David Lloyd and his wife, Natalie, the daughter of Missouri state Rep. Ben Baker, and a third member of their missionary group were fatally shot in the attack.
In case anyone was curious about what sort of politician has a daughter who's a full time missionary, yes he is exactly the cruel and corrupt grifter you'd expect, and a notably half assed one.
He introduced a bill to "regulate sexual content" in libraries, which he claimed was inspired by drag story hour, however drag story hours were not addressed in the bill.
He sponsored a bill to let parents sue schools if they don't like what their children are learning.
He's tried to pre-emptively block ranked-choice voting and forcibly de-transition adult prisoners as part of the "Missouri Child and Adolescent Protection Act."
My favourite is that he tried to pre-emptively block cities from banning pet store animals, at the request of Petland and others, after Petland was linked to bacterial infection outbreaks, puppy-mills and some fairly obvious cruelty. "He further acknowledged that he had not researched existing Missouri law on the matter." (per wikipedia)
If you're cruel or rich, Ben Baker's got your back.
Part of that RCV bill is also aimed at outlawing the current Approval Voting primaries they use in St. Louis. There's been interest in switching the entire state to approval, and Ben Baker just can't have that happen.
I don't agree with their theological views, and I don't love that indoctrination is so often tied to humanitarian efforts.
But these are people who were trying to help out children in the middle of the second worst humanitarian crisis in the world right now, and the one that very very few people are giving much attention to as the other dominates news cycles and most of the Western world has just written off Africa as a whole (oops). (Also, I think this may be the only story about Hati on Lemmy in recent history, in fact).
They didn't 'deserve' getting brutally murdered for sticking around and not abandoning the children's schools and homes they spent the past decades cultivating.
They did a lot more to help people than I ever have, even if a key factor in their doing so was what I might consider delusional thinking.
And so even if I'm not a fan of some aspects of their lives, I respect what they did do, and think it's a bit fucked up to be making light of their deaths.
If you want an unsettling thing to think about, look into Calhoun's rats.
Social media has essentially overcrowded our functional distance with one another.
You could be on a ranch with no one around for miles, and yet you have hundreds if not thousands of other people are directly interacting with you giving and competing for dopamine hits.
And just like the rats we now have people not leaving their domiciles, being apathetic, hedonistic, etc. We're mentally falling apart because we're just too overcrowded.
These aren't settlers and they weren't running a Canadian Indian school burying children out back either. Kids trying to share their beliefs (misguided as they may be) aren't colonizers and if they aren't welcome, execution is not the right answer you troglodyte.
It's not rocket science to expect a society to condemn extrajudicial violence. Your opinion is bad and you should feel bad about it.
I don't agree with their religion and they shouldn't have even been there. But to say that they were tourists is unfair. They were full-time missionaries. They (sadly) dedicated their lives to spreading their religion. They also probably tried to help meet basic needs like food, shelter, etc.
Religion is complicated and this was a preventable tragedy.
Why? They were missionaries. That's not a good thing. Not saying they should be murdered of course but I think respect is really not what they deserve either.