Thread by @_0fux_

From One Academic to Another: Miss Me With That Bullshit

This isn't just about NSE, specifically, but I saw the signs in her 2 videos post-Kirk shօօting that we were going to go down the rabbit hole of the cherry-picked political violence stats.

1/🧵

2/🧵

We're fully in the wound-collecting phase, @PSA_Sitch was right to worried about that.

He is also correct about it being the left's turn to lay down their arms first, instead of acting like spoiled children. These stats only come off as excuse-making.

3/🧵

Especially considering the fact that these data are not gathered and presented honestly. This Reuters article, where NSE got that chart and cited in her last video, is no exception.

While I applaud the effort for data-based journalism, the authors are no academics...

4/🧵

In fact, they seem like the topics they cover have an ideological bend to them. Of course I don't know for suuuure, but we are doing soft sciences so I will infer things.

Here is Ned Parker and some of the things he cares to write about. He seems like a fair guy, riiight?

5/🧵

If he speaks to your preconceived view of the world and speaks to your confirmation biases, of course he must be fair. Anyway, let's check out Ned's co-author.

It's Peter Eisler, of course! They are like two peas in a pod.

6/🧵

So you may be saying, "hey asshole, pointing out these two fair unbiased non-academic propagan-... erm... journalists... doesn't mean the article is bad!"

You're right. Silly me! Clearly we should judge the article on its merits! Ned and Peter have 213 cases for us. Bravo!

7/🧵

Wait! What's that next line? "since the Jan..." ???

Oh!

What are the chances they spun a wheel that randomly landed on J6 for t=0? How convenient to start there and not before the OVER 100 CONSECUTIVE DAYS of riots targeting the Mark O. Hatfield courthouse in Portland.

8/🧵

At least "three academics" helped "review" the cases.
🎉🙄

They then give a sample of some of the cases…
- One-on-one disputes?
- Protesters in Portland?
- The Buffalo shօօter?

Oh boy, here we go…

9/🧵

They describe a one-on-one dispute, sharing some of the police report.

…It's a domestic dispute… 🤦‍♂️

Some idiots got into a heated argument in Oct 2022 that just so happened to be about politics, now it's "political violence"?
2 years prior, it'd count as Covid, too.

10/🧵

The guy that shօt 5 protesters in Portland: was it REALLY political?

Portland seems like a once-great city now fallen. It's always in a state of protest. (100+ consecutive days? wow!) I'm not excusing his actions, but by February 2022, some people are tired of hearing it.

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Ah the Buffalo shօօter! Check out this excerpt from his meme-laden manifesto.

I mean, what do you do with this guy?
I remember when he was the hot potato of the day, each side trying to pass him off to the other.

I'm starting to see a theme:
THESE ARE JUST CRAZY PEOPLE

12/🧵

But I'm sure our friends Ned and Peter classified him as "rightwing", since we're told the right has a monopoly on racism.

Let's just check their dataset to be sure all of these cases were classified properl..... What? What do you mean the dataset isn't open-source? 🥴

13/🧵

Alright, wise guys, if you aren't going to SHARE THE DATA to let people CHECK FOR THEMSELVES, do you give people the methodology of your classification?

Here we are…
Their 213 cases were filtered from 600 incidents, gathered from ACLED, news, police and other records.

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And they consulted a "half-dozen experts" who, just like their final dataset itself, are a blackbox to us, the reader.

But at least they give a definition of what counts for classification.

Also, we are not counting stuff the cops started.

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Next up: hate crimes (as opposed to love crimes).
Their example: from racist/white supremacist groups, which again must exclusively rightwing. 🙄
(You think Ned and Pete even CONSIDERED people on the left can have such views?)

Then: Property damage, post-summer of love.

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Finally…
They counted incidents relating to Israel/Palestine, abortion, and trans as political… BUT NOT CODING THEM AS LEFT/RIGHT🤦‍♂️

It's CLEAR that the sides of those issues often align with left/right ideologies. They had no issue calling racism "rightwing" (I assume).

17/🧵

This is a difficult problem to track without standards, as Ned & Peter even admitted.

I've seen some studies and datasets that would lump jihadist attacks into the rightwing box under the logic that islamism is a conservative religious belief.

FIN/🧵

At the end of the day, it's mainly just crazy people doing crazy people things, but each side will gerrymander the rules of classification to dump the crazies on to the other side.

Remember, if Trump got anything correct it is this:
THE MEDIA IS THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE

BONUS

In her video, NSE also cited the ADL who have also done similar stat tracking prior to 2021. Boy! Unfortunate for them not stay in the game long enough to see the post-October 7 issues on campuses. 😬

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