I’m getting pretty fucking sick of seeing this ‘no one should be killed for their political beliefs’ take going around.
He wasn’t killed for his beliefs. He was killed because he dedicated his life to terrorizing everyone who isn’t a conservative white man, and was materially supporting state violence in the pursuit of white supremacy.
That is 100% something we have firmly established that people should be shot for, in multiple wars throughout the last few centuries.
Here’s the winner, right here. Fascist fucks want to go around pretending that only billy clubs and bullets and bombs count as “violence.” Inflicting mass starvation on people, withholding medical care, stealing workers’ wages they depend upon to survive, and brutalizing minorities and marginalized groups (oftentimes with actual up front physical attacks) is “just doing business.”
So news flash to the chucklefucks: That’s not how it works. State sponsored violence is still violence, and so it follows the oppressed have a right to defend themselves. It sure sucks when the shoe is on the other foot, don’t it?
But it turns out there’s an easy way to defend yourself from that sort of thing. All you have to do is not be an evil and hateful fuck whose policies and actions threaten the lives of others and their right to exist.
It comes across to me as they simply lack empathy for other “kinds” of people. If you actually felt the same pain and empathy when watching the video of Kirk get merked, you should feel that a thousand times over when seeing a thousand videos of the IOF massacring children, many sniped in the same way Kirk got merked, and then you should look upon Kirk in disgust for supporting that and dehumanizing the Palestinian people. But the fact is these people don’t. They don’t see other “kinds” of people different from them as in fact “people.” Let’s be real, they don’t feel the same kind of empathy for Palestinian fathers dying as they do a white fascist dying. They constantly mock the deaths of minority groups like trans people. They suddenly have empathy and demand pacifism and valuing the sanctity of all life when a white fascist dies, but are silent in every other case.
There was a way around this that would have resulted in no deaths. Trump should been prosecuted for the January 6th insurrection. Then we should have put a bunch of fascists in jail for a long time. Then we should have de-platformed grifters.
We’re never better off with the Dem fascists in charge either. They’re two sides of the same coin.
If we want the law to mean anything, and we want it used to hold people accountable, over 90% of sitting congresspeople and senators can now be prosecuted for aiding genocide, which they did in violation of domestic & international laws. That would certainly set a tone and precedent for the future.
Slight nitpick. Though I agree with the whole “we’re never better off with the Dem fascists in charge either.” In the long term. In the short term there are a lot of innocent people in US concentration camps and whom have been deported. Who would strongly disagree with you.
Biden deported 250% more people than Trump’s first term, and Stephen Miller was reportedly screaming at a meeting with ICE leadership because he was pissed they were barely keeping pace with Biden’s deportation numbers.
The Democrat fascists have troves of victims, too, but the media only gives them a microphone when they’re victims of Republicans.
Biden deported them without going to the legal process? Like I’m pro-immigration so I get it. But there’s a big difference from deporting people via the legal process. Versus picking up some guy who’s a US citizen who has a tattoo of his mom on his shoulder. Calling him a gang member and then sending him to some other country to a slave prison without due process.
Neither Biden or Trump are good, but it’s really hard to argue that things would be just as bad today under Biden or Harris then they are under Trump. And Trump’s not even done with the first year of his second term.
We were better off with the Dems in charge. The difference is it’s like having your feet on fire vs full emolation. But the point is it’s easier to extinguish feet than it is the whole body, and causes less damage too.
And by this I mean peace was still a possible, if unlikely, resolution.
I bet the people being actively killed and oppressed by the Dems would disagree. It sounds more like you personally felt less threatened under Dems, and you want to return to that place of privilege.
When the ICE raids began, Democrats published a public thank you letter to the agents. If you think this will get better with Dems in charge, you aren’t paying attention.
Future tense it’s too late. I meant as in under Kamala instead of Trump.
Things would still be terrible, but they’d undeniably be less terrible. There still being suffering doesn’t change that there would be less of it.
Not to mention it would slow down climate change a bit more compared to the current regime, which instead going full throttle on the gas pedal. And that’s something that affects all humans.
PS: by “we” I meant the world. I’ve lived in Finland for many years now.
“Undeniably.” Not at all. I deny it. The Dem administrations played a pivotal role in building ICE to this level, and Kamala absolutely devastated the immigrant community as Biden’s border czar.
You should diversify the kind of news sources you’re looking at.
Kamala and get administration wouldn’t have put an antivaxxer in charge of the FDC or climate deniers in charge of the EPA etc.
Nor would they have had straight up thugs running around like the current ICE.
The Dems (or more specifically, the DNC) have definitely enabled on purpose the Republicans. But they at least mostly followed the law and kept order.
I understand the frustration of people not understanding that the DNC Democrats are very right wing as well, and even actually collaborate with Republicans / fascists. But they’re more culturally liberal oligarchs than straight up authoritarian fascists. People would still be harmed by their policies, but groups like Transexuals wouldn’t have to fear they’ll get killed by the government.
Equating the two completely is bad faith. They’re very close - cut a neoliberal and a fascist bleeds - but they’re not the same. Under Kamala, the might have been a 10% chance at a more peaceful resolution via elections (maybe 25% if Trump died, 50% if he actually went to jail) because leftists like Mamandi could have kept running and winning some power.
But under Trump, there’s no more chance of that at all, PLUS it accelerates all the bad thing.
The Biden/Harris admin acknowledged climate change, and appointed the first Native American to the position of Secretary of the Interior, who then approved the Willow Project (which climate scientists declared a world ending “carbon bomb”), and approved such a record number of fossil fuel extractions that the courts struck them down for not considering the climate impact.
The Biden admin’s CDC prematurely ended Covid guidelines, and let the ceo of Delta set their post-infection isolation guidelines. Biden’s FDA were approving drugs that they knew didn’t work, because they wanted to appease their pharma lobbyists.
It’s clear you don’t give a damn about outcomes. You’re just upset at the lack of performance and decorum.
The Republicans’ rubber stamp, and lack of a competent opposition, is proving to be an absolute nightmare for the party. They’re getting away with everything they ever wanted, and people are seeing the immediate consequences play out. When your policies start killing people, people literally fight back. You’ve given people nothing to lose, and this population is armed to the teeth. What did they think was going to happen?
You can’t declare war on a population, and then expect to walk freely in the open air among that population.
The Republicans getting everything they ever wanted will be what caused the party’s destruction. The Democrats helping them do it will destroy them, too.
True, but let’s not pretend this is some natural result of fucking around like with climate change. This is a result that will have to be affected through actions of individuals. There will be people doing “bad” things for good reasons. Things that need to be done to create that downfall.
It will not be pretty and the perpetraitors will not be treated well by the media. It will have the potential to spark a proper civil war, (as if one’s not already here) and it will be ugly. We must be prepared for bad news and prepare our relatives to not fall for the blatant lies that will be reported as fact (as if that hasn’t been happening since time immemorial).
Charlie Kirk wouldn’t have wanted you to feel any empathy for him or his family.
“I can’t stand the word empathy actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that — it does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics”
Assuming his kids are young enough, I’d feel bad for them. They probably don’t understand well enough.
His wife though I don’t care for at all, and will likely use his death for profit and to make her kids extremists. One can only hope they question why their father was hated enough to be killed while most people everyday aren’t.
I expect the NRA will stage a gunshow at a nearby site someplace in the next few days, right? Its what they do for school shootings and this was at a school. So Kirk’s fam can stock up on cheap ammo.
See the issue with this mentality is that THIS is the mentality of authoritarians. You try to find ways to justify the murder of the people you politically disagree with while not applying the same standard to the people you politically agree with.
What you’re doing is helping set a precedent that political violence is justified if you frame it in a certain way. If that’s the case then other extremist whackos, including conservative ones, are going to start doing the same thing. What’s there from stopping some conservative nutjob from shooting someone like Hasan Piker or AOC or Mamdani or anyone on the left really as a retaliation? After all, if what you’re saying here is now passing as a valid justification, then they’ll just use your very own justification to justify their own actions.
The things that authoritarians don’t understand is that when principles aren’t applied universally, the standard becomes subjective, and sooner or later, their abuse of power will come back to bite them in the ass by the very standard they helped establish. I am fully aware that Lemmy is usually off the deep end on politics, but this is too unhinged even for this platform.
I agree with you in principle. It sucks a well-worded dissenting opinion is getting downvoted. I’m not an advocate for political killings. But I want to pose a counter question… When does it become acceptable to cross this line? When can an otherwise reasonable person give up on a broken system, and go from political resistance to violent resistance? Because for a lot of people, their rights, their lives, and their futures are under attack. Both politically AND with the full force of the government.
I don’t know your backgrounds or motivations, but that simple a response feels flippant.
I too believe that you should obviously resist and try to counter someone who wants to stamp down the “other” just because they are the other. But simple talk probably shouldn’t warrant execution, unless you want those same rules to apply against you as well. Fight them with words and actions, yes. Discredit the speaker and their ideas, embarrass them, ostracize them. Drive them and their bass-ackwards views out of polite society. I know this is difficult in the current environment. They appear to have no shame. But I think the bar for for violence has to be higher.
I wont shed any tears for this guy. I wont use his name. I want him to be forgotten. But I don’t think his killing should be celebrated either.
Again, he was far beyond “political disagreement.” He was promoting actual, race-targeted violence domestically and internationally. If you’re going to be a Nazi terrorizing your community, you’re going to be a target for retaliation.
It’s not about him, it’s about the implications of embracing actions like this. Vigilantes killing people for political reasons without due process is not justice
I’m getting pretty fucking sick of seeing this ‘no one should be killed for their political beliefs’ take going around.
He wasn’t killed for his beliefs. He was killed because he dedicated his life to terrorizing everyone who isn’t a conservative white man, and was materially supporting state violence in the pursuit of white supremacy.
That is 100% something we have firmly established that people should be shot for, in multiple wars throughout the last few centuries.
Dingdingdingdingding.
Here’s the winner, right here. Fascist fucks want to go around pretending that only billy clubs and bullets and bombs count as “violence.” Inflicting mass starvation on people, withholding medical care, stealing workers’ wages they depend upon to survive, and brutalizing minorities and marginalized groups (oftentimes with actual up front physical attacks) is “just doing business.”
So news flash to the chucklefucks: That’s not how it works. State sponsored violence is still violence, and so it follows the oppressed have a right to defend themselves. It sure sucks when the shoe is on the other foot, don’t it?
But it turns out there’s an easy way to defend yourself from that sort of thing. All you have to do is not be an evil and hateful fuck whose policies and actions threaten the lives of others and their right to exist.
It comes across to me as they simply lack empathy for other “kinds” of people. If you actually felt the same pain and empathy when watching the video of Kirk get merked, you should feel that a thousand times over when seeing a thousand videos of the IOF massacring children, many sniped in the same way Kirk got merked, and then you should look upon Kirk in disgust for supporting that and dehumanizing the Palestinian people. But the fact is these people don’t. They don’t see other “kinds” of people different from them as in fact “people.” Let’s be real, they don’t feel the same kind of empathy for Palestinian fathers dying as they do a white fascist dying. They constantly mock the deaths of minority groups like trans people. They suddenly have empathy and demand pacifism and valuing the sanctity of all life when a white fascist dies, but are silent in every other case.
There was a way around this that would have resulted in no deaths. Trump should been prosecuted for the January 6th insurrection. Then we should have put a bunch of fascists in jail for a long time. Then we should have de-platformed grifters.
But none of that happens so. We get what we get.
We’re never better off with the Dem fascists in charge either. They’re two sides of the same coin.
If we want the law to mean anything, and we want it used to hold people accountable, over 90% of sitting congresspeople and senators can now be prosecuted for aiding genocide, which they did in violation of domestic & international laws. That would certainly set a tone and precedent for the future.
Slight nitpick. Though I agree with the whole “we’re never better off with the Dem fascists in charge either.” In the long term. In the short term there are a lot of innocent people in US concentration camps and whom have been deported. Who would strongly disagree with you.
Biden deported 250% more people than Trump’s first term, and Stephen Miller was reportedly screaming at a meeting with ICE leadership because he was pissed they were barely keeping pace with Biden’s deportation numbers.
The Democrat fascists have troves of victims, too, but the media only gives them a microphone when they’re victims of Republicans.
Biden deported them without going to the legal process? Like I’m pro-immigration so I get it. But there’s a big difference from deporting people via the legal process. Versus picking up some guy who’s a US citizen who has a tattoo of his mom on his shoulder. Calling him a gang member and then sending him to some other country to a slave prison without due process.
Neither Biden or Trump are good, but it’s really hard to argue that things would be just as bad today under Biden or Harris then they are under Trump. And Trump’s not even done with the first year of his second term.
LoL. “But he used the correct process for fascism!” You neoliberals are wild.
The Biden admin was absolutely illegally abusing immigrant detainees. You just don’t notice when it’s a Dem.
https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-calls-biden-administration-shut-down-ice-detention-Facilities
Ah, I see we have opted to move the goal post and add adhoms a classic strategy.
It’s not “moving the goal post.” We simply disagree. I oppose fascism in general. You only oppose it being extrajudicial.
We were better off with the Dems in charge. The difference is it’s like having your feet on fire vs full emolation. But the point is it’s easier to extinguish feet than it is the whole body, and causes less damage too.
And by this I mean peace was still a possible, if unlikely, resolution.
I bet the people being actively killed and oppressed by the Dems would disagree. It sounds more like you personally felt less threatened under Dems, and you want to return to that place of privilege.
When the ICE raids began, Democrats published a public thank you letter to the agents. If you think this will get better with Dems in charge, you aren’t paying attention.
I meant past tense.
Future tense it’s too late. I meant as in under Kamala instead of Trump.
Things would still be terrible, but they’d undeniably be less terrible. There still being suffering doesn’t change that there would be less of it.
Not to mention it would slow down climate change a bit more compared to the current regime, which instead going full throttle on the gas pedal. And that’s something that affects all humans.
PS: by “we” I meant the world. I’ve lived in Finland for many years now.
“Undeniably.” Not at all. I deny it. The Dem administrations played a pivotal role in building ICE to this level, and Kamala absolutely devastated the immigrant community as Biden’s border czar.
You should diversify the kind of news sources you’re looking at.
Kamala and get administration wouldn’t have put an antivaxxer in charge of the FDC or climate deniers in charge of the EPA etc.
Nor would they have had straight up thugs running around like the current ICE.
The Dems (or more specifically, the DNC) have definitely enabled on purpose the Republicans. But they at least mostly followed the law and kept order.
I understand the frustration of people not understanding that the DNC Democrats are very right wing as well, and even actually collaborate with Republicans / fascists. But they’re more culturally liberal oligarchs than straight up authoritarian fascists. People would still be harmed by their policies, but groups like Transexuals wouldn’t have to fear they’ll get killed by the government.
Equating the two completely is bad faith. They’re very close - cut a neoliberal and a fascist bleeds - but they’re not the same. Under Kamala, the might have been a 10% chance at a more peaceful resolution via elections (maybe 25% if Trump died, 50% if he actually went to jail) because leftists like Mamandi could have kept running and winning some power.
But under Trump, there’s no more chance of that at all, PLUS it accelerates all the bad thing.
The Biden/Harris admin acknowledged climate change, and appointed the first Native American to the position of Secretary of the Interior, who then approved the Willow Project (which climate scientists declared a world ending “carbon bomb”), and approved such a record number of fossil fuel extractions that the courts struck them down for not considering the climate impact.
The Biden admin’s CDC prematurely ended Covid guidelines, and let the ceo of Delta set their post-infection isolation guidelines. Biden’s FDA were approving drugs that they knew didn’t work, because they wanted to appease their pharma lobbyists.
It’s clear you don’t give a damn about outcomes. You’re just upset at the lack of performance and decorum.
Well I think Michael Borrego Fernandez was better off before the Nazis took power
Well said. Claiming he simply died for his political beliefs is highly reductive and disingenuous.
Seriously, he’s words and actions have probably resulted in the deaths of others, why shouldn’t he have gotten this outcome?
The Republicans’ rubber stamp, and lack of a competent opposition, is proving to be an absolute nightmare for the party. They’re getting away with everything they ever wanted, and people are seeing the immediate consequences play out. When your policies start killing people, people literally fight back. You’ve given people nothing to lose, and this population is armed to the teeth. What did they think was going to happen?
You can’t declare war on a population, and then expect to walk freely in the open air among that population.
The Republicans getting everything they ever wanted will be what caused the party’s destruction. The Democrats helping them do it will destroy them, too.
True, but let’s not pretend this is some natural result of fucking around like with climate change. This is a result that will have to be affected through actions of individuals. There will be people doing “bad” things for good reasons. Things that need to be done to create that downfall.
It will not be pretty and the perpetraitors will not be treated well by the media. It will have the potential to spark a proper civil war, (as if one’s not already here) and it will be ugly. We must be prepared for bad news and prepare our relatives to not fall for the blatant lies that will be reported as fact (as if that hasn’t been happening since time immemorial).
If you’re part of a movement that’s taking vaccines away from babies, well, you’re evil and people are going to respond to that.
His family shouldn’t expect empathy, and he wouldn’t want his death to distract from full Epstein file disclosure.
Charlie Kirk wouldn’t have wanted you to feel any empathy for him or his family.
“I can’t stand the word empathy actually. I think empathy is a made-up, New Age term that — it does a lot of damage, but it is very effective when it comes to politics”
Did he actually say this?
Yep.
https://www.mediaite.com/media/podcasts/charlie-kirk-calls-empathy-a-new-age-term-that-does-a-lot-of-damage/
Assuming his kids are young enough, I’d feel bad for them. They probably don’t understand well enough.
His wife though I don’t care for at all, and will likely use his death for profit and to make her kids extremists. One can only hope they question why their father was hated enough to be killed while most people everyday aren’t.
I expect the NRA will stage a gunshow at a nearby site someplace in the next few days, right? Its what they do for school shootings and this was at a school. So Kirk’s fam can stock up on cheap ammo.
It’s bad to kill for political beliefs only if a fascist dies. Otherwise nobody will even know about anything.
deleted by creator
See the issue with this mentality is that THIS is the mentality of authoritarians. You try to find ways to justify the murder of the people you politically disagree with while not applying the same standard to the people you politically agree with.
What you’re doing is helping set a precedent that political violence is justified if you frame it in a certain way. If that’s the case then other extremist whackos, including conservative ones, are going to start doing the same thing. What’s there from stopping some conservative nutjob from shooting someone like Hasan Piker or AOC or Mamdani or anyone on the left really as a retaliation? After all, if what you’re saying here is now passing as a valid justification, then they’ll just use your very own justification to justify their own actions.
The things that authoritarians don’t understand is that when principles aren’t applied universally, the standard becomes subjective, and sooner or later, their abuse of power will come back to bite them in the ass by the very standard they helped establish. I am fully aware that Lemmy is usually off the deep end on politics, but this is too unhinged even for this platform.
I agree with you in principle. It sucks a well-worded dissenting opinion is getting downvoted. I’m not an advocate for political killings. But I want to pose a counter question… When does it become acceptable to cross this line? When can an otherwise reasonable person give up on a broken system, and go from political resistance to violent resistance? Because for a lot of people, their rights, their lives, and their futures are under attack. Both politically AND with the full force of the government.
when they talk about removing rights from the “others” in society.
I don’t know your backgrounds or motivations, but that simple a response feels flippant.
I too believe that you should obviously resist and try to counter someone who wants to stamp down the “other” just because they are the other. But simple talk probably shouldn’t warrant execution, unless you want those same rules to apply against you as well. Fight them with words and actions, yes. Discredit the speaker and their ideas, embarrass them, ostracize them. Drive them and their bass-ackwards views out of polite society. I know this is difficult in the current environment. They appear to have no shame. But I think the bar for for violence has to be higher.
I wont shed any tears for this guy. I wont use his name. I want him to be forgotten. But I don’t think his killing should be celebrated either.
i am saying that the time to act is now. unless you want to wait until the genocide starts. it sounded flippant because it was.
Again, he was far beyond “political disagreement.” He was promoting actual, race-targeted violence domestically and internationally. If you’re going to be a Nazi terrorizing your community, you’re going to be a target for retaliation.
Can cite specific examples of this?
Pick any single episode he published.
It’s a conundrum. But remember, this guy said It’s fine for some to die from guns. So I sure as hell ain’t wasting a caring thought on him.
https://medium.com/@Setfrasers2stun/the-paradox-of-tolerance-or-how-silencing-nazis-does-not-make-you-a-nazi-53a073b33a35
It’s not about him, it’s about the implications of embracing actions like this. Vigilantes killing people for political reasons without due process is not justice
Not caring isn’t really embracing it though, is it?