Extremism & Disinformation

It seems like hiding the truth never ends. By now, many of you have likely come across the report on Extremism in the military, which was released shortly after Christmas. Surprisingly, it only captured my attention Friday night. Gutfeld, on Friday night, brought it up and suggested that it was deliberately released during a time when very few would take notice. This notion arises from the fact that the report concluded that there is, in fact, no significant increase in extremism within the military when compared to the broader American society.

I’m not satisfied to hear a clip on TV and think “That’s the way it is” as Walter Cronkite used to say. No, that’s not always the way it is. I did a quick search and found this MilitaryTimes.com article. Note for those reading this in an email. Links in emails often do not work. If you are on the website they will work. Anyway, the headline reads:

Troops do not have an extremism problem, but veterans do, study finds

We knew the so-called extremism thing was a fever dream created by the left and the mainstream media. Second, the article admits defining “extremism” is difficult. Are you an extremist if you believe in equal opportunity rather than equity (equal outcomes regardless of merit), America should have secure borders, fair trade, low taxes, avoid unnecessary foreign involvement, voter ID, and that men who think they are women should stay out of women’s sports? It all depends on who is defining extremism. Vets for Trump would suggest these are not extreme positions but rather common sense.

The last part of the headline merited further investigation. Do those who separate from the military have an extremism problem? That is what the headline and first paragraph state.

Service members don’t participate in violent extremism at higher rates than the rest of the U.S. population, but former troops do — and their involvement is growing, according to research published at the end of December.

I thought I would download the actual report and look to see how they came up with that “research“. It is a 262-page report. Using the old Ctrl + F I searched the term “veteran”. This resulted in 197 instances of the word.

Luckily, on page 1 here is what it says:

Against this background, there have been a number of recent incidents of violent extremism involving service members and veterans. Most recently, on 6 January 2021, supporters of a defeated presidential candidate stormed the Capitol Building in “a violent insurrection for the purpose of trying to prevent the peaceful transfer of power after a legitimately certified election, from one administration to the next.”2 Soon thereafter, media reports began to emerge that a significant number of participants in this event had served in the military.3 Even if the number of violent extremists with military connections is not disproportionate to the number of service members and veterans in American society as a whole, significant participation of military-connected individuals in violent activities that are inconsistent with the military’s tradition of nonpartisanship could undermine the military’s positive image and widespread public support.

Notice footnotes 2 and 3. This is their research. Below are the footnotes:

2 Jonathan Weisman and Annie Karni, “McConnell Denounces R.N.C. Censure of Jan. 6 Panel Members,” New York Times, February 8, 2022, https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/us/politics/republicans-censuremcconnell.html (quoting Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell).

3 E.g., Olivia Rubin, “Number of Capitol Riot Arrests of Military, Law Enforcement and Government Personnel Rises to 52,” ABC News, April 23, 2021, https://abcnews.go.com/US/number-capitol-riot-arrests-military-lawenforcement-government/story?id=77246717.

You will notice their evidence or research comes from two web articles. You will also notice the term “violent insurrection” used in the report. At the risk of repeating myself, nobody has been charged with “insurrection”. Therefore, it is only logical to conclude after 3 years that nobody will be charged with insurrection and the use of the term is hyperbole and has no place in honest reporting.

So, the “Number of Capitol Riot Arrests of Military, Law Enforcement and Government Personnel Rises to 52 ” according to ABC News. Is that the clincher that proves those who separated from service are more prone to extreme views?

Let’s do the math. More than 1,230 people have been charged according to AP News. So 4.23% were Military, Law Enforcement or Government Personnel. I would love to know how many of those are veterans but they don’t say.

Let’s give them the benefit of the doubt and include that entire number. With the Census Bureau estimating the US population around 316,432,150, the proportion of living Americans who have served in the military is about 7.6% or less than one in ten. That means the headline is misleading at best. Last I checked 4.2 is less than 7.6. Again, we gave them an inflated number to start with so the percentage is much smaller.

I fully admit I did not, nor am I going to read all 262 pages. If I missed something let me know in the comments section.

Again, you idiots who think you can just post comments about your complaints and non-sequiturs related to Trump are mistaken. I spend a whole 2 minutes per week dealing with a hundred or so non-sequitur junk complaints. 🙂 Computer automation is great!

 

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