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Is The Current Vitriol Within The Country Responsible For The DC Shootings?
- Thread starter esmith
- Start date
leibowde84
Veteran Member
This I agree with. What Kathy Griffin did, especially, was out of line.
This couldn't be further from the truth. Trump himself condoned violence publicly during the campaign. He also made trolling acceptable in national politics, continues to insult people's physical appearance and has spread false accusations and claims without any justification or substantiation. When the President does such things, it is far more dangerous than anyone else doing it.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
I searched for "violence alt-right" and got 6,230,000 results. I did the same for "violence alt-right" and got 1,690,000. Not that it means anything, but it seems like you lose.
leibowde84
Veteran Member
Since it is abundantly clear that the vitriol is coming from both sides on social media fairly equally, and the vast majority of people on both sides are not violent. I don't think the vitriol in social media is responsible for violence. I think it is more reasonable to just look to our elected officials, especially the guy who used vitriol in his campaign rhetoric, fed off of it, and continues to use personal insults, hatred and an inability to control himself as a weapon ... our current President.
esmith
Veteran Member
Not necessarily. First who are the alt-right and alt-left (by the way I'm fairly positive you didn't proof read your post....)
I really do not believe that there are that many alt-right or alt-left so lets just look at violence of the right and left
right 212,000,000 hits
left 144,000,000 hits
but what is disturbing is a report like the following
Terrorism experts say GOP shooting highlights disturbing rise in left-wing violence
and oh by the way the Miami Herald is rated somewhat liberal but reporting factual information is hight
Miami Herald
Jeremiahcp
Well-Known Jerk
You need to learn how to read.
esmith
Veteran Member
Jeremiahcp
Well-Known Jerk
@esmith you drawing parallels between this propaganda and your "vitriol" is not real evidence. It does not prove your point and as I pointed out it is a straw man argument; also the link you provided was not based on a real study (I looked at the "study").
I don't care about your news articles that are littered with ads and I don't care about your subjective parallels. Show me a real academic study proving your "vitriol" (not something else) causes an increase in violence. Furthermore account for the difference between people who are violent and those who are not. If it truly causes violence in people, then why not everyone?
However, I can tell you right now there are no valid scientific studies that will prove your "vitriol" as a cause of the violent behavior since it is not something that can be randomly assigned (you need RA to establish cause), and the massive difference between the non-violent and the violent will always raise the issue of confounding variables. What causes one person (or even a few people) to react with violence while the majority does not? Likely there is something else going on with that one person.
I don't care about your news articles that are littered with ads and I don't care about your subjective parallels. Show me a real academic study proving your "vitriol" (not something else) causes an increase in violence. Furthermore account for the difference between people who are violent and those who are not. If it truly causes violence in people, then why not everyone?
However, I can tell you right now there are no valid scientific studies that will prove your "vitriol" as a cause of the violent behavior since it is not something that can be randomly assigned (you need RA to establish cause), and the massive difference between the non-violent and the violent will always raise the issue of confounding variables. What causes one person (or even a few people) to react with violence while the majority does not? Likely there is something else going on with that one person.
esmith
Veteran Member
So you don't believe the Obama....shame on a you.
In addition I think you are so hidebound that you will not accept anything that you have argued for and will use any excuse to disregard it. As far as your valid scientific studies........
The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research
In addition it is impossible to do research on dead perpetrators and the last time I checked most of them are dead.
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I saw that but pointed out more recent violence not politically motivated. If you pick and choose the stories you'll find vitriol. Americans riot for everything, not just about politicians.
esmith
Veteran Member
This does not preclude the possibility that political vitriol can lead to more aggressive and violent actions. Again I reference the ongoing events by ISIS inspired propaganda. Do you dismiss this as one of our forum members seems to do.
What does ISIS have to do with the DC shooting?
Jeremiahcp
Well-Known Jerk
What the heck does Obama have to do with this? It is depressing how you want to turn the shooting into something political to push your point of view. It is actually a bit disgusting.
"In addition I think you are so hidebound that you will not accept anything that you have argued for and will use any excuse to disregard it."
If I had the same low standards you have then there is no way I would be able to get my masters.
Btw, your study is not focused on your "vitriol" it is focused on violence: "exposure to violence in television, movies, video games, cell phones, and on the internet."
You don't seem to get what the straw-man fallacy is, as this is nothing but another straw-man. A valid academic study is only valid for addressing the intended hypothesis, anything else is what we call "data snooping." Just like your silliness with the ISIS propaganda, this does not prove that your "vitriol" causes violent behavior, because that is not topic of the study. This is another straw-man fallacy.
It is also kind of a crappy study, it is a meta study that leaves out a lot of details, surely, in respects to exposure to violence, there are there better studies out there.
Also, you have still yet to address the point brought up repeatedly that if your "vitriol" does cause violent human behavior then why is such a small proportion of the population effected in such a way?
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Augustus
…
Do you know the history of Caesar?
If you do can you explain how it could possibly be interpreted as saying political assassination is a good thing to protect democracy?
Tl;dr instead of saving the Republic, most of them die and Caesar's adopted son becomes the all powerful, deified Emperor Augustus Caesar.
So unless liberals want Jared Kushner to become a God king, the message might not be what your inane echo chamber has told you it is.
esmith
Veteran Member
Probably because a very very small percentage of people actually go beyond just "talking". We know that Hodgkinson was probably mentally unstable, but since he did not undergo evaluation we will never know for sure. We also know that he was vehemently opposed to President Trump and Republicans. We also know that there are thousand of people that have the same animosity that he had. What we don't know and never will know is what finally drove him to commit the act that he committed. Can we say that it was positively the political rhetoric that finely drove him to act? The answer is no. But we can not dismiss the possibility that the political rhetoric was a contributing factor. We do have concrete evidence that people can be "brainwashed" into committing acts that they would not normally do. For example the Manson Family, the Jones cult. So you can not rule out that Hodgkinson was influenced by political rhetoic and eventually reached his own personal conclusion that something had to be done. Why else would he do it? Well we will never know. But can we continue to ratchet up the political rhetoic without considering the consequences.
I have used as an example the audiovisual strategy of ISIS on social media that contributes to the radicalization process of a terrorist. This strategy is working. Is their audiovisual strategy the same as the political rhetoic? No, but it shows that by using audiovisual strategy that people can be influenced to commit acts of terror. So nothing says that a person who is already highly agitated about political issues can not be influenced to a point that they become "unhinged".
Fight against ISIS reveals power of social media | Brookings Institution
House Homeland Security PDF File
Yes we know media can do this. I couldn't say it would stir up violence. Hodjkinsons was on the Sanders campaign, surly right radical wing would think he came from Killary's camp.
ImmortalFlame
Woke gremlin
Well, this is one of the silliest threads I've ever read... Good luck, guys!
I think it should go without saying that anyone willing to plan shootings over speech already has issues.