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I'll start by saying I wasn't a fan of Charlie Kirk. Didn't know much of his stuff and what I did I disagreed with.
...But...
Seriously, can we stop with the political violence. Nobody deserves to die for their political beliefs. I condemn this as a disgusting and unwarranted act.
Yep, same here. Didn't know much about him. Probably didn't agree with him. I'm fairly dead center on everything.
I live close to where the Democrat politicians in Minnesota were shot and killed a few months ago. Probably didn't agree with them either.
Doesn't matter. No excuse for any of it.
We don't need another 1968.
He spent his life advocating for policies intended to kill, hurt, and strip civil rights. If you want someone to blame for political violence, start with the ones fomenting it.
That didn't take long.Quote:
Originally Posted by fafalone
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Sorry we're all just supposed to pretend that political violence arises in a vacuum? That there's no connection between advocating for violence and violence occurring? Any condemnation of political violence that denies its source is meaningless.
I haven't been listening this morning. Have they caught anybody, yet? Was this a political act?
The assumption is usually that it is political when a political figure has been shot, but it often turns out not to have been. The guy who shot Trump was pulling a Hinckley, as he had a list of people who spanned politics and countries. Trump just happened to be the easiest. Hinckley shot Reagan, but just to impress Jodie Foster. The guy who shot Gabbie Giffords was just shooting up a supermarket and she happened to be there.
I was assuming this was political, then I heard that he was answering a question about gun violence in the US when he was shot. That moved the needle back to true neutral, for me. If he was shot because of that question, the shooter could be left, right, or other. I'm also aware that we are phasing out lead bullets in lots of ammunition in the US. It's a bit too soon to say so, but it sounds like he was shot with an irony bullet. They often miss, but they hit hard when they do.
I think that's a fair point. Our leadership has not used this tragedy to unite us but instead immediately blames the "radical left". They completely ignore that violence has been happening to both sides of the isle. Our leadership is constantly demonizing the other side. There is a whole industry devoted to spreading hate and discontent. It's become big business. The people that constantly tell us the other side is evil certainly contribute to political violence.Quote:
Originally Posted by fafalone
That said, no one knows what the motive was in this case yet.
Saying it's happening on both sides ignores the wildly asymetric nature.
I'm not even going to get started with how ridiculous it is to equate hate speech and calling hate speech evil. Or to advocate policies tailored to maximizing death and calling advocates of such policies evil. Those are *not* equally to blame for violence and when one side is intent on killing the other, the centrists who say criticism of evil and evil are both wrong aren't centrists or anti-violence at all.
It was meant to ignore it. I have no quantitative numbers on the subject. I do know that to blame it all on one group/side would be false. I blame us all, we elect these people, we go to hear others speak that condemn those that don't think like we do, we listen those types of podcast and have hate filled social media. They couldn't exist without our support. How we got to this point I don't know. Then again, maybe nothing has changed. Hate has been very prevalent throughout history. Now it's more public because of the abundant amount of ways to spread it. And we have plenty of people with mental health issues.Quote:
Saying it's happening on both sides ignores the wildly asymetric nature.
They have two good pictures of the guy, the gun and a palm print. It's just a matter of time.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
They don't seem to know yet but it does seem likely. So far they haven't even identified him let alone caught him (as far I know) and I guess we won't truly know the motivation until they do. My working assumption, given the target, is that it's probably political but I'll hope that I'm proved wrong. It would be better if it wasn't political target.Quote:
Was this a political act?
No, I agree with you on that. But I also think the individual has agency in how they respond to the rhetoric. I can condemn both the rhetoric and the act without contradiction.Quote:
Sorry we're all just supposed to pretend that political violence arises in a vacuum?
Charlie Kirk’s Death Exposed the Biggest Scam in History
https://youtu.be/azE7nqqQMmo?si=DnbLkffDc3Mio0nK
They want people divided.
They caught the shooter last night.... 22 guy... A family member turned him in.;)
Yeah, there is nothing wrong with pointing out people that promote political violence, in fact it's a good thing. Unless in the process your promoting hate and violence.Quote:
Sorry we're all just supposed to pretend that political violence arises in a vacuum?
No, I agree with you on that. But I also think the individual has agency in how they respond to the rhetoric. I can condemn both the rhetoric and the act without contradiction.
Well big shocker, not liberal trans antifa, white Mormon who liked hunting and dressed up like the man who responded to this incident with calls for violence against the "radical left" from the highest position in the country.
Numerous other calls for violence before his identity was revealed from people who will now hide and change the subject.
Find me *one* prominent Democrat, one next to the dozens from Trump on down, who's now calling for violence against the right, retribution against a political identity, bombing conservative cities, mass arresting Republicans... You know all the rhetoric of the time before they named the suspect. But calling these advocates of political violence evil, that makes this an issue of bothsides? Sorry no.
From the minute this news broke there was one side uniformly condemning political violence, if not exactly weeping over someone who responded to school shootings by saying they're a necessary and rational sacrifice, said empathy was a bad thing, and in his last words lied about the number of trans mass shooters in their ongoing campaign to drive up trans suicide/homicide... and one side itching to get violent against the other in a war of retribution. Right up until the narrative of who he was started falling apart.
The left is far from perfect (in fact probably 90% of my political posts are criticizing them instead) but our leaders are not promoting political violence, are not trying to strip rights from various groups, are not actively trying to spike child death rates, have not tried to overthrow the government, do not elect and protect known pedophiles, and a thousand other things... So when someone calls this a bothsides issue because some people think that's evil and are familiar enough with the 1930s to see some terrible parallels, it's pretty clear where they really stand.
This fake news is apparently making the rounds of the leftist hate-o-sphere. But there isn't any truth in it.Quote:
Originally Posted by fafalone
https://youtu.be/fue2vojS57M?si=28NPQ7DKHfvwOIkA
The facts are utterly different.
TRN is the stamp of the ammunition manufacturer apparently, so given that is highlighted in the video still I doubt there is any truth whatsoever in the rest of it.
I actually bothered to watch the video...
The engravings found on the unused casings "Hey Fascist! Catch this!" and the one with the arrows are taken from the game helldivers 2 - is that a sign of being a trans lefty? Why on earth would a trans lefty engrave "If you can read this you are GAY LMAO" either? Yes the "Bella Ciao" was an anti fascist song, but that is hardly conclusive proof as it was also a meme used by the Groyper Army (led by Nicholas J. Fuentes) who often targeted mainstream nazi / far right people for being too commercial and not radical enough. The "Notices bulge" was another meme, often referring to / taunting the furry sub-culture.
So pretty much all of the etchings are internet memes and / or game references, none of which are really left leaning either. The video mentions they are memes but is trying to cast them in an entirely different light.
It looks to me a lot more like an individual who spent a lot of time getting drawn into internet culture and these memes were things he found relevant or funny - hard to see any particular left or right leanings as like most memes, the use gets changed over time and often things get used ironically.
Is another murder wrong, of course it is - nobody deserves to be killed for their opinions. Is this kind of thing going to happen again when the current political leader is doing nothing but stoke hatred, in a country were guns are readily available, and even the victim described his own murder as a reasonable statistic to retain access to guns - of course it is.
The president making a martyr out of this senseless murder, but pretty much dismissing every school shooting, the murder of democratic politicians in their bed, freeing the people responsible for the Jan 6th deaths, etc. just shows how every tragedy is another thing to be ignored or used for his own personal gain.
For that video to describe Charlie Kirk as "Not a hateful person, just someone who disagrees with you" though is absolutely rewriting his legacy. After all do any of the following quotes make him sound loving and caring?
1. "We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty... We need to be very clear that you're not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it's worth it. I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment,"
2. "I can't stand the word empathy, actually," he said. "I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage."
3. He has admitted that if his 10 year old daughter was raped and made pregnant he would not allow her to get an abortion.
4. "Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot."
5. Regarding Taylor Swift's engagement "Engage in reality more… Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge.”
6. "If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified.'"
I borrowed this.....
The fake news is saying his groyper memes are antifascist, running with the quote of some kid who allegedly knew him 7-8 ago at the start of highschool, and pretending the family quote was more specific than it was.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
But thanks for the disinformation. I didn't bother playing it but the thumbnail has the manufacturer stamp (TRN for Turan) but I have no words if you're so far gone you think it's anything else.
I don't think we know enough yet to call whether it was political or not. Some of the engravings on the casings can be read as either anti fascist or as just internet memes. Others really are just memes. He comes from a right wing background but does seem to have got more "political" lately though I can't find any reports on whether that was left or right wing. He had expressed a dislike for Kirk's beliefs. The TRN stamp has nothing to do with trans, it's a manufacturers mark.
Honestly, both sides are trying to read way more into this than is currently possible.
^Yeah, that^.Quote:
Find me *one* prominent Democrat, one next to the dozens from Trump on down, who's now calling for violence against the right, retribution against a political identity, bombing conservative cities, mass arresting Republicans... You know all the rhetoric of the time before they named the suspect. But calling these advocates of political violence evil, that makes this an issue of bothsides? Sorry no.
And lets not forget that when Paul Pelosi was attacked, Don Jr thought it was appropriate to post a picture of a pair of underpants and a claw hammer saying "I've got my Paul Pelosi Halloween costume ready".
Even after we have all the information people will read more into it than they should. People that do these acts are not representative of either side or any specific social issue. We're all subjected to these things and only a tiny few out of millions/billions of people do such things.Quote:
Honestly, both sides are trying to read way more into this than is currently possible.
Claiming you can just make up your own meaning and read into what you want is unreasonable. There's just no reasonable argument the arrow combo is irrelevant or he picked a song that's ultra-obscure to everyone besides groypers, even actual avowed anti fascists. You're looking for an apolitical angle that's just not supported by a rational interpretation of the evidence.
The people who do these acts indeed aren't well but again driving unstable people to political violence is not something equal on both sides.
Several people have said that political violence is on the rise in the US. I'm not sure that's true. It's changing, certainly, but is it high or rising? We've always had a certain level of violence against political figures. Ford had a clear assassination attempt (one of Charles Manson's family), Reagan was shot, a guy shot at the Obama White House, W had a shoe thrown at him (not exactly lethal, unless it was one of my shoes), Trump was shot. So there's been a long, though sporadic, history of political violence.
There has also been a much larger amount of state sponsored violence. There was a ladder with white men at the top. There was clear violence used to keep other groups at lower rungs on the ladder. This was often local in origin, but was often either sanctioned by the state or tacitly supported by not bringing charges against, or not investigating, crimes that were clearly motivated by keeping people in their places. There were also lots of rules. It hasn't been all that long in this country that women were able to get loans in their own names. Homosexuality was persecuted if it came to light. Lynching was reasonably common in some areas. Further back, there was a time when the some state governments in New England (I think this was pre-US) hung people for the crime of being Catholic.
It's always been there, it's just often been societal. Government reflected society of the time. It wasn't great for those lower on the ladder, though, and that has eroded. Charlie Kirk took positions that were largely focused on returning to a time he saw as the halcyon days of yesteryear. They weren't less fractious times. They were just times when the state sanctioned means used to maintain a hierarchy that put caps on how high a person could rise based on various factors, often ones that the individual had no choice about.
Reinstating the status quo ante seems to be the objective of people like Kirk. That will spark conflict, but the conflict was always there.
Add to that the increasingly desperate economic situation of the working class...and today doesn't seem very unlikely or even unreasonable. Seems rather to be expected. Even if the housing crisis in the US were resolved, and the education crisis was resolved, there will still be tensions by people unwilling to share space at the top of the ladder.
A Fox News (number 1 in news! As they brag while simultaneously suggesting they're not msm) host called for killing the homeless today .
But saying he's evil for advocating literal Nazi mass extermination **** makes someone equally responsible? No, the people saying that would continue to say it after that became actual policy.
You just keep restating your opinion on this subject over and over. Why?Quote:
Originally Posted by fafalone
Yeah I remember the 60's and 70's. I've seen this level of social violence before.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
People keep posting bothsides-type replies. And I'm bored.Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
The 5 basic laws of human stupidity
- Always and inevitably, each of us underestimates
the number of stupid individuals in the world.- The probability that a certain person is stupid is
independent of any other characteristic of the
same person.- A stupid person is one who causes harm to another
person or group without at the same time obtaining
a benefit for himself or even damaging himself.- Non-stupid people always underestimate the harmful
potential of stupid people- The stupid person is the most dangerous person that
exists
Source
Basic Laws Of Human stupidity
Unfortunately, human stupidity is infinite. https://www.vbforums.com/
Mrs. Kirk speaks....
She's big on God's love yet she sounds like she wants to burn the place down.Quote:
“They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith and of God’s love,” she said. “They should all know this. If you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea. You have no idea what you have unleashed across this country and this world.”
She added: “You have no idea the fire that you have ignited within this wife.”
Quote:
“The evil-doers for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said in a livestream on the YouTube page of Turning Point USA
YepQuote:
Even after we have all the information people will read more into it than they should.
...and Yep.Quote:
People that do these acts are not representative of either side or any specific social issue.
...and Italians. I've got a few Italian friends and they all knew the song so it's not obscure, at least within that culture. I knew about it myself but that's because I'm a war history nerd, that's probably a pretty small subset.Quote:
a song that's ultra-obscure to everyone besides groypers
The key combination, I can't really speak to. I've heard it's some sort of fire code in a video game, which seems an apt meme if you're going to murder someone regardless of the politics, but there could well be a wider cultural significance I'm unaware of.
I'm not sure that's true. I'll condemn a murder regardless of which side it comes from but the rhetoric is far worse from the right. Those two things can be separated. I think it's important that they are.Quote:
People keep posting bothsides-type replies.
Anyway, I came across this interview with the guy who was speaking to him at the moment he was shot. It's interesting and I'd recommend giving it a watch. It also feels very close to my position: I didn't like Kirk, I disagreed vehemently with almost everything he stood for. That doesn't equate to wanting him dead.
Even within your own culture it's hard to believe a 22yo knows songs from 100 years ago.
The song is literally on the groyper's "war" (against Kirk) playlist. It's utterly preposterous he knows it because he's an anti fascist into 100y Italian songs instead of the terminally online spaces his other memes come from.
Also, hilarious that the right now says having a trans roommate is proof of liberal ideology when it's not even proof that this alleged trans person is left leaning.. Caitlin Jenner is out there being a right wing nut every day and 4chan is never not flooded with trans porn.
There was never any such "war" and it makes so little sense that it's a clear fabrication.
The non-left (majority of the country) do not attack each other over "purity" as Marxist factions do. As the "normal" within their hate-o-sphere though I can see why they might think that's how the world works. It doesn't.
So where are the concrete blocks hurled down upon law enforcement? Where are the riots and looting? The burning cars? Vehicles driven into crowds of children? The doxing and threats of retribution?
There aren't any. Because that sort of action is a hallmark of the left. It isn't the sort of thing normal people do.
It's ironic that you make this claim when that's basically how Charlie Kirk first came to anyone's notice, with the Professor Watchlist. Have you not heard how many death threats the people on that list received or are you just choosing to ignore it? It might seem strange that the self-described centrist ALWAYS takes the right-wing position... if the truth weren't glaringly obvious.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
First, schisms among otherwise ideologically aligned groups exist throughout history. It frequently comes to killing. There's no deny Fuentes supporters hated Kirk, and there's no denying they had disrupted his events many times. It's fact.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
The right wing spammed violence and threats against the left *everywhere* before the identity of the shooter was known. If you didn't see it, you're not looking.
Also the right can shut up about riots after they violently stormed the capitol and tried to kill Congress based on blatant, proven lies rather than actual issues like police violence. An attempted coup is way, way more extreme than some *******es looting after police turned another protest violent.
Edit: LOL, the auto-censorship makes that look worse, it was jack... but I'm going to leave it :D
Edit2: Also lol, dil claimed to be a centrist? I'm suprised he's not a groyper himself, mad that Kirk wasn't far right enough.
That claim was made some time ago. Maybe he's comfortable admitting he's a right-winger now but I suspect he's still on the "I didn't leave the left; the left left me" train.Quote:
Originally Posted by fafalone
I mean, he used to claim that he wasn't a Trump fan (I think the phrase was "burning sack of trash") and that .Net would never replace VB6. I'm not sure his claims are to be taken seriously.
Attachment 195347Quote:
So where are the concrete blocks hurled down upon law enforcement? Where are the riots and looting?
The level of toxicity here is stifling. But I suppose that is exactly the point.
Here is a warning from a couple who have lived under a leftist regime and escaped it.
https://youtu.be/5ROu1F4W9fo?si=ques_9juNcTjvvc0
The pud-pounding here over "January 6th" is beyond absurd. America knows who its enemies are and how violence is their response.
Absolutely agree, totally ridiculous that people are getting upset about an attempted insurrection, rioters invading Capitol Hill, police being killed, everyone responsible being pardoned, and the constant claims the election was stolen.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
These folks are probably also upset that the president is probably a paedophile, like how is that relevant. Surely the president should be allowed to rape whoever he wants.
You're really putting your right-wing propaganda out there for everyone to see, aren't you? Cuba was (is?) a communist dictatorship. Effectively no one on the left in America wants communism (no matter how much Republicans lie about it) and literally the only ones pushing for a dictatorship are Republicans.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
Something that really sticks in my mind is that, a while back, Ben Shapiro felt the need to make a video explaining that Scandinavian countries are not socialist. The irony is that the only reason anyone thought they were was because of lies told by Ben Shapiro and his ilk. Bernie Sanders was always saying that he supported policies and programs like those implemented in Scandinavian countries while, at the same time Ben Shapiro, along with pretty much every Republican and even some Democrats, were calling him a socialist. Many young, politically naïve, people liked what Bernie Sanders was saying and they kept hearing that he is a socialist so they figured that that meant that what he supported was socialism, which meant that they themselves and those Scandinavian countries must be socialist. Shapiro was basically confirming that he was lying by pointing out that the policies supported by the guy he kept calling socialist are not actually socialist. Ben Shapiro is a lying sack and you are engaged in basically the same propaganda. If you could engage honestly with the positions that left-wingers actually held, maybe we could take you seriously. You won't, so we don't.
:wave: KEEP IT CLEAN AND PLAY NICE REMINDER TO ALL.:D