The Ohio shooting

This weekend two mass shootings took place in the United States: the first one in El Paso, Texas, and the other (the focus of this short post) in Dayton, Ohio. At first I thought both of them were yet more white nationalist shootings. Indeed, I initially believed they were the same shooting because they happened so close to each other. But after a while it soon became clear to me that the Ohio shooting was not the work of a white nationalist, but instead the work of a Democratic partisan, who aligned himself with Elizabeth Warren, and a supporter of Antifa. The real kicker, one that the conservatives are really harping on about, is that, apparently, the shooter, identified as Connor Betts, was a Satanist.

The exact content of his apparent Satanism is sparse. Two pieces of evidence are used to identify him as a Satanist. The first are his “satanic” patches, one of them saying something to the effect of “against all gods” and the other a devilish goat image, but that to me is not entirely convincing, given that he considers himself a metalhead, it could just be an aesthetic thing. The former patch could also be an expression of some quasi-anarchist sympathy, which given his otherwise liberal politics would make him just another variety of the same old anarchoid-liberal that’s been corrupting the left for years now. The second that I’ve seen is a tweet saying “selfies for Satan”. That, really, is the only thing attaching him to Satanism, and for me it leaves more questions about the actual substance of his Satanism. For all I know, he’s probably the type of person who would find himself a member of The Satanic Temple. But since he seems to have killed himself during his rampage, he can’t really tell us himself what his deal was.

Not that any of it matters though. All that matters is that this was a sensless tragedy, carried out by a senseless individual, and that this senseless tragedy will be used to divert people away from recognizing what remains a concrete pattern of white nationalist terror in the US, which for some reason the right still seems intent on either defending, obscuring or simply downplaying. And even though I am not essentially a Satanist, baseline or otherwise, and haven’t been for quite some time, as someone who has evolved from Satanism (indeed, as a Luciferian and hence liable to be mixed up with Satanism), I must make some sort of statement on the matter, though I didn’t want to initially.

I could advance the case that Connor Betts isn’t, strictly speaking, a proper Satanist, given that he reeks of one of those Satanic Temple atheists (The Satanic Temple, I may stress, being an organization that literally began as a satirical religion for a mockumentary project), but I feel deep down that would be missing the point. Instead I would like to say that I condemn Connor Betts, regardless of the authenticity of his Satanism, and not only that but I also say that Satanists should not be compelled to take responsibility for Bett’s atrocities. Those who pester you about the shooter being a Satanist are the same ilk of people who would encourage prejudice against innocent Muslims, Christians or Hindus in response to terroristic actions committed by believers of said religions, and you should compel the conservatives in particular to demand why you have to answer for the actions of degenerate such as Connor Betts, but not when a Christian terrorist kills in the name of his God or when Christians go to holy war against non-believers. I, as a Luciferian, certainly have no business having to answer for this waste of flesh and blood either way. He can rot in peace for all I care, and the atrocity he committed will not serve as a cross for either Satanists or Luciferians to bear for themselves.