Extremism on both sides is pretty depressing

While it's still early days in knowing fully what happened in the ambush of police in (what I think I can call) outback Queensland, it does seem already established that the perpetrators were all Right wing, anti-government conspiracy believers, who (perhaps most bizarrely of all) had each worked in significant roles in the government education system, despite that workplace having (pretty fairly, I would say) a reputation as being the home of Left leaning staff.   This was the type of murder that is more expected from the backwoods of rural America than Australia, but it does show the harm that the internet causes in easing the spread of conspiracy belief, and the reinforcement effect of people finding forums on line where others listen to them, and offer support (or at least, fail to condemn.)

I'm also feeling somewhat depressed about the state of Twitter, and in particular, damaged-manboy-who- just-wants-to-be-liked, it-doesn't-matter-by-who Elon Musk giving endorsement to Right wing conspiracy and extremism, and ruining people's lives.   It is absolutely appalling, in my books, that Right wing commentary in the US and here ignores the matter of death threats that are guaranteed to be made on the basis of Right wing conspiracy - the election workers who get harassed for just doing their job; anyone caught up in the "maybe he's a pedo" moral panic which is deployed freely by Musk personally.

On the other side of politics, there is also an extremism that is bothering me, and even though it is not as patently dangerous as Right wing conspiracy, it is annoying me that it is not being called out.   Take this as an example:

Kilroy is a bit of a lawyer celebrity:  she did time in jail for drug dealing as a young woman, got herself educated, and went from social work to a law degree and finally got admitted as a lawyer in Queensland despite her troubled past.   She is well known as an advocate for improving conditions for women in prison.   She has featured on "Australian Story" on the ABC.

Yet this comment, which I suspect she was inspired to make because a Victorian commission into child protection has been full of claims that it's just obvious that too many aboriginal children are being removed from families, is just patently extreme and silly.   It's of a class of the increasingly radical young aboriginal activist line that Australia just needs to be handed over to First Nations people and that will fix all of history's wrongs.  

It seems to be, reading the Tweets of First Nations academia (which I have been doing via one particular person always coming to my attention there), that the women in that field (as it is mostly women) live in an intellectual space that allows them to repeat to each other statements of escalating extremism, and they simply have no incentive to talk each other down.

This is bad in its own way, and I wish that the mainstream of politics - and reporting - would stop letting this happen with no pushback.  

If someone says something on line that is ridiculous and extreme, whether it is from the Left or Right, and they are being interviewed on the ABC or where ever, they should be challenged about it.  

I don't see that any good comes from pretending that the extremism doesn't exist, on either side.   

Update:  another couple of recent tweets from Ms Kilroy: