In 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Edward Everett Hale published a short story called 'The Man Without a Country', a fictional story about an American Army Lieutenant who is taken to trial for treason and, in the course of the trial, angrily denounces America saying 'I wish I may never hear of the United States again!' The Judge complies and sentences the Lieutenant to be stripped of his citizenship and to not only never again be allowed to touch the soil of his native land, but also to never have anyone speak to him about America again. He spends the rest of his life being passed from ship to ship, and by the end is shown to have repented his youthful anger and become a true patriot for the country he so dearly missed.
This long preamble is by way of saying that if this video that Yashar Ali put out last night is anything to go by, we need to Man Without a Country a huge number of people.
Over the past 24 hours, thousands of TikToks (at least) have been posted where people share how they just read Bin Laden’s infamous "Letter to America," in which he explained why he attacked the United States.
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) November 16, 2023
The TikToks are from people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and… pic.twitter.com/EwjiGtFEE3
Yashar's full text reads:
Over the past 24 hours, thousands of TikToks (at least) have been posted where people share how they just read Bin Laden’s infamous "Letter to America," in which he explained why he attacked the United States. The TikToks are from people of all ages, races, ethnicities, and backgrounds. Many of them say that reading the letter has opened their eyes, and they’ll never see geopolitical matters the same way again. Many of them — and I have watched a lot — say it has made them reevaluate their perspective on how what is often labeled as terrorism can be a legitimate form of resistance to a hostile power. This is not limited to TikTok; similar videos have been posted on other social media platforms. The Guardian had a copy of “Letter to America” posted, but once these TikToks went viral, the Guardian took it down, which has only led to more interest in the letter and conspiracies from TikTokers who say this is part of the media and the powers that control it trying to silence the truth.
It's worth watching the whole video, if only to get the utter depths of insanity to which these people have sunk.
Not gonna lie, didn’t have “Osama bin Laden becoming the good guy” on my 2023 bingo card
— Arturo Boremano (definitely NOT “Arthur Boreman”) (@ArthurBoreman) November 16, 2023
No, neither did we.
TikTok brain is reading a rant by Osama bin Laden, realizing you agree with him on everything, and concluding not that you need to rethink your life, but that you need to rethink your priors about Osama bin Laden.
— Noam Blum 🚡 (@neontaster) November 16, 2023
Blum's take was enough to lead Elon Musk to emphasize the post:
!!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2023
Our sentiments exactly.
(1) "Osama bin Laden's letter is not as crazy and threatening as I expected, is well written, and makes some objectively true points."
— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) November 16, 2023
(2) "Osama bin Laden was good. Even better than us."
The problem with the TikToks is not (1), but thinking (1) logically leads to (2).
This generation is exceptionally stupid and there is no fixing it. It will only get worse.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) November 16, 2023
This was Bin Laden's "Letter to America". Spare us the exegesis and the existential crises, TikTok. pic.twitter.com/2nT3pBCLpg
— Slim Wiggy🇺🇸 (@SlimWiggy) November 16, 2023
That's the only work wrought by Osama Bin Ladin that any of us need to know.
This is all so predictable from the SJW, identity-based, oppressor-oppressee psychopathology that originated on Tumblr & was incubated to full chrysalis on TikTok. https://t.co/yDGYqCVn0B https://t.co/P7pzKp31ff
— J.D. Haltigan, PhD 🏒👨💻 (@JDHaltigan) November 16, 2023
Oh sweet Jesus, as someone who watched 9/11 live on TV.. Nothing justifies that. Even the most evil people believe they are the heroes in their own narrative, I'm sure Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and others may have said or done some valid things.. They are still evil
— Faith And Reason Ministry (@theFARMinistry) November 16, 2023
We get it. Today a lot of westerners think attacks on civilians is ok and they kind of adore religious far-right extremism. It's ok...they like the Taliban's Afghanistan...except oddly they don't want the same thing for their own countries.
— Seth Frantzman (@sfrantzman) November 16, 2023
Funny how that works, isn't it?
Many are reemphasizing their belief that TikTok, a product widely believed to be controlled by the Chinese Government, should be banned from use by American citizens.
TikTok should have been banned years ago
— TTI (@TikTokInvestors) November 16, 2023
we need to ban TikTok https://t.co/EN44FYnB4P
— Armand Domalewski (@ArmandDoma) November 15, 2023
I understand why people want to ban TikTok, but I worry that Xi might shut down American products like Facebook and Google in retaliation.
— Packy McCormick (@packyM) November 16, 2023
jk China blocked all of those over a decade ago.
Ban TikTok. https://t.co/KM8jH0ePo0
While others point out that the problem may have far deeper causes than a simple app.
I blame Foucault. And Seamus Milne.
— Heidi Bachram 🎗️ (@HeidiBachram) November 16, 2023
TikTok is only the mechanism. Thousands of students at universities marched in the 1960s carrying Mao's Little Red Book. The Communist Party has been an official party in US elections for decades. All before smartphones and TikTok.
— Steven Sinofsky (@stevesi) November 16, 2023
A deep and abiding hatred of America and everything that it has ever stood for and has done has a very long track record on the American left, it's true. With social media it is, of course, always possible to overestimate how much any one group of people actually represent the population as a whole, so maybe it's unfair to paint the entirety of Gen Z with the broad brush of being like this. But something should be done, one way or another, to figure out what exactly has gone wrong with these people and try to fix it... which like so many ills today likely goes to finding a way to deal with what the American Colleges and University system has become.
The rot is deep and it's only going to get deeper.
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