On Jumping the Gun

We've probably all done it once or twice or if nothing else caught ourselves doing it before putting our foot in our mouths. Thanks to the internet blasting whatever stream of consciousness thought that pops into our heads it seems to be in style to jump the gun. Afterwards there are either cries of righteous indignation if their assumptions were questioned but turned out to be right or endless mockery if they were wrong.

With the early reports on the Norway attacks there was speculation that it could have been Islamic terrorism over various policies or incidents and a fairly strong sense coming from folks familiar with the country's problems with xenophobic groups that it might be domestic terrorism. Hell if I knew though. I can't read Norwegian so there was no way I'd be able to verify any of the media's attempts to get scoops regardless of veracity, let alone the speculation.

But even before the news of the attacks broke here, I was already dealing with someone jumping the gun on a related topic. Someone pointed to this blog and stated emphatically that it was undeniable proof that Obama views regular old white folk as terrorists. The video, if someone actually watches it, shows people of various races and looks (from street rat to people posing as doctors to get to radioactive material in hospitals) playing the possible bad guys, while the good guys reporting suspicious behavior instead of letting it slide are still generally diverse, but all look pretty middle class in dress and behavior. The only real concentration of white middle-class white people in the video was in the offices of and including the responders.

The dumbest part wasn't even the jumping the gun without even watching the video. It was the blog's comment:

"Somehow the findings from this December report didn’t make it into the video…
In the last 24 months (2009 and 2010) 126 people were indicted on terrorist-related charges in the United States. All of them were Muslim."

Leaving aside the issue of how accurate that might even be as a statistic, the fact is that white middle class Americans can be Muslim. There have been attempted attacks by people of various races, white, African, Arab, etc... and various income levels to boot... here and around the world. The direct implication in both the blog and apparently the fan I was arguing with, was that you can apparently just look and tell someone's a Muslim... and somehow that in and of itself was more noteworthy than the video's highlighting of suspicious behavior. There was also the implication that Obama is coming to "Kill whitey!" but let's save that nonsense for another day.

Sadly, after the Norway suspect was described as a typical Nordic looking white guy I started seeing commentary by the left mocking those who thought it was some Muslim group... as if that information alone was definitive. Basically pulling the same crap in reverse as those using the Norway attacks to renew their demands of ethnic profiling of Muslims on the assumption you can tell by looks (along with the mindless blog/fan mentioned above before all of this).

To be fair, some people jump the gun more than others. This week's prize goes to xenophobic nutjobs all around. Vast conspiracy theories and other hysteria, even without the violent attacks, isn't helping anybody. Especially them. Maybe next week the prize will go to conspiratorial Islamic fundamentalist militant folks they despise. Maybe both should look in a friggin' mirror.

I hate this crap.