April 3, 2017

Apathy in The New Yorker.

1. April 3, 2017: "In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children have fallen unconscious after being informed that their families will be expelled from the country."
Georgi was given a diagnosis of uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, an illness that is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live. The Swedish refer to them as de apatiska, the apathetic. “I think it is a form of protection, this coma they are in,” Hultcrantz said. “They are like Snow White. They just fall away from the world.”
2. March 27, 2017: "'Get Out' and the Death of White Racial Innocence."
“I’m terrified at the moral apathy—the death of the heart—which is happening in my country,” [said James Baldwin in 1968]. In his mordant telling, Americans are consumer zombies struck by an “emotional poverty so bottomless and a terror of human life, of human touch, so deep that virtually no American appears able to achieve any viable, organic connection between his public stance and his private life. This failure of the private life has always had the most devastating effect on American public conduct and on black-white relations. If [white] Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have become so dependent on what they call the Negro Problem.”
3. March 9, 2017: "Parquet Courts and the Uncertain Future of Indie/The Brooklyn-based band on the struggle to be yourself in an age of reinvention."
When Parquet Courts toured Europe this fall, the band found itself delivering a nightly diatribe against Trump, lest anyone mistake its inward vibe for political apathy. “Being sentimental for that time when rock music was thought of as the most legitimate music, when it was at the core of the culture—it doesn’t make sense to try and go back to that. You’re never going to succeed.”
4. March 8, 2017: "The writers of a recent New Yorker article on Russia’s interference in the 2016 election respond to reader questions":
Do you think democracy will survive? I see very little keeping us from becoming like Putin’s Russia. Where should we put our energy to be most effective? How can we stop the apathy and get those in power to choose democracy over personal interest? How can I help? —Kayde Kat Martin

For the first time I can remember, daily conversation has become infused with questions about the basic strength of our democracy, a far-reaching anxiety about whether the political and digital technology of our time are strong and resilient enough to bear the pressures of the moment. It’s easy to dismiss this as little more than Democrats hyperventilating—liberal “snowflakes” who were undone by the results of the election searching for a way to challenge its legitimacy....
5. February 5, 2017: "Life Under Alternative Facts":
There was no real cognitive dissonance existing in the minds of most people in the Soviet Union of the nineteen-seventies and eighties. Everyone knew that everything said on the radio or on television, everything (with the exception of weather reports or sports results) was a blatant lie...

Being exposed to constant, relentless irradiation by that funhouse reality, forever aswim in a sea of lies, had made people lethargic and apathetic, cynical and fatalistic, dumbfounded into mute infantilism, drunkenness, and helpless rage in the meagreness of their tiny private, personal worlds. Their worlds were small and filled with sameness. People lived their lives in a state of permanent shell shock, like dynamite-blasted fish still somehow capable of swimming.

89 comments:

Peter said...

Re: "Alternative Facts": perhaps we just need to wait and see, but my perception is that evidence favoring the "Trump campaign colluded with Russia" is getting mighty thin, even while evidence that Obama's administration (perhaps without Obama's consent) conducted surveillance on Trump's campaign.

If it turns out that there is no evidence to support the "collusion" hypothesis yet there is evidence to support the "surveillance" claim, will New Yorker's editors, writers and audience acknowledge this, roll back the alarmism, and move on?

Or are they so convinced of the truth of their perceptions that mere evidence will have little if any effect on them?

It's not that I'd expect them to stop hating Pres. Trump and his policies, just that I'd hope they'd be willing to follow the evidence even if/when it turns against their perceptions. Is that truly too much to ask for?

Kevin said...

Morning Joe: "Their worlds were small and filled with sameness. People lived their lives in a state of permanent shell shock, like dynamite-blasted fish still somehow capable of swimming."

M Jordan said...

I don't get this collection of quotes. I'm not seeing the common thread of apathy. What am I missing?

Inga said...

"1. April 3, 2017: "In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children have fallen unconscious after being informed that their families will be expelled from the country."
Georgi was given a diagnosis of uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, an illness that is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live. The Swedish refer to them as de apatiska, the apathetic. “I think it is a form of protection, this coma they are in,” Hultcrantz said. “They are like Snow White. They just fall away from the world.""

This reminds me of the books I've read about the Holocaust and the "Muselmann".

"Muselmann (pl. Muselmänner, the German version of Musulman, meaning Muslim) was a slang term used among captives of World War II Nazi concentration camps to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation (known also as "hunger disease") and exhaustion and who were resigned to their impending death.[1] The Muselmann prisoners exhibited severe emaciation and physical weakness, an apathetic listlessness regarding their own fate, and unresponsiveness to their surroundings owing to the barbaric treatment by the Nazis and prisoner functionaries.[2]"

Wiki

J. Farmer said...

If you've ever read the fourth edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (who hasn't?), Appendix I is "outline for cultural formulation and glossary of culture-bound syndromes." It includes some quite interesting conditions that read right out of an Oliver Sacks books. For example, Dhat syndrome, which only appears to occur on the Indian subcontinent and includes an irrational fear of premature ejaculation, impotence, and the belief that one is passing semen through their urine.

Carol said...

Stepson used to shut down and curl up into a ball when he was in deep trouble. It's some kind of defense mechanism. I'm surprised they take this so seriously.

bagoh20 said...

"It’s easy to dismiss this as little more than Democrats hyperventilating—liberal “snowflakes” who were undone by the results of the election searching for a way to challenge its legitimacy...."

Yes, yes it is, but they have time, time to vent, time to talk, time to write, time to create endless new ways to express their new horrible situation of being snowflakes in a world with seasons that change. Fear not, my tender ones. There will come a winter again when the flowers of freedom you despise will shrivel back into the earth and the climate will again support your frigid unsupportable tenderness until reality returns to melt it away all over again.

rehajm said...

...an illness that is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live...

The post is appropriately tagged 'Trump Derangement Syndrome' so it exists in the Untied States under a different name.

While those with the United States strain of the disease show similar symptoms of losing the will to live sufferers show a remarkable and unfortunate resistance to acting upon their symptoms by withdrawing from society.

bagoh20 said...

Stage 4: Depression
Stage 5: Acceptance

Fernandinande said...

1 - " an illness that is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees."

They learned to act that way to get something.

2 - "If [white] Americans were not so terrified of their private selves, they would never have become so dependent on what they call the Negro Problem."

Crazy black author writes nonsense. Unique and shocking.

3 - Some band

Whatever.

4 - Rooskies!

Crazy liberals write paranoid nonsense. Unique and shocking.

5 - Being exposed to constant, relentless irradiation by that funhouse reality, forever aswim in a sea of lies, ... dumbfounded into mute infantilism, drunkenness, and helpless rage in the meagreness of their tiny private, personal worlds.

MSM writer thinks he has magical influence over people.

robother said...

Brought to mind this Churchill observation:

How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.

Mikec said...

"The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live."

This is a perfectly normal response upon learning that your free housing, medical, and welfare are going to be cut off.

Michael K said...

The Los Angeles Times is in the throes of an attack of some sort of insanity.

I have never seen anything like it. The Chicago Tribune had a somewhat similar attack in 1941 around the time they exposed the "Rainbow Five" war plan and in 1942 when they printed the information that the US had broken the Japanese code after the Battle of Midway.

Roosevelt decided not to prosecute them to avoid publicizing the information. The Japanese did not apparently read the Tribune and never found out.

The Times is making itself ridiculous as many readers are writing comments disagreeing with the editors and ridiculing them.

The last time a political party committed suicide was Labour when they chose Tony Benn to be the leader. Corbyn seems to be about as crazy.

It seems like The Children's' Crusade.

That did not end well for them.

chickelit said...

M Jordan said...I don't get this collection of quotes. I'm not seeing the common thread of apathy. What am I missing?

I think you're supposed to spend the rest of the morning "figuring it out" like a piece of art. No doubt the usual "Art of Althouse" critics will show up to explain it.

My theory is that Althouse is somehow in love with The New Yorker (as she is with the New York Times). I used to have such a lingering affection for The Economist. When I lived abroad in the early 1990's, they were my connection to the English speaking world. But they changed,* and eventually lost me.
____________________________
*I write that fully aware that I may have been the one who changed. Yet testimonials from disaffected others piled up.

I'm Full of Soup said...

Liberals are insane.

Bill said...

Mom received her copy of Vanity Fair this morning. On the cover:

- Trump: A Joke, but No Laughing Matter
- The Russian Method to Trump's Madness?
- Alec Baldwin Mouths Off on Trump
- The Real-Life 007 Who Compiled the Trump Dossier

Michael K said...

"they were my connection to the English speaking world. But they changed,* and eventually lost me. "

Me too. I was a subscriber for years.

I may have been a victim of The Murray Gell-Mann Amnesia effect.

Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.

In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.


I was assuming the Economist was truthful about the rest of the world. I knew they were wrong about the US.

Eventually, I figured out they were wrong about almost everything.

Rae said...

Trump lives rent free in the head of the liberal collective. He's even hung a "T" made of gold over the mantle. I picture him wearing a tacky smoking jacket, and lighting his cigars with a roll of fifty dollar bills. Does he smoke? I don't care.

The thing is, the left thought that with Hillary Clinton ascendant, they would finally win the decades old Manichaen conflict with the forces of evil. Now they have to ramp to fight again, and anything is justified when you're fighting evil.

ga6 said...

"Life is hard, it's even harder when your stupid"

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

This reminds me of the books I've read about the Holocaust and the "Muselmann".

"Muselmann (pl. Muselmänner, the German version of Musulman, meaning Muslim) was a slang term used among captives of World War II Nazi concentration camps to refer to those suffering from a combination of starvation (known also as "hunger disease") and exhaustion and who were resigned to their impending death."

Well, now, that's a good analogy, except for the fact that the refugees are not in a concentration camp, are not starving or exhausted and have in fact been treated with great indulgence by the European countries which host them. I also don't recall reading that European Jews were bombing and running over people with trucks and raping and molesting infidel women.

Hitler imagined that Jewish men were raping Aryan women. Muslim men actually are, and the authorities are eager to hide that fact:

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2016/01/its-not-only-germany-that-covers-up-mass-sex-attacks-by-migrant-men-swedens-record-is-shameful/

Wilbur said...

"It’s easy to dismiss this as little more than Democrats hyperventilating—liberal “snowflakes” who were undone by the results of the election searching for a way to challenge its legitimacy...."

It's easy because it's true.

Rick said...

Carol said...
Stepson used to shut down and curl up into a ball when he was in deep trouble. It's some kind of defense mechanism. I'm surprised they take this so seriously.


If they can pathologize the refugee's symptoms they can argue refugees cannot be deported for medical reasons. This refugee theater is Left Wing Activism 101.

Churchy LaFemme: said...

They say Americans are sick and tired of being told how sick and tired they are.

Well, I'm not!

But I'm sick and tired of being told I am.

Dude1394 said...

The democrat party and their medial lapdogs are the most dangerous organization in the country. They are actually advocating open revolt would support assassination of "Hitler".

Bill said...

Cambodian humanitarian Phaly Nuon in Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, on women who had survived the Killing Fields:

"All the time I went around, I saw women who were in very bad shape, many of them seemingly paralyzed, not moving, not talking, not feeding or caring for their own children. I saw that though they had survived the war, they were now going to die from their depression, their utterly incapacitating post-traumatic stress."

Fernandinande said...

New York Times in 1924: ‘Hitler Tamed by Prison’

Curious George said...

"1. April 3, 2017: "In Sweden, hundreds of refugee children have fallen unconscious after being informed that their families will be expelled from the country."
Georgi was given a diagnosis of uppgivenhetssyndrom, or resignation syndrome, an illness that is said to exist only in Sweden, and only among refugees. The patients have no underlying physical or neurological disease, but they seem to have lost the will to live. The Swedish refer to them as de apatiska, the apathetic. “I think it is a form of protection, this coma they are in,” Hultcrantz said. “They are like Snow White. They just fall away from the world.”

It only exits in Sweden because Sweden only exists in Sweden. But not for long. And then the little Muzzies will be cured.

chickelit said...

exiledonmainstreet wrote...Well, now, that's a good analogy, except for the fact that the refugees are not in a concentration camp, are not starving or exhausted and have in fact been treated with great indulgence by the European countries which host them. I also don't recall reading that European Jews were bombing and running over people with trucks and raping and molesting infidel women.

Thanks for that. I was going to write something about Inga's attempt to link Muslim refugees with Jewish ones. I can only add Thomas Jefferson's thoughts on the spread of Islam: link

Tarrou said...

Read on in the Sweden article....the only "cure" is to grant the apathetic's family permanent residency in Sweden.

A political prescription for a medical problem! How novel! If you can convince your kid to lie about all day, the government has to do what you say! It's science!

Inga said...

I doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone.

traditionalguy said...

A swim in a sea of lies is asserted simply because the internet ( uncensored version) has them a swim in a sea of revealed truth that formerly was refused media coverage because it upsets a narrative supporting issues important to the established deep government.

chickelit said...

Inga said... doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone.

Why are they overwhelmingly young able bodied men?

rcocean said...

"I have never seen anything like it. The Chicago Tribune had a somewhat similar attack in 1941 around the time they exposed the "Rainbow Five" war plan and in 1942 when they printed the information that the US had broken the Japanese code after the Battle of Midway."

I'm not sure why you're linking these together with the current liberal craziness. The Tribune printing the US had broken the Navy codes was simply an error in judgment. The printing of Rainbow 5 was a service to the American public since FDR was assuring the US Public - and had ever since June 1940 - the NO, repeat NO, American troops would be sent to fight in Europe. We were going to limit ourselves to giving the Brits lend-lease and convoys. Of course, that was a complete lie as shown by the "Victory Plan" to send millions of troops to Europe.

rhhardin said...

They talk of apathy but not milligivashits, its unit.

chickelit said...

Tarrou said...A political prescription for a medical problem! How novel! If you can convince your kid to lie about all day, the government has to do what you say! It's science!

Hey, what ever happened to the "Texas clock boy"?

rhhardin said...

There's the PATH trains in NJ/NYC, which are named to be uplifting.

Inga said...

"Why are they overwhelmingly young able bodied men?"

Probably because Muslim men are misogynists regressive jerks and left their wives behind, but did grab some of the children in order to gain access to refugee status. Send the men back, let the women and children stay. The New Yorker article I spoke about was relating to children.

rcocean said...

Just to add, FDR was the greatest liar to ever be POTUS. Even worse than LBJ. He lied us into war and he lied about his health in 1944 - just to name two of his biggest lies.

He also used the FBI and IRS to wiretap and harass his political opponents. In today's environment, he would have been impeached for about 500 violations of everyone's constitutional rights and abuse of power.

Fernandinande said...

Tarrou said...
Read on in the Sweden article....the only "cure" is to grant the apathetic's family permanent residency in Sweden.


I bet they haven't tried "poking with pin" or a good "nipple twist". (Advice from an EMT).

Ann Althouse said...

"I don't get this collection of quotes. I'm not seeing the common thread of apathy. What am I missing?"

Command-F can help find things.

rcocean said...

BTW, coming into work NPR beathlessly announced they were going to give us all the updates on "Russia's attempt to subvert our election" - but nothing on Obama's wiretapping of Trump.

rcocean said...

"Their worlds were small and filled with sameness. People lived their lives in a state of permanent shell shock, like dynamite-blasted fish still somehow capable of swimming."

I like this.

Ann Althouse said...

"Stepson used to shut down and curl up into a ball when he was in deep trouble. It's some kind of defense mechanism. I'm surprised they take this so seriously."

Yeah, but could he do it for months on end, without reacting to stimuli (such as having a bag of frozen chicken put on his bare abdomen)?

Gabriel said...

@J. Farmer:Appendix I is "outline for cultural formulation and glossary of culture-bound syndromes."

This particular syndrome does not exist in the refugees' home cultures, which are varied. It only exists in those refugees facing deportation from Sweden, regardless of what culture the refugees are from.

Fernandinande said...

rcocean said...
FDR


Worst. President. Evar.

chickelit said...
Hey, what ever happened to the "Texas clock boy"?


IIRC his bogus lawsuits were tossed and the activist dad gets to pay legal fees.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Inga said...

I doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone.

The three people killed in the Boston Marathon bombing could not be reached for comment.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

BTW, coming into work NPR beathlessly announced they were going to give us all the updates on "Russia's attempt to subvert our election" - but nothing on Obama's wiretapping of Trump.

The other day someone was going on and on on NPR about some deal Kushner had made concerning buying a building in NYC stated it was a bad business decision (how do I know that is true, I don't trust reporting from NPR) and was describing how he needed investors because he couldn't afford the loan and he had talked to this Russian and that Chinese business men, and the kicker was he had not made a deal with anyone.

But! It was bad optics said the NPR Drone.

All of this activity was before Trump was elected by the way.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Inga said...
I doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone."

Perhaps the ones in Sweden are not - yet. But brainwashed Muslim children do seem to be a threat in the Middle East. Let us hope this tactic remains in the Middle East:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/isis-training-children-behead-launch-terrorist-attacks-article-1.1921995

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Yeah, but could he do it for months on end, without reacting to stimuli (such as having a bag of frozen chicken put on his bare abdomen)?

That sounds oddly specific.

And funny.

Static Ping said...

When you think you are right about everything, lack any religious underpinnings to that belief, and need to educate the masses to their failings, when the masses disappoint you there are two fallback positions. The first is the masses are afflicted with apathy and simply cannot see what is best for themselves, which is usually followed up by some version of "you will be made to care." The second is to write them off as evil and work about to replace them. The more civilized types at least feign going for the first one before checking the oven temperature.

All these stories fit into this theme nicely.

Inga said...

"The three people killed in the Boston Marathon bombing could not be reached for comment."

Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men.

Gabriel said...

@Ann:Yeah, but could he do it for months on end, without reacting to stimuli (such as having a bag of frozen chicken put on his bare abdomen)?

History is full of adolescents who do stuff like this, like in the Salem witch trials or 19th century mediums or families with "possession" or "poltergeists", even in NY in 2012.

Gabriel said...

@Inga:Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men.

Brought in as refugee children.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men.

4/3/17, 9:42 AM

Who came here as children and were very well-treated by our welfare system and the ultra-liberal Cambridge community. They expressed their gratitude on April 15, 2013.

Gabriel said...

I don't know where anyone gets the idea that "children" are inherently harmless--especially male children 12 - 18.

Ignorance is Bliss said...

Inga said...

Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men.

So do you advocate allowing them to enter and stay in the country until they are 18, then kick them out?

Michael K said...

"I'm not sure why you're linking these together with the current liberal craziness."

I am no fan of Roosevelt but not into your hatred of him. The Tribune was pretty much an analogy to the LA Times current crazyness, I think. Printing treasonous information was pretty crazy. The Midway information could have lost the war. The battle of Guadalcanal was just getting started and could have gone either way.

Roosevelt was an economic ignoramus but so was almost everybody else. Harding and Coolidge had successfully ended the 1920 depression but Hoover had made things worse in 1932 and muddied the waters so badly that it was pretty hard to get the thing right.

Roosevelt was a pretty good war president. Europe first was a successful policy although Hitler made it easy by declaring war first. Had we stayed out of the war, I think we would have suffered a great deal as Europe would have been depressed for decades.

I'm not sure Hitler would have invaded the USSR, his fatal mistake, had Britain fallen and they would have without our aid.

Michael K said...

Inga seems to share the delusion that Muslims are "just like us."

Kevin said...

"Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men."

When you get a puppy do you expect it to stay that size?

Inga said...

Dylan Roof, American. What went wrong? Murdered 9 didn't people at a bible study. SC

Wade Michael Page, American. What went wrong? Murdered 6 at the Sikh Temple, WI.

Oklahoma City Bombing. Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols. Murdered 168.

I could list more. Many more.

Birkel said...

@ Inga

I agree that we should do everything possible to cordon those people away from society. We should remove them completely. And if we can do so before they commit their crimes, it would be better.

What argument do you think you are making?

Curious George said...

"Inga said...
Muslim children refugees didn't perpetrate the Boston Marathon bomibings. They were adult men."

You now have been told that they entered the country as children. Did you already know that?

Kevin said...

"I could list more. Many more."

You can, but it does nothing to bolster your argument that "I doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone".

Nothing at all.

Inga said...

Dylan Roof and the other mass murderers I listed were also children at some point. Apparently they grew up to be mass murderers and they are American and not Muslim. Go figure.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

So because Americans commit murder and crimes, it is OK to import people who might commit more murders and crimes? Homegrown crazies aren't enough - we need more Muslim crazies to blow up people to be truly diverse and progressive!

Inga said...

"I could list more. Many more."

"You can, but it does nothing to bolster your argument that "I doubt Muslim children refugees are a threat to anyone".

Nothing at all."

Not surprising. Because reason isn't a strong suit with Trumpists, especially when it comes to Muslims.

Luke Lea said...

Regarding the situation in Sweden, one little-noted fact is that many of children were Roma, an ethnic group well-practiced in the arts of dissimulation. Parents instruct their children in all kinds of con games.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

The number of terrorist attacks perpetuated by Muslims worldwide numbers in the thousands and dwarfs the domestic attacks committed by nutjobs here in the States. And all of the Muslim attacks have one thing in common - the perpetrators are committed to a specific ideology and religion and commit their crimes in the name of that religion.



Kevin said...

"Not surprising. Because reason isn't a strong suit with Trumpists, especially when it comes to Muslims."

"Group X is dangerous" does nothing to prove that "Group Y is not dangerous" when X and Y are mutually exclusive. It's called logic. It's the foundation of reason. It has nothing to do with name calling or Muslims.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Here is a list of Islamic terrorist attacks committed since the 1980's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Islamist_terrorist_attacks


Totals:

20,165+ - injured

50,852+ - dead

Yes, it's surely a sign of "reason" to ignore those numbers. Let's focus on Dylan Roof instead!

Kevin said...

I must now leave this comment thread due to apathy. The arguments are small and filled with sameness, like dynamite-blasted fish still somehow capable of swimming.

Birkel said...

@ Inga

I ask again "What argument do you believe* you are making?"

*Above I used think but now see why my question was in error.

Matt Sablan said...

The first two, the systems that government has in place to help them before they went off didn't work (much like the Virginia Tech Shooter). McVeigh and Nichols is a bit harder to say exactly what went wrong.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

Regarding the situation in Sweden, one little-noted fact is that many of children were Roma, an ethnic group well-practiced in the arts of dissimulation. Parents instruct their children in all kinds of con games.

One time when I was in Rome some road work was being done on the street where my hotel was situated. Because of that road work pedestrians were funneled into one narrow spot when navigating the street. The entire time I was in Rome a woman, presumably Roma, sat on the ground on that spot with a child laying in her arms, begging. I think the child was supposed to be her baby, but the kid was 12 yo if he was a day.

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

Let's add 10 more murders to the total listed above, the result of the Moscow bombing.

Of course, I'm sure it had nothing, nothing whatsoever to do with Islam. CNN tells us that and so that must be the case.

Michael K said...

Inga can come up with three killers who are not Muslim.

I can too. Janet Reno - 76 in Waco.

Actually, McVeigh was taking revenge for Waco when he blew up the Murrah building.

Lon Horiuchi at Ruby Ridge- 3 He was the FBI sniper who killed Randy Weaver's wife by shooting through the door of their house.

Actually, I think it was another federal marshall who killed Weaver's son who was 12.

buwaya said...

Its a matter of probabilities. There are rather few Muslims in the US for instance, but they produce a disproportionate number of terrorists. A high per-capita probability of generating mass murderers.

It would be much higher for certain if the USG were not concentrating so much effort in suppressing collaboration between them, much more, again, per capita than any other definable group in the US. There have to be 10x more US security personnel monitoring this population, per capita, than any other. The near-certainty of betrayal and of falling into police scam-conspiracies keeps them nearly all as lone wolves, or trusting only family. Otherwise we would surely see many times as many mass murders.

Whats not widely reported, unless you pay specific attention, are the large number of terrorism conspiracy cases brought against Muslims.

And its not just refugee children growing up to be terrorists, it is also Muslims born in the US, such as the men behind the massacres at San Bernardino and Fort Hood killer and the Orlando FL nightclub, and those killed at the Garland TX attempt.

James Graham said...

Remnick has turned the magazine into The Nation with (unfunny) cartoons.

Roger Sweeny said...

Inga, Dzokhar Tsarnaev came to the US when he was 11. Tamerlan came when was 18. It is certainly true that very young people are not threats. But young people grow older.

pacwest said...

Inga,
It seems like you think Islam is not harmful to the overall human condition. Is this true?

Owen said...

Buwaya: good comment on US Islamic terrorists requiring disproportionate counter-terror resources. I worry that as the size, number and density of these groups goes up, and as they develop better tradecraft and lawfare skills, they will experience a quantum jump in effectiveness and/or the resource demands they impose. Analogy is to "tipping points" or, more directly, to nonlinear network effects.

Apathy? Or latency?

chuck said...

The New Yorker has cartoons to keep its readers from drowning themselves.

johns said...

it's not necessary to invent a new malady. Like Buehler, you just have to hold the thermometer near a hot light bulb, then call Mom.

BillyTalley said...

They are hitting the bottom of their well of outrage, sputtering. They are afraid of apathy, of curling up and tuning out.

n.n said...

Catastrophic Anthropogenic Immigration Reform including the refugee crises is a progressive condition for natives and immigrants alike, and the people left behind to suffer through social justice adventurism.

n.n said...

Diversity under the Pro-Choice Cult has set back human relationships and engendered a progressive prejudice through fomenting fear and loathing between people of different colors (i.e. class), characters (i.e. principles), and sexes (the war on women, men, and babies, too).

n.n said...

Life under alternative facts, indulging in wars of aggression, forcing catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform, denying individual dignity, and debasing human life... in the twilight fringe.

hombre said...

Oh, Inga, try this: "This is part of the list of Islamic terror attacks maintained by TheReligionofPeace.com.
During this time period (the last 30 days), there were 123 Islamic attacks in 24 countries, in which 998 people were killed and 1173 injured."

Or this: https://www.politicalislam.com/tears-of-jihad/

Then hallucinate that Timothy McVeigh, et al, have something to do with the danger presented by Muslim children who do grow up to be Muslim adults. I say hallucinate because Scott Adams did a nice job using Ben Affleck (on Muslims) as an example of lefty hallucinating to avoid cognitive dissonance.

Sen. Durbin provided another example today when he said the Senate might not "recover" if Republicans invoked the "Reid option" to confirm Gorsuch. Durbin is hallucinating that the Senate is only safe when Reid invokes the "Reid option" as he did in 2011.

Gospace said...

rcocean said...
Just to add, FDR was the greatest liar to ever be POTUS. Even worse than LBJ. He lied us into war and he lied about his health in 1944 - just to name two of his biggest lies.

He also used the FBI and IRS to wiretap and harass his political opponents. In today's environment, he would have been impeached for about 500 violations of everyone's constitutional rights and abuse of power.


Not a chance. Democrats would, as they always have and always will, vote in lockstep to protect another Democrat.