaeda, #YeeHawd, and #VanillaISIS to challenge a widely held perception that terrorism applies only to crimes carried about by minorities and non-Christians.
I guess there's no putting this genie back in the bottle. From now on everything that ever happens will have a subtext - screw that, a main text - that's all about the race of the players and which political narrative this forwards. They'll say conservatives started it by putting so much focus on the connection between terrorism and Islam, and yes we have, because that's an accurate description the random bloody attacks that keep happening on the international scene.
The interest of conservatives here is to correctly diagnose the problem so it can be addressed effectively. The left thinks we're talking about Islam because we don't like people with olive skin, or people who are not Christians. So they're responding in what they think is an in-kind manner by alerting on violence wherever they can find it by white Christian men, because that's who they don't like.
By the way, don't ask me to defend this uprising in Oregon because I can't even make sense of it. The Hammonds, who were convicted in federal court of an arson offense that does strike me as pretty flimsy, aren't asking for any of this to happen. The people who stormed this federal facility could surely have helped them more by going to work, earning some money and contributing it to a defense fund for the Hammonds. Maybe they think that by getting them some media attention they can generate public sympathy, but if that's what they think then they don't know the media very well. All they want to talk about is the crazy white militiamen conducting an armed seige. Why they're doing it is hardly even an afterthought.
That said, if these guys are supposed to be terrorists, they're pretty bad at it. ISIS doesn't show up with protest signs and demand justice for anyone. They shoot you, cut your head off, drown you, burn you alive or (if you're gay) throw you off the top of a tall building. Or they rape you if you're female and they like the looks of you.
These militiamen haven't actually done anything violent at all. They're certainly behaving in a threatening manner, and I'm not defending that for one second, but usually you have to actually hurt someone before you qualify as a terrorist.
I guess the left is willing to grade on a curve if it means they can talk about some white terrorists. That #YeeHawd hashtag is simply too good to keep sitting around waiting for someone to actually fit the description. They've been wanting this too badly for too long.
I guess you have to cut the left some slack. When the San Bernardino shootings happened, they were so excited at the prospect of a white gunman. Imagine how crestfallen they must have been when the assailants turned out not only to be Middle Eastern Muslims but ISIS sympathizers too. Not only did the shootings not really help to sell gun control, they actually affirmed the notion of Islamic terrorism as a threat on U.S. soil. Nothing is worse than murder that plays into right-wing narratives.
So boy howdy, are they excited about this militia standoff in Oregon. They've finally got one, and they can't stop talking about it on social media. Yay! White people we can call terrorists! Thank you, universe!
