Every time I say this, "both sides" freak out but it doesn't make it any less true: Liberals and leftists who fixate endlessly on an exaggerated threat of "Nazis" are the mirror image of right-wingers who fixate endlessly on the exaggerated threat of "Radical Islamic Terror"
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Yeah, I'm aware that one person died in Charlottesville in August 2017. Two months later, eight people died in Manhattan as a result of a "radical Islamic terror" attack. Inflating the threat posed by EITHER phenomenon because it flatters your sense of moral grandiosity is inane
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And again, clearly radical Islamism is a serious threat in places like Syria, and the same can be said for Nazis in Ukraine. But what happens in the US, at a time of unprecedented society-wide safety, is that moralizing political actors inflate threats when it suits their agenda
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What always happens is that the threats are then used as justification for overzealous legislative and law enforcement action, which threatens civil liberties (and more recently gets invoked to censor the internet.) That's the pattern, and I don't care if noting it makes you mad
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Michael Tracey Retweeted Matt Stoller
As the cryptographer Bruce Schneier often observes: "The risk of dying in the US from terrorism is substantially less than the risk of drowning in your bathtub, the risk of a home appliance killing you, or the risk of dying in an accident caused by a deer"https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1130100249878499328 …
Michael Tracey added,
Matt StollerVerified account @matthewstoller115 people die a day from opioid overdoses. Whatever you think of claims from the right or left about threats, I see no interest in framing mass murder by the billionaire Sackler family with anywhere near the same heat as either side's political opposition. https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1130096582257512448 …30 replies 40 retweets 264 likesShow this thread -
Replying to @mtracey
I take your point. I'm actually saying something slightly different. Drowning in a bathtub is an accident with a certain moral frame, an opioid OD epidemic or a terrorist attack actually have moral villains.
1 reply 0 retweets 13 likes
Michael Tracey Retweeted Michael Tracey
I agree with that.https://twitter.com/mtracey/status/1130103988827897857 …
Michael Tracey added,
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Replying to @mtracey @matthewstoller
This tweet doesn't agree with that. It's about whether or not someone is intentionally killing people.
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