Terrorists get younger and younger.

Does mass murder cause reverse aging? Is that why they do it?

Well - now that he doesn't fit the official W.H. definition of a "terrorist" (wrong race, wrong ethnicity, wrong religion, victims were the wrong race, etc.) I suppose the next tweet from DC to be something along the lines of "Texas Bomber dead after totally biased witchhunt..."

Or something.

Wow, paranoid much?

Hyperbole, yes. Paranoia, no.

Well, WH aside, I don't think there's any evidence yet that he was a terrorist. I haven't seen any political motivation yet (outside of the blog above) in his actions. I mean, probably domestic terrorist but the jury is still debating on "just crazy".

Would any evidence be necessary if he were named Ahmed?

Sure?

Maybe that's not how the media would portray it but of course he would need evidence as well.

That's the point; the media wouldn't need any evidence.

It's entitlement.

White boys are the most entitled demographic by far. They were promised wealth, power, and women in all forms of media since childhood. Then they grow up and realize nothing is handed to them, they react in glorious violence, just the way mass media has taught them.

"If you don't get what you deserve, it's because you are weak. Be a man."

Wow. Racist, much?

Edit: Its not worth it.

It's not about being in line.

You can argue the statement (which I agree should have had a delimiter of 'most entitled demographic of this day and age'), but to simply call it racist is attacking that the word 'white' was brought up at all.

As someone who occupies that privileged group, you're punching down.

I'll drop it.

Alse see Elliot Rodgers.

Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old child when he was murdered, and he was vilified in the press. There's only one reason they'd pull punches on this grown ass man.

Apparently this is his blog from 2012 as part of a government class project at Austin Community College.

Class act

Given that it's part of a project, was the project to have a blog or to argue against popular opinions?

Both can happen, either or.

But playing devil’s advocate is exclusively, mostly, white and conservative.

Playing devil's advocate is a vital tool for anyone who prefers rational debate over emotional shouting matches. Formulating rational arguments against your own beliefs gives you an opportunity to probe your own defenses and inspect your own foundations to make sure that everything is logical and sound/ It helps you sharpen your own arguments by anticipating those that might be used against you. And most importantly, the simple admission that your opponents have rational arguments and don't just disagree with you because they're dumb jerks makes you argue from a place of empathy and the desire for further understanding and makes it harder to lapse into dogma and smug superiority.

There's nothing conservative or liberal about it. You can find open or closed minds, rational or irrational arguments on any point of the political spectrum.

I will give you "mostly white", though. Or at least mostly privileged. Rational debate is a luxury that takes time and mental energy that you just can't spare when all your waking hours are spent trying to claw your way up the first couple levels of Maslow's hierarchy.

That's the crux of the problem. Mostly white and privileged folks can't help themselves and would play devil's advocate in conversation that is not up for debate (not a debate to begin with).

Right, but I don't think playing devil's advocate is the problem there. The pro blem is that privilege tends to make you assume that every conversation is about you because you're not used to having to shut up and listen long enough to understand otherwise. The particular conversational tactic you use, whether it's devil's advocacy or something else, is just a symptom of that underlying problem.

True
----

Some white dude: If I were to play devil's advocate...
Minorities: No, sir. You're the white devil.

Anything is possible, but requiring students to post opinions on the internet that they didn't actually agree with would be a very bad idea. It's one thing to draw the shitty side of an argument in a classroom debate exercise, but having those views attached to your name in a way that's accessible to the public (including prospective employers, romantic partners, etc) without context? I just don't see that happening in 2012, when stories of dumb shit people said on the internet coming back to haunt them had been circulating for uears.

Having to blog as part of a project at all is weird to me, probably because I'm a dinosaur. Instead of jumping to how it might not be damning (which is unlikely, and sounds like I was trying to apologize for him) I should have said "that sounds odd, is there more context?"

EDIT: looking at the title of the blog, "Defining my Stance", really fills in the gaps I was having for why it would have been an assigned project. The world makes sense again.

This was probably online class he took from Austin Community College. He was homeschooled and his blog bio did state he has no frame of reference for the most part, to paraphrase it.

This was something my public speaking class did. For the final speech he had a list of topics with a point value - the more difficult topics could earn you a shitton of extra credit if you did well. I took one of the highest-point-value topics - "Topic: Consensual Adult Incest, Stance: Pro" Other topics in that 'bracket' were pro-eugenics, pro-slavery, and pro-human extinction. You still had a rubric to follow on sources, logic, tone, etc., so you couldn't turn into an edgelord. And we were allowed to include a disclaimer that no, we didn't actually espouse this positions (which everyone did).

I'd kill to see a syllabus for the course - I have a feeling it wasn't structured nearly that much and he was just going full-on Poe's corollary.

After noticing that the blog is titled "Defining my Stance" I think it was just a way to encourage people to think about their political views. Which is good.

I mean, his views are terrible, but at least they're defined.

I hope pro slavery was worth more points than pro incest. Also, I don't know what an edgelord is, but it sounds like a monster from Dragon Warrior.

Approve.

He was 24 year old kid.

Please tell me this is meant to be ironic.