Right-Wing Pathologies Revealed After Adkisson Shooting at Unitarian Church (Freepers laid bare)

[Ian David]

Title: Right-Wing Pathologies Revealed After Adkisson Shooting at Unitarian Church
Source: alternet
URL Source: http://www.alternet.org
Published: Jul 29, 2008
Author: John Dolan
Post Date: 2008-07-29 23:29:32 by Mekons5
Keywords: None
Views: 14
Comments: 1

When Free Republic forum posters learned that the gunman was from their own demographic, out came the conservative madness.

A classic drama full of hatred, ignorance and irony played out this week in the forum section of right-wing Web site Free Republic, as "Freepers" tried to make sense of a church shooting in Tennessee that killed two parishioners and wounded many others. The grotesque irony of the FR discussions is that, after early posters had indulged all their bigoted guesses about the identity of the killer, they found out the gunman was actually straight out of their own demographic: a 59-year-old white man named Jim Adkisson, who left a four-page letter ranting against liberals, was known by his acquaintances to hate "blacks, gays and anyone who was different from him," left a pile of books by O'Reilly, Savage and Hannity behind in his car, and even wore a red-white-and-blue shirt to his church killing spree.

It's morbidly fascinating to watch the FR threads as the posters wriggle and bluster to try to accommodate this most inconvenient truth. And if you have the stomach to read them, you can learn a lot (perhaps more than you'd like) about the pathology of the contemporary American Right. For myself -- and I realize this will be the most profound heresy to progressives committed to the populist line -- reading these posts is a timely slap in the face, a painful reminder that maybe, just maybe, heartland Americans aren't such wonderful people at all. What you see in these posts is the oldest, deepest and meanest strain in American culture: the Ulster America founded by violent sectarians who moved westward again and again, from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then to the southern United States, then again westward into the American continent, to find a place where they could hone their hair-trigger intolerance without fear of interference from warmer, more humorous people. But that's me, and I'm often accused of "cynicism," whatever that means. At any rate, I'll present a little background on the site and then discuss a few of the posts. Make of them what you will.

For those who want to do their own analyses before reading on, here are the Web addresses of the three FR threads discussing the Tennessee shootings, in the order they appeared:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?;s=tennessee%20church (Try this link: http://tinyurl.com/58mtsu)

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052204/posts

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052590/posts

<snip>

The first posts reacting to the church shooting are smug gloats. Many posters were absolutely certain that the gunman would turn out to be a Muslim:

<snip>

Then, after the first few dozen posts, comes the biggest shock of all, the news that the killer was no Muslim but a white American straight out of a FR demographic profile. How are the Freepers going to handle that?

More:
http://www.the-peoples-forum.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=2851


I get a "Page Load Error" when I try and access the original article, HERE:
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/93198/right-wing_pathologies_revealed_after_adkisson_shooting_at_unitarian_church/


TVUUC to have say on Adkisson prosecution; death penalty case possible
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=61419&catid=2

Witness screamed 'Why?' in gunman's face

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/07/29/shooting.witness/


Police: Man shot churchgoers over liberal views
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jOAQKzY-aOBqDspFkEAV_ZO65vZAD92730HG1



See What Happens When You Portray Liberals as Dangerous and Insane Vermin?

Commentary By Lee Russ

Watching the Watchers

I used to electronically converse with a born again Christian who used a retrospective definition of “Christian.” In his view, people who did bad things could never be Christians, because Christians don’t do bad things. That little loop of illogic seems to run deep through right wingers, whether they be Christian or other. So let’s talk about good old Mr. Adkisson, who just went berserk in that Unitarian Universalist (UU) church in Tennessee.

Jim David Adkisson is reported to have shot seven people, killing two so far, because he couldn’t find a job, his food stamps were being cut, and liberals have ruined the country. There has also been some mention of his anger toward organized religion based on having been forced to attend church as a child.

Forget for a minute that his precious food stamps wouldn’t exist at all if it were up to Adkisson’s fellow right wingers, and forget for a minute that it is big business and their conservative supporters who have elevated the “free market” to the level of a God which must be worshipped at the expense of the interests of ordinary citizens in making a living and having a life. Forget for a minute that shooting up a UU church because you resent having been forced to attend a different church is especially absurd; if there’s any religion that won’t force you to attend, UU is it.

Let’s talk about the hatred of liberals. And let’s talk about the fact that Mr. Adkisson’s personal library included The O'Reilly Factor, by the one and only Shilll O'Reilly; Liberalism is a Mental Disorder, by Michael (what gay pictures?) Savage; and Let Freedom Ring, by Sean Vannity. And let’s freely acknowledge that Mr. Adkisson appears to have been pretty deeply disturbed, and to have been deeply disturbed long before he ever encountered the literary talents of those three authors.

More:
http://watchingthewatchers.org/news/1426/see-happens-you-portray-liberals

[indepat]

1. RWism is a stand-alone pathology in itself imv, i.e. the proof is in the pudding for by their works

they shall be known. :P

[Ian David]

2. Authoritarian Personality Disorder. n/t

[zanne]

7. I do believe it's a genetic disorder. nt

[treestar]

3. One of them thought it surprising that a UU church member would

stand up to a gunman?

I wonder sometimes if freepers ever think about what they are thinking. Like do they realize that they have no grip on reality?

[Ian David]

4. This is why I think it is helpful to get angry at them.

They don't expect it, it rattles their world view, and it really, REALLY bothers them.

[zanne]

5. My favorite from FR...

"Fred Phelps is a Leftist".

“...and this nut can’t be blamed on a leftist ideology. Nuts come in all flavors, and some of them are going to have loony ideas on all sides.”

Psst. Fred “God hate f**s” Phelps is a Democrat and no conservative.

Not claiming that this man is a Phelpist, just pointing out that there are Leftists (like Phelps’ cult who protest the Iraq war weekly) who hold hate in their heart that seems to be hand in hand with this man’s actions.

Additionally there are those social conservative Democrats who “cling to guns and religion” and vote against such ballot initiatives and liberal candidates “in spite of their own economic self-interest”.

[Ian David]

6. Phelps is no leftist. n/t

[zanne]

8. Can you imagine the tortured logic that has to take place in this person't head? nt

[Marr]

19. Yep- they begin with the assumption that Conservatives are correct and righteous.

That's a given. Anything negative cannot be Conservative. More than that, all negative things are somehow related to liberalism.

I'd love to say it's a mental illness, but I know it isn't. It's plain old stupidity, coupled with an ugly personality. These are people who simply don't like people, and they desperately want someone to blame for their own failures.

[BrklynLiberal]

58. I believe it may be a case of "cognitive dissonace".

Once they have a emotional/psychological investment in their beliefs, they will use any means of twisted "logic" to justify the beliefs they have held, no matter how insane they may appear to others.

[Ganja Ninja]

23. Phelps is not a Democrat and he doesn't "protest the war".

Phelps is an evangelical loon that uses any and all occasions to protest gays. Whatever else may be involved is only a pretext for him to show up and spew his hatred for gays.

[tblue37]

43. Actually, Phelps has run for office as a Democrat, and he was actually a Civil

Rights activist back in the day. But he is a complete loony, and his entire world view is completely warped by his hatred of gays.

I suspect he is not a Demcorat anymore, but he certainly was one in the past.

[pipoman]

49. I know a little about this can of nuts

and they all claim to be Democrats/liberals and have for years. Truth is they are extremists who are reviled by most Dems and Thugs.

[tblue37]

52. True. of course. Anyone can call himself a Democrat without

adhering to any of the liberal principles that the party is supposed to represent. After all, Zell Miller is also supposedly a Democrat. But it's also true that Phelps used to be a Civil Rights advocate. I find that terribly ironic, since the issue of rights is so obviously a civil rights issue, too.

[KamaAina]

60. Ronald Reagan was a Democrat, too

and a labor activist.

So I guess the Church of the far Right has to defrock St. Ronnie. :sarcasm:

[yardwork]

9. Freepers can't admit that they're wrong about their world view.

If they admit that a conservative is a mass murderer, then their entire world comes crashing down and they have to admit to themselves that they've been supporting a mass murderer in the White House and ideology that impoverishes them. It's simply too much for them to accept.

Stronger-minded people can admit that they were wrong, that they were fooled, taken in. Weak-minded people simply can't handle the truth. It will destroy what little shred of sanity they have left.

That's why it's impossible to reason with freepers and their type. They're drunk or on drugs most of the time anyway. They suffer from terrible pathologies. I think they all had abusive childhoods.

It's best to simply turn the law on them whenever possible, preferably before they kill somebody.

[Ian David]

10. They're even attacking Snopes.com for daring to challenge their "facts." n/t

[yardwork]

31. Freepers say that snopes is just another left-wing bias.

[NickB79]

41. Good thing they have Conservapedia

Though I think they got rid of the picture of Jesus riding a dinosaur by now. :crazy:

[Jackpine Radical]

59. Wow, they got a pic of Jesus on a dinosaur?

So much for that loony Charlie Darwin and his crackpot theories.

[SacredCow]

11. To be honest....

I'm already sick to death of how this tragedy is being used to promote political ideas.

2 people are dead, more injured, and many more are traumatized by watching a friend/family member take a shotgun blast to the chest. Yes, the FReepers are mean and nasty and were showing their true colors early on as this story evolved. But that doesn't mean that it's right for me to gloat that the waste of a human who caused this tragedy was one of their followers. To my way of thinking, that is trivializing this tragedy into some kind of bullet point, which is just wrong. I do take some solace in that the worst offenders do seem to be on the FReeper side of things.

I don't mean to call anyone out- these are just the thoughts that were going through my head last night as I read the commentary from both sides. It's exactly this kind of reaction to a tragedy that makes me weep at what 2-party politics has reduced us to. I'll put on my flame suit now. :cry:

[Ian David]

12. In order to prevent it, we must understand it. And those resonsible need to take responsibility...

... or to be HELD responsible.

NEVER AGAIN!

[SacredCow]

18. It's not that hard to understand, really.....

A deranged person strolled into a church, took out a shotgun, and randomly killed innocent people. At the instant he pulled the trigger, it ceased to matter what books were in his library. He's a murderer. There is no need for a superlative.

Forgive me if this is coming off as some kind of attack for the OP- it's really not the case. I do think it's worthwhile to show how the FReeper mind contradicts and vascillates with every twist and turn. My point is simply that I'm disgusted to be living in a time where EVERYTHING has become political.

[JBoris]

21. Ummm... the shooter is the one that made it political, not the OP. nt

[SacredCow]

25. Yes, but prior to knowing any details...

the speculation on both sides (much more notably the FReeper side, I grant) automatically started at politicizing the issue before the bodies were even counted. THAT's what I'm talking about- NOT the OP, as was previously explained.

[PerpetuallyDazed]

46. It wasn't just in his library...

it was in his car at the scene of the crime, apparently. But I understand where you're coming from and agree with you--it's sad when a tragedy becomes political.

[SacredCow]

53. I don't disagree that it's VERY telling of the FReeper-type mindset...

And given how the shooter, himself, gave his reasons as exactly that, I certainly can't deny the political ramifications of this tragedy. I'm wrestling with this one, personally.

[RaleighNCDUer]

16. IMO, to view this as an isolated tragedy instead of an incident that

is symptomatic of a cultural mindset is what trivializes it.

It is equivalent to dismissing the Beer Hall Putsch as being just a bunch of drunken Bavarians. There IS a bigger problems here.

[MadHound]

13. Ulster Americans? I think this person needs to do his demographic surveys a bit better

I know where I live out here in the Midwest, a lot of most rabid RWers have German and English ancestry, not Scotch Irish.

[jaksavage]

27. Beware

the anglo-saxons!

[fasttense]

14. A group of unarmed liberals took down an armed republican mad man.

The politically insane republicons don't have a chance against normal people.

But that doesn't stop the conservative agenda. The neocon republicons have destroyed the economy and bankrupted the nation for the middle class. They need those same middle class people to blame someone else besides the true culprits. Just like pointing a finger at any other scapegoat. The violence starts on the fringes, picked up by the crazies then it spreads.

"If you feed a disturbed person a distorted and angry view of a specific group like, oh, let’s say liberals, if you pound away day after day and hour after radio broadcast hour that this group is vermin, slime, devious, destructive of all that is good and pure, that they are, in fact, either destructively insane or the very embodiment of evil, do you not bear some speck of the responsibility for a madman violently attacking this group? Not even a smidgen of responsibility?

The endless portrayal of liberals as the root of all American evil serves the same purpose that portraying Jews in the same light served in Nazi circles. Dehumanize. Desensitize. Rev up the rage then rev it up some more until a good portion of the populace considers this scapegoat to be the source of not only all their own problems, of all the evil in the entire world."

[mwb970]

15. I read the FR threads, now I need a shower....

This country has a lot of sick, rotten people in it, doesn't it?

[GreenPartyVoter]

17. I'm a third generation Scots-Irish American and I am a socialist Green. I have nothing

in common with that shooter. I'm sure there are many other Scots-Irish folk who don't either.

[yardwork]

32. I noticed that the blogger really emphasizes the "Ulster" issue - sheesh.

Bigots are bigots. Doesn't really matter where their ancestors lived.

[Ian David]

33. I wasn't sure what he meant by that. n/t

[OnionPatch]

42. Another Scots-Irish American here!

From Appalachia, and moved west to boot as the author describes. But I'm very liberal and politically active and so is most of my family. That was some stereotyping for a liberal writer. Disappointing.

[Zookeeper]

44. The writer should deal with his stereotyping and hatred...

of a whole group of people based on their ethnic background.

I'm Scots-Irish and Pennsylvania German and am a lifelong Liberal. And I come from a long-line of Union members.

Does the author condemn other ethnic or racial groups based on one member's actions?

[Blue_Tires]

20. did they ever release the full text of the letter?

[Ian David]

22. They probably have to wash the catsup stains off without smearing the crayon, first. n/t

[AwakeAtLast]

24. Wow, lots of information

but I learned one surprising fact: Did you know that Fred Phelps is a DEMOCRAT? (;) )

"Psst. Fred “God hate f**s” Phelps is a Democrat and no conservative.

Not claiming that this man is a Phelpist, just pointing out that there are Leftists (like Phelps’ cult who protest the Iraq war weekly)"

Post #21: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052590/posts

We need a batshit crazy smilie, this one doesn't quite do it here :crazy:

[arikara]

26. And did you know that O'Reilly is a moderate?

Yup, the MSM folks are angry that Rush and Sean have a combined audience that outnumbers some of their own audiences.
As a result of their anger and jealousy, the deceivers in the MSM will stop at nothing to destroy the integrity of good men like Sean and Rush.

What's really sad? That idiot O'Reilly falsely accused Free Republic of being a lunatic fringe site and all this BS. If only that loser would realize that his "moderate" tone doesn't carry any water with informed Americans.

It was O'Reilly's recent praising of Obama that really angered me the most. He seems to whitewash all the nastiness in Camp Obama in favor of generalizations and other BS.

All of a sudden, O'Reilly's pals in the MSM try to connect him with the church shooter?

I wonder if that bloviating idiot will ever wake up to the fact that he cannot attack informed Americans while subsequently praising Obama.

We are much smarter than the Gasbag gives us credit for.

However, his pals in the media have thrown him under the bus.

:rofl:

How confusing. And now I shall go pluck out my eyes for looking at that pathetic trash.

[liberal1973]

36. lol..

O'liely a moderate? :wtf:

Yeah I'll lower you one, just like tobie keith says he's a democrat? :rofl:

But I like your O'liely better.

[Ian David]

37. O'Reilly is "moderate" because he doesn't mind homosexuals...

... so long as they don't have gay sex, don't want equal rights, don't tell anyone that they're gay, don't adopt children, don't serve in the military, and don't try to humanize themselves.

[wicket]

28. K & R

Wonderful post Ian, as always :D

[DailyGrind51]

29. Adkisson's mind was the fuel, Hannity & Co. provided the match.

[daggahead]

30. Wow ... that entire site (FR) is one big right-wing cliche. n/t

[Ganja Ninja]

34. I wonder if Adkisson was a member of FR? n/t

[Ian David]

35. Only if he could get Lurlean to show him how to type in the big box. n/t

[Breeze54]

38. The same Dolan that loves war and loves FR?

Comment posted at your AlterNet link/article.
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/93198/right-wing_pathologies_revealed_after_adkisson_shooting_at_unitarian_church/?comments=view&cID=965615&pID=965233#c965615

Dolan, My Man, are you the War Nerd?

Posted by: notabilia on Jul 29, 2008 6:18 PM

A review of John Dolan's book "Pleasant Hell" contained an outing of him as the true author of "War Nerd," en execrable book of foaming war enthusiasm in which the author, now known to the public as this John Dolan here, expresses great and undying love for this same FreeRepublic.com. What gives? Dolan here seems to frequent this Free Republic.com of which he professes such censure a little too much for comfort - is he a closet nutjob himself - a Freeper? Even if so, I like to think he is James Frey coming clean here, and though I actually have bought his books, I don't feel that bad for doing so - this is not exactly best-seller territory here.

Scots-Irish are mostly protestants.

Note that this figure does not include those reporting Scots-Irish ancestry, who are counted separately,
and account for approximately five million additional Americans.

Irish settlement in the South

While only 2% of Southerners were Irish Catholics, they concentrated in a few medium-
size cities where they were highly visible, such as Charleston, Savannah and New Orleans

Major Irish-American communities

Tennessee isn't even listed!!


Scots-Irish and Irish Protestants

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish-American#Scots-Irish_and_Irish_Protestants

snip-->

The term Scots-Irish (aka Ulster-Scots) is usually used to designate descendants of Scottish immigrants to Ireland, eventually immigrating to North America. Ulster is a region where much intermingling of Scots, English, and Irish people took place due to the Ulster Plantations

They settled especially in frontier areas of Pennsylvania, Virginia and the Carolinas.

The term Anglo-Irish is sometimes used to designate Anglican (see Church of Ireland)
and other Protestant Irish, many of whom were of English descent.

Some see a distinction between Catholic 'Irish Americans' and Protestant 'Scots-Irish' and 'Anglo-Irish'
(though not all Scots-Irish migrants were specifically Protestant). Many people of both Anglo-Irish and Scots-Irish
descent before 1849 described themselves as, simply, Irish.

As Catholic Irish began to enter the U.S. in greater numbers the distinction Scots-Irish became popularized.

Many of the 'English' and 'Scots-Irish' Protestants had assimilated into society by the time the large
numbers of Catholic Irish immigrants arrived. During and after the "Great Irish Famine" (or Great Hunger;
Irish: An Gorta Mór) of 1845-1850, millions of Irish Catholics came to North America.

[Ian David]

39. So, Dolan is a guy whose hatred of Freepers is surpassed only by his hatred of Catholic Scotts?

It seems to me he could have made his points much more effectively without dragging his own agenda into the issue.

[Breeze54]

40. I think he just hates the Scots-Irish who are mostly protestants.

He seems to be a bigot and I agree, he should've left that out of this article.
I posted about the difference between the Ulster-Irish and the Catholic Irish
because I belong to the CI group. ;)

[Zookeeper]

45. I was reading the comments today on the Knoxville Sentinel

website and it made me curious enough to venture into the cesspool that is Free Republic. First, the shooting doesn't seem to be a particularly popular topic there. The two or threads threads that were posted over the last couple of days consisted mostly of theories like this:

- Adkisson wasn't really a conservative because he was on food stamps.
- It's a librul plot to discredit conservatives.
- The Liberal MSM is probably lying about what was in the letter he wrote.
- Those books Adkisson had, by O'Reilly, Savage and Hannity, didn't mean anything because the guy had other books, too.
- Adkisson was just a loonie and now those mean old Liberals are going to try and hurt us by saying he was a Conservative.
- What the heck is a Unitarian Univeralist church? Doesn't that mean they believe in nothing?

And so on. The "winning" comment for Freeper stupidity?

- "If that shooter had been a Muslim, he would have been hailed as a hero."

:wow:

[Ian David]

50. They don't realize that most of the Founding Fathers were Unitarians, do they? n/t

[XanaDUer]

47. It's heartening to see some FRers on one of those pages

are slamming a racist . so there's hope, i hope.

XD

[Number23]

48. Happy to recommend

Thanks for posting this

[xchrom]

51. kick

[crikkett]

54. You lost me at 'Ulster Americans' -- why post racism?

I know you didn't write it, but this is a bigoted piece starting with profiling 'freepers' in such a slanted way and continuing to the Ulster America.

I'm really surprised to see this kind of garbage on DU, but I guess I shouldn't be.
:eyes:

[Ian David]

55. I didn't realize the meaning of the term at the time. See replies #35-40.

I had just assumed that "Ulster America" was a political group.

The piece would have been much more effective without the original author's racism injected into it.

It adds nothing to the debate.

[Rocknrule]

56. Just to lighten the mood a bit...

huh huh huh, you said "laid bare"

But in all seriousness, what these people are doing is no different than what Eric Cartman did in "The Passion of the Jew," getting a bunch of brain-dead followers to march down the street chanting, "Wir mussen die Juden ausrossen!"

[BrklynLiberal]

57. Hmm Why do people with a mental/personality disorder seem to be attracted to

the fanatic, right-wing, authoritarian, Neo-con type of philosophy and writings? HUH? :think: