“Branding terrorists as LOSERS, not villains, not monsters, not fanatics, not foreigners, not religious fanatics —> a win.”
– Ana Marie Cox
This is a revealing and educational statement. It demonstrates both the priorities and the intrinsic solipsism of the average rabbit. To a rabbit, the thought of being labeled an all-caps LOSER is the ultimate evil and everything from religious faith to national identity will be readily cast aside in order to avoid that dreadful fate. Being a loser, after all, is only one step away from being cast forth into the outer darkness outside the warren. Living in fear as it does, the rabbit genuinely cannot imagine that the not-rabbit does not feel the same way.
The rabbit believes that if the not-rabbit only understood, truly understood, that all the rabbits are calling the not-rabbit is a LOSER, (or RSHD), he will be so overcome with remorse and shame at his ostracism that he will stop slaughtering people, (or making John Scalzi feel bad about himself), in order to avoid the pain of that terrible, awful, unbearable state.
The fact that this tactic has never, ever worked on a not-rabbit, (for example, the ritual denunciation of people willing to give their lives in suicide attacks as “cowards” doesn’t appear to have any effect in reducing the frequency of such attacks), because, as always, material results are much less important than the rabbit’s ability to feel it is a contributing and valued member of the warren who is Doing Something.