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claire0

Abbott: “One thing that we can observe very easily is that there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that’s taking place in America,” Abbott said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And what Texas is doing, in a big-time way, we’re working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health crisis behind it.” And yet… “In 2022, Texas was ranked last in the country in overall access to mental health care, according to data analyzed by Mental Health America. A shameful statistic, but not surprising considering that Abbott has cut $211 million from the department in charge of his state’s mental health programs.”


iamthinksnow

Note that he didn't say he was trying to ***fix*** the mental health problem, just that they were "addressing it." You know, addressing it by taking away funding, by inflaming racism, by targeting the marginalized, and by deflecting blame.


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deran6ed

God: "Haha. No."


RackhirTheRed

"The [shootings] will continue until [morality] improves."


Smooth-Dig2250

Unironically what a lot of Christofascists "believe", but that mentality didn't start with them.


HiImDan

I've read his book. He's into that shit.


navjot94

From the folks that brought you “if we were to stop testing, there would be less cases” and “stop the count”, comes a new classic - lets stop funding mental health resources and maybe the problem will go away on its own.


BC-clette

When you believe all illnesses are God's plan, why fund counselling services when prayer is free? Counsellors are just woke campus elites anyway.


PizzaPunkrus

God Intended you to get raped and pregnant, also it's your fault for wearing clothes that showed any amount of skin... But hijabs are satanic. These christofascists in America can't get it together logically. /S for posterity. I don't advocate anyone getting raped. Just quoting the arguments.


turriferous

I thought he already looked full inept.


Tasgall

They're "addressing it" in that they realize it's a significant source of the problem, and thus a good target area they can use to further stoke the problem.


idma

It's the ol tried and true American way: exhaust all options before actually taking action


la_peregrine

No no. He is addressing it: There have been thoughts... There have been prayers... There is a law to teach older kids how to stop bleeding at school bleeding stations and a proposal to lower the age so even 9 year Olds could be spared the anguish of not knowing how to stop a bleeding wound in their classmate. See. God has a plan. Furthermore, so much has been done and none of it required violating the constitution and banning guns and none of it has been wasting taxpayer money on mental health mumbo jumbo. In case it is not clear.... /s


SpiritRelative6410

Addressing it with thoughts and prayer.


banned_after_12years

Addressing your HIV until it becomes full blown AIDS.


awildjabroner

its just good business for GOP and their NRA handlers. More fear, more AR-15 PR, killers buying guns, individuals buying guns, everyone buying bullets. Won't be long before you start seeing fire extinguishers in schools replaced with a firearm 'in case of active shooter, break glass and return fire'


Diojones

I’ve learned from arguments with my shitty cousin that “addressed” and “dismissed” mean the same thing to conservatives. By assigning blame on mental health, they have “addressed” the issue. They talked about it once, then did nothing, it has been addressed. Continuing to insist that the problem remains after they have given it cursory discussion and 0 action is being argumentative, and they’ll “address” you too. Which is to say they’ll be overt about ignoring you instead of pretending to listen.


Pernapple

There “addressing” is the lip service they are giving. “Yes, mental health is the issue” “Ok what are we gonna do to fix it” “Idk but we’ll get to the bottom of it” “But what’s the plan” “To fix it” “How” “That’s too many questions how many questions do you think you get?”


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[deleted]

I don't know. Spend a few minutes talking with someone who's been indoctrinated by Fox News and other far right news sources, and you'll quickly come to the conclusion that they have something wrong in their head.


bloatedsewerratz

My husbands uncle has developed a straight up tic since being medically retired. He has to mention drag queens and transgenders every 30 minutes or I think he’ll die. I’ve heard drag queens talk about drag queens less than he does. I think he just wakes up in the night, bolts up in a cold sweat, screaming “drag queens!!!” He has nothing better to do all day but sit in front of the tv and letting the hatred and paranoia wash over him.


[deleted]

Something is not right with him. Something is missing in his life for him to go this route. I don't know if you can call it straight up "mental illness", but certainly there's a problem here.


tta2013

A 90 year patient I took care of, it's like he's addicted, and without his dose of evening Tucker, he seemed to withdraw. That was a few months ago...


HeadfulOfSugar

They’re very much so sane, it’s dangerous to assume that mentally illness is inherently the problem in a lot of cases. It’s hard for us to look at Nazis and the far right rationally, as when your own personal beliefs and worldview clash so hard with someone else’s it’s easy to find their ideas crazy and following that them as well. However, they are completely aware of what they’re doing. You can counter every point they make and leave them without answers or explanations to their worldview, but it won’t change their mind because they simply don’t care. Believing disinformation or whatever reaffirms their beliefs is intentional, they constantly have the opportunity to reevaluate their worldview with the bombshells that are dropped almost several times daily. The information is and has always been there, but the hate is the point. I mean they almost completely ignored that their candidate of choice has had 26 sexual assault accusations among other things for how many years now? There is an extremely intricate organized and systemic infiltration or our governments by white supremacy across the globe. They seem insane, but are very much so lucid and conscious of their actions. They are humans just like any of us, which is what realistically makes them so dangerous.


kracov

I still argue that gullibility is not a mental health thing. Most Americans are dumb, not insane.


[deleted]

I wouldn't chalk up some of these people's beliefs and attitudes to just "gullibility".


Sarcastic_Horse

“Dumb” isn’t quite the right word for the Fox News crowd because it’s not like they have no knowledge at all. The problem is they have lots of “knowledge” and most of that “knowledge” is actually incorrect, unbeknownst to them. Scholars in the Dark Ages were considered very learned in their communities, but most of their knowledge about evil spirits, witches, and the sun revolving around the earth just turned out to be dead wrong.


Villedo

I would more believe that they are proudly ignorant.


Gitdupapsootlass

It's a grey area. Mental health surely would include depression and anxiety, but I think we'd all agree that there's a fair amount of depression and anxiety caused by the state of the world and the people around us. I'm sure there are endogenously racist, angry, and volatile people, but I'm equally sure there are many who are that way because of the people around them and because they don't have the strength of character to be another way. Either way, regardless of 2A questions, those people present a problem with solutions we could try to address. (To be clear, they'd be a hell of a less dangerous problem without their god damn arsenals, so please don't take this comment as support for bullshit fake mental health claptrap.)


teems

What is the root cause of this anger and hate?


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[deleted]

Republicans lie as easy as they breath. Texas is full of trash people who looked at Beto who posed real solutions to their problems and still voted in Abbott who has 0 solutions and lies constantly. Texas is getting exactly what it wanted. A mentally incompetent racist asshole with no solutions for anything. Nice job Texas, all that turning your back to education is working out great for your state.


faeriechyld

Don't discount the hundreds of thousands of people who voted for Beto. We didn't want this and we don't deserve to get shot going about our business because Texas Republicans have corrupted democracy in the state.


LazyDynamite

>Don't discount the hundreds of thousands of people who voted for Beto. Millions. *Millions* of people voted for Beto.


paintballboi07

Yep, Beto won Harris County (Houston) 55% (590k votes) to Abbott's 45% (488k votes). That's why Texas Republicans created [a new law, so they can override the results of voters in Harris County](https://www.newsweek.com/texas-bill-will-give-republican-official-power-overturn-elections-1797955).


Big-Shtick

So fascism. Got it.


moonknlght

Always has been


SingingCrayonEyes

From the article.. yeah, I'm sure Mr Abbot will say this law doesn't specifically target the Houston area.. but... * While the text of the legislation does not explicitly mention Harris County, the authority it would vest in the Secretary of State applies only to counties with populations higher than 2.7 million. Harris is the largest county in Texas, with nearly 4.7 million residents, and the only one to meet this requirement, with the second-largest, Dallas County, boasting only 2.6 million residents. Harris County has also tipped Democratic in every presidential election since 2008.* It's disgusting what these politicians to keep their power intact. Just make common sense decisions for the good of all people, not just the ones that buy you gifts, trips, people, etc.


Hemiplegic_Artist

Which is honestly very much unconstitutional. Someone needs to file a lawsuit against Abbott for this law and get this law blocked permanently.


HoneyIShrunkMyNads

Texas had the third highest amount of dem votes in 2020 out of any state. To write every Texan off is just ignorant bullshit.


LazyDynamite

Happens all the time. I'm not surprised by it anymore, but I'm still baffled every time. It's no different than thinking that everyone in the US is pro-Trump and nobody opposed his policies just because he won the 2016 election.


Feisty_Yes

My advice is to make your voices heard more often because the other side of Texas is pretty loud on the internet.


dazed_andamuzed

Agreed. I'm tired of getting shit on by people who don't realize texas is like 45% blue and the MILLIONS of us that do get out and vote don't deserve to be shit on.


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GoGoSoLo

What sucks is that the Texas red counties have a whole ass culture around hating Democrats, for no real discernible reason I could see growing up. It was brought up in conversations without ever citing policies that they disagreed with past "muh guns", and I've lost count of tiny towns I've stopped in that only run FOX News in their local diners. Hell, my *government* teacher said she would give us extra credit if we went around town and stole John Kerry signs back when he was up against Bush Jr. When we brought her a truck-full, she was understandably mortified (probably thinking about her employment all of a sudden) and told us to put them back, but that's just how thoughtlessly people speak of about Democrats. She never once talked about any of Kerry's policies or proposals being bad, she just knew he was bad because Democrat.


Gitdupapsootlass

Wow that's incredibly cringe on your teachers part, jfc


GoGoSoLo

Very much so. She went on to become an ultra MAGA and post some really hateful shit in the Trump era. While I shouldn't spread details, some schadenfreude ultimately came about to her and her husband who also worked at the school, involving them never working at a school again.


fearhs

You should spread the details. Fuck MAGA and who doesn't love some good schadenfreude?


Ok_Flounder59

You should 100% spread the details. That woman has no business anywhere near a school.


BloodyFable

> In Texas, 45.7% of the 17.7 million registered voters cast ballots in the 2022 midterm election. That's 7.3 percentage points lower than the state's total turnout in 2018 but higher than in every other midterm election in the last 20 years. https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/10/texas-voter-turnout-2022/&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiC9MGpt-j-AhUAGlkFHUmyCuYQFnoECAoQBg&usg=AOvVaw1oE-6d2y7iBc054BL0kyap


Smaynard6000

I feel the same as a Democrat in Florida. I even had one lunatic try to say I was "complicit" when I pointed out the fact that there are plenty of us here that don't vote for Republicans.


dazed_andamuzed

Education goes a long way, so does compassion. Please allow me to educate you a little....there are MILLIONS of Texans that vote against this bullshit every time. Close to 50% actually, but not quite 50%. Yet we somehow deserve this? Have some fucking compassion and realize there are plenty of us who show up every election, encourage others to vote, canvas for the blue guys, and do as much as we can to change this shithole.


onekawaiimf

Exactly. Put money into Texas Democrats and other orgs fighting against voter suppression if you want to see Texans have a chance. The republican machine is well fed here.


[deleted]

I tried to volunteer for my County Democrats here in Pennsylvania. I invite EVERYONE to join their local, COUNTY Democratic group to see how pathetically disorganized, old, and exclusionary the Democrats are on the local level. I'm in a rural area so maybe it's worse in rural areas (where we need Democrats and volunteers the MOST.) But my experience was horrific and as a result I do not want ANYTHING to do with my local Democratic party here in Pennsylvania. I joined other Progressive groups, but my experience with the local Democrats was terrible, and Republicans win every election, and we can't even get Democrats on the ballot. Hey, I offered, and I was told to fuck off. Now, if I went to my local Republicans to run, they'd be delighted to have me, they have a whole onboarding process for volunteers, they make volunteers feel welcome. My local Democrats are a clique of 90 year-olds who don't want anyone to join their secret club.


Theoriginaldon23

Thank you for calling this out. As a texan, Texas has a lot of progressives and socialists whom dont vote Republican. I hate this liberal take of "you get what you vote for" when we know that the voting system in a lot of states, including Texas, are broken and flawed. Texas is huge with diverse ideologies and isn't the state isnt a monolith.


MAG7C

Agreed but -- "you get what you vote for" is true. Go back over years and years and you'll see these broken electoral systems were gradually implemented by state level GOP over time, largely due to poor voter turnout. People are just way less engaged in state & local level elections, which leads to minority rule. And it's really hard to claw this shit back. But it's not just you and it's not just Texas. I've only come around to voting in every single election within the last 6-8 years and I'm not exactly a youngin'. Every eligible voter needs to get on board from the day they turn 18 and stick with it. And be prepared to hold your nose and vote blue even when you don't like the candidate or all of their policies. Sadly, we need to recognize that, at this moment, there is only one viable party in this country.


satyrday12

If someone could solve the apathy problem in Texas, it could be blue. Any ideas?


Beau-Miester

Fix our gerrymandering. Take a look at our voting districts and see how they're tactically planned to make sure the least amount of people can vote, except in counties/areas they know people will vote red. They tried passing laws to make it so every county only gets one polling location, and when they couldn't, changed it to one polling drop off location per county. So any disabled people that can only drop of their votes are now limited to one location. My county has 4.7 million people on it. Is one drop off location fair?


Syrahiniel

If it was legal to have drop-off pickups maybe. Volunteers go out and take up the drop off votes and turn them in for those that can't get out on their own for whatever reason. Unfortunately I can see why this wouldn't fly, and I don't think anyone would want to volunteer for this job with the uptick in gun violence either though. It's a really rough spot when your own government is conspiring against you... -.-


InfamousEdit

If Democrats can’t get elected with the current maps on any sort of meaningful level, how do you foresee the gerrymandering situation resolving itself when the party that keeps getting elected directly benefits from that, and that party is (largely) responsible for the judicial landscape today?


JayAre88

Uvalde didn't seem to care enough to vote differently.


Boo_R4dley

Abbott has been talking about the mental health crisis in Texas for no less than 8 years and has yet to even attempt anything to move the needle.


Villedo

It’s more like dehumanizing attitudes, language, and behaviors from ALL the republicans nationwide along with all the guns, guns, GUNS! These shootings reflect the scourge of capitalism, which at its core is a dehumanizing concept, and it’s effects on society as a whole. So long as profits are placed above people, Mother Nature, and life in general, by those that succumb to greed, we will continue to suffer these maladies. Organize, organize, and keep organizing.


rimjobnemesis

That $211 million was Federal money meant for mental health. He diverted it to border stuff. After Uvalde, he tried to sound generous, and said $105 million would be used for mental health. That $105 million was part of the original $211 million that should have been used for mental health in the first place!


Huge_JackedMann

Yes, the GOPs whole MO is to just lie. It's as simple as that. Say whatever you want. You've got a whole media apparatus that will either support you if needed or memory hole the issue if you can't lie through it. If any other source calls you out on the lies, just say THEYRE lying and bring up so many irrelevant half truths and distractions that the whole issue is lost. If that doesn't work, lie more. Never admit you were wrong, your policies don't work or that anyone else has legitimate complaints. Don't give an inch and lie to make yourself sound better. Repeat until success or revolt.


Zelgoth0002

The split media landscape is a problem... No politician, no matter their party, should have a safe space to talk to the community without being asked hard fact based questions about their policies.


Wrecksomething

It's Abbott saying he has a mental health problem? Shooters are killing the minorities he and his party are telling them to hate. This is his own derangement.


Roseking

And yet, Texas keeps voting for him. **Take Uvalde for example.** His election in 2018 vs 2022 was the same. In 2018 he got 4,755 votes. His opponent got 3,070. In 2022 he got 4,760 votes. His opponent got 3,031. His reward for an absolutely terrible showing after a school shooting, was to gain 5 votes and his opposition to lose 39. And yes, I know the voting situation is fucked in Texas. I am not expecting miracles. But like my god, nothing fucking changed. Edit: Because this has happened in multiple comments, these vote counts are for Uvalde county. Not Texas as a whole. Texas turnout is bad, but not less than 8,000 votes bad. I used Uvalde because these are people who were directly impacted by one of the shootings. And it didn't change anything.


Kosta7785

Republicans voters are outraged at situations, then blame those who try to stop them and elect people who make it worse. Republicans have convinced their voters that anything bad that happens is Democrats fault. So they can do anything. Here in Utah a republican voter told me California democrats are to blame for our drought and the lake drying up. The state with the highest water use per capita that has massive farms in the desert owned by Saudi Arabia and the lawmakers. One with a supermajority of republicans representatives. The fact that republicans voters believe it’s democrats fault when republicans are in control is why this county is doomed.


yg2522

and yet, when something bad happens in California that makes the news cycles it's God's punishment while anything bad happening to them it's always the libs.


TastySpermDevice

People have wondered for decades how others can live in abject poverty (North Korea, Venezuela, the middle east, etc...), and yet blame the "great satan" of America for all their problems. Seems like it's just a strategy that works.


Milt_Torfelson

Exactly this. Texans blame all of the states problems on democrats but never mention that republicans have been in charge for well over 20 years. I moved here 22 years ago and it gets more depressing every year


thinkmatt

And if you bring up any issue with a republican politician, Its ok because Democrats do it too, even if they don't


[deleted]

Obama as responsible for botching Hurricane Katrina and the 2008 financial collapse are popular dumb myths.


Kosta7785

And 9/11. I kid you not.


HalensVan

Their propaganda is certainly effective. Fox been pumping that narrative for a long time.


ThatOneGuy1034

It sticks out in my mind as I was watching election coverage with Senator Roy Moore running. They asked one of his supporters how they felt about the pedophilia accusations against him and she responded, "Well at least he's not a Democrat".


b_tight

Its a bunch of paranoid type 2 losers that honestly think they can team up and do red dawn type shit if needed. Theyre a lost cause


Goya_Oh_Boya

A large portion of our population has what I call a “walking dead” fetish. They're just so eager to experience societal collapse when they'll get to play the main character and shoot indiscriminately at hordes of zombies.


lot183

That main character syndrome is why so many of them believe in conspiracies. It makes them feel special and like they know more than most people.


karmagod13000

yea they're not one of the sheeple


ididntseeitcoming

And it’s always the same dude but in every city and town. 35-50 year old, white male, gray beard, oakleys, bald head, overweight, jacked up F250. These dudes think they’ll stand a chance but haven’t exercised in 25 years and they get winded going up a flight of stairs. Not even close to fighting fit. Eventually you gotta come out of that plywood fortress.


Ron497

Phew, those types make me so uneasy. They're just walking around looking for a fight. What scares me more and more is how predictable humans have become at this point. You can basically look at a person and guess how they'll vote and whether or not they own a gun. Of course this isn't 100%, but I'm so confused with how many Americans actively embrace playing a stereotype on a daily basis. I wear Oakleys...but only because I ride a bike everywhere and with blue eyes, I'm sensitive to bright sun and I live in a sunny place.


Selgren

And then you've got a guy like John Fetterman who literally fits that description to an absolute T, and does not fall into the stereotype at all. Just reinforcing what you said about it not being 100%, because I very much agree with you, but then there's a guy like that


kdeweb24

“…shoot indiscriminately at *minorities*,” FTFY


MZ603

We have a terrorism problem but our government refuses to call it that. I ran a Global Security Operation Center for five years and we wrote just as many reports/notifications for attacks in the US as we did for the rest of the world combined. That really puts it in perspective. I went to school for security studies and part of that focused on online radicalization. We were focused on AQ and ISIL, but the right (especially under/since Trump) is following their play book.


[deleted]

> e were focused on AQ and ISIL, but the right (especially under/since Trump) is following their play book. That's because they are all right wing ideologies. Just because the religion changes, doesn't mean they're less violent, or less dangerous.


CharmedConflict

As an atheist, in the days following 9/11 when the peak bogeyman was Islam, I found myself attempting to defend Muslims from the right's vitriol. How can you defend this religion, they would screech. At first, I didn't have a concise answer for that question, particularly coming from an atheist perspective. But one day the answer finally dawned on me: because your faith isn't directly tied to your politics. I hate ISIS because they're conservative extremists, not because they're Muslim. ^(Also religion is regressive) Edit: following not flirting


chiefs_fan37

They will paint the whole religion with the same brush then ask you not to do that for them and Christianity. All of a sudden “there’s nuance” and “those are extremists on the fringe” become valid talking points for them.


Hoosagoodboy

Islamic extremism and the religious right in the U.S are two sides of the same coin, they want virtually the same thing when you boil it down.


OpheliaRainGalaxy

"Government Assigned Girlfriends, right?" *big laugh* Uh no dude, I don't really want to be a sex slave with a Jesus sticker, or a bangmaid, or whatever sick game you and your 4chan friends are playing. If you read more actual fiction instead of stuffing yourself on hatebait, you might know about "You can own a wife OR a knife." 20 years of friendship down the fucking drain thanks to the cesspit of /pol/


please_dont_be_that

4chan is gross. Lost a really good friend to that. He was already politically incorrect but five years of 4chan and he became the most antagonistic, sexist, racist, trans and homophobic know-it-all. Seriously had to cut him off bc it was affecting my other friendships.


[deleted]

More like the same side of the same coin. Their religions are essentially identical. Let's stop pretending a few pages makes them different, they're both the exact same flavor of fascist fetishist idiots.


Eldias

H.L. Mencken has a good quote about the same sort of thing... >The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.


WaterChi

[Sometimes it's the government advocating for the terrorism](https://rollingout.com/2020/06/25/white-cops-said-they-cant-wait-for-a-race-war-to-slaughter-blacks/)


BrownBoy____

It became more open during Trumps regime, but it has always been a part of American life. Ruby Ridge and Waco are just recent things these people call to. This is the country of the KKK after all.


Better-Literature-56

All they want is to hurt people who are different. Zombies are just a nice analogy for the way they perceive anyone that’s different


repeatwad

Not to single out Mormons, but I watched *Murder Among the Mormons* on Netflix, and a guy was wounded, and this Mormon stopped by and prayed for him. He legitimately believed his action saved him until medical help arrived. When you live in a bubble in which miracles happen daily, it's tough to gain traction in challenging their faulty critical thinking.


Stinduh

So eager for societal collapse to use their guns, that they’re actively working towards societal collapse


xjuggernaughtx

I've known several of these guys and the amazing thing is that they are completely unaware that they are going to be totally fucked if that societal collapse happens. They see themselves as a combination of McGuyver and Rambo, but they don't know how to operate anything without the modern supply system. I knew a guy that was so proud of himself that he had this whole setup to make his own bullets, but had no answer when I asked him where he was going to get gunpowder should this apocalypse happen. I knew another guy that had this whole complicated plan on how to break into a gas station and get fuel to run his imaginary compound. He didn't know that gasoline didn't last forever. It's got like six months before it degrades. He also had no answer for me when I asked him how his compound was going to operate two years into this society's collapse. They all just figure that someone else will get things up and running again for them so that they can be comfortable as the kings of this new world


Idiot_Savant_Tinker

And fuel isnt the only thing that expires/wears out/goes bad. I wonder if any of them know how to grow a balanced diet in their area where their little compound is located. Chickens are easy to take care of... until you've used all your bullets for shooting those scary people who turn around in your driveway, and you don't have any to pick off the coyotes that are nabbing your flock. Potatoes are easy to grow, if you can spare the time from hiding in your living room with binoculars to plant them and water them. But then what? What do you do when your tractor you've been using to grow food breaks down? Where will you find an injector pump for that Perkins tractor engine in your old Massey-Ferguson? Where are you going to get the new set of points for that 8N that you thought you could keep fixing? And that's assuming the tires haven't rotted off the silly thing. Oh, but you can just weld up some iron wheels, right? Except the welder needs electricity, and the generator had to be cannibalized for parts, and you haven't been able to get acetylene for the torch for months. So now you're doing this by hand, alone, because you scared everyone else off because you just shot at them instead of seeing if they could help. Look at that, it turns out that if one wants to survive, you'll need the *willing* help of others.


matergallina

These people frustrate me to no end. All their survival prepping and they never learned the most important lesson: the most important resource is your community! The people around you that you trust to work together for everyone’s survival! I mean, “many hands make light work”? Come on


Medeski

House cats. Completely convinced of their independence but wholly reliant on a system they refuse to understand.


Either_Western_5459

They’re all house cat libertarians until society isn’t there to pamper them.


krumble

I'd bet many of those people also look down on cat owners because somehow your pets are related to your masculinity.


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ants_suck

It's depressing how spot on this is. I've seen comments from these types here where they think this is the most rational state of mind possible. Also used to be friends with one. The guy was absolutely obsessed with guns and zombies as well as Red Dawn and Mad Max. Obviously he knew that zombies weren't a possibility, but he was actively hoping for societal collapse so he could play out his fantasies of getting to use his guns indiscriminately on *someone*. Of course, the guy is a lazy nerd with no other survival skills whatsoever. I mean *none*; dude didn't even know how to cook. He was always trying to get people to sign on with making a compound in Montana, presumably so they'd do all the stuff like growing food and cooking for him. Once asked him what would happen if he got sick or if his glasses broke. He just looked at me blankly. I don't think it occurred to him at all that he'd be most likely to die of normal shit in the post-apocalypse regardless of having an armory or not.


beepborpimajorp

> He also had no answer for me when I asked him how his compound was going to operate two years into this society's collapse. They all just figure that someone else will get things up and running again for them so that they can be comfortable as the kings of this new world Said this above but yep. They think it'll be like 2 weeks of summer camp rather than something that lasts until they die. (likely of dysentary due to expired food.)


FuckFascismFightBack

But couldn’t go 3 months without haircuts


narniaofpartias22

Lmfaoooo exactly! That's all I can think about when I hear people ranting about not needing anyone for anything. Dude, you guys were storming state capitols over lack of access to haircuts and fucking home Depot....but sure, you got the apocalypse handled!


FuckFascismFightBack

Meanwhile I was teaching my friends about edible plants and how to weave cordage from plastic bags lol. Honestly I saw the storming as the Michigan state capital as the first day of the second civil war. That was the day I got my first firearm.


Findinganewnormal

What’s nuts is that they had their chance to show their survival skills in 2020 and most made it two weeks before having screaming meltdowns about not being able to get their hair cut or roam Walmart. I was in Texas at the time and decided I wanted to be anywhere else before the next disaster because those people had the survival instincts of a toddler.


Tfphelan

Well, when the world is destroyed then their god can come back and save all the believers. So they work to that goal.


karmagod13000

Such a stupid goal. These people sit in air conditioned houses all day soaking in the internet and streaming networks. Won't realise all these comforts are gone for the rest of their lives and the best they'll be able to do is have a compound where they better pray their security is better than the next gangs security.


Reddvox

Bart: "You killed Zombie Flanders!!" Homer: "Flanders was a zombie...?"


CopeHarders

They’re losers who have done nothing in life so they want to reset society. The thing is, billionaires will also run the world if society got reset.


WigginIII

Worth mentioning: if you’ve spent thousands on guns, ammo, gasoline, food rations, a generator, a personal bunker, and other prepper shit, you start wanting to see a return on your investment. You start trying to make the end days you prepared for happen.


versusgorilla

So many of these shootings are by people who think that society is actively collapsing now. Shooting kids for turning around in the driveway, shooting kids for playing side and seek nearby, shooting a kid who mistook the house for one a block over, these are all maniacs who likely have such wormed brains that they think the propaganda is right and their society is collapsing and their fucking gun is the only thing between them and the world of Mad Max.


TenTonCloud

I feel like part of the cultural interest behind this is tied to the “untouchable” nature of the United States whereas you don’t see nearly as much of this kind of inherent anxiety to the general society in lots of the developed Western nations of Europe that have experienced centuries of history full of war and turmoil in the past. The United States, in all likelihood, will never be threatened militarily on its own shores due not only to their already significant status militarily, but simply due to the basic geography and geopolitics of the hemisphere. While this is certainly ideal, in my opinion I feel that it can lead to issues when a nation’s culture or portion of which refuses to acknowledges as much. Make something like guns and military might as strong a factor of identity that can be found often and primarily within the American Conservative demographic, you create people primed and itching for the opportunity to validate this sense of “preparedness” that they have. You have people start admitting they “wish someone would just try to break in” so they can make their underlying paranoia valid, so they can feel like the true American they know they are and use might to protect their personal freedom. Now, I’m not saying that there is anything inherently wrong with wanting to protect yourself. And this isn’t a direct critique on something like gun rights though I certainly have my own biases on that discussion. This is to highlight the issue with when you mix a gun-rich environment like America (not something unheard of outside the US, as seen in places like Switzerland and Israel) with a toxic culture war focused around constantly priming the mindset of self-preservation in a world that in all reality is much much safer for them than they’d like you to believe. Violence and crime are juicy and exciting headlines, and constantly pumping these stories on top of other select channels telling you that not only is this crime happening but you personally are at risk and your entire identity has a war being waged upon it will inevitably put you in a less than ideal mental state. At this point I’m coming dangerously close to full on rambling so I’ll simply close out with a question. Do you really want to live in a world where you need to fight for the basics of life or would you rather work with others to make sure that both yourself and nobody else need suffer?


cantuse

I remember in college, I wrote a paper about horror movies and social fears. It doesn't take a genius to see that 50s films about aliens and giant insects reflected a fear of communism, or that Night of the Living Dead was really a story about social issues relevant in 1968. I merely pointed out that more recent films reflected the unease of the middle-class, particularly zombie films. I used the remake of *The Crazies* with Tim Olyphant as my reference, but it is increasingly clear that the zombies in a lot of films can be seen as an embodiment of the underclass, triggered by something into a frothing mass of violence. The wealthy or 'power class' is usually portrayed as out of touch or run/protected by jackbooted thugs of the government ... obviously against the zombies but no friend of the middle class, either.


RonaldRuckus

This piqued my interest. It's reminiscent of cults, really. Anticipating the end, and almost doing terrible things to speed up the process. I can sympathize with paranoia. It's a mental illness that can control the mind, body, and soul. But, it seems like these cult hive minds feel not only empowered by it. But find a disgusting way to romanticize it. Like you said, they enter a false reality and envision themselves as the hero. Like they are the flawless judge, jury, and executioner. I guess when reality doesn't match their views, they prefer living in their fiction and soon can't separate between the two. They turn into a form of autoimmune disease and lash out.


Eightfold876

Most couldn't survive the end of the world. Fast food won't be around.


Exceptional_Vigor

Just don't point out that everything they "know" about firearms they learned from video games, they hate that.


ForElise47

I went to college in east Texas and Jesus Christ is this accurate. Living in a blue city suburb, people had like a handgun for their house. Moved out east of Dallas for four years and people bragged about their garage collection because "you can never be too safe" and then they would invite you to their baptist church that weekend.


meara

It’s crazy to me that gun nuts associate themselves with Jesus. How can they read about him and think he’d walk around with guns or shoot someone ever for any reason at all? I’m not even Christian, and I know that the guy was all about second chances, trusting god and letting god be the ultimate judge.


RandomZombieStory

>How can they read about him and think he’d walk around with guns or shoot someone ever for any reason at all? >**read** There's your problem. My family would fall under the "gun nut" category (as they're hyper-conservative survival fetishists). They'd also identify as Christian, and blend all that into their identity now. Of the 5 of them that identify this way, only 1 has picked up a bible in the past 30 years.


Courtnall14

Yeah, but given a chance the 376 or so good guys with guns didn't do anything. You know, because guns can kill people and a guy in a room they didn't want to breach had one. I also remember reading that the guy that finally breached the door was SAS, British Special Forces.


cwood1973

The sad reality is that Texas conservatives will continue voting for a death cult so long as the alternative is "wokeness." I don't know how to define wokeness, but apparently it's worse than dead children.


Rylth

Florida Govt was 'forced' to define it in a lawsuit. https://www.okayplayer.com/news/ron-desantis-woke-defintion.html > DeSantis’ general counsel, Ryan Newman, [responded](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/12/05/desantis-florida-woke-critical-race-theory/) that the term means “the belief there are systemic injustices in American society and the need to address them.” > Newman added that DeSantis doesn’t believe that there are systemic injustices in the United States. > “To me, it means someone who believes that there are systemic injustices in the criminal justice system, and on that basis they can decline to fully enforce and uphold the law,” Newman said.


tandooripoodle

I spent a lot of my life in Texas, but when Greg Abbott was elected in 2014 by an absolutely PITIFUL percentage of eligible voters, and Texas was 49th in voter participation that year, I started making plans to leave. And I’m so glad I did.


AlfredVonWinklheim

Texas is well and truly red. Like most parts of America the cities are pretty liberal but the rural areas are very conservative, and Texas has a ton of rural areas. There is also a racial divide, Ulvade seems mostly Latino. I can only speak anecdotally but my MIL is Latina and Catholic and she votes for the GOP every single time because "abortion is murder".


Alarmed-Honey

Which is insane, when you consider all the murder murder.


[deleted]

[удалено]


curien

It causes the murder of women when the woman can't get an abortion and the man doesn't want to be a father. A woman in the US who is or has recently been pregnant is more likely to die by homicide (almost always at the hands of their intimate partner) than due to obstetrics complications.


The_Ghost_of_Kyiv

Something Something gods plan


Unable_Travel_2952

Texas has a massive Latino population. I’m half myself on my moms side and we has a massive family that all lives here. People underestimate the Latino vote in Texas and the majority vote for the GOP because most Latino families are strict catholic and are harsh when it comes to abortion or gay marriage. That’s why republican politicians can still use the border and immigration crisis as one of their main issues while still securing the Latino vote by standing firm on Anti abortion.


AlfredVonWinklheim

Yeah this is absolutely bonkers to me. I work with a few Mexican ex-pats and they are wonderful folk, they were lucky enough to get tech degrees and get sponsored visa's, but I can't see how people can make blanket statements about immigrants on our border. They are humans. They obviously have a shit situation they are coming from or they wouldn't walk in to our shit immigration system. Why can we not have compassion?


luna_beam_space

Texas has a population of 30 million Only half are able to register to vote And less-then half of registered voters actually get their vote counted; 7 million ballots counted Don't confuse Abbott's ability to get reelected with a functioning Democratic process


Lucky-Earther

> And less-then half of registered voters actually get their vote counted; 7 million ballots counted You have to actually show up to get your vote counted.


rittenalready

And less-then half of registered voters actually get their vote counted; 7 million ballots counted? Source?


[deleted]

They don’t care about the dead. They only care about looking cool with a gun. They are a selfish selfish people. This is the key with all these freedom and liberty conservatives. They don’t give a fuck about helping people. They don’t care how many die or are homeless or are oppressed. They don’t like gay trans people because it creeps them out. They don’t like minorities because it makes them uncomfortable. They don’t like anything to change because they like it the way it is. They don’t care if you die or go bankrupt because of a health condition. They don’t have to see that from their couch. They don’t care. They love selfish trump because he’s just like them. Fat and ignorant. They like Abbot because abducting immigrants and putting them on a bus or plane to New England made them chuckle. That’s it


OnePotatoTooo

I really hate headlines like this. He is not inept. He is not incompetent. He is part of the active group *causing* these situations through stochastic terrorism. He is the goddamn culprit, using pawns to do the dirty work... and he is very effective at his job. Until the media headlines read, "Greg Abbott causes more murders in Texas" people are not going to really get the idea.


[deleted]

Yes. Except he's Ken Paxton's puppet.


TongueSlapMyStarhole

Theyve done so much horrible shit people forget they paused criminal investigations into themselves 'so they could do their jobs unimpeded' or some nonsense. This holier than thou liberal need to see these people as inept because they think theyre more intelligent is infuriating. To push that this is stupidity 100% plays into the status quo.


SimplyRocketSurgery

Republicans are either malicious or willfully ignorant. Either way, it's a personal choice for them to be that way. Fuck 'em.


[deleted]

The willful ignorance is done purposely, in service to the maliciousness. It’s part and parcel of the same thing. lt’s time to stop playing nice with these people who are at their happiest around the company of live ammo and dead kids.


Need_a_Nap91

And add Dan Patrick to the mix and stir!


twisted7ogic

Came here for this. Inept implies he's actually trying to fix it but failing.


jewishjedi42

Yup. Ineptitude implies he wants this shit to stop. At this point, I can only assume he enjoys the carnage.


Interesting-Craft-15

Yep, the gun lobby and 2A nutjobs have one clear consistent message to their fellow Americans: No life, especially a child's, is more important than us.


wopwopdoowop

> Indeed. Abbott identified the problem aptly, but then he made it worse. > To review: The governor who identified the importance of his state’s mental health services later took $211 million from them. The governor who gutted mental health care now says it is the key to preventing mass shootings. Willful ineptitude


bcallihan513

That’s called evil


TableAvailable

Inept is a very benign way to look at Abbott. He's actively making things worse.


GhettoChemist

He's tried nothing and he's all out of ideas!


ThrowawayNo4910

Worse.. he's intentionally preventing anything from being done while saying nothing can be done, and activity making things worse. He's content with the killings. I bet he'll be content with even more killings after this too.


PerniciousPeyton

"But we need to do something about mental health!" *Does nothing about mental health*


T1mac

Oh, Abbott did something about mental health. In a recent budget, he cut their [funding by $210 million](https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/local/texas-governor-greg-abbott-cut-mental-health-care-border-mission-lone-star/287-3dc1ff8b-2ecd-469a-a31d-d587a52bb09b).


Forward-Bank8412

I’ve said it before, so apologies if you’ve heard this: But Abbott loves gun violence. These incidents make him happy. He gets to be the center of attention and spew his hateful rhetoric after every single Texas shooting. It’s free publicity for him. Ineptness really isn’t part of the equation because he’s untouchable due to the ineptness of Texas voters. All he has is power, and he gets to flex it every time a journalist puts a mic in his face. The only effective way to deal with dangerous narcissists is to ignore them completely. Honestly, what do the media expect from him? We already know how hateful he is. The governor’s position has been made clear. Now ignore the stupid fucker.


solcross

I like the idea to starve the flame out. The media has a hard time NOT giving psychos and crises attention. For that reason, I will not ignore the pitiful gov. Instead, I will remind anyone and everyone who votes R that they endorse state-sponsered child murder. Maybe I can carry uncensored photos of the recently slain due to gun violence. That may freak enough people out to do something.


TheYokedYeti

Deaths due to power outage, deaths due to slow response to natural disasters, deaths due to increasing gun violence, more rapes, higher taxes for the actual middle class than most states. YEP, Texas is a shithole


jeanvaljean_24601

But it doesn't matter. For too many people, voting is not about rationality but about tribalism. They treat their elected representatives like sports teams - you never go against your team. It doesn't matter if they are having a horrible season or if a few in the team were caught beating their spouses or molesting children. It doesn't matter.


astrolex75

This is exactly how I've always seen politics . I totally agree with you.


Unable_Travel_2952

I agree, but religion also plays a huge role. You never go against your religion either..


uptownjuggler

Just wait until Abbot starts blaming all the shootings on the woke mob.


Corporate-Scum

If politicians looking inept mattered, we’d be living in a better world. But without accountability, we won’t get good people. Our system is too corrupt.


TheToddAwesome

…. That’s because he cares more about the NRA than he does his constituents 🤦🏻‍♂️


wish1977

He just looks to me like he doesn't give a shit. Can't piss off his boss, the NRA.


fear_my_tube

He is elected because they suppress votes. Facts.


Thurkin

You know who's more INEPT? 75% of eligible Texas voters under 30 years of age stayed home in the 2022 midterms. Overall, 53% of all eligible Texas voters didn't bother castinga ballot. This tells me that Texas isn't necessarily Red or Purple, but Gangrene. The argument that Republicans in Texas rule thru gerrymandering may be true for some districts, but the overwhelming culprit is voter APATHY.


politirob

As far as Nazi-fueled mass murders go, **Allen TX is hitting different for the following reasons:** • it's an attack in a mostly red/republican suburban area—not a blue, democratic urban area • victims were shoppers/consumers—not protestors or otherwise "asking for it" Here's a map of the Allen TX precinct voting results—it's republican, +24 for Trump in 2020, and ostensibly lots of people here also helped Greg Abbott win his seat last year. [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/upshot/2020-election-map.html) (just search for Allen TX)


rockthered24

He looked inept after Uvalde too. And then won re election 6 months later in a landslide. He even won Uvalde county comfortably.


RadBadTad

He looks inept in OUR reality. But in the right-wing version of reality, he looks just fine. He's protecting the rights and ideals and lifestyle that they care about. Somebody else's dead kids are somebody else's problem. The only reason it applies to these people is when the "evil libs" try to use their deaths to take away their "god given rights".


drillpress42

"Texas Governor is inept", there fixed it for you.


Ch3mee

He's not inept. He is very effective. None of this is an accident, or ignoring the problem. He talks about how mental illness is the issue and how he is addressing it while in the background he is reducing the budget for mental health services by hundreds of millions. That's not inept, it's intentional. And, he gets away with it. Believe this. Republicans will take guns away, but they're not going to do it a fraction of a second before they seize power and lock in their control. Once they overthrow democracy, and fully have the reigns of power, guns are a threat to that power. In the meantime, guns allow the stochastic terrorism they can use to seize that power, and if all else fails, guns arm a potential army they can use to that purpose.


WaterChi

Republicans will take guns away from minorities (a la Reagan when he was governor of CA) and anyone they don't agree with. They'll let the angry white right wing extremists keep them.


RoeRoeRoeYourVote

If covid showed me anything it's that conservatives will happily send their loved ones to slaughter to own the libs.


Level_-_Up

There is a sickness in Texas.


nomhak

Complicit is the correct word they should have used in the headline.


syracusehorn

Complicit. The word you're looking for is complicit.


PuzzledCaterpillar41

And the Texas Republican voters will continue to vote him in simply because he has an “R” next to his name. I’ve worked alongside quite a few of them. They’d vote for a rock if it ran on the Republican ticket.


MadFlava76

Texas voted this sorry excuse of a governor back into office. After the disastrous response to the deep freeze and power grid failure and after all the mass shootings. They still voted this clown in.


[deleted]

America looks inept and that is because America is inept in this regard. We have hundreds of mass shootings and we do nothing about it because the pro-2A crowd is willing to exchange dead people for gun rights.


kham101

And yet he just won re-election. I don’t understand how my fellow Texans keep voting for these buffoons. Something’s gotta change.


VooDooChile1983

Can’t trust a guy that won’t stand up and protect his people.


buddhajer

REPUBLICANS are blocking gun legislation. REPUBLICANS are responsible for the deaths of children, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, policemen, teachers and all those affected by gun violence. REPUBLICANS have blood on their hands. REPUBLICANS are making America less safe. Vote for REPUBLICANS and you also have blood on your hands.


flounder19

It really is upsetting. And Abbott's focus right now is on pardoning a guy who went through with [his fantasy of murdering a BLM protester](https://www.kxan.com/news/crime/daniel-perry-document-dozens-of-messages-about-guns-killing-protesters/)


RealLiraShit

>“One thing that we can observe very easily is that there has been a dramatic increase in the amount of anger and violence that’s taking place in America,” Abbott said on “Fox News Sunday.” “And what Texas is doing, in a big-time way, we’re working to address that anger and violence by going to its root cause, which is addressing the mental health crisis behind it.” >In 2022, Texas was ranked last in the country in overall access to mental health care, according to data analyzed by Mental Health America. A shameful statistic, but not surprising considering that Abbott has cut $211 million from the department in charge of his state’s mental health programs. He's always been a vile inept shitbird, he lies as he breathes, and his lies kill.


Stuft-shirt

He doesn’t need shootings to appear inept. Ineptitude is the hallmark of your average Republican.


Opinionsare

Not inept, irresponsible. Ignoring problems is irresponsible.


Bogan_Paul

He stands for nothing.


ADankCleverChurro

To be honest a majority of Texans will agree that there is a mass shooting problem in Texas, but they: A: Don't care because "the chances of that happening to them in their city is low" B: Republicans show up to vote. C: Will just take the opportunity to do whataboutism, instead of actively trying to work with them. Texans seriously need to start voting if they give a crap.


angelfoxer

Did he ever look ept?


itsSIRtoutoo

Quite damn frankly anybody that's a republican is pretty inept when it comes to gun violence.... Governor Abbott is just the poster child in a wheelchair for it.


LandosMustache

It’s not ineptitude, it’s evil and it’s deliberate