Linkin Park are back together, but their reunion has already been marred by controversy. The band’s new co-vocalist Emily Armstrong was part of a group of Scientologists who showed up at the courthouse to support That ’70s Show actor Danny Masterson during his 2020 rape trial, where he was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison. The choice to have Armstrong fill in for the late Chester Bennington received quite a bit of backlash, notably from Cedric Bixler-Zavala of the Mars Volta/At The Drive-In. His wife Chrissie Carnell-Bixler was one of the four women who pursued rape charges against Masterson, and now, she has spoken out against Armstrong as well.
The previous singer died from suicide and scientologists are very anti mental health treatment. I can’t blame anyone for being bothered by that.
It’s fucking dumb.
The only thing that matters is if she can do the job.
I’m not blaming anyone, I’m just saying they should use their brain for something useful.
The whole thing is beyond stupid and into absurdity at this point.
It’s a fucking band
Are you deliberately missing the point?
no, I’m disagreeing with it.
It’s not the same thing as the NAACP at all.
It isn’t some kind of organization dedicated to anti-cult endeavor, nor even a band dedicated to anything other than making music. That’s it. That’s the entirety of what linkin park is. They’re an amazing fucking band that makes amazing fucking music.
Nothing about making music is predicated on the beliefs of the members unless they’re making music about those beliefs, and even then it doesn’t mean they have to do it all the time.
Are we going to flip out on Garth Brooks and Chance the rapper now? Both of them are openly supporters of a religion that has caused or condoned wars, genocide, and even today actively seek to crush the rights of other people. Christianity is just a big cult that demands loyalty and money and strict adherence to the rules of whichever sect of the cult you belong to, and nobody is up their ass for the actions of the rest of their religion.
Or is it only the cults we like that get a pass? Is that what it is? Sammy Davis Jr is cool, what with being a Satanist and jewish (at the same time, which is actually pretty damn cool), and Reba Macentire gets a pass because reasons, but not this woman that grew up in a cult we don’t like as much?
It’s bullshit. It’s empty headed drek.
Now, if Armstrong gets up on stage and starts trying to convert people that didn’t show up for that, that’s a different issue. If she starts writing songs with LP that tear down what they’ve always claimed to believe, that’s a different issue.
I simply do not give a fuck about what fiction a person believes in. It has nothing to do with the music unless they make it about that.
Anyone wanna tear Scientology down? Go for it! It’s a giant scam as well as a cult. Tear down all of them as far as I’m concerned. Make it illegal, remove all non profit status from all of the brain washing cults that get called religion. But that’s still a separate issue from some band making music.
It’s the old art vs artist argument, only in this case, all the artist did was get raised in a disliked religion, and then take part in a truly fucking stupid show of support for a fellow church member. That’s it. That’s all she has done, unless there’s something I’m missing that she’s been accused of personally doing? Is there, was she actively involved in any of the bullshit the cult did? Did she know about it happening at the time at all?
It’s a fucking nothing burger, and if anyone tried saying the same shit about someone that was wiccan, or muslim, or christian that did the exact same thing, it would be a shitstorm against the person trying to do so.
Shit, nobody can even point to her doing anything after she discovered the details of the shitstain to support him.
That’s the fucking point, it’s a witch hunt.
See, by your logic, it’s okay if I am a anti-semite for example, just quietly.
So long as I’m only funding and supporting my Anton Jew crusade off stage and off screen, and never writing a song that says “kill the Jews”, it’s okay to take all my money from those concerts and funnel it into my organization that manufactures gas chambers “just in case”.
A quiet tolerance of racism, bigotry, and abuse, leads to its proliferation. Period.
It’s not a witch hunt. Her organization is directly responsible for funding hate and attacks on innocent people. The money she earns from the band will fund this. It is perfectly reasonable to object to her being able to jump onto this band’s good reputation and use it to fund such efforts.
No, I’m saying that if every single member of a group is responsible for the worst actions of their religion, then every Catholic, Muslim, baptist, jew, and any sect of Christianity is just as bad.
Singling Armstrong out and ignoring the rest is bullshit.
There is no religion on this earth, with the possible exception of Jains, that isn’t currently doing absolutely horrible shit.
And if you take into account past actions, anyone that’s christian supports genocide just by being a member of their local church.
I’m not saying Scientology is some kind of good thing, it isn’t.
I’m saying that all over the world, there are people that belong to religions that are horrible, but aren’t themselves. There’s people all over the world that go about their daily lives following their religion that they were raised in, but we’re not putting the weight of someone else’s actions on their shoulders.
But somehow, because this is scientology, she doesn’t get that pass.
Why? Why is she any different from Garth Brooks being an active, practicing Christian? A religion responsible for the current wave of hate against LGBTQ people everywhere. There are musicians that are muslims, and I don’t see anyone up in arms about that, and there are islamic groups right now commiting atrocities in multiple places.
Like it or not, there are entire generations of people raised in scientology that are no better or worse than christians or any other religion you pick.
So, why this woman? Why is she suddenly now responsible for all of it? Didn’t see anyone raising hell about her for being the singer in her previous band. No, it’s a bunch of butthurt children attacking her because it’s this band, looking for any damn excuse to be shitty to other people.
And let’s not forget that this all started up when one of Masterson’s victims raised hell at her. Which is understandable, what with the horror she went through herself. But Armstrong? She wasn’t one of the people writing letters after seeing the evidence, she isn’t on that list. She abandoned that ship after the very early stages of the generic support from scientology. Unless anyone has any proof otherwise? I’ve yet to see any, and I’ve been looking today.
Let me say it again. If she’s somehow evil for being a scientologist, then every single person in any religion (and they’re all made up craziness) is evil for staying a member of their religion. If anyone of any older religion is given the benefit of the doubt at all, then she should have that same benefit given.
Nobody has yet to bring up anything other than her still being a scientologist to condemn her actions. I’ve not seen any evidence of wrongdoing that she did. To the contrary, up until this explosion, nobody had much of anything to say about her at all, and Dead Sara wasn’t exactly an unheard of band. They just dropped an album three years ago, nobody was making accusations of anything then, nobody was on the warpath about her fronting a different band.
So, are we now going to start going after every religion? I’m fine with that, hold every single member of every religion responsible for the actions of the rest. It’s a bad idea, but at least it’s consistent.
Oh, so Scientology is a religion and not a cult, that’s your stance?
And she has the right to believe in her cult and inflict their will on others?
You are comparing a top down controlled cult doing active harm to a diaspora of various religions with various levels of commitment, expression, and potential harm.
Reductio ad Adsurdum is your fallacy. A cult is not a religion, and you are comparing an actively harmful thing, lime thumbscrews, to the broad conceptual harm of an entire concept, like screws themself.
This is honestly the worst-faith arguing I’ve seen in a looong time. To the point that it’s actually funny when I’ve read it a couple times