I am largely neutral on this particular assassination, as I knew almost nothing about Mr. Kirk prior to his departure (just name recognition & basic political associations).
But I do think, after decades of reflection, that comedians are correct when they point out that stereotypical humor shouldn't be off limits to any performer (of any background/color), but is... e.g. Owen Benjamin, Chappelle, Seinfeld.
Assassination is stupid and counterproductive, even if the subject was a shameless, ethnonationalist supremacist who said mass shootings were the "price to pay" for 2a, because all that blackpill bozo did was turn him into an "innocent" victim, lionized martyr. Offended by everything, ashamed of nothing.
More than that, though, this assassination was particularly counterproductive because it basically played to the worst stereotypes about "the left" not willing to listen to anything they disagree with.
I may disagree with the vast majority of Charlie Kirk's opinions, but he was at a university, inviting others who strongly disagreed with him to debate him, face-to-face. I may not be a particular fan of this style of interaction (I find it to be more about shock value/talking points/getting clips of particular stupid things people will say than actual clarification or education), it was still an open forum that shouldn't be feared in a free society that supposedly values free speech.
We had all the info yesterday, kid was a terminally online groyper. If "the left" can do nothing and still be blamed for everything, what exactly is the way forward?
One way forward is to stop all this ridiculous left/right dichotomy. It looks like the fascists have taken over the USA, so there's only Trump-adorers and everyone else. There's actual masked men rounding up people of colour on the streets, so it's not like the fascism can even be denied.
That's the answer, but the question was rhetorical for the person I was replying to. The outgroup is getting larger, yet people are failing to acknowledge that all the accusations at this point are just bad faith, surface level excuses for said fascism.
> I am largely neutral on this particular assassination, as I knew almost nothing about Mr. Kirk prior to his departure (just name recognition & basic political associations).
This seems confusing to me. The default "neutral" position on any murder, most of all when you don't know much about the victim, is that murder is a horrible thing, is it not? Is that what you mean, or do you mean you aren't sure if this was good or bad?
Any human with their head screwed on straight innately assigns a very negative value weight to murder. To get yourself into a situation where you aren't sure about a murder would require you to have pretty strong beliefs about the victim or circumstance, which you claim to not have.
I think a lot of people care about shootings and murders. Almost every shooting that you turn on the tv for entertainment, at some local level, a lot of people are affected and those communities hold vigils, etc...
At least they used to. I've lived through the 80s and 90s as a kid, so when someone was murdered - even someone that no one knew - everyone in the country cried.
These days people's minds are so used to it, we're all warped. We were not meant to handle information at that level, so, effectively, we're broken.
It's why there is Tyler Robinson and Luigi and Decarlos. We used to have a country that this kind of thing was so outrageous that it was rare.
And what's even crazier is in the 80s and 90s is that everyone had guns. Even life-long democrats! There wasn't even a movement to get rid of guns. (Well of course there was but it was basically 3 people)
Political violence was certainly very common in the 60s and 70s. Maybe the 80s and 90s were a bit of a lull in that sense but the murder rate was still much higher in 1990 than it’s now.
There's also Bob Lee. When he died hundreds of people on here eulogized him. I myself attended a talk at Google on that Guice injection library he wrote.
People do care about murder for a lot of different reasons.
The only figures of note that were assassinated that i can think of were more lefty -- or at least non right -- jfk, mlk, harvey milk, bobby kennedy, malcolm x -- were there actually
any prominent american right wing figures assassinated in this "period of escalated political assassinations ...?"
>Any human with their head screwed on straight innately assigns a very negative value weight to murder.
Murderers walk freely among you, and we're not all bad people. A few good people earn their legal kills.
A healthy society would encourage any speech which could reduce divisiveness (e.g. comments on Mr. Kirk, without retribution) — yet ours thrives on division, getting people to hate better with bigger hearts.
¢¢
"It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society..."
> Murderers walk freely among you, and _we're_ not all bad people
what? This is nuts. Are you saying you murder people?
> A healthy society would encourage any speech which could reduce divisiveness (e.g. comments on Mr. Kirk, without retribution)
Yes I agree with this. There are a lot of people that do vigils and prayers and eulogies when people die. Then there are people that go: he deserved it and XXX is next. The former does not drive division. The latter does - and that's what needs to stop.
I also have a brother — served four tours as enlisted grunt kicking in combatants' doors — whose tally far exceeds my own (war. is. hell).
It's not that I'm encouraging murder (I'm not); rather, I'm encouraging people to not live in a world where killing is never an acceptible outcome (because it is, sometimes justifiably).
Some actions should literally be paid for with guilty lives ("FAFO"), e.g. child molesters.
I would recon that if you walk around any medium+sized city, you probably see several murder-ers daily. If you buy food for three solid meals, you're almost-certainly interacting with one.
Thanks for your feedback and previous discussion.
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I know I'm crazy (the fun side) but can be serious when trying to share commonalities / discriminations (against murderers — lol — I get your initial point/comment).
I mean that's one thing, but I wouldn't call that murder - which looking at the definition "unlawfully killing of someone" I guess would depend on who calls it lawful or not.
> that comedians are correct when they point out that stereotypical humor shouldn't be off limits to any performer (of any background/color), but is... e.g. Owen Benjamin, Chappelle, Seinfeld.
You're quoting a Chappelle joke that he made literally from a fucking netflix special. He's definitely been "cancelled" making millions off of trans jokes. Amazing evidence that comedy is illegal now. I honestly don't know how anyone could take this drivel seriously unless they literally only consume media from a very narrow selection of highly biased resources.
>Mel Brooks had the right of it. Fascism and Authoritarianism is defeated by satire and mockery. The ideology is too outrageous to survive any such scrutiny.
I edited my above-comment to better incorporate multiple comedian's POV on off-color humor ("x-isms," to use PG's terminology)
>Where was the joke?
If any comedian's attempt at any "joke," however tactless, led to any two+ people sitting down and having discussion of real-world realities... then I think the jokester has exceled professionally (honestly I haven't seen this Kimmel clip; I always just remember him as black-face-guy from 90s Comedy Central™ — which was as appropriate/funny/accepted as Downey in Tropic Thunder).
So in this particular case, Kimmel continues his professionalism as Jester.
The state doesn't have to censor anything when most people are too afraid to comment publicly (retaliation).
My original argument, above, is that comedians ought to be allowed to "joke" about anything, as long as it generates community discussion. Any discussion will generate better outcomes than 2-party's design of PureHate™.
They were allowed to joke about anything by the state. The state didn't censor them. That's the first amendment. Jimmy Kimmel had the FCC threaten to pull ABC's broadcasting license the day he poured fun at Trump and the right. How is that the same as citizens using their free speech rights to criticize a comedian?
Who paid Lee Harvey Oswald, Sirhan Sirhan, or Gavrillo Princip? Assassination is a subset of murder, with political motives. It seems very accurate in this situation
But I do think, after decades of reflection, that comedians are correct when they point out that stereotypical humor shouldn't be off limits to any performer (of any background/color), but is... e.g. Owen Benjamin, Chappelle, Seinfeld.