re: #100 boxhead

…. So is the tea bagging right wing media acting just like an extremist Madrasah? Are people getting so worked up that horrific events such as this will become more frequent due to people walking around on the edge?

Those are questions that probably could be rephrased.

The objection some have to Gus’s Page appears to be that we’ll all just end up in the logical fallacy:

A: DeKraii is a mass murderer
B: DeKraii is a Tea Party supporter
Therefore: All Tea Party supporters are mass murderers

I don’t think Gus (or Charles, who promoted the Page to the front) are trying to make that case.

Rather, what we are seeing in our nation today, October 2011, is that the “Tea Party” has been so mainstreamed that one of the two major political parties is having to have all it’s Presidential candidates pander to the Tea Partiers’ demands, and that the MSM and pollsters are now assuming that the “Tea Party” is worthy of serious contention and given the TP legitimacy.

I would argue that the case of DeKraii (if indeed it is confirmed that he is a member/advocate/supporter of Tea Partyism), and the other cases we’ve seen over the past couple of years, gives us important indications of what really drives and gives rise to Tea Partiers - unresolved angst and inability to work out their problems in the ways society allows.

The powerful and rich who manipulate the “Tea Party” big events and astroturfing systems make hay out of having people who are acting irrational (not in their own best self-interest.)

The TP attracts people like DeKraii because the TP outlets allow (even encourage) angry, violent, and marginalized people to use the TP hate-feasts as a catharsis.

Do I believe this type of exploitation of the angry, marginalized male then leads to an increase in violence? Well, it might, but that would have to be proven by empirical data and I don’t know of anyone who has done a legitimate study on this.

I will note that it has been known for a long time, and shown over and over, that people imitate those around them - we even have a term for it: to ape (heh, we’re monkeys deep down…)

On an anecdotal note: when I returned to the US after living in Japan for a few years my re-acclimatization to American culture included becoming, once again, more cautious about where I go during the day, to being prepared for the forwardness of Americans to approach one in an aggressive manner, and violence all around us.

I suspect that many people here who brush off the problem of violence in America, and guns, have just become desensitized to how violent and aggressive we are. Which is exactly why the Tea Partying GOP cheers Perry when he executes the innocent, and why (see the Pages) a legislator in FL wants to bring back firing squads and electrocution.