MAGA'ts, Domestic Terrorism, & The FOP

"It is as though there were two filters that we have to go through to kill. The first filter is your forebrain. A hundred things can convince your forebrain to put a gun into your hand and go to a certain point: poverty, drugs, gangs, leaders, politics, and the social learning of violence in the media—which is magnified when you are from a broken home and are searching for a role model. But traditionally these have slammed into the resistance that a frightened, angry human being confronts in the midbrain. And except with sociopaths (who, by definition, do not have this resistance), the vast, vast majority of circumstances are not sufficient to overcome this midbrain safety net. But if you are conditioned to overcome these midbrain inhibitions, then you are a walking time bomb, a pseudosociopath, just waiting for the random factors of social interaction and to forebrain rationalization to put you at the wrong place at the wrong time."
[On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2009, Intro, How It Works: Acquired Violence Immune Deficiency, p. xxii]

“The three major psychological processes at work in enabling violence are classical conditioning (a la Pavlov's dog), operant conditioning (a la B. F. Skinner's rats), and the observation and imitation of vicarious role models in social learning.”
[On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, Revised edition, 2009, Sec 8; Ch. 1]

"One of the major manifestations of moral distance is what might be called the home-court advantage. The moral advantage associated with defending one's own den, home, or nation has a long tradition that can be found in the animal kingdom as well, and it should not be neglected in assessing the impact of moral distance in empowering a nation's violence.
...
The establishment of the enemy's guilt and the need to punish or avenge is a fundamental and widely accepted justification for violence."
[On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2009]

“The physical distance process has been addressed previously, but distance in war is not merely physical. There is also an emotional distance process that plays a vital part in overcoming the resistance to killing. Factors such as cultural distance, moral distance, social distance, and mechanical distance are just as effective as physical distance in permitting the killer to deny that he is killing a human being.
“Increasing the distance between the [combatants] — whether by emphasizing their differences or by increasing the chain of responsibility between the aggressor and his victim allows for an increase in the degree of aggression.”— Ben Shalit, The Psychology of Conflict and Combat”
[On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2009]

“But desensitization by itself is probably not sufficient to overcome the average individual's deep-seated-resistance to killing. Indeed, this desensitization process is almost a smoke screen for what I believe is the most important aspect of modern training. What Dyer and many other observers have missed is the role of (1) Pavlovian classical conditioning and (2) Skinnerian operant conditioning in modern training.”
[On Killing, Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, 2009]

“In these and many other killing circumstances we can see that it was the demand for killing actions from a leader that was the decisive factor. Never underestimate the power of the need to obey...
But it is more complex than the simple influence of orders by a leader. There are many factors in the relationship between the potential killer and the authority that influence the decision to kill. In Milgram's experiments the demands of authority were represented by an individual with a clipboard and a white lab coat. This authority figure stood immediately behind the individual who was inflicting shocks and directed that he increase the voltage each time the victim answered a question incorrectly.”
[Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, On Killing, Revised Edition, 2009]

"The "Aryan Majesty" is evidently the Aryan power or state, political, social and religious. It is simply the Aryan greatness and supremacy.
...
For the infidels whom it conquers are creatures..., even, as these make it unprosperous, the annihilation of the sickness was necessary to the existence of the majesty. The existence of one involved the annihilation of the other.....
"You hardly utter a sentence of our Romance tongue, without speaking some word which was spoken in the same sense by that ancient people, ten thousand years ago or more, in the mountain-valleys which they first inhabited. You have their idiosyncrasies of thought, the same indelible characteristics of race; for you are their descendants. From them you have your excellencies & your faults, your energy, your vigor of intellect, your philosophical cast of thought, your indomitable resolution, your persistent pursuit of the object you desire to attain; from them the religious leanings & inclinations of your minds; from them your social institutions & relations, & the foundation-stones of your laws, customs, habits; from them all your philosophical & religious doctrines.
They were white men, as we are, the superior race in intellect, in manliness, the governing race of the world, the conquering race of all the races.
They called themselves Arya, the Aryans, the Warlike, or, some think, the Noble. "
[Lectures of the Arya, Albert Pike, 1930, Lecture One: The Aryan Race, p 1-2]
"This work as well as others from the pen of Albert Pike has been transcribed & prepared for the printer by Col. M.W. Wood, 33*, Active Member of the Supreme Council, Ancient & Accepted Scottish Rite, Southern Jurisdiction¹, U.S.A., a labor of love because of the close intimacy that existed between General Pike & Col. Wood... No words can adequately express the value of it...
Of this present work, the Lectures of the Arya, Col. Wood said: "It is the grandest thing that he (Pike) ever wrote, being in a way a conspectus & resume of all that he had written on these topics."...
This work, occupying an unusual place, has long remained unpublished. In publishing it (& others) the Supreme Council has added to the literary wealth of the world."
H.W. Witcover, 33*, Secretary General - APRIL 1930
[Lectures of the Arya, Albert Pike, 1930, Introduction]
(¹-Southern Jurisdiction consists of [the lower] 40 states)