A good gay myth is a terrible thing to waste

MikeK said:

Kinda like the way the NRA keeps selling fear to it's adherents. Kinda like the way that "conservative elites" spread fear in white people about Muslims and/or Mexican nationals. The truth is, gays and women and white men and Christians and gun owners all have it pretty good right now.

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I am not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that 911, which is what brought Islamist into the public eye, was an inside job of so-called the "conservative elites"
But of course 30 percent of people do, so you will have an audience with that message.
I don't hear "conservative elites" coming down on illegal immigration either. "Conservative elites" like the cheap labour.
Gun owners, for their part, are probably the group of people who are the least motivated by fear in the world. They are the ones who got the guns.
The NRA point of fearmongering among this group is therefore pretty funny.

If you had been listening to my argument with understanding, which perhaps is a lot to expect of readers, you would have realized that the whole point of the fear-mongering meme of Shepard is to convince gays that they are not safe, even if it is a lie.
Anyway, if you get it you get it. If you don't you don't. My little paragraphs are only for those who have the ears to hear what is being said.

SolomonVII said:

I am not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that P11, which is what brought Islamist into the public eye, was an inside job of so-called the "conservative elites"
But of course 30 percent of people do, so you will have an audience with that message.
I don't hear "conservative elites" coming down on illegal immigration either. "Conservative elites" like the cheap labour.
Gun owners, for their part, are probably the group of people who are the least motivated by fear in the world. They are the ones who got the guns.
The NRA point of fearmongering among this group is therefore pretty funny.

If you had been listening to my argument with understanding, which perhaps is a lot to expect of readers, you would have realized that the whole point of the fear-mongering meme of Shepard is to convince gays that they are not safe, even if it is a lie.

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Was Matthew safe?

Here comes a thought.

It seems the reason that what happened to Matthew Shepherd has stayed in the consciousness of people because of the rights obsession with vilifying him. Twenty years after he was tortured and murdered the right is still trying to turn him into a monster deserving of the death he experienced. Over 20 years the right has tried to claim Sheppard was among other things, a prostitute, sexual predator, a drug addict, and a drug dealer. The fact that there is no evidence to support any of these claims and a lot of evidence to dismiss them hasn't stopped anyone from feeding the myth.

SolomonVII said:

I am not much of a conspiracy theorist. I don't think that P11, which is what brought Islamist into the public eye, was an inside job of so-called the "conservative elites"
But of course 30 percent of people do, so you will have an audience with that message.

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I don’t think 9/11 was an inside job either. It doesn’t have to be for conservative elites - by which I mean those who hold some measure of influence among conservatives Breutbart, Bannon, Trump et al - to use the event to whip their minions into a frenzy believing that the threat from Muslims is greater than it is.

I don't hear "conservative elites" coming down on illegal immigration either. "Conservative elites" like the cheap labour.

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Again, see Trump, Bannon, Breitbart.

Gun owners, for their part, are probably the group of people who are the least motivated by fear in the world. They are the ones who got the guns.
The NRA point of fearmongering among this group is therefore pretty funny.

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Do you not receive mailings from the NRA? They are nothing but appeals to fear.

If you had been listening to my argument with understanding, which perhaps is a lot to expect of readers, you would have realized that the whole point of the fear-mongering meme of Shepard is to convince gays that they are not safe, even if it is a lie.
Anyway, if you get it you get it. If you don't you don't. My little paragraphs are only for those who have the ears to hear what is being said.

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I’m pretty sure I got it, but even if I did you don’t have to be snarky. Are many gays being made to fear and exploited by their handlers? Absolutely, and it is shameful. Unfortunately, virtually every special interest group gets the same treatment.

MikeK said:

Kinda like the way the NRA keeps selling fear to it's adherents. Kinda like the way that "conservative elites" spread fear in white people about Muslims and/or Mexican nationals. The truth is, gays and women and white men and Christians and gun owners all have it pretty good right now.

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Fear of the other guy is a strong motivator for many people. Thus the Far Right and the Far Left will continually stoke fear among their followers. And, as in the case of Matthew Sheperd, the actual truth doesn't matter so much.

SilverBear said:

Or, more likely, the fact that a young man in Colorado was murdered just because he was different is not something that should be forgotten.

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Except it's been outed now why he was killed and it was a drug deal. Pesky little detail that shoots down the whole narrative of hate.

chevyontheriver said:

Except it's been outed now why he was killed and it was a drug deal. Pesky little detail that shoots down the whole narrative of hate.

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Correct. It is a shame when we see dishonest tactics like this being resorted to. There are instances of hate crimes against homosexuals. It is not necessary and it is counterproductive to fabricate stories. People who share these stories without bothering to ascertain the truth first are cooperating with evil.

On my Facebook feed the other day a friend...well, okay, a distant family member, I'm not friends with the type of people, posted a link to a story about a 11 year old Montana girl killing two armed illegal immigrant home-invaders with the shotgun her dad taught her to use. Of course the narrative that was trying to be sold to the feeble-minded was that a) illegal immigrants are violent criminals and b) that guns - even in the hands of young children - keep us safe. I thought that sounded a little far-fetched, so I dug around a bit. Of course no such incident happened, it was a work of fiction that literally thousands of people were happy to accept as truth and spread because it confirmed what that so badly wanted to believe. whether illegal immigrants are markedly dangerous, or whether 11 year olds with guns can reliably thwart violent criminals, or whether Matthew Sheppard was killed for being gay doesn't matter to the people who serve up this sort of propaganda. they trust us to be stupid enough to believe it out-of-hand.

FACT CHECK: Was a Home Invasion Thwarted by an 11-Year-Old Girl?

chevyontheriver said:

Except it's been outed now why he was killed and it was a drug deal. Pesky little detail that shoots down the whole narrative of hate.

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yeah... the OP is based on the book The Book of Matt: Hidden Truths about the Murder of Matthew Shepard by Stephen Jimenez. I'd ask if you have read it but obviously you haven't.

What was the "outing" or the revelation that this wasn't a hate crime but a bad drug deal based on? Two years after the men who murdered Shepherd were convicted Jimenez was in Laramie Colorado and found in the Shepherd case records an anonymous letter addressed to prosecutor Cal Rerucha. The letter expressed disbelief that McKinney had claimed "gay panic" at trial, because "[d]eep down inside, a small part of him really liked some homosexual action."

That's about it.

With some effort Jimenez found a "Wyoming law enforcement official" who said that "Shepard's murder had nothing to do with his sexual preferences." What is this based on? No one knows
Who was this person? Jimenez has never said. We can know it wasn't any of the Wyoming law enforcement that investigated Shepherds murder because they have all denounced Jimenez's findings.

Jimenez ignores the fact that everyone who knew the two men said they they had never met tries to claim that Aaron McKinney and Shepherd not only knew each other but they had a long standing sexual relationship. His "proof"? He interviewed Thomas "Doc" O'Connor, a Laramie chauffeur and operator of the Lincoln Escort Service. O'Connor told Jimenez that one night, McKinney and two other men were fooling around in the back seat of his limousine, and that "Matt may have been one of the guys in back [of the limo] with Aaron. . I can't say for sure."

That's it

Jimenez claims that he has. "Ten different sources," [Who] "have acknowledged that they were in the company of both men together, or that they learned from Matthew himself about his relationship with Aaron." Who are these people. Not any of either Shepherd's or McKinney's relatives or friends who to this day insist the two did not know each other. It came out later that the "Ten different sources," were actually people Jimenez found in a drug rehab center.

Jimenez claims Shepherd was a "high level methamphetamine dealer" but the investigators found no drugs at the scene, on either Shepherd or his killers, not at Shepherd's home or at the killer's home.

pesky details

SilverBear said:

Here comes a thought.

It seems the reason that what happened to Matthew Shepherd has stayed in the consciousness of people because of the rights obsession with vilifying him. Twenty years after he was tortured and murdered the right is still trying to turn him into a monster deserving of the death he experienced. Over 20 years the right has tried to claim Sheppard was among other things, a prostitute, sexual predator, a drug addict, and a drug dealer. The fact that there is no evidence to support any of these claims and a lot of evidence to dismiss them hasn't stopped anyone from feeding the myth.

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Having been around the gay community it doesn't shock me that a young kids dabbling in Meth was also promiscuous and turning tricks on the side. It is not uncommon.

Here is a piece from the liberal guardian that doesn't deny these these facts, yet they feel it shouldn't matter.

But the Guardian also goes on to note that most who attacked the facts from this book chose not to read it.



The truth behind America’s most famous gay-hate murder

eastcoast_bsc said:

It's seems like a lot of liberal outlets believe his story. Media like NPR and Huffpo. Do a search.

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and how would that address anything i mentioned?

If this was a drug deal gone bad, where are the drugs? None were found on any of the three men, in the vehicle, at their homes. All tested negative for recent drug use. Shepard was supposedly a "major player" in the drug trade moving tens of thousands of dollars worth of meth at any given time...where is the money this would have generated?

As far as your cliche racial comments designed to frighten those who disagree. Please. I lived in the gay community for many years. I understand that the reality differs from the idealistic sanitized portrayal.

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Frighten?

Bigotry is a sick and ugly thing no matter who it is directed at

SilverBear said:

Bigotry is a sick and ugly thing no matter who it is directed at.

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I would agree.

And it's been flowing here. An example is "After reading this it wouldn't shock me to find out you also think black men like to eat watermelon while snorting cocaine and making plans on how to get white girls pregnant."

chevyontheriver said:

I would agree.

And it's been flowing here. An example is "After reading this it wouldn't shock me to find out you also think black men like to eat watermelon while snorting cocaine and making plans on how to get white girls pregnant."

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That wasn't bigotry, it was an example of bigotry. The same sort of bigotry that some people use to broadbrush homosexuals.

MikeK said:

That wasn't bigotry, it was an example of bigotry. The same sort of bigotry that some people use to broadbrush homosexuals.

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Not so sure. It seems to me the bigotry of presuming I am a bigot for not agreeing with the poster.

MikeK said:

That wasn't bigotry, it was an example of bigotry. The same sort of bigotry that some people use to broadbrush homosexuals.

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It was a remark directed at chevyontheriver, not a hypothetical example. So unless you think that chevyontheriver himself serves as an example of bigotry, I don't know why you're defending that remark.

chevyontheriver said:

I would agree.

And it's been flowing here. An example is "After reading this it wouldn't shock me to find out you also think black men like to eat watermelon while snorting cocaine and making plans on how to get white girls pregnant."

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So when i say something i know to be false to highlight the offensiveness of another post it's bigotry...but the original offensive post is not?


or was the just a way to get out of responding to post #28

MoonlessNight said:

It was a remark directed at chevyontheriver, not a hypothetical example. So unless you think that chevyontheriver himself serves as an example of bigotry, I don't know why you're defending that remark.

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I think you mean eaastcoast_bsc

MoonlessNight said:

It was a remark directed at chevyontheriver, not a hypothetical example. So unless you think that chevyontheriver himself serves as an example of bigotry, I don't know why you're defending that remark.

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It wasn't directed at me specifically or personally, but in a generic sense, a blunderbuss shot at everyone who didn't agree with the poster.

SilverBear said:

So when i say something i know to be false to highlight the offensiveness of another post it's bigotry

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In this case I think so. Not everybody is a racist for disagreeing with you.

or was the just a way to get out of responding to post #28

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You have your own truth and I don't have to be the guy to have to correct you.

MoonlessNight said:

It was a remark directed at chevyontheriver, not a hypothetical example. So unless you think that chevyontheriver himself serves as an example of bigotry, I don't know why you're defending that remark.

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I got no issues with you or with MoonlessNight or Mike or eastcoast_bsc.

I don't know Cotr to be a biggot, I have seen nothing to make me suspect that. Certainly some other posters here have said some rather biggoted things about Muslims, illegal immigrants, etc, but CotR is not among them. I don't think the post in question was a shot at him at all. This thread got weird.