Politically correct epistemic closure counterattacks Boston Marathon bombing reality
In other words, it’s not them, it’s us.
Beginning Monday there had been a non-stop attempt to pin the blame for the Boston Marathon bombing on the “right wing” and Tea Party.
It wasn’t so much an argument based on facts as a hope based on politics, most clearly by David Sirota at Salon.com, but he was far from alone, Add Boston Marathon Bombing to pile of Failed Eliminationist Narratives.
Reality smashed those hopes in the face.
As it became indisputable that the perpetrators were Chechen Muslims who expressed support for Jihad and al-Qaeda (although the full extent of their connections is not known), the narrative shifted.
Now the emerging narrative is that these killers were not part of a vast foreign conspiracy but isolated “lone wolves” who became disenchanted with American society, who were not fully integrated into society, who were unhappy with their lives here and thus became radicalized.
It’s a straw man framing of the issue, because the choice is not between a highly integrated international conspiracy and some solo brother team who didn’t know nothin’ about nobody.
Maybe it’s somewhere in between. Framing the issue this way shifts the focus to American society, how the brothers’ became alienated by us, by our actions, how we need to look in the mirror not at jihadism:
If only we had been nicer, none of this would have happened.
In other words, it’s not them, it’s us. They were radicalized here, by us. Even if they don’t come right out and say it, that’s the implication.
Which would mean likely radicalized here MT @mmurraypolitics: Brothers would have been 9 to 16 at time of entry
— Sally Kohn (@sallykohn) April 19, 2013
We’re also seeing a full-blown attempt to excuse away the Jihad angle to the story. This was foreseeable:
And it’s being revealed in story after story:
Beyond parody: "Islam Might Have Had Secondary Role in Boston Attacks." http://t.co/yWeb2Ery2U
— James Taranto (@jamestaranto) April 21, 2013
The motives, so mysterious and unknown?
To his credit, Adam Serwer, now at Mother Jones, reported reality:
Dead Boston suspect’s YouTube page contained video on prophecy associated with Al Qaeda motherjones.com/mojo/2013/04/b…
— AdamSerwer (@AdamSerwer) April 19, 2013
The politicians are on board:
We can never know, can we, when there is epistemic closure.
If posting Jihadi videos on YouTube is not enough of a clue, what will be enough?
Update — Not surprisingly Think Progress puts the “Islamophobia” label on Peter King and Republicans even though Diane Feinstein didn’t use that term and King did not express hatred of Muslims:
Expect more of this.
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Comments
Good point about the false choice between conspirators and lone wolves. To add to your case, the lone wolf narrative obscures the fact that global jihadis see this as a victory and as encouragement for similar attacks, just as the number of terrorist incidents spiked after 9/11. These dirtbags made themselves martyrs to the cause.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a Caucasian (from the Caucus Mountains) hated Dr. Martin Luther King Jr? Quick call the race detectives Charles Johnson, Chris Matthews and David Sirota!
On Fox Sunday with Chris Wallace, the gov’t “counterterrorism expert” says the Boston bomber brothers were a closed circle unto only themselves … they’re like the Columbine killers.
This expert knows this because he’s “…been working in counterterrorism for 20 years.” On what planet?!!
Contrast that stement to this headline …
Owners of ‘Terrorista #1’ BMW taken into custody over Boston bombings AGAIN: Feds arrest two men ‘who were friends with suspect for immigration violation’.
So these lone wolves had at least one friend who had a license plate proclaiming ‘Terrorista #1’. Coincidence, bad timing, poor sense of humour ?
Inside the car was a receipt from a Ralph Lauren store, a pair of Ray Ban sunglasses, a receipt from a shipping company, a prescription, lots of crushed water bottles and a number of parking tickets.
These two should have been arrest merely for their outrageous “carbon footprint.”
Lone wolves who were checked out after a tip (by the Russians), a radical YouTube channel supporting jihad, and recent trips to Chechnya. Hmmm.
<a href="http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/2013/04/were-brothers-tsarnaev-double-agents.html"How much of this is true?
That expert must be an out of work GOP consultant.
I saw a post yesterday wondering if Deval Patrick was the second coming of Barack Obama. The only similarity is that they both appear to be of African origin.
Leftist propaganda, right on track.
Or were they radicalized here — in Cambridge, that is? At that high school which is, all their classmates obsessively proclaimed, “the most diverse high school in America”? I imagine that some of the lessons they learned there rivalled even the most extremist Imam in terms of anti-American sentiments.
Cambridge is a sanctuary city too — in other words, it is their official policy to deem themselves both superior to and victimized by the less enlightened parts of the country.
So this is the culture the terrorists basted in as adolescents and young men: blame America, America the racist, etc. The rap poses and terrorista license plates say it all.
Some of the people peddling such messages must be very afraid right now that all their talk about diversity and coexistence failed to inoculate them from the terrorists’ rage. The brothers didn’t differentiate between the good, enlightened Cambridgers and the flyover Red States, where the enemy lives.
I am refering here to the pundits and newspaper writers, not the runners and spectators, of course.
That’s my theory as well. The recipe is that you get 2 immigrants from a culture that hates the US. Steep them for a few years in a leftist east cost culture that hates the US. Add a dash of OWS and the media that defends them. Top it with spurious claims of “racism”. And you end up with someone who really hates the US. Is there a big surprise?
Someone like Matt Damon is just missing the Chechnyan ingredient, or he might have ended up as a bomber too.
They don’t want to be shown wrong — no matter who’s life it destroys, even their own childrens’.
Quite a crowd, these pathetic, morally bankrupt, weasels.We need to treat them as such. Giving them the respect of ‘journalist’ instead of ‘useful idiot,’ or ‘propagandist,’ is as pathetic as dwelling on what they say moreso than failing to take the true message to the unenlightened (as Prof. Jacobson is doing with College Insurrection).
“Which would mean likely radicalized here MT @mmurraypolitics: Brothers would have been 9 to 16 at time of entry”
Reported item:
SHOCK: Cops handcuffing Tamerlan when Dzhokhar drove over him…http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312207/Did-younger-bomber-KILL-brother-running-Police-chiefs-dramatic-account-firefight-reveals-suspect-alive-hit-siblings-car.html via Drudge.
Uhh, Sally Kohn, guess that’s the age(s) that the younger Tsranaev, was learning how to drive, huh OR, he really didn’t like his brother.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312470/Tamerlan-Tsarnaev-Boston-bomber-thrown-mosque-raged-filled-rant-Martin-Luther-King.html
Clearly, Tamerlan was a ‘crazy” Muslim … but he deserved to be run over by Dzhokhar, who obviously had come to his senses, for bad mouthing an outstanding brother, who happens to have a federal holiday named after him.
Incidents like this are going to continue to happen here as long as we continue to pretend that Islam is just a religion. Islam is a legal, economic, and governmental system, and it is one that is completely incompatible with our own.
How do we successfully “integrate” or “assimilate” Muslims into a society that believes that church and state should be separate, that women should have the same rights as men, that homosexuals should have the same rights as heterosexuals, that banks should be free to charge interest on loans, etc.?
Muslims believe that church and state should be one and the same, that women are lesser beings than men, that homosexuals should be executed, that charging interest on loans should be prohibited, that alcohol should be prohibited, etc.
So how do we integrate or assimilate foreigners whose beliefs in how government and commerce should operate are so radically different from our own? Also, given the Muslim belief that lying is perfectly acceptable when it’s done in service of their religious beliefs, how seriously can we take a Muslim’s oath when they get sworn in as U.S. citizens, or when they testify in U.S. courts?
Muslims also believe themselves to be exempt from US Law. Their Imams in the US say this. Even black muslim supremacist Farrakhan says this.
You are absolutely right about the Islamists, who certainly have been telling us that Islam is exactly what you say.
Hamas Covenant unexpurgated
http://middleeast.about.com/od/palestinepalestinians/a/me080106b.htm
Real Muslim scholars know better, as shown by their response to Pope Benedict’s Regensberg address.
A common Word between us
http://www.acommonword.com
The Organization of Islamic Co-operation (Conferences? There have been several formulations of this name) has been working to support the position of A Common Word, and has, for example, consistently stated that terrorist acts are to be condemned. More telling, they have been teaching that such innovations as vaccines and equal rights for women are not inconsistent with Islam. They have their work cut out for them.
http://www.oic-oci.org/topic_detail.asp?t_id=7953
Don’t get me wrong. Islam0-as-practiced-by-the-crazies IS the problem. I am beyond disappointed that our President and our media have taken the tack to ignore this reality. This President could be a hero to people of good will everywhere, merely by acknowledging that radical Islam exists, and that it amounts to blasphemy against Islam and Allah.
To bad he’s a red-diaper baby incapable of recognizing the seriousness of the problem.
Was forced to watch Zakaria GPS for a bit during my hair cut this morning. Big working theory put forward was that there was a ‘failure of assimilation’, implying that the fault lies with us for having somehow failed the Tsarnaev brothers, leaving them feeling alienated and not sufficiently integrated into our culture. And not just in a passive way. Sort of what reading Daily Kos, whose mission appears to be demonizing and alienating as much as possible those who hold conservative views, will do to you. It just amazes me that those on the left espousing such sensitivity, understanding and guilt for their failures vis a vis jihadists, are clueless to the bitter irony (and hypocrisy) of their hostility towards certain non-jihadist fellow Americans.
That digression aside, the ‘failed assimilation’ theory seems to be significantly at odds with descriptions of them given by their peers, who considered them just ‘two of the guys’, accomplished students and athletes, and who were shocked to learn of their true nature.
The corollary brought up immediately afterward was, of course, the risk of having so many high-powered firearms loose in a society with potentially so many similarly disaffected and insufficiently assimilated immigrants out there. They just had to try to score a point on the gun-control front, non-sequitors be damned.
What utter hogwash.
I second LukeHandCool.
If this proves to be true it will affect the “lone wolf” narrative:
REPORT: FBI HUNTS 12-MAN ‘SLEEPER CELL’ (headline on Drudge)
[…] 'No doubt brothers not acting alone'… Two from Kazakhstan in custody… BU-BUT OUR LEFT KNOWS BETTER.. Now the emerging narrative is that these killers were not part of a vast foreign conspiracy but isolated “lone wolves” who became disenchanted with American society, who were not fully integrated into society, who were unhappy with their lives here and thus became radicalized. https://legalinsurrection.com/2013/04/politically-correct-epistemic-closure-counterattacks-boston-mar… […]
They are following the President’s lead. Or, perhaps he is following theirs. In either case, it’s an Orwellian blindness deliberately imposed by people with an agenda that does not include concern for the little people why are likely to be killed by these evildoers.
Barack Obama could have been a world-wide hero actually worth his premature Nobel Peace Prize if he could have managed to bring himself to say the word “hirabah.” He could have been a hero if he’d said that the Islamists blaspheme against Allah and Islam.
On the legal aspects of the hunt for the bombing suspects – or America gets a taste of Martial Law – http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=219969
On Friday, a caller to Howie Carr actually said that the kids didn’t receive enough love. Howie let him have it.
Again, we have to look to the foreign press. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2312331/Was-Boston-bomber-inspired-Doku-Umarov-Mother-claims-FBI-tracked-older-brother-years-told-Moscow-links-Chechen-terrorists.html The Russians warned us that the older kid was under the influence of the Chechen equivalent of Bin Laden.
The local aspect is scary, too. We need to investigate the mosques where the connection to jihad was nurtured in the older kid. A caller to WRKO said it well: The so-called “peaceful Muslims” are the grass, and the jihadi are the snakes in the grass. It’s time to cut the grass.
I’m hoping against hope that the locals get really angry and force the press to ask the hard questions. We’ll see. I suspect by next month, we’ll be hearing, “What difference does it make?”
Considering the establishment media’s filthy behavior this past week James Taranto had this to say:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323309604578432832764057060.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
If today’s bloggers can be considered an army of Davids, most of the establishment media can only be an army of Dr. Goebbels. Our self-styled moral and intellectual betters (like the ones who inhabit the NY Times, Washington Post, PBS, CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, etc.) view every bombing, shooting, parking violation as a political opportunity to demonize and dehumanize their opponents. Prior to Barack Obama, all opposition to the Left’s agenda was racist, homophobic, etc. Now they want opposition to be criminal.
1. In other words, it’s not them, it’s us. They were radicalized here, by us. Even if they don’t come right out and say it, that’s the implication.
Yep. For the time being, to come right out and say it would be met with sneers and eye rolls. Then, once the implication is sufficiently rooted, to come right out and question it will be denounced as hate speech.
2. Speaking of things that are being implied but not yet said, the suspects’ Aunt Maret proclaims her nephews’ innocence and asserts that a conspiracy is underway.
Now who would do such a thing…some rootless cosmopolitans, perhaps?
3. Yeah, that’s it…The Jews™ bombed the marathon and framed these nice Muslim boys! What did Netanyahu know and when did he know it?
IMHO if the usual suspects aren’t already peddling this, they soon will.
IMHO if the usual suspects aren’t already peddling this, they soon will.
They’ve started. I’m not linking.
The last I heard, Tamerlan Tsarnaev made several plane trips to Chechnya. So we knew planes are still flying. If he and his brother were so alienated from the USA, why did he return? They didn’t have to kill us to demonstrate their alienation. They should’ve just left the country and surrendered the green card and certificate of citizenship. So, this is not about America. It is about Islam and what happens when Muslims follow their Koran.
Zudhi Jasser is saying something about “moderate Muslims must oppose Islamism.” His premise is flawed. There is no such creature as a moderate Muslim. There are Muslims who don’t obey the Koran fully, and there are Muslims who do. When those in the first camp decide to get serious, we get bombings and terror attacks because the bondage of Islam and the society created by its laws is incompatible in a freewheeling libertarian society. The guy who wants to be a good Muslim sees all this temptation around him, and his answer is not self control; instead, it is the destruction of that which creates the temptation.
Judaism and Christianity put the onus of responsibility on the man for his words and deeds. Islam, in severe contrast, blames everything on things external to the man (unless he’s a woman then she’s to blame for everything). On the one hand, self control. On the other hand, the desire to control the world so that the Muslim will not be offended or tempted.
The blithering idiots in the LSM are treading dangerous ground. Muslims are not fond of accepting responsibility for their actions. This game the LSM is playing is going to get more of us killed as Muslims further internalize the idea that everyone else but them is to blame for their bad acts done in the name of their moon god Allah.
Look who Tamerlan is named after. Timur was arguably the greatest Muslim conqueror of all time. It’s like a white supremacist naming their kid Adolf Hitler.
Also from the Left-Wing Fifth-Column Media:
“Why Do Dogs Chase Cats?”
“No Connection Apparent Between Gravity and Falling Objects”
“Is Theft Real Outcome of Robbery?”
Yet, the same bunch can say for certain, without a shred of a doubt, with 101% certainty, that man is creating climate change.
The two men had to be part of a larger group. They don’t seem smart or ingenious enough to do this on their own initiative. MY WAG is they had help from friends and/or family, and/or an international group, and/or their mosque. Follow the money. How did they survive? It does not seem the either had a job. So the big question is how were they able to acquire the bits and pieces necessary to fabricate several bombs.
David Sirota and his ilk indeed “hope the Boston Marathon bomber is a white American. Why? Is it because poor, innocent Muslims across America would be persecuted with greater severity if the motive is shown to be Jihad? Of course not. They care nothing for Muslims or any other religious or ethnic group–their concern is strictly limited to any political advantage that can be gained by events or their ability to convince any given group of their special status as victims.
Politics is their religion and they too are fighting a holy war.
yeah, and in their home grown war on traditional America, this is their “jihad” or “surge”.
They are all out now, against guns, for open borders, gay “marriage”, and no limits on the debt. Add in $85 billion a month in unprecedented quantitative easing, with media boycotting any news that might hurt the cause … and we have an “unholy war” against traditional America.
But then Obama did say he would fundamentally transform us.
Remember…
“Don’t form an opinion until government decides”
http://imageshack.us/a/img4/9259/dontformanopinion.jpg
You immigrate to a state that constantly tells you how evil America and Americans are. How do you not become radicalized.
Notice PBS uses the “c” word in its headline: Confederacy.
Gosh, as a conservative Republican, in the Peeps Repub of Santa Monica, California no less, I sure have felt a bit alienated … some might even say unloved … at times … at times meaning just about always.
Yet, I’ve never had the urge to blow people up running a marathon … and let’s agree right now that Islamic jihad had nothing to do with this … it was just another average case of exercise-place violence.
Have you hugged a conservative today?
Have you hugged a Chechen jihadist today?
It’s the Rodney Dangerfield Unified Theory of Root Causes …
We don’t love them enough and this causes them to feel alienated and makes them blow us up.
Arms are for hugging … unless they’ve already been blown off.
LukeHandCool (who would just simply add, be a hugger not an alienator … unless your arms have already been blown off … in which case, it’s your own fault. Ponder this: David Sirota still has both arms … as he likes to show off in his Twitter picture)
Dangerfield Unified Theory! You nailed it.
“I remember the time I was kidnapped and they sent back a piece of my finger to my father. He said he wanted more proof.”
He was a riot. Thanks for the laugh!
It takes a village – a village in Chechnya – to raise a child like this.
Remember a few things:
1-John Boehner had it in his power to defend NPR, but was too scared to do it.
2-We’re in a PERMANENT war for the hearts and minds of the majority of Americans.
3-The left is the cause of that ‘war.’
4-The American media has been corrupted — completely, and is the main outlet of the left for its propaganda.
5-Do we expect anything else from the left than this type of propaganda/rationalization?
6-A team that mostly plays defense, loses. We need to spend a lot more energy on the attack (Obama, Napolitano, Clinton, etc.) for allowing (and even encouraging and facilitating) the entry of lunatics into the country capable of doing what the two ‘lone wolves’ did. (Lone wolves, my ass — bomb making that good takes outside engineering help, just as McVeigh’s bomb did.) There are thousands of these dangerous immigrants planted throughout our country, waiting for the order and the supplies to act against us.
7-Conclusion: take the fight to Obama, Clinton, Pelosi, et al, instead of reacting to distractions like what goes on at Politico or MSNBC.
Correction above: Boehner’s ‘defending’ NPR should have read ‘defunding.’ (Quite a typo…)
Maybe too late in the comments for LI denizens… I am energized by The Fine Report’s attack. Also, I usually support gs’s concepts re: coalitions.
Would it work to create a multi-phalanxed approach? A meta collation … of … us?
[…] Legal Insurrection: Politically correct epistemic closure counterattacks Boston Marathon bombing reality: […]
The prof remarked, “If only we had been nicer, none of this would have happened,” when coining the radical left as to causation in Monday’s bombing in Boston.
That outlook is chillingly close to what Ron Paul in one of the presidential debates last year, a view that most rational conservatives do not subscribe to.
Being “nice” to a crazy person will never get you anywhere except for maybe a bloody nose…
[…] and Tea Party by reference to the indisputably “White” Timothy McVeigh, and to evade the questions the left does not want to face as to Jihadism, whether “homegrown” or […]