If the decline of the West is not yet complete, it is certainly close. Yeats' mere anarchy has long since been loosed upon the world and has been given a free hand to create mayhem.
The Post Millennial reports that police have arrested 32-year-old Levittown, Pa., resident Justin Mohn. Mohn is suspected of beheading his father, who was a federal worker. According to the story, Mohn displayed his father's severed head in a YouTube video while claiming that many people saw him as a messiah and wanted him to be the president. He encouraged other people who lived with federal employees to murder them.
While ranting against “globalists and communists” in the graphic 14-minute video, Mohn held up his father’s head and stated, “Violence is the only solution to the federal government's treason.”
Mohn claimed the economy was "near destruction" and Americans could "no longer afford the American dream."
He offered $1 million to anyone who could kill FBI Director Christopher Wray, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and former Attorney General Bill Barr, claiming there was a "globalist and communist" plot against the United States.
He also demanded mass resignation of federal employees, the resignation of Joe Biden, the abolishment of the federal reserve, closed borders, and “the ceasing of all woke gender ideology in schools and other public places.” He said:
Under my leadership, I will also authorize America's police and leadership to use whatever force is necessary to protect and take back America's cities from fifth-column extremist organizations, such as the LGBTQ community, the Black Lives Matter movement, and terrorist organizations, such as Antifa.
Among other things, Mohn was angry with the government for giving him a student loan. That loan, he said, turned him into an "overeducated white man" who could not find work.
If some of his objections were considered individually, many conservatives might find some common ground with Mohn in principle. But no sane person wants to exchange one potential police state for another. And no sane person condones murder, and in particular by decapitation.
There can be no doubt that Mohn's story will be used to further curtail the dissemination of conservative content. I expect it to occupy a prominent place in the media, and it may well make an appearance in the next POTUS speech. This will be held up as a prime example of what happens when heterodox ideas are allowed to spread.
Mohn was clearly deranged, and we should also remember that there have been two instances in which trans people committed wholesale murder. Those incidents have been excused or allowed to be swallowed up by the news cycle. No one in the mainstream media bothered or dared to explore the role these people's philosophies may have had in their crimes, nor was attention paid to the fact that those people had departed from any sense of reality.
Even though the COVID-19 episode was an exercise in government authoritarianism and an example of not letting a crisis go to waste, people really did become critically ill from the disease. We lost a family member to it. At some point, I read a piece on a lesser-known website declaring that people in the health industry were all co-conspirators and deserved to be tried and hung, depending on their role. My wife was working as an ICU nurse, and almost all of her time was spent caring for COVID patients.
I don't care how many Trump and American flags you have, how many bumper stickers are on your vehicle, how loudly you play "God Bless the USA," or how many other points we may agree on. If you think you're coming for my family with a rope, think again. While the screed may have been the work of an overwrought or unhinged individual, it was unsettling to read.
When one writes a column or has a podcast, one of the pitfalls is that there is no way of knowing who is reading or listening, what conclusions or inspiration they may draw, or what actions they may take. It is a risk that comes with free speech, but it is a risk that could be mitigated. Why is it that nothing seems to be done about these people, whether they claim to lean left or right, until after a tragedy or atrocity has occurred?
The guy who b*head*d his father and uploaded a video showing the severed head to YouTube was known to the FBI according to himself. Is anyone surprised?
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) January 31, 2024
Maybe the FBI should focus on going after dangerous lunatics and not moms at school board meetings. https://t.co/3jQues49Xg
Libs of TikTok has a point, but to further muddy the waters, what happens when only conservative views, no matter how tame, are monitored and tagged as having the potential to create violence? What happens when the powers that be are only interested in the crazy people on the right but ignore the crazy people on the left? And what happens if someone like Mohn is held up as an exemplar of conservative thinking?
Mohn should have been stopped before he committed murder. Whether the FBI was aware of him or not, the chances are good that there were red flags aplenty that went ignored. His father should still be alive, and there is no cause to call for the murder of federal employees. Sane, civilized people do not do such things. Mohn needs to face whatever consequences exist for his actions. The question that remains is: why didn't someone intervene?
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