Much of the Left is hoping for hate.Three young Muslim Americans were murdered in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, near the university of.
According to BBC.com:
Police say that Craig Hicks, 46, carried out the shootings as a result of a parking dispute.Yet for reasons that I can merely speculate about much of the Left has decided that this was a "hate crime." That is, many people on the progressive-left - millions of Americans - are utterly convinced that Craig Hicks killed those young people simply because they were Muslim.
But they have not ruled out the possibility that the killings may have been motivated by religious hatred.
At least 12 firearms were taken from Mr Hicks's home after he handed himself in to be arrested, police say.
He is reported to have described himself online as a "gun-toting" atheist.
I spoke with a close friend of mine yesterday who works at Stanford University and who is a highly intelligent and thoughtful person who told me that she believed it was a hate crime and that there was no point in even discussing it because her mind was made-up on the matter.
I simply looked at her and said, "Well, many millions of people agree with you."
But I do not get it.
A white guy killed three Muslim Americans.
Must that automatically mean that he killed them because they were Muslim Americans?
I would not make that assumption were they Jewish. I would wonder, certainly, and I would look to see what evidence is out there, but I would not automatically leap to that conclusion unless there were cries of "Alahu Akbar" and the sound of automatic rifle fire.
This is not to say that bigotry was not a contributing factor. We know that Hicks despised religion and although hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of people are combing his Face Book page, I have not seen anything to indicate that he singled out Islam.
I am, however, in this case, less interested in Mister Hicks than I am interested in just why it is that so many people feel a need to hope for hate.
The people in the photo above are mourning the loss of Deah Barakat, Yusor Abu-Salha and Razan Abu-Salha.
Yusor and Razan were a young married couple starting out in life and they were slaughtered by a maniac. Hicks may be a bigoted maniac, but a maniac he is and he will never see a day of freedom again in his life, if our system of justice is related to justice.
But the fact of the matter is that there is no reason to assume that this was a hate crime. It may very well have been, but there is nothing, thus far, to suggest that Hicks killed these young people because they were Muslim.
FBI Hate Crime Statistics in the United States from 2011 show that among hate crimes, by religion, 63.2 percent were victims of anti-Jewish bias, while a mere 12.5 percent were victims anti-Islamic bias.
The question then becomes, why does the Left assume that American Muslims are subject to widespread anti-Muslim bigotry while almost entirely dismissing the far more significant statistical presence of anti-Jewish bigotry?
Why do so many on the Left seem to hope for hate for some and downplay it for others?
In other words, what are the acceptable boundaries for malice within the western Left?
I think because the left deal not in objective reality but in preferred narratives, they wish to accord ' victim status" to their designated 'underdogs' of the moment. This has little to do with actual levels of persecution or, indeed, attacks. The same groups must also be above criticism. Jews are not 'underdogs' as the left perceive Jews to be powerful, or worse. Consequently, as powerful groups cannot be 'victims' all genuine attacks on these groups have to be denied, ignored, downplayed, or, worse, justified. And they are.
ReplyDeleteIt gets further complicated when perceived 'victim groups'.are.the perpetrators of any such attacks. This causes the left to have to go into denial and extreme mental gymnastics to pretend it is not so. Or, if it has to be acknowledged, they will 'explain' it. There are ' root causes ' etc. etc.
They should look into the 'root causes' of their preference for their own silly prejudice for the narratives of the unscrupulous over the scientific method.
DeleteHello all. Just thought I would stop in and let you know I've been lurking about.
ReplyDeleteWelcome, and feel free to join the conversation at anytime.
DeleteIt's good to see that the lies and the smear campaign against this site from certain quarters doesn't quite seem to be having the desired effect.
The ironic thing, Jay, is that those who claim that Israel Thrives is a "hate site" must think that all Muslims are part of the movement for political Islam.
DeleteWe oppose the Brotherhood and Qaeda and Hamas and anyone who wants to see the rest of us live under Sharia.
Thus they who conflate all Muslims with Hamas and al-Qaeda.
Talk about "racist."
you know you've gotten their goat when people such as poco and his ilk cut and paste conversations from here onto daily kos. it is nice to know that they're taking the time to go to both places, and refer to this as a "hate site." Sigh.
DeleteI really pissed a few of them off over my final year there, when I was openly both posting here and there. That was good fun.
DeleteI even had some weird, whiny, doofus going by the username Timaeus (I think he actually used the wrong name, and slightly misspelled that of someone who I'm sure was his hero), who I never once recalled conversing with in a decade at that site, launch a crazed 'Help Desk' jihad against me from out of nowhere, begging anyone and everyone who would listen to have me banned, as I was apparently one of the three or four worst people to ever exist in the world. I had quite a bit of fun with that jerkoff from that point on.
Anyway, they're all welcome to drop by at any time. None of them, with the brief exception of General Choomin, ever have, which doesn't surprise me.
And speaking of that swamp, I wonder when the Useless Idiot will be posting "That Manhattan Jury Doesn't Speak For Me"?
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/1366345/55742073 for "Project Spice" accusing "dhonig" of posting here, since of course all Jews must post in both places and secondly that posting here is viz a viz anti-arab and reason enough to be banned on dk and akin to being skinned alive.
DeleteThe internet has few boundaries.
DeleteI'm not sure they've convinced themselves of anything. I doubt that they ever do, any more than Huckster Al Sharpton actually believes the words coming out of his own mouth. It's simply an event that serves their agenda. Whether they believe it whether it actually is or not isn't important or relevant. Again, Chapel Hill is THE MOST left wing 'progressive' town on the east coast. More than Cambridge, more than Vermont, more than Westchester NY, more than the hipsest of hipster towns anywhere. It is the Berkeley, Madison, Racine or Austin of the east coast. It has an openly gay mayor, it re elects THE MOST liberal congressperson over and over to the Congress, it encourages homelessness and begging on the main drag (Franklin st.) It is so progressive they're trying to pass a law to retrofit electric cars with noise machines so that deaf people don't accidentally step into traffic. It is so progressive they're trying to pass a law to outlaw headphones because those are dangerous and elitist too. If there are people in Chapel Hill who make mean faces at Muslims there then they're not from Chapel Hill. Sorry. BTW Chapel Hill has one of the highest household income averages in the entire state.
ReplyDelete