Modern journalism is one massive, smelly, steaming pile of hypocrisy.
Check out this headline from the New York Daily News:
“Ideology matters: Forget the Christchurch mosque murderer's name,
but understand the poisonous ideas that motivated him.”
So now, the ideology of a terrorist matters.
We absolutely must carefully examine the ideology of terrorists, right?
Watch what these hypocrites do.
A murderer slaughtered 49 people in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.
We will not here print his name.
Nor will we gawk at his sickening video.
We do not want to risk inspiring copycats.
But as members of the media and as people in a free and pluralistic society, we must
look without flinching at the poisonous ideology that inspired this man to kill.
Just as radical Islamism and anti-Semitism and other hateful creeds drive people to kill innocents,
boundless fear and hatred and dehumanization of Muslims in this case drove a self-identified
white European to enter houses of worship and gun down human beings who were praying to God.
So, these hypocrites say that we must look without flinching at the ideologies of terrorists.
Now, I agree completely.
When someone goes on a killing spree for ideological reasons, you had better take a close look
at the ideology, because if other people share the same ideology, you’ll want to make sure
that they don’t also become violent.
But the media never does this with Islam.
ISIS, and al-Qaeda, and Boko Haram, and al-Shabaab, and the Taliban have been slaughtering people
in the name of Allah for years.
How many times have you seen journalists say, “You know, we’re going to get to the bottom of this.
We’re going to open Islam’s most trusted sources and see why these terrorists are convinced
that Allah wants them to terrorize unbelievers”?
There have been tens of thousands of Islamic terrorist attacks since 9-11.
How many times have you seen journalists take a serious look at what Islam says about terrorism?
Zero.
But suddenly, when the ideology is white nationalism, we must look without flinching at the ideology.
So courageous of professional flinchers to look without flinching.
Now, the New York Daily News does refer to “radical Islamism.”
But if you think that this means examining Islamic texts, you haven’t been paying attention.
We’ll see what journalists mean by the ideology of radical Islamists in a few moments.
Let’s continue:
He took the lives of 49 people, he said, because “The origins of my language is European,
my culture is European, my political beliefs are European, my philosophical beliefs are
European, my identity is European and, most importantly, my blood is European.”
He boasted of deciding “to take a stand to ensure a future for my people.”
Like the far-right terrorist who murdered 77 people in Norway in 2001, he believed he
was defending the West from an invasion by heathens seeking to infiltrate and pollute
his precious culture.
Notice that even in the passage they quote, the Christchurch terrorist was most concerned
with “his European blood.”
He said in his manifesto that he doesn’t really care about Islam.
He simply cares that Muslims have the highest birthrates, and therefore that non-white Muslims
will eventually outnumber white people.
So this guy’s ideology is straightforward—it’s grounded in simple racism.
This cannot be conveniently filed away as “deranged.”
Simply calling it “evil” does little good either.
This is is [ironic that this comes from the editorial board].
This is a virulent belief system, and a specific one, that is growing more common, including
in the United States.
A Washington Post analysis late last year revealed that “over the past decade, attackers
motivated by right-wing political ideologies have committed dozens of shootings, bombings
and other acts of violence, far more than any other category of domestic extremist.”
So, if the adherents of an ideology “have committed dozens of shootings, bombings, and
other acts of violence,” we need to carefully scrutinize their ideology, right?
Well, what if the adherents of an ideology have committed tens of thousands of shootings,
bombings, and other acts of violence?
We know what the answer is.
You ignore it.
When a man killed 49 people at Pulse nightclub in Florida in 2016, it mattered that he was
spurred to act by U.S. attacks on ISIS targets in the Middle East.
It mattered that he had pledged allegiance to the terrorist group’s leader.
It mattered that he had posted to Facebook, “You kill innocent women and children by
doing us airstrikes...Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”
We need to similarly understand anti-Muslim killers’ reasons for action today.
Forget his name.
Dare not gloss over exactly what drove him to kill.
Did you catch that?
When the Daily News says that we need to examine the ideology of “radical Islamists,”
what do they mean?
They mean that we need to see what the U.S. has done to upset them so much
that they decide to kill.
In this case, the Pulse Nightclub shooter was “spurred to act by U.S. Attacks on ISIS targets.”
So even here, there’s no serious examination of the terrorist’s ideology.
A serious examination would go something like this.
The Pulse Nightclub jihadi was upset about U.S. attacks against ISIS.
But why would he be upset about attacks against ISIS?
Aren’t Muslims against ISIS?
I guess we’ll need to go through Islam’s most trusted sources to see why this man agreed
with ISIS.”
But journalists will never do that.
Why?
Because they’re the biggest bunch of cowards and hypocrites the world has ever seen.
In fact, it gets worse.
Not only will journalists never seriously examine the commands of Allah and Muhammad,
they’ll condemn you for doing it.
So here we have journalists for the New York Daily News insisting that we can’t ignore
the ideologies of terrorists.
But if you draw any attention whatsoever to the ideology of jihadis, these same journalists
will condemn you as a racist, and a bigot, and an Islamophobe.
And they’ll view themselves as heroes for doing it.
How can we change the sad state of journalism?
A good start would be constantly throwing their hypocrisy right in their faces—
or, should I say, their two faces.