OPINION
Ann Coulter formulated her famous Law of Mass Shootings: The longer we go without being told the race of the shooter, the less likely it is to be a white male. It holds up pretty well, although it needs an addendum: The time it takes for a shooting to drop from the news cycle is dictated by whether the shooter is a white male.
After all, the media are still shrieking about Dylann Roof and Adam Lanza (of Sandy Hook infamy). The transgender Nashville shooter has not only all-but vanished from the news cycle, but the media are even breaking their otherwise iron rule, and ‘dead naming’ the mass killer. The Kansas City shooting was memory-holed almost the instant it was finally admitted that it was a drearily typical shoot-down between young black men.
So far, no doubt, readers are nodding along. Typical left-media morons! Well, here’s where I’m going to tick a few of you off:
Pay attention to the beam in your own eyes. Think the right, even the supposedly centre-right, are immune to such tribal thinking? Think again.
When a man ran amok with a knife in Bondi a few weeks ago, I’m sure I’m not the only one who suspected an antisemitic, jihadist attack. After all, Bondi is Sydney’s Jewish enclave. But it wasn’t. Consequently, the Bondi attack has all but vanished from right consciousness, especially in contrast to the very-much jihadist stabbing attack in a Sydney church a few days later.
Am I guilty of this? Perhaps – I’ve written a few posts since on the church attack and little about Bondi. Of course, the church attack was, whatever Sydney’s Muslims may protest, a bona fide terror attack. Bondi was, indeed, a schiz off his meds with no ideological motivation, just a general hate-boner for women. (Predictably, I’d also point out, the Australian left has seized on Bondi as proof of a vast, patriarchal ‘epidemic’ of violence against women, and wiped the church attack from its consciousness.)
But then came the London sword rampage. Almost immediately, some were shouting, “jihadi!” Perhaps, again, not unreasonable: it’s far from the first time a jihadi has run amok with a blade in London. But, from the start, I wasn’t so sure: most tellingly, the suspect was wielding a katana – not exactly a favoured weapon for the Mohammedans. It was later alleged that the suspect, Brazilian Marcus Aurelio Arduini Monzo (not exactly the most Islamic name around), shouted, “Do you believe in God?”
The right’s own blindspot also extends to free speech issues.
In a column last December, I pointed out that whenever some schizo shoots up a place, and it’s revealed that he left a trail of “red flags” behind, rightists indignantly say, “Hmmph, why wasn’t the FBI on top of that? The crooked politicized FBI is so busy harassing Trump and the J6 peaceful protesters, they neglect their actual job, which is to keep us safe from violent criminals.”
And remember what I said? You guys would never tolerate the FBI proactively policing the words of potential mass shooters. You’d see it as an attack on freedom.
This situational attitude to free speech is not, it must be said, a right-only tribalism. The left have been just as guilty of championing curtailing free speech – and screeching like banshees when the dogs they set loose turn on them.
But a particularly egregious example of the right’s tribalism landed recently.
A few weeks ago a video went viral on rightist Twitter (which I miss less and less every day) showing the FBI paying a visit to a woman’s house to ask a few questions about her Facebook posts. With zero information to go on, some of the largest-following rightists on Twitter – Richard Grenell, Alex Jones, Libs of TikTok, Robby Starbuck – decided (again, with no evidence) that the woman’s “crime” was posting “fuck Joe Biden.”
You’ll never guess what happened next!
Soon enough it emerged that the woman in question was Egyptian-American Muslim Rolla Abdeljawad of Stillwater, Oklahoma (Rolla from now on, ’cause I ain’t typing Abdebabdejaballywad again). While the exact reason for the FBI visit was not revealed, the Twitter account StopAntisemitism tweeted screenshots from Rolla’s Facebook in which she demands “nazizionist scalps” and wishes death on US troops. The site BareNakedIslam found posts promoting “physical jihad” […]
In one Facebook post the sleuths missed, Rolla, who boasts that she’s drawn many FB bans since October 7th, proudly refers to herself as a terrorist: “Now, if you want to call me a terrorist, know I have no problem with being your personal terrorist. Come to mama & I’ll show you terrorist.”
So, that’s a post Facebook didn’t ban. What was she saying in all the posts she bragged that they’d taken down?
It was probably one of those banned posts that was reported to the FBI, which was likely doing exactly what rightists claim they want it to do: checking on potential threats to public safety […]
The FBI didn’t proactively investigate a shooter who posted something foreboding on social media: “You corrupt politicized bastards – why didn’t you interview that person before they killed?”
The FBI does proactively investigate a self-described terrorist who posted something foreboding on social media: “You corrupt politicized bastards – you’re trampling free speech!”
Takimag
Here we get to the heart of the matter: where does free speech end and incitement begin? That’s a difficult one.
But it’s not made any easier by refusing to admit to our own blind spots.