Days after mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton rocked the nation, FBI agents raided the home of an Ohio man who allegedly threatened to commit his own massacre. Inside, they found more than a dozen rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition, the FBI said.
Justin Olsen, 18, was arrested Monday for allegedly threatening to assault a federal law enforcement officer. He’s accused of making the threats on a meme website where he also allegedly discussed shooting Planned Parenthood locations, citing multiple mass murders involving far-right extremists.
Olsen allegedly made the threats on iFunny, a meme-sharing site where he used the name “ArmyOfChrist” and a picture of a medieval crusader as his avatar. (The crusades are a popular theme in some far-right Christian circles.) His account had more than 5,000 followers as of Tuesday morning before it was suspended.
Sounds like a dangerous loon, but, given that Planned Parenthood was founded by a eugenicist to decrease the numbers of blacks, Jews, and other deplorable people like us (and that still does a darn good job of following its original mission statement), he doesn’t sound like much of a white supremacist.
You’d think he’d be all about aborting black and Jewish babies.
I wasn’t trying to claim he was. That was my mistake. I meant to give an example of how we are cranking out the killers and the role that social media plays. I’m not saying social media causes these things but people are saying they don’t see white supremacists and such. I never saw Antifa in person. But they do have “places” where they can gather and complain about the world. This kid had 5,000 followers. He probably had zero friends in the real world.
That’s probably a fair statement. I always say “don’t try to think like a crazy person”.
We probably should give up on trying to figure out the motives of any of these idiots. I regrettably read the manifesto of the El Paso shooter (entitled “An Inconvenient Truth”).
It made Mein Kampf read like a paradigm of sanity. Basically, he was Thanos. He wanted a socialist utopia, but thought: (1) there were too many people and we were killing the planet and (2) brown people were bad at socialism and had too many babies. Somewhere between Margaret Sanger and Adolf Hitler, with some Al Gore and World Wildlife Fund in the mix.
I have long thought, since the 90’s, that most alleged racism is a media driven narrative.
Are there racists? Of course. Are there white supremacists? Sure. I don’t think I need to make that caveat every time.
Is white supremacy growing? I don’t think so much based on the evidence thus far presented. An acute sensitivity to everything and anything being really racism cleverly disguised as something benign is the myth that is being propagated.
I don’t think most people are racist if the goal post is attached to the premise that we judge people according to who they are not what they are. You move that goal post far enough you make everyone a racist. And when you have narratives like ‘all white people are racist and therefore cannot even remotely intelligently comment on anything race related’ or ‘white privilege’ then you are invoking a reverse racism and you can damn well expect a reaction. I see the message as more akin to “fuck you and your racism accusations”
People of all shades and races don’t take kindly to being assumed to be a piece of shit because of their race. We need to decrease the rhetoric not increase it.
And let’s face it, most of the noise Is young white kids accussing anybody that disagrees with them as racist. I see far fewer black people, save for the usual suspects, crying racism then I see spoiled white kids calling anybody not extremely liberal, racists.
A professor, who happens to be black (I wish I could remember his name), was commenting on Trump’s go back comments. What he said would get both the far left and right mad. He said the comments were racist but that Trump was not a racist. We focus on the person and not what is said. Calling someone racist implies it’s something inherent about them, that cannot be changed. In that case, there is no hope for change. He said that no one is inherently a racist so calling someone a racist is nonsensical. Once you call someone a racist it ends any discussion of ideas and things we say.
I respectfully disagree. Understanding root cause is the only way to combat it. You cannot take away all the tools for killing people away. Life is dangerous and has sharp objects.
It’s unfortunately very easy to kill a bunch of people. People don’t go around killing each other because they don’t want to, not because they do not have the means.
You can buy everything you need for mass murder at most any grocery store.
What’s between the ears is what determines who lives and who dies.
The one consistent thing with all these maniacs is that they wanted to do it. The next one is lurking amount us. It’d be nice if we can stop one from happening.
Heck, what we don’t know is the number of attacks that have been foiled.
I think I mislead you with what I meant by your first statement.
I am talking about worrying about a given killer’s political ideology. People who want to kill will come up with some sort of happy horseshit to justify it. It could be left or right.
I think we should look at what the killers had IN COMMON: broken homes, depression, lack of purpose or future, etc.
your perception of him based on your own world view
I really don’t know why you do this as much as you do. You make good points consistently that are muddled when you interject these assumptions.
What does his friend count matter? This kid’s a disturbed individual that you find comfort in belittling. Why? It’s fucking weird to me man. This kid did not kill anyone and deserves our help, no? But you’d rather resort to assuming he has no social worth. Then you go ahead and espouse we have no civility anymore – gee, I wonder why…
Assumptions based on other cases. These were not extroverts. And I make a point to demonstrate it is opinion.
In the real world? It’s a piece of the profile. Online, it shows that these people aren’t exactly loners operating in secret. There is a subculture.
Now who is making assumptions?
Where did I belittle him? And no, why would I find comfort in belittling a potential mass killer? It’s not a joke. And that’s two more assumptions on your part.
OK. And I said he doesn’t? He deserves to be in jail also, if he did indeed break any laws.
Another assumption. When I said he had zero friends, you take that as an insult but maybe it could have been said with empathy (it’s the internet so context can be hard). The idea that he had to seek out human friendship online instead of in person is sad. Assumption alert!: maybe he didn’t have anyone to talk to. His parents might not be involved in his life. No mentors. No peers even. And yes, that is sad. I have seen kids like that and when you show some concern for them it can make a difference.
I made it clear in my post where I thought you found comfort belittling this young man - stop obfuscating
So you don’t think it can be inferred from your statement you think this kid has zero societal value? Stop deflecting.
Did you build the profile? What would be the other factors one would include in building a profile for this type of thing? How accurate would that profile be? Seems to me you’re trying to build this kid up as something you want him to be by focusing and projecting, jumping to conclusions based on a biased take on this person’s life to the point.
You don’t know what any of this kids “followers” followed him for. Maybe he had a nice zinger and people said, yea I’ll follow this kid an never checked their account again. Or, maybe he had a zealous following based on his racist views. You don’t know that, man but you still assumed he probably had zero real world friends for what reason?
It shows that he has 5000 followers, and that’s it - you’re jumping to conclusions. You might be right, you might be wrong. Still remains this kid did not kill anyone and you’d rather say he probably has zero real world friends…
and stop deflecting - address what you said or ignore my post.
Of course it could be inferred, you did, but that doesn’t mean I implied it.
What does this even mean? Profiles are made when it comes to criminals. This is common knowledge. We have all heard the serial killer standard profile.
What would I want him to be? An actual murderer? A well adjusted citizen? He is what he is.
Because on an internet forum we can’t speculate? Where is the bias? The facts around his arrest are false?
You might want to reread what you quoted. I didn’t say anything about WHY he was followed but that he was followed.
Because of other mass shooters. I thought I made that obvious.
Yeah, and it’s an internet forum so it’s OK. I’m not performing brain surgery where being wrong would be a real problem. The fact you say I might be right acknowledges that I am not making crazy assumptions.
The fact you keep coming back to that makes me wonder why it bothers you so much.
Yeah…I’ve responded twice to the same questions…I’m really deflecting.
Actually an interesting way of looking at it. Trumps not racist he’s just saying racist things. And he can change. He said he had a health care plan, wouldn’t golf, and wouldn’t tweet so we know he views himself as always capable of self improvement