Political and Social Climate of Mass Alienation of Young Men in America is Getting People Killed

There was a mass shooting that they are going to blame all white people for.

CNN:

Ten people were killed in a racially motivated mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo on Saturday by a suspect in tactical gear who was livestreaming the attack, law enforcement officials said during a news conference.

The shooting occurred Saturday afternoon at a Tops Friendly Markets store. The suspect in the shooting, a White male, is in custody, police said. He was identified as Payton Gendron, 18, and pleaded not guilty to the first degree murder charge brought against him in court Saturday night, Buffalo City Court Chief Judge Craig Hannah tells CNN.

Thirteen were shot in the attack and 10 have died. Of those shot, 11 were Black and two were White, officials said. Two people remain hospitalized in stable condition, a spokesperson for Erie County Medical Center told CNN.

The US Department of Justice is investigating the mass shooting “as a hate crime and an act of racially-motivated violent extremism,” according to a statement from US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“The Justice Department is committed to conducting a thorough and expeditious investigation into this shooting and to seeking justice for these innocent victims,” the statement said.

The FBI is assisting in the investigation, Stephen Belongia, special agent in charge of the FBI Buffalo field office, said at the news conference.

The suspect drove to Buffalo to the Tops market heavily armed, wearing tactical gear, and had a camera where he was livestreaming what he was doing, said Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia.

Investigators are reviewing a purported manifesto posted online in connection with the mass shooting, two federal law enforcement officials told CNN.

It appears to have definitely been “racially motivated.” The manifesto mentions /pol/ and so on. So of course, they are going to blame all white people for this forever, they’re going to blame the internet, and call for even more mass censorship. They’re going to blame Donald Trump. I assume they will also blame Russia.

What they will not do is ask the most obvious question of all: what would lead an 18-year-old man with his entire life ahead of him to throw away his life in such a meaningless act?

I think we all understand at this point that these shootings never result in anything good. We’ve seen it over and over again: all it does is allow the media to further demonize white people, while also causing people who are sympathetic to nationalistic politics to step away. No one is sympathetic with people who kill random people.

Based on the manifesto, the shooter doesn’t appear to have been stupid, and anyone who is not stupid is able to work out the cost-benefit analysis of these shootings. There is no benefit to speak of, and the costs, both to the individual and to right-wing politics, are extreme.

Ultimately, the only person who can actually be blamed for a mass shooting is the guy who did it. But of course, we live in a society, and all people are products of their society, so there is good reason to analyze what puts a teenager into a mind space where they think doing something so destructive is a good idea.

The most obvious and most important societal cause is political censorship. It has been understood since the printing press, mass literacy, and the subsequent political enfranchisement of the masses of people that political engagement is the only way to avoid political violence. What has happened over the last 5 years is a program of total censorship of American people who disagree with the government. This is total political disenfranchisement of the entire society. If you are only free to agree with the establishment, then you do not have free political speech (even if you do agree with the government).

When people are not allowed to express themselves and engage with society with words, some of those people will engage in violence. The various shootings that have been blamed on “white supremacy” have all happened after the US began its mass censorship campaign. Obviously, political censorship doesn’t justify shooting a bunch of random people. Individuals must be held responsible for their actions. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t say “if this person wasn’t censored, they would not have done this shooting.” The media is blaming internet speech, when this is literally the opposite of the truth.

It is obvious on its face that censoring people makes them feel completely helpless to peacefully oppose things that they view as injustices. Some portion of people are going to lash out in response to this. But somehow, the media and government not only refuse to talk about the well-established fact that political censorship leads to politicized violence, but actually claim this is a reason for more censorship. It just shows that the people in charge have zero interest in actually addressing violence. They feed on these things, because they get power from it. So people responding to censorship by doing ridiculous acts of violence is a feature, not a bug.

The other big factor here is the alienation we have in this society. The collapse of the family, and the end of meaningful work, has left men with no future, which means some of them feel that by throwing their lives away, they’re not really throwing anything away. They feel they don’t have anything to throw away.

Feminism, which is at the root of the end of healthy families, has led to an extreme estrangement of white men. Obviously, if this man had had a wife and a baby on the way, he would not have shot up the supermarket. But very few young American men have a wife and kids, or the prospect of ever having a wife and kids. If you also come from a broken home, having been raised by a single mother, it’s hard to have any connection to anything human at all.

Certainly, you can’t just shoot random people. Without dismissing his actions, however, I think it is possible to view the shooter himself as a victim of society. He didn’t benefit from this. His life is completely destroyed, and he will likely die in prison. He made a bad decision, but this decision was made under the duress of being born into a society that has treated him as worthless garbage. He is systematically blocked from being able to marry and form a family, he is told he is evil for being white, he is prevented from airing these grievances in a peaceful way, and told to just shut up and take it. You back people into a corner like this, and some people are going to lash out in destructive ways.

When something like this happens, it should be a time for reflection on what exactly is happening in our society that creates this kind of desperation in certain men. We should be having a serious conversation about root causes of political and personal alienation among young white men, but instead the media uses these kinds of events as a battering ram against the American population.

Meanwhile, there is a black mass shooter on the loose in Texas who is targeting Asians by rushing their businesses and opening fire on random people with a semi-automatic rifle. This has barely been mentioned in the national media.