Allo! Finally done with my solo BG3 campaign. A solid 2nd playthrough.
shivas.wisdom said: A comparison of political violence by left-wing, right-wing, and Islamist extremists in the United States and the world: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9335287/
"When compared to individuals associated with a right-wing ideology, individuals adhering to a left-wing ideology had 68% lower odds of engaging in violent (vs. nonviolent) radical behavior (b = −1.15, SE = 0.13, odds ratio [OR] = 0.32, P < 0.001). On the other hand, the difference between individuals motivated by Islamist and right-wing causes was not significant (b = 0.05, SE = 0.14, OR = 1.05, P = 0.747). Expressed in terms of predicted probabilities, the probability of left-wing violent attack was 0.33, that of right-wing violent attack was 0.61, and that of Islamist violent attack was 0.62. These findings remained robust after we controlled for demographic variables (sex, age, education, minority status, immigration status), prior criminal experiences, military experience, and decade in which the perpetrator entered the database."
Before I read the article, I will first agree with you and likely the article that prior to 2015-ish (pre Trump), right-wing violence was "worse." However, like the Charlie Kirk case, there's a huge argument to be had because these kids are often *in rebellion* of their families ideology. In other words, It's complicated because you almost *always* have a cocktail of influential upbringing mixed with the newly embraced *rebellious* ideologies these young men find in literature or online loooooong before they shoot anything up. These rebellious ideologies are quite often far-left or anarchist/nihilistic in nature.
I see this article was written in 2022. Let's see what sources and timelines they draw from. Reading now...
--------------
"In comparison to left-wing supporters, right-wing individuals are more often characterized by closed-mindedness and dogmatism"
I agree it used to be this way as a former democrat. I disagree it still is. The winds have shifted dramatically.
"In contrast, in comparison to their right-wing counterparts, left-wing individuals score higher on openness to new experiences, cognitive complexity, and tolerance of uncertainty"
Same with this one. The left has fallen into secular Dogma over the last ten years and "trusts the science" as much as the right-wing trusts their Bible. (People lie.) Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk was publicly ripping apart true anti-gay people on his tours. (Happy to show anyone the clip that wants to see it.)
I'm skipping the Islam stuff. Not relevant to our conversation.
"To be included in the database, individuals have to meet at least one of the following criteria: arrested or indicted for illegal ideologically motivated offenses, killed because of their ideological activities, identified as a current or former member of a designated terrorist organization, or associated with an organization whose leader or founder was indicted for violent ideologically motivated offenses."
Oof.
I'm going to finish the article, but under normal circumstances, I'd stop right here. What bullshit is this? They just found a convenient way to exclude EVERYTHING Antifa has done over the years! (And I get that most of it is peaceful, but enough of it is NOT and it's a FAR higher % than the average American being violent is.) Also let's not forget the 2 billion dollars of property damage done during the George Floyd riots. Dozens were KILLED, 2,000 officers were injured, as were hundreds of civilians. How convenient that none of that is going to be part of the study. To me, this is already a joke now, but I will continue to oblige because I promised.
Quote: We included individuals whose public exposure occurred between 1948 and 2018
This is way too broad a timeline to be taken seriously and I already agreed that more violence came from right-wing homes than left-wing homes prior to the last decade or so. I'm going to agree with your article because it addresses the past. It does not address the present in any meaningful manner. A shame.
MY claim is from roughly 2015-2025. The left has lost it's damn mind.
Reading the rest of the article... I'm not going to be able to disagree much with the "findings" due to the timeline they took their sampling from. But even in 2022 they refused to get with the times by deliberately excluding all the "mostly peaceful" protests that took place nationwide.
Also, my original point still stands. A lot of mass shooters may have come from right-wing families, but had embraced left-wing or another ideology long before going guns-a-blazing in *rebellion* to the culture they came from.
There's no clean answer to this if you zoom out far enough. Any political side or ideology can create this under the right circumstances. But for the last decade, the political violence on the left has been FAR worse, and I highly recommend you start citing a more updated study that doesn't rely a no longer relevant timeline.
I'd stick to the last ten years.
-------------------- Here comes...
Edited by FoolOfElysium (09/25/25 07:11 PM)
|