Atheists & Agnostics
In reply to the discussion: What frustrates me about this Texas shooting. [View all]enki23
(7,794 posts)Last edited Tue May 5, 2015, 08:25 AM - Edit history (1)
First: "Talking point" is a cheap way to dismiss something you don't like as being somehow not genuine. It's a way to impugn someone's motives. Without evidence, by the way. Or do you have evidence that I'm relaying some sort of "talking point" someone else wants me to relay? This is a fucking lazy argument. And it's especially ironic coming in response to a post that seems to try to call me out for insufficient evidence in favor of someone else's motives.
Second: there were no fucking victims. Cops were out in serious numbers just waiting for something like these guys to show up. The people actually put in significant danger here were, in fact, the cops, oddly enough. Not a group I usually feel the most sympathy for in most situations, but this situation was not most.
Third: Crazy right-wing Christian assholes don't become sad little big-eyed bunnies when someone takes a shot sorta near them. Geller and Wilders are nasty pieces of shit, and I wouldn't give a damn if they turned guns on each other and both succeeded. Actually, I would give a damn. I'd approve. They give every appearance of wanting this to be a fucking religious war, and you're goddamned right I'm going to acknowledge that. It's not the fucking same as Charlie Hebdo. Or when some college students hold a free speech event that includes some Muhammed cartoons. Nutbag far-right Christians and nutbag Muslims don't have to be equally assholes in every case to both be groups of assholes. Especially when one of them, from a position of political strength, is deliberately goading the other who is in a position of political weakness. And *that* is a normal, everyday, pedestrian Atheist "talking point".
Fourth, and final bit: I can speculate about the motives of religious nutbags. I really can. It's okay. I'm nearly positive you've done that too. We do that all the fucking time. We don't have evidence of their, or anyone's, internal states, but we somehow still talk about how things like fear of death drive them, etc. We don't have evidence to show that they aren't, instead, actually motivated by Jesus tugging on their Purkinje fibers like they say they are. Talk about motives is nearly always speculation, to a degree, but it's hardly baseless. I'm almost certainly right that this was one of their motivations. If you don't think some of these nutbag rightwingers were having shootout fantasies with the Muslim nutbags, you're going to need some evidence for that one. Becuase that would be fucking extraordinary.
I think we're mostly on the same side most of the time. But don't insult me when you're not. Especially not when you're being too wilfully dense to understand what I'm saying. Because that's just fucking obnoxious.