In the wake of recent dreadful events, Daniel decided to talk to Jack about the ideology of mass shootings, especially with reference to the 'Might is Right' tract cited by one of the killers.

Content warnings.

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Show Notes:

"Might is Right" at RationalWiki: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Might_is_Right

"Might Is Right" full text at the Internet Archive: https://archive.org/details/cu31924029107907/page/n3

"Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting," at Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilroy_Garlic_Festival_shooting

Santino William Legan: Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooter's Instagram Page: "https://heavy.com/news/2019/07/santino-william-legan-gilroy-shooters-instagram/"

"“Read ‘Might Is Right’ by Ragnar Redbeard,” Legan wrote. His caption further asked rhetorically, “Why overcrowd towns and pave more open space to make room for hordes of mestizos and Silicon Valley white twats?”"

*

From Might Is Right, Chapter Three:

"You have only to look at some men, to know that they belong to an inferior breed. Take the Negro for example. His narrow cranial developittent, his prognathous jaw, his projecting lips, his wide nasal aperture, his simian disposition, his want of forethought, originality, and mental capacity: are all peculiarities strictly inferior. Similar language may be applied to the Chinaman, the Coolie, the Kanaka, the Jew, and to the rotten-boned city degenerates of Anglo- Saxondom: rich and poor. Vile indeed are the inhabitants of those noxious cattle kraals: London, Liverpool, New York, Chicago, New Orleans: and yet, in those places is heaped up, the golden plunder of the world.

[...]

"No one can study the laborers on a farm, the 'hands' in a big foundry or factory, the seamen in a large seaport, the nomadic hirelings on a railroad construction gang: or the clerks and salesmen in a city warehouse, without perceiving at a glance, that the vast majority of them are extremely poor specimens of humanity.

The ideal type of manhood or womanhood, (that is to say, 'Ye Thoroughbred") is not to be found among these captive hordes — for captives they really are. Their heads are, to a large extent unsymeterical- their features distorted, ape-like, unintelligent. Their bodies are out of all proportion, dwarfed, stunted, diseased, malformed, cretinous.

Their movements are contracted, artificial, ungainly, and their minds (outside of routine) are utter vacuums."

*

"What We Know About the Gilroy Garlic Festival Shooting Suspect." https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-07-29/what-we-know-about-gilroy-garlic-festival-shooting-suspect-santino-william-legan

"No clarity yet on motive behind Gilroy gunman's attack, investigators say," https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/30/gilroy-garlic-festival-shooting-california-white-supremacy-links

"The FBI is continuing to investigate if the alleged shooter “was in line with any particular ideology”, Craig Fair, a deputy special agent in charge with the FBI in San Francisco, said on Tuesday, including by reviewing social media accounts, digital media, conducting interviews and investigating what thoughts and ideas the shooter may have shared with others. He also did not confirm whether the widely-publicized Instagram account was linked to the shooter."

"'Erroneous reporting' on Garlic Festival shooting suspect's ideology: FBI" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/erroneous-reporting-garlic-festival-shooting-suspects-ideology-fbi/story?id=64706955

""I can tell you there has been no determination on ideology. There's reports out there has been information found and books referenced on that, we are not in a position at this stage of the investigation to make a call on ideology," John Bennett told reporters on Wednesday.

"The information that's out there, it's being reported that there's white nationalism or any type of those ideologies," Special Agent John Bennett, said. "That has not been determined and I wanted to knock that down."

Bennett said that through the course of the investigation they are finding literature from "left to right" and said they can't put the suspect, 19-year-old Santio Legan, in an ideological "box."

He wouldn't characterize the literature as extreme, either."

*

"Radical: The Story of Arthur Desmond" (article and podcast): https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/black-sheep/story/201859191/radical-the-story-of-arthur-desmond

"However, he alienated the settler community with his support for the former Māori guerrilla leader and founder of the Ringatu church, Te Kooti. When public meetings were held to protest a planned trip by Te Kooti to Gisborne, Desmond was the only Pākehā who raised his voice in support.

“It was a very brave thing to do,” says Mark Derby. “He was bodily thrown out of the meetings and even beaten up, but it didn’t stop him from taking this stance.”

However, Derby doesn’t think Desmond’s support for Te Kooti was rooted in heartfelt sympathy for the plight of Māori. Instead, he says it was linked to Te Kooti’s violent past as a guerrilla leader.

“He liked Te Kooti’s style. He admired the idea of a very strong and even ruthless leader who was prepared to go to any lengths, including extreme violence. [Desmond’s] whole career and all his political writings were based on an admiration and exultation of such figures.”

[...]

"On war he wrote:

“The natural world is a world of war; the natural man is a warrior; the natural law is tooth and claw. All else is error.”

On Jesus Christ:

“... the prophet of unreason — the preacher of rabble-rabies. All that is enervating and destructive of manhood, he glorifies, — all that is self-reliant and heroic, he denounces.”

On the American Declaration of Independence:

“Its ethical and most of its political conclusions are shams, deceptions, and cold-blooded dishonesties — incandescent Lies.”

On women:

“Women and children BELONG to man; who must hunt for them as well as for himself. He is their lord and master, in theory and in fact.”

On race:

“The African, Mongolian, Semite, or Negro breeds are all fundamentally different in formation, constituents, and character; from men of Aryan descent. … Some men ARE born better, born nobler, born braver than others.”"

*

Robert Evans, "The EL Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror" https://www.bellingcat.com/news/americas/2019/08/04/the-el-paso-shooting-and-the-gamification-of-terror/

"This poster and several others lambasted the shooter for his “shitty” and “0 effort manifesto”. There is nothing new in this killer’s ramblings. He expresses fears of the same “replacement” of white people that motivated the Christchurch shooter, and notes that he was deeply motivated by that shooter’s manifesto. In the article I wrote after the Poway Synagogue shooting I noted that 8channers had dedicated a great deal of time to spreading that manifesto, in an effort to inspire more shooters. The El Paso shooting is further proof that this strategy works.

[...]

"What we see here is evidence of the only real innovation 8chan has brought to global terrorism: the gamification of mass violence. We see this not just in the references to “high scores”, but in the very way the Christchurch shooting was carried out. Brenton Tarrant livestreamed his massacre from a helmet cam in a way that made the shooting look almost exactly like a First Person Shooter video game. This was a conscious choice, as was his decision to pick a sound-track for the spree that would entertain and inspire his viewers.

[...]

"In the wake of the Christchurch shooting I published my first Bellingcat article about 8chan. I was interviewed by numerous media agencies about the website, and I warned all of them that additional attacks would follow – every month or two – until something was done. This prediction has proven accurate. Until law enforcement, and the media, treat these shooters as part of a terrorist movement no less organized, or deadly, than ISIS or Al Qaeda, the violence will continue. There will be more killers, more gleeful celebration of body counts on 8chan, and more bloody attempts to beat the last killer’s “high score”."

ContraPoints: "Incels." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD2briZ6fB0