I wonder if there will ever be a time where people choose not to do something they could do because it's evil. I doubt I'll see it in my lifetime. The haters are already busily distracting from Elliot Rodgers' rampage by magnifying their online narcissism and misogyny for the world to witness.
A website popular with the online Pick-up Artist community responded to Elliott Rodger’s murderous Santa Barbara rampage, saying it could have been avoided if Rodger had ‘game,’ like they profess to possess, before concluding that “more people will die” unless society provides men with more “sexual options.”
The Return of Kings article, written by ‘Roosh,’ goes to elaborate lengths to explain that thePUA-hate community that Rodger was a part of held him back from learning the “masculine” art of seduction – which they call “game” – and, combined with the “American media, the blogosphere, men’s rights activists, and progressive organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center,” Rodger was encouraged to hate and ultimately murder women.
“All these groups are complicit for creating a cultural environment that allowed this massacre to occur, ” Roosh wrote. “It is them (sic) who must accept responsibility for these seven deaths and make the moral change to their ideologies in order to prevent such an act from happening again.”
Here's an example of Roosh's logic:
Rodger should have checked his male privilege at the door and atoned for the sins of thousands of years of “male patriarchy.” He was likely exposed to infantile “trigger warnings” during the course of his education. He received direct propaganda that insinuates all men are potential rapists. American universities are becoming firmly anti-male with its extreme left ideology and policies. Just recently, the Justice Department has ushered in directives that attempt to restrict the definition of consensual sex, making any attempt by Rodger to fornicate with a female at a college party as a potential rape encounter that would have gotten him kicked out of school without a trial. Pro-female policies now dominate most American universities. Rodger would definitely not have received a sympathetic ear to his plight.
The bolded portion is my emphasis, and it sounds just like something out of David Horowitz' House of Horrors. Sure, it's all the fault of the American left for elevating women to something like equal status.
Where, I wonder, are all those right wing organizations who teach purity before marriage and abstinence? Could an argument be made that it's the failure of the right wing to adequately educate Elliot Rodger that he was a virgin because God hadn't brought him the perfect woman yet? I think so, but don't expect it from these guys.
Then we have a group of jokesters on Facebook calling him an American hero.
Meanwhile, Twitter is exploding with tweets on the #YesAllWomen hashtag, which is flowing with tweets and heartbreaking stories of women being demeaned, abused, marginalized, and objectified. It's also filled with calls to action and awareness.
I don't know how much impact social media will actually have on these issues. Like most things, they tend to blow up and then die out when the newest sports, news or entertainment event hits the popularity threshold. They're not especially conducive to constructive dialogue either, but if the hashtag is any indication, there is a lot of anger out there waiting to be channeled into something constructive.
Rather than shake my fist at the idiots glorifying a cold-blooded murderer, I'd rather honor the victims by finding a way to change the conversation to one based on mutual respect and an effort to understand what is really going on here. But this is the internet, and those things rarely happen here.
