mkfs
I never understood this argument. Al-Awlaki was embedded with a group of enemy combatants the US was at war with, and he knew he was a wanted man, and he had plenty of opportunities to surrender, but he chose not to. So either the US does some Spec Ops snatch-and-grab to get him and risk the lives of all involved personnel, or do nothing at all?
Technically it's the start of a block.
Do you think it's fair to characterize every rightwing populist as a "fascist?"
What planet have you been on for the last ten years? Have you not been on reddit recently, especially in the aftermath of Kirk's assassination? The left has been collectively, enthusiastically arguing in favor of violent suppression of rightwing speech, with the rallying cries of "punch Nazis," "bash the fash," and similar, for over decade, usually with a misleading, misunderstood appeal to Karl Popper's Paradox of Tolerance (as though it were the nation's founding principle), and as far back as 2017, a majority of progressives agreed with that: https://www.cato.org/blog/51-strong-liberals-say-its-morally...
This is a distinctly progressive phenomenon, where a majority of them believe they have the right to respond to speech with violence. And as the Kirk assassination shows, they'll readily "Naziwash" you after killing you, even if you aren't one, to post-hoc justify (according to their warped thinking) your murder.
All the left accomplished with its thuggish, authoritarian attempts to intimidate conservatives was to radicalize them further, to the point that rightwing dissenters, who abounded in the G.W. Bush era, are now an endangered species, and your proposal is to antagonize them even more?
From what I can tell, Jones, who's been on the air in some capacity since the mid 90s, has only two significant "IRL" incidents directly attributable to him: the raid on Comet Ping Pong--which resulted in shots fired, but no injuries--and the execrable harassment of Sandy Hook families.
Meanwhile the Young Turks had an actual mass shooter, Gavin Long, who made videos directly referencing the program, and rather than resulting in their cancellation, the entire thing was memory-holed. Even their wikipedia doesn't mention it.
Granted, from time to time you do hear about "eccentric" acts of violence (e.g., against 5G towers, or perpetrated by "gang-stalked" "targeted individuals"), and it's not difficult to imagine Jones having some influence on them.
It's a bit of both, I think. He's clearly learned that behaving in certain ways garners him more attention (which he craves), especially back in his "bullhorn on the streets" days, and he's clearly willing to ham it up for that sake. But people who knew him as a young man back in Rockwall, and later Austin, all vouched for his lunacy. In fact, I can't recall anyone close to him ever being convinced of his sanity.
I'll make this simple for you: do most leftists currently agree with "punch/kill Nazis/fascists" (and other variations)? Yes (even back in 2017, per the poll I cited, that was the case). Do most conservatives agree with "punch/kill Marxists/Islamists/Anarchists" (and similar variations)? No. That's the issue. Pointing to the mere existence, or even the magnitude, of rightwing political violence, doesn't negate this fact, viz., that orthodox leftwing thought now condones, if not encourages, violence in response to speech.
EDIT: even in this very thread, there are examples:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45372959
> Racism is violence
I'm specifically referring to the left's acceptance of violence in response to political speech, for which there is no equivalent consensus on the right, for example, that they can and should go around assaulting Marxists, Islamists, or others with whom they fundamentally disagree.
And Kirk, for whatever faults he had, and however performative were his events, sought to debate his opponents--not encourage his followers to assault them. I couldn't find anything about him "promoting violence for years."
Then in the 2010s, the "punch/kill Nazis/fascists" messaging took off, and now the consensus position on the left is that it's acceptable to use violence in response to speech: https://www.cato.org/blog/51-strong-liberals-say-its-morally...
DHH's misstep is that he's resorting to arguing he and others are being falsely labeled "Nazis," without realizing that even conceding the point that it's OK to respond to speech (and only rightwing speech; "tankies" and Sharia-pushing Islamists can still fit through the Overton window) with violence is already surrendering too much.
I don't think that's necessary, but it might give you some perspective. Perhaps you'll appreciate America more after spending some time away from her, and if not, "self-deportation" might ultimately prove to be of mutual benefit to the country and those most contemptuous of it.
> There is a way to reduce the risk of febrile seizure, by the way. Reducing fever prevents febrile seizures. You know how you safely reduce fever in babies? Tylenol. Which has now been designated by Trump and Kennedy’s entire HHS as the cause of autism, despite having no evidence to support that claim.
I doubt the administration is this devious or thinking as far ahead as she thinks. Her reasoning is ironically similar to Trump supporters, who rebrand every flub, fumble, and gaffe as some form of "5D chess" that normies just don't understand. But it's evident form the tariff policy that much what the administration does is just shot straight from the hip.
That this is being memory-holed, much like the ill-conceived bilingual education initiatives of the 90s, is actually a good sign, as it's proof that we're winning.
Yeah, some--but probably not theirs. I guarantee a lot of them will have a tragic change of heart after their parents are gone.
The issue, besides the treatment of political assassination perhaps warranting greater tact, is the deliberate spreading of misinformation.
Leftwing echochambers, grasping at the thinnest of straws, started aggressively gaslighting everyone (including each other) into believing the shooter was somehow rightwing, after years of rhetoric normalizing violence against "fascists." ("Punch Nazis," "paradox of tolerenace," etc.) And Kimmel (or his writers) evidently fell into the echochamber.
The "groyper" cope was especially pathetic, with them signal-boosting to new heights a white nationalist whom they would normally seek to deplatform, and suddenly trying to identify shades of grey (as sources of disagreement) within the conservative right that just a week ago they painted with a single, broad brush ("fascist, racist"), along with inadvertently demonstrating again that they don't really understand how conservatives think by suggesting that conservatives agreeing on 70-80% of things will violently attack each other over the remaining 30-20% instead of hashing it out to consensus before refocusing and redoubling their efforts on their main objective: winning; when it's in large measure because of their aversion to purity spiraling that they keep winning.
You only get one mom and dad, and estranging yourselves from them over political disagreements (common on reddit) seems fairly unhinged to me. And I was just trying to illustrate the absurdity of the
> HIS FAMILY IS MAGA
cope, which leftists latched onto immediately, even on reddit, where the counterexamples abound.
Because it's not like you haven't seen countless reddit posts from unhinged leftists railing about their MAGA family members (from whom they're often estranged), despairing about the quality of life in their red state from which they wish to flee, as if it were only marginally better than Somalia.
I don't think that's an accurate characterization of his statements, even if what he did say was factually inaccurate.
And the dots, for me, remain unconnected. Are you suggesting Kirk represented such a radical, rightward departure from the Christian conservatism of (for example) Pat Robertson--a fixture of late 20th century American politics--that Mosley is a reasonable point of comparison?
Are you making a point about the protests in Britain, and not realizing that "refusal to engage," at least on immigration, is a major, if not the primary, reason why far right parties have risen in Europe and why Trump is in the White House again?
> SEE?
as if the letter's current relevance is obvious. Are they implying Russell, a noted pacifist incarcerated for anti-war activism during the Great War, would have endorsed Kirk's assassination? Or is this about the protests in the UK?
People who've actually read Russell will recall many instances of him saying things that today would get you [flagged] [dead] on HN or dogpiled on Bluesky. For example, note here how he, like Voltaire, takes for granted that Islam is inherently more violent than Christianity due to its theology of martyrdom promising eternal, carnal paradise to those who die in its service:
https://www.panarchy.org/russell/ideas.1946.html
> Then came Islam with its fanatical belief that every soldier dying in battle for the True Faith went straight to a Paradise more attractive than that of the Christians, as houris [e.g., 72 virgins] are more attractive than harps.
The OwO thing is furry/gamer speak: https://en.wikifur.com/wiki/OwO
Its use is replete on reddit, and there's even a "Furry OwO" game on Steam. Trying to pass this off as groyper-coded is insulting to one's intelligence and incoherent, being at odds with the anti-fascist rhetoric he also used. (Simultaneously signaling "groyperism" and anti-fascism?)
If you really want to argue he's a "groyper," you'd do better to just admit the "OwO" thing is furry- and trans-coded, and consistent with the anti-fascist slogans, but that it's a false flag to be blamed on trans-furry Antifa types meant to inflame moderate Republicans of the sort Kirk represented to drive them further to the right for the sake of accelerationism. Of course, that would be easier if you weren't also trying to paint Kirk as so extremely rightwing that we ought to breathe a collective sigh of relief that he's gone, as if one of Hitler's top henchmen was just taken out by a partisan.
> quite an awful, abnormal, un-christian man
based on what? From what I can see, he was devoted to his wife and kids, was law-abiding, and was generally well-liked by his colleagues, many of whom regarded him as a friend. Hasan Piker, Mr. "America deserved 9/11," takes good care of his dogs, and seems to have healthy friendships with other streamers and generally good relations with family (like Cenk). Neither of them are "awful," though both were and are flawed (e.g., Hasan's grossly hypocritical "Champaign socialism" and his occasionally extremist rhetoric).