Do I Care If I'm 100% Correct?

[Roy Rolling]

Not as much as I care about being first to get out a story before propagandists "plant their flag".

The three students murdered in North Carolina. The propagandists were spinning the tale it was a parking dispute. We all know it was an anti-Muslim hate crime, and that should have been loudly proclaimed from the get-go before the fairy tale, like a parking dispute, started to be told.

So I'm having a change of heart. I will now disseminate the "90% chance of being correct" story IMMEDIATELY to beat the propagandists to the punch before they get a chance to distort the issue. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. But at least Ill be first and on the offensive instead of the defensive.

In this crazy environment, being first is way more important than being correct.

And in a perfect world, I'll be first AND correct.

[ScreamingMeemie]

1. The sad part is, even when you're correct, they still won't admit it...

They will say things such as,"No one could possibly have known..." or "It's unclear..." or any number of wiggle-off-the-spin-hook excuses.

[malokvale77]

2. Question...

Did you blame it on a nonexistent atheist doctrine?

[Fred Sanders]

4. Answer......

Blame is on Killer Hicks and Islamaphobia.

[markpkessinger]

5. Exactly . . .

Just because he identifies as an atheist does not mean he isn't either a killer hick or an anti-Mslim bigot!

[Fred Sanders]

6. How the freaky media or anyone will believe the rantings of a triple killer over that of this family

[malokvale77]

9. I agree with where the blame goes.

That however was not my question.

[markpkessinger]

8. It's quite a leap . . .

. . . to go from calling out those on the Christian right who are seizing upon this event as an excuse for anti-secularist bigotry (as would be fully predictable), to labeling anyone who dares mention that this crime was rooted in anti-religious (specifically anti-Islam) bigotry as being part of that Christian right. Plenty of us recognize the specious claims of the religious right for what they are, and at the same time recognize that there does appear to have been some seriously Islamophobic bias involved here, and who also don't attribute this guy's actions to atheists across the board.

But at the same time, there is a rather rich irony in the objections by atheists to calling this the hate crime that it was: and that irony is apparent to anyone who has witnessed the ways in which many atheists regularly paint all religious, and particularly all Christians, with the same broad brush.

[malokvale77]

11. There was no leap.

I agree with the Islamophopic crime. That was not my question.

Can the OP not answer for themself a simple yes or no question?

[markpkessinger]

13. Of course the author of the OP can answer for himself . . .

. . . I just wonder why the question of whether the writer blames it "on a nonexistent atheist doctrine" would need to be asked, when there was nothing in his OP that indicated as much.

[kcr]

12. I know what you mean, but be careful. This atheists thinks it was a hate crime.

I'm sure I'm not the only one. I suspect it's rather those who aren't atheists who tend to do this, because it fits their idea of what atheists as a group are. I don't see myself as a member of a group with others who are like me. The only thing I share in common with other atheists is a lack of belief. That's it. I've known atheists who I've had absolutely nothing in common with. Our politics and values no where near each other.

[markpkessinger]

14. I would never suggest that all, or even most,k atheists, think that . . .

. . . but I have noticed a tendency by many atheists (again, not all) to assume all Christians, or all theists, think alike. I have a good friend who was the son of a fundamentalist, hate-mongering pastor -- that friend is now an atheist (and frankly, I don't blame him). But even he told me recently that he had had to distance himself from some of those he had met in online atheist groups, because, in many cases, he found they had devolved into being devoted not only to criticizing belief systems, but also being (seemingly, at least) to being as rude and hateful to religious folks as they possibly could (which my friend was not at all cool with).

[kcr]

15. I don't think that tendency is any greater than its for religious people

There's nothing about the lack of belief itself that would make one more prone to do this.

[markpkessinger]

16. I'm not suggesting they are any more or less prone than anyone else to this sort of thing . . .

. . . but rather, I am suggesting that the hostility by some atheists towards theists, although often perfectly understandable in light of the abuse some of them have suffered at the hands of religious folks, rather stands in contradiction to the purely rational individuals many of them fancy themselves to be.

[kcr]

17. Okay. But again, that's a human thing, not an atheist thing.

The hostility shown by some religious people toward atheists is the same thing. No one likes to think their worldview is wrong.

[markpkessinger]

18. True enough n/t

[Fred Sanders]

3. The arson of a Houston community Center and school IS a hate crime, no parking spots involved.

I blame it on general ignorance and media war fever.

[MohRokTah]

7. I wouldn't be surprised if the first couple of encounters were over parking.

From there, it probably built as he came to realize these people were Muslim.

It ended with the execution of three beautiful young people, most likely because they were Muslim.

[Fred Sanders]

10. Bakarat lived in the apartment for months without harassment, he looks more white than Hicks.

Bakarst was at dental school most of the time, and preferred American Apparel sports clothes. He had no accent. No way to tell his religion without him saying so.

Only when Bakarat's clearly Muslim wife moved in shortly before Christmas, not "long standing", and many clearly Muslim visitors came to congratulate the newly weds did Killer Hicks start harrassing all of them, and he shot the sister of the bride who had nothing to do with Hicks or parking in the back of her head.


The evidence of a hate crime is not just mounting, it is overwhelming evidence of intent.

Folks are confusing motive with intent. Hicks motive was hate, his intent was to kill with malice aforesight, planning and premeditation, first degree murder.

Things easily determinable quickly by any competent police.

[ScreamingMeemie]

20. Well said.

[Kalidurga]

19. His ex-wife describes sociopathic behavior and attitudes.

I am thinking the guy was unhinged and in this case he was outraged that some Muslims were going to take "his" parking space. The space wasn't his in anyway shape or form, but he saw it as his space and he would defend that space right or wrong. He is a complete nutter in one breath saying he would champion for the rights of other people and then he would take away the rights of other people in the most extreme way possible, by killing them.

[Fred Sanders]

21. Nothing to do with the visitors one parking space, that is yesterday's excuse for the killing of three Muslims.

The wife is a nutter also.

Divorces him...now?