On the question of cowardice
Commenter “rickl” writes:
[Dylann Roof] shot old women praying in a church while talking about “black rape”.
If he was really so upset about it, then why didn’t he go after young male gangbangers in the hood?
Answer: Because he was a coward, and they would have capped his ass before he got his gun out.
The shooter may indeed have been a coward. In fact, I think he was a coward. But that’s not the only reason he chose the victims he chose, IMHO, rather than some guys in the hood.
I have felt from the start that Roof’s motive was to inflame a race war, and he himself has recently confessed that this was so. To achieve that end, killing a few gang members just wouldn’t do (and yes, they would have probably been armed and would have shot back—he couldn’t have that!)
But why did he choose the particular victims he did? He could have gone anywhere in the black community and started killing people, randomly. But he did not. He chose these particular people, that particular group of people, for the following reasons, in my opinion:
(1) He may have known—and admired—the work of the killers in the KKK who bombed the church in Birmingham in 1963 and killed the 4 little girls. Therefore he may have chosen a church for historical reasons.
(2) Much more importantly, I think, he targeted the most admirable people he could find. People devoted to God, to peace, to love, people just about everyone admired, in order to sow the greatest possible fear and outrage at their deaths. Evil unerringly seeks the good and the innocent to try to wreak the most destructive power and to evoke the maximum rage. If a person wants to inflame a race war, what better way to do it than to target the most beloved people possible?
Whether or not Roof thought this through in a rational manner I don’t know. But I believe that he felt it and sensed it. His impulse (although very different in philosophical origins, and that of an individual rather than a group) was something like that of ISIS: to sow the most horror. The more horror, the more backlash. The more backlash, the more violence. That was the idea.
[ADDENDUM: Reports are that Roof has said that the victims were so nice to him that he almost backed out. In other words, good came very close to conquering even this man’s great evil and preventing the crime by the sheer force of its goodness, but it did not. He clearly recognized, however, how good these people were.]
What a tragic thought — that the worst evil is drawn magnetically to the greatest good. I am very much afraid that you’re right.
He targeted these Christians for all of your reasons, and also because they were in Church, and in all likelihood unarmed and unable to effectively defend against a modern handgun. Mass shooters, while unbalanced, are not completely stupid and will pick the easy targets. They are true cowards.
The media could help lessen the probability of more attacks by reporting only in generic terms. Age, location, no photos, no names, no rants. This is what the perps are looking for, fame and other low lifes to somehow look up to them.
There is nothing that can be said on the behalf of the shooter to make this crime less gruesome or horrendous. The victims acted the way our Judeo-Christian culture, and others, expects they should. A very strange man of a different color and young age appeared among them and they welcomed him and treated him with kindness and spoke with him for about an hour.
The instrument of death that he used is not as important as the fact that he did have it and after speaking to these kind people he felt the need to use their death and destruction as an answer to his own need for fame and significance and to sow seeds of racial warfare.
As Neo said, maximum horrific violence and I hope that all people will emulate the kindness of the victims and stop using this for left and right political purposes. When mass murderers blow innocent people up and mow them we need to find a way to quell the instant moment of fame and recognition.
Call them mad dog x, y, & z for identification and seal their names away forever if possible. Of course we can’t do that but we should. I live in fear of reading about the next wormy asshole who is following the current story and might want to outdo him.
your theory of (1) is not realy possible..
drug addled young guys just dont read history enough to even answer basic questions. they operate almost entirely within the narratives of the zitgeists they inhabit, and like most people rarely go outside that. why should they as everything they believe and understand is wrapped around them like a nice warm predictable blanket.
(2) has the hallmark of academic analysis, and not plain old understanding… he wanted to cause a response, and you dont need to know history or anything like that to know what others find to be sensitive.
we are made to know what hurts others as that is a way to win in a fight outside the restrictions of a social societorial construct with punishments for taking certain actions we as a group feel are unfair or nor moral
we know that killing young thugs armed or not, does not register… one only has to be alive and reading the news..
we know that women are the least likely to be harmed (despite feminists claims) and so, hurting those is a bigger deal than selecting others.
note that given he said he wanted a race war, that puts him clearly in the same camp as helter skelter of charles manson AND the weather underground who wanted the same thing and whose man is in the white house (see brinks robbery)
this race war theme has been floating around for a very long time… how long?
you can watch “the paper” staring Michael Keaton and Glenn Close and Robert Duvall
two black kids are thought to have killed some business men and micheal keatons character brings up the seriousness in the thing that if they get it wrong, they will start a race war..
here is the script excerpt
and a lot of this noise is to keep us from looking at whats actually coming..
from an article as to china and its games in the china sea
While preparation for this war started in the 1980s, the recent ramp up in aggression has been at the direction of President Xi who, in his formative years as a party apparatchik, was impressed by how the war with Vietnam in 1979 was used to consolidate power in the politburo. President Xi has accumulated more power than any Chinese leader since Deng Xiaoping. He is using an anti-corruption campaign to purge political opponents. Chinese leaders are supposed to only rule for ten years before standing aside. Just two years into his presidency, Xi’s supporters have raised the possibility of resurrecting the position of chairman of the party (abolished by Deng to stop another Mao) so that Xi could continue to rule from that position. President Xi is a nasty piece of work who has been toughened up by his life experiences. At the age of 15, he was sent to live and work with peasants in the yellow earth country after his father was purged. His accommodation was a cave. His stepsister suicided due to his father’s oppression by the Red Guards.
“Yesterday’s mental illness is today’s social policy.”
– Kathy Shaidle, “Feminism’s Rotting Corpse,” 2012
These killings remind me of what the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik did more than anything else. He, too, looked his victims in the eye, ignored their pleading, and shot them point blank.
Artfldgr:
Drug-addled young men actually sometimes do learn a bit of history, but only about the things that interest them. Race war, and crimes against blacks, were of interest to Roof. I indicate in my post that I’m not that sure about #1, but it is most definite a possibility Roof was aware of the historical events that interest him, particularly what the major acts of the KKK in relatively recent historical time were. I don’t assert that he had any deep or meaningful knowledge of history, but I think it is at least quite possible that he knew about, and was influenced by, the very basic history regarding the bombing of the black church in Birmingham—in other words, that there had been such an attack, and that it had a deep effect on people.
This of course doesn’t mean that other things didn’t influence him, particularly things in popular culture such as videogames and the like. I actually doubt, however, he watched “The Paper,” made in 1994 and not a particularly well-known movie. But I have little doubt he was familiar with the idea of race war from popular culture in general.
It’s interesting, also, that Charles Manson incorporated into his ideas for sparking a race war something he imagined about the popular Beatles song “Helter Skelter.” People who are on that bent can find inspiration all around them, even where one would least expect it.
If this matter look may be one of those isolated incident to some degree, but what about this F* guy he admitting as Recruiter’ of UK jihadists, and now he coming to say “ I regret opening the way to Isis
Should this fanatic be left a live to enjoy the peace and freedom under western democracy or should be jailed or even put to death for those hundreds and hundreds of innocent killed or will killed in Syria and Iraq and elsewhere around the world?
http://www.republishan.com/e/3261434230120701/Recruiter-of-UK-jihadists-I-regret-opening-the-way-to-Isis
I think Roof is a paranoid schizophrenic whose recent delusions and irrationality were race-centered. He had a moment of clarity:where to attack the bad bad blacks? Where do they congregate? Why, in a congregation. And then they didn’t look as “bad” as he thought they should.
But it is all speculation at this point. All.
Why do we engage in it?
Frog:
It’s not all speculation. We have a certain amount of information, including the elements of the crime itself, as well as certain facts of his history and the remarks of other people.
People think and speculate because it’s interesting to do so, and this is a blog.
There is, however, zero evidence so far that he was schizophrenic, so that’s much more far out in terms of speculation. He was certainly paranoid, but no evidence or even talk of anything remotely approaching schizophrenia in Roof.
I’m inclined to believe he is mentally ill in some way, but I was really knocked for a loop by his statement that he almost didn’t go through with it because the parishioners were so nice to him. That sounds like an admission that he knew what he was about to do was wrong.
And I’m equally flabbergasted by the church members who forgive him and call on him to accept Jesus Christ as his savior, including the surviving shooting victim who posted on Roof’s Facebook page. Those Christians really walk their talk.
Given his own statements, I don’t think he’s crazy at all. He understood the social implications and consequences of his actions perfectly, he just chose not to self-reflect and consider the possibility that his plan could be wrong, even after conversing with his victims.
Not crazy, just evil. Wants a race war, will do and say whatever it takes to get one, and the longer he lives, the more influence he’ll exert over a media that wants the same thing, in the belief that such a war will finally destroy “white privilege” forever, and take “white guilt” with it.
I think Anders Breivik was a special case, and not comparable to this incident. He was upset about Muslim immigration, which is not merely aided and abetted but positively encouraged by the political elite. Millions of people inside and outside Europe are in broad agreement with him on that point. I have stated myself that allowing unfettered immigration from the Third World to the West is an egregious act of treason. And Muslim immigration should be banned outright.
The island where he carried out his killing spree was a resort used by the children of the political elite, as they are being groomed to take their “rightful” place among society’s rulers. (Perhaps a rough U.S. analogy might be Sidwell Friends.)
Breivik believed he was decapitating the next generation of the ruling class. What he did was an overtly political act, and to be bluntly honest, I do not mourn his victims or their surviving family members as much as I would if he had chosen his victims at random.
Assuming he doesn’t get the death penalty – I don’t know if that exists in SC, he will certainly wish that he did. After a month in a state prison, he’s going to be learning first hand about black rape, white rape, hispanic rape, and every other flavor of rape available to an inmate.
If death isn’t a choice, his lawyers might be able to get him locked up forever in a mental facility. Othewise, he’s going to hell long before he dies.
starlord:
Don’t think so, actually.
If he doesn’t get put to death, he will probably be isolated from the general prison population for his own protection.
neo – ok, I might be off a few years. He will get there eventually.
neo- Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Paranoia, which you agreed is evident, is a feature of paranoid schiz. Demographically he is a the most vulnerable time of life to schiz out. Isolation, like Loughner, is another feature.
His public defenders will pursue an insanity defense, guaranteed.
once you’re a famous spree killer you remain a famous spree killer forever. hack writers will be interviewing him for mass market paperbacks for a long time. add in the racial factor? the infamy will not wear off.
and if he’s on death row the death row inmates live in their own separate world in any case.
Frog:
That’s not the point.
First of all, paranoia is very common, schizophrenia is much less common. Paranoia does not indicate schizophrenia (it’s not even always part of it), delusions indicate schizophrenia (as well as a host of other symptoms; see this).
You wrote:
I was pointing out—and I am still pointing out—that your speculation that Roof is a schizophrenic is a far more speculative type of speculation than what you were criticizing.
Bill Whittle breaks down the murder stats for America vs. Rest of the World: this is great ammunition, folks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pELwCqz2JfE&feature=youtu.be
rickl Says: at 8:06 pm
“I think Anders Breivik was a special case, and not comparable to this incident.”
My thoughts exactly. The two cases are not in anyway comparable.
It is ironic that Roof didn’t realize that it is impossible to start a race war when we are already in one. The left has been working full time to inflame new racial hatreds and to revive old hatreds which should be long over. With Obama’s help they have succeeded far beyond what most of us would like to admit.
He clearly recognized, however, how good these people were.]
He also recognized how weak they were as warriors or guardians. No matter how good people think bees and ants are, it’s too tempting to step on them and destroy them, when the consequences are all good and zero bad.
Some personal angst isn’t enough to deter a true believer, a fanatic, or someone set on their path of mayhem.
Being good, without being ruthless or the power to destroy your enemies, doesn’t do much on its own.
With Obama’s help they have succeeded far beyond what most of us would like to admit.
That makes sense especially considering how much the Left’s power was beyond what most people wanted to admit.
Most of the gun deaths in the US comes from black gangs, hispano gangs, and urban Democrat politics.
So basically, they create the problem, whereas Switzerland has mandatory guns for people and they aren’t said to be like the US. They create the problem, and then they create the solution by pointing to themselves as power brokers. It’s easy to figure it out if you have eyes and wish to see.
http://gunssavelives.net/category/self-defense/