A Bombing in Palm Springs Speaks to How Dark Our Nation Has Become

You might have missed it with all the retroactive neurology being practiced on poor Joe Biden just when the former president got handed a serious cancer diagnosis, and we will be getting to that passel of ambitious vultures later today. But there was a serious act of domestic terrorism over the weekend. It killed one person and injured four others. The bomber also was killed. From The New York Times:

The suspect, Guy Edward Bartkus of Twentynine Palms, Calif., had “nihilistic ideations,” authorities said, and had specifically targeted the clinic. Officials called the bombing an act of terrorism and said they were examining writings that could be related to the attack, which happened on Saturday. On a website that promotes the idea of terminating life, an audio recording features a man who said he was going to bomb an in vitro fertilization clinic because he was angry at his own existence.

Evidently, the suspect was simply a lost soul who burned down his home when he was a child and grew up to discover something resembling a philosophy of life and small community of like-minded alienated citizens with whom he could share "ideas." He found this community where all poor souls and dangerous crackpots find fellowship and solace. On the Internet. From the Los Angeles Times:

Investigators, they said, were looking into a manifesto posted online, social media, and a YouTube account mentioning explosives — the latter of which they were still verifying. A website that contained no name, but appeared connected to the bombing, laid out the case for "a war against pro-lifers" and said a fertility clinic would be targeted

The site extolled a hodgepodge of philosophies, such as “abolitionist veganism,” the opposition to all animal use by humans, and “negative utilitarianism,” the idea that one should act to minimize suffering rather than maximize pleasure in the world. “Basically, I’m a pro-mortalist,” the author wrote, referring to a fringe philosophical position that it is best for sentient beings to die as soon as possible to prevent future suffering. The Times could not independently confirm that Bartkus produced the website. Domain data show the site was created in February.

In the manifesto, the author denounced those who bring human life into the world and declared an end goal of “sterilizing this planet of the disease of life.” “Life can only continue as long as people hold the delusional belief that it is not a zero sum game causing senseless torture, and messes it can never, or only partially, clean up,” the site said. Accompanying the website was a 30-minute audio file, labeled “pre,” that began with the speaker saying he would explain “why I’ve decided to bomb an IVF building or clinic.” “Basically, it just comes down to I’m angry that I exist and that, you know, nobody got my consent to bring me here,” the speaker said.

Brian Levin, the founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said, after reviewing the manifesto that many in the community have linked to the suspect, that the author appeared to be part of a growing movement of alienated lone actors radicalized on obscure internet sites and by misinformation. “The antinatalism movement he links to specifically condemns violence,” Levin said. “Still, his purported rambling, idiosyncratic ‘political’ statements paint a far different picture — that of a hopeless unstable young man whose suicidal despair stirs him into a self-consuming brutal death justified by a personally distorted embrace of an obscure anti-life ideology."

This is our current human conundrum. A person who by all previous standards would have been classified as a dangerously isolated loner is now a dangerously isolated loner in virtual community with other dangerously isolated loners. Whatever dark thoughts might have marinated him before now are reinforced online.

“Today, we basically have a DIY ecosystem where lone folks can engage in conduct that previously tilted more towards groups and small cells,” Levin said. “There’s a whole cauldron that involves radicalization, misinformation, legitimization of violence as a method within this grievance set and that’s what you have."

There is too much wildness in the land now. It has been building for over a decade. I first noticed it covering President Obama's re-election campaign. The fringes were creeping into politics like Birnam wood unto Dunsinane. Now, the wildness has won. It has elected a renegade heathen as president. Twice. It is driving the news harder than it has been driving the politics. There's no telling what's still brewing in its heart.