Careful
Here’s why we need to be careful.
Remember Richard Jewell? Although that one was fueled by the MSM, not blogs.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
Here’s why we need to be careful.
Remember Richard Jewell? Although that one was fueled by the MSM, not blogs.
I remember Richard Jewell all too well. I doubt the money he was paid by the AJC et. al. ever adequately compensated him for what he suffered.
Note that Jewell died on August 29, 2007, from natural causes at the age of 44. Natural maybe, but that stress couldn’t have helped him in the longevity dept.
So I guess Hot Air was right after all.
Oh, how a mob hungers!
And what a rat’s nest of badly managed information (and speculation passed off as fact) has been floating around …
carl in Atlanta:
Another fact that makes me very very careful: my ex-husband, a runner and marathon enthusiast, looks Middle-Eastern and often carries a large black backpack (not while running!). If he’d been in that crowd that day (he wasn’t), his face would probably be all over the internet, too.
Good that this guy cleared himself. I stick by the assertion that, based on the photo montage, this was a “person of interest”. I was right.
And, in the grand scheme of things there were OTHER people in those pics at least as suspicious looking, if not more so, than this guy.
During the 1996 Olympics the feeling of fear and frustration here was very similar to what’s going on now. And seeing this media feeding-frenzy brings it all back to my mind.
These Middle Eastern guys were/are being profiled (by all of us) but so was Richard Jewell. Only difference is that Jewell was a stereotypical member of a different group that is also commonly profiled (especially after Ruby Ridge in 1992, Waco in 1993 and Oklahoma in 1995).
It’s still open season on “rednecks” in America, and to a lesser extent I suppose the same can be said about Persians and Arabs (and I can say this because like Jewell, I’m Scots-Irish and Southern born!).
I profiled those people because they have backpacks on, not because of their race.
You can’t really tell what race they are from the photos.
You can, however, tell that they are wearing backpacks similar to those which contained the bombs.
There was a photo of the guy in black with a backpack, and then another photo of the same guy with no backpack.
Another picture showed a blown up backpack that looked like the same bag.
And yes, they look middle-eastern. I have a vague memory of youngish middle-eastern males being responsible for an attack or two in the past.
If these guys didn’t do it, I hope they’re cleared. But dammit, we’re human.
People will stop assuming that middle-easterners are committing terror attacks when middle-easterners aren’t committing a disproportionate percentage of terror attacks.
“my ex-husband, a runner and marathon enthusiast, looks Middle-Eastern and often carries a large black backpack”
It’s the apple in front of his face that makes him a “person of interest.”
Martel…
You nailed it.
I’m glad the kid was cleared, but it is part of the process.
Public speculation and amateur sleuthing are looser than law enforcement investigation. Red herrings will be produced. Among the red herrings produced by public tips, though, useful information does come out – that’s why LE solicits public tips. It’s up to LE to sort out what’s real.
At the publc speculation stage, the red herrings look like good tips. If we take measures to guard against red herrings in public speculation, we’ll lose the good tips for LE, too.
I imagine we would all agree that jumping to conclusions is unwise. The difficulty is the innate and unrepentant dishonesty of this administration and its propaganda organ the MSM.
Media shrug at Boston blunders
It’s a given that any time there is a conflict of interest between the truth and their agenda that they will lie and attempt to cover it up. That they are only going to release the facts that support their agenda is a given.
Given that reality, waiting patiently for the facts to emerge in order to not jump to false conclusions is often an exercise in futility.
Just look to Benghazi for confirmation.
We simply can’t trust anything they say…so we are left to parse their statements and look upon all they say with a jaundiced eye, left with eternal distrust and suspicion. There is no more fertile ground from which conspiracy theories may arise.
Once trust is fully lost, how may we extend loyalty to a government that betrays us at every turn? That justifies using coercion to take away our liberties, in the name of what they imagine to be the ‘greater good’?
“If once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow-citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.” A. Lincoln
IMO the rot at the head of the fish (constant lies over nearly every issue, F&F, and Benghazi) taints every alphabet soup agency of the executive branch; especially the ATF, FBI and DHS. GB’s Lincoln quote encapsulates the problem. If you’re not a MSM lackey or one of those enthralled with the messiah, it is very difficult to believe their words and their motives.
I hope the bombers are found, captured, tried, and executed. But its a small hope as it seems the are odds they have escaped to a sanctuary.
Eric: The problem in the Richard Jewell case was not ‘amateur sleuthing’ or ‘public speculation.’ There were no ‘public tips’ about Jewell. It was the FBI profilers who ‘knew’ that he had planted that bomb and were willing to do nearly anything to incriminate him. They attempted to entrap him; they conspired with the news media to smear him, hoping that the harassment would force him to confess, if only to spare his mother from the depredations of the newsies.
The problem was precisely the law enforcement ‘process.’ And it was fascist.