Friday Reads: WTF is Wrong with this Country?

“The idolization of Charlie Kirk is gross.” John Buss, re@peat1968

Good Day, Sky Dancers!

I have to admit that when I first read my undergrad psychology textbook, and when we hit the unit on personality disorders, I really had never heard the term “sociopath”.  I read it and recognized my father-in-law right there in the definition.

When Doctor Daughter had her rotation and classes in psych, she was told by her professor that the perfect example of a narcissist was good ol’ Yam Tits. Evidently, the “reality show” he had at the time–which I never bothered to watch–was chock-full of examples good enough for med students to use as examples for diagnosis. This day and age I get to experience all that human toxicity constantly.

When I was getting my teaching certificate in the 1970s, we were part of the first generation of teachers who had to know all kinds of disabilities and emotional and mental issues so we could identify students with possible issues and suggest they see the school psychologists. We had the duty to report any signs of abuse, also. That’s the point at which I started working more diligently towards my terminal degree. Little did I know that the same problems invaded all levels of education.

There was a shooter recently in the library at the campus where I taught for years. Just yesterday, there were lockdowns and shooter alerts at many campuses, including all historically Black colleges, the Naval Academy, and UMass Boston. That includes Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where evidently one sociopath took out another.  The AP reports, “A list of all deadly shootings on college campuses in the USA.”  Thankfully, several of the ones yesterday–specifically UMass Boston and the Naval Academy–were false alarms. The shooting at a high school in Colorado was real and has been conveniently ignored by the majority of the media.  The one at FSU yesterday was real and deadly.

The latest deadly shooting on a college campus in the U.S. unfolded Thursday at Florida State University, where two people were killed and at least six others were wounded.

Frightened students, faculty and parents there for a tour took cover and waited in classrooms, offices and dorms across the university in Tallahassee after it issued an active shooter alert. Some crammed into a freight elevator after hearing gunshots outside the student union.

The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect’s mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon.

The gunman, believed to be a student at the university, was shot and wounded by officers and was taken into custody, according to authorities. The two people who died were not students.

Florida State’s main library was the site of another shooting in 2014, when a 31-year-old gunman wounded three people before he was shot and killed by police.

Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, although rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school.

It was only natural that one sociopath with a gun would eventually shoot another sociopath who viciously spread hate throughout the internet and the country. Here are some of Charlie Kirk’s “Greatest Hits.” He basically hated everyone who wasn’t a cis White Christian Male in the mode of his form of Christianity. There are two historical concepts of historical justice that come to mind.  The first one is Karma. The second is “You reap what you sow.”  The third one is a morphed version of an older one. “Live by the gun, die by the gun.” Of course, I support free speech. Of course, I abhor gun violence and all kinds of killing.

It doesn’t take much in the way of brains, though, to determine that when you basically dare the world to argue with your hate speech, you’re going to attract some unwanted attention. It’s kind of like the old male stereotype that if you wear provocative clothing and show up in the wrong place, you deserve to be raped.  If a lot of sick men believe this about women, then a lot of sick men are going to be violent in the face of taunting, also. There are a lot of lone white male shooters out there just willing to go on a hunt. Charlie Boy enabled them with weapons and hate speech.

Here are some of Charlie Boy’s greatest hits. There are many more. I’m also pretty sure that I wonder if a little girl is better off under a father who tells her she should be a slave to a husband and would force her to carry the product of a rape to term at 10 years old.

The victims of mass shootings in this country–including children and the elderly worshipping in their holy place–basically become numbers unless their grief-stricken relatives force us to remember them by asking the media and the public to listen to their stories and the acts of violence that ended their lives.  Why aren’t they victims of political assassination whose ends are covered relentlessly on the internet and TV? What about the details of the other folks this week who lost their lives to gun violence?  I found this article on The Verge that contains a lot of good questions as we investigate Charlie Boy’s shooter, whose own family turned him in.

The fatal shooting of Kirk on Wednesday led to an intense manhunt across Utah, though it encountered numerous complications along the way. Several leads, publicly teased by FBI Director Kash Patel, quickly petered out. Leaked documents from law enforcement published by MAGA influencers led to false narratives about how markings on the bullet indicated that the shooter was in favor of “transgender ideology.”

It was nearly impossible to divorce politics and internet misinformation from Kirk’s death, however. The 31-year-old was a powerful figure in the MAGA movement, as the founder and leader of the right-wing college group Turning Point USA, and a prominent podcaster and MAGA influencer himself, famous for appearing on college campuses to confront liberal students. President Donald Trump credited Kirk and TPUSA as a factor in his return to office, and frequently relied on him as an emissary to youth voters.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s death, his allies in the MAGA movement, including lawmakers and influencers, promised swift retribution against the left should the killer share their ideology. The themes of Helldivers 2 could have an ideological meaning, albeit not necessarily a straightforward one. But ultimately, the messages on the shooter’s bullet casings can best be described as bizarre and extremely online.

The writings on the bullet were  clever, cruel, and spot on.

It’s not hard to see where the “antifascist” conclusion came from on two of the other bullets: “Bella ciao” is an Italian song adopted by partisans and resistance fighters while Italy was governed by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Cox said in response to a question during the conference that the “hey fascist” message “speaks for itself.” Three downward-slanting arrows are a symbol used by both historical and contemporary antifascists.

But the full arrow sequence was quickly recognized as something else: a combo from Helldivers 2 for calling the Eagle 500kg Bomb stratagem. The world of Helldivers — which evokes Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers and the subsequent movie — concerns fascism thematically; developer Arrowhead has characterized it as a satire where players fight for a fascist state.

As for the use of “Bella ciao,” the song has no obvious connection but given its historical significance, unsurprisingly does appear in a Helldivers 2 mod, as well as in at least one other video game, a World War II-themed strategy game called Hearts of Iron IV.

There is no doubt that Charlie Boy was a fascist. He’s left a trail that would reach the sun.  However, we do have free speech; fascists can speak as they wish. But what happens when that talk reaches into vile hate speech and suggests things like “Gay people should be stoned to death”?  We need to have a huge conversation on the fine line between exercising your right to free speech and making suggestions that crazy white men with guns will act on.

This is my very short post today with its very short questions. While this shooter used a slightly modified long gun typically used for hunting, do we really need military style weapons floating around a society where we can identify so many personality disorders and severe mental illnesses?   Germany has basically outlawed anything NAZI-related.  If that’s going too far, what’s the point at which we hold public figures accountable for out-and-out hate speech and suggestions that might provoke action? Also, shouldn’t there be some point at which giving a Presidential Medal of Honor to someone who dedicated their career to hate speech should be universally condemned? When is saying don’t speak ill of the dead too passive?  Can we celebrate the death of Hitler while ignoring the fact that NAZIs are among us?  What happened to the only good NAZI is a dead NAZI? Is that just rhetoric or going to far?  I sure wouldn’t shoot aNAZI even though my father bombed them, but I sure would spit in their face and then meditate on the nature of karma.

My fellow Americans, we need to have a good, long talk and stop all this fawning over your basic bully and start discussing how the fuck we’ve lost our way so badly.

Don’t forget we have a Department of War now. Don’t forget the mission of ICE now. We’re in this deep and for some time. My guitar and I gently weep.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?