Merged Charlie Kirk shot at Utah Valley University event. / Charlie Kirk Shot And Killed

The Democratic nominee for Attorney General (!) in Virginia fantasizes about having a gun with two bullets and three targets: Hitler, Pol Pot, and the Republican Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates, Todd Gilbert:

"Gilbert gets two shots to the head."

A repugnant thing to say and should disqualify him from holding any public office.

However, if he had said the shots should come from a firing squad after the Speaker was arrested for treason, it would be totally fine and there would be people in this thread defending it.
 
Just another example of this administration toning down the rhetoric.
@StephenM
@WhiteHouse
Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor | 45 & 47
355 Following
1.5M Follow

The issue before is now is very simple and clear. There is a large and growing movement of leftwing terrorism in this country. It is well organized and funded. And it is shielded by far-left Democrat judges, prosecutors and attorneys general. The only remedy is to use legitimate state power to dismantle terrorism and terror networks.
 
A repugnant thing to say and should disqualify him from holding any public office.

However, if he had said the shots should come from a firing squad after the Speaker was arrested for treason, it would be totally fine and there would be people in this thread defending it.
Arrested for treason? Probably not. Convicted of treason? Totally reasonable. Treason carries the death penalty. There's a huge difference between violent fantasies about murdering your political opponents, and pragmatic recommendations for the disposition of someone convicted of a capital offense.
 
Arrested for treason? Probably not. Convicted of treason? Totally reasonable. Treason carries the death penalty. There's a huge difference between violent fantasies about murdering your political opponents, and pragmatic recommendations for the disposition of someone convicted of a capital offense.
The problem is that, in this scenario, the conviction for treason is part of the fantasy.

And no, the difference between violent fantasies about your political opponents getting convicted of treason and getting executed and violent fantasies about murdering your political opponents isn't as large as some posters here like to pretend.
 
Arrested for treason? Probably not. Convicted of treason? Totally reasonable. Treason carries the death penalty. There's a huge difference between violent fantasies about murdering your political opponents, and pragmatic recommendations for the disposition of someone convicted of a capital offense.

Biden wasn’t even reasonably suspected of treason let alone arrested or convicted when Kirk fantasized about his execution.

Just because conservatives add a fantasy legal process to their violent fantasies about their opponent’s deaths doesn’t make them any less disturbing.
 
Arrested for treason? Probably not. Convicted of treason? Totally reasonable. Treason carries the death penalty. There's a huge difference between violent fantasies about murdering your political opponents, and pragmatic recommendations for the disposition of someone convicted of a capital offense.
Pragmatism is about practical outcomes over ideal solutions. I'm against the death penalty, but if other solutions are impractical then I have to accept it. That's why I'm pragmatic about Charlie Kirk.

Ideally the US would have effective firearms regulations and professional help for people with mental issues. Ideally too we wouldn't have anyone making millions out of promoting bigotry and racism. Unfortunately in this current environment there's not much we can do about that directly. However in this case not doing anything produced a positive outcome. Not ideal, but practical.

Charlie believed that liberty was more important than a little safety, and that discriminatory speech shouldn't be restricted just because it might upset a few people. He even accepted that a few people would have to die for those principles. In doing so he set up the pieces to take himself out of the equation. So ultimately a good outcome, and all we had to do was nothing. That's why I'm taking the pragmatic route of not doing anything about gun control, mental health, or hate speech. Eventually it will sort itself out. When the next right-wing provocateur engineers their own destruction I won't be happy about the event, but I will be pleased that my pragmatism is paying off.
 
This is very important.


Tl;dr (but you should definitely read it):

There is a movement, on both sides of the pond, that has self-evidently fascist features, where free expression is under threat from the very people who claim to be its staunchest defenders. It is a movement that relies on the norms of polite society and civil debate to offer cover for a campaign of intimidation, censorship and authoritarianism.

Now is not the time for skeptics to sit on the sidelines or to act as apolitical intellectual referees, because doing so cedes the ground to people whose interests are not in free speech, but in control and domination. To paraphrase one of the most powerful men on the planet: whether you choose politics or not, politics is coming to you.
 
So, for those keeping score...

Accurately stating that someone is a fascist, even while not advocating any violence against that person (because you're probably thinking about it, so just admit it already!)
Thoroughly unacceptable. This must stop at once.

Fabricating accusations against someone as a means of explicitly stating that the person deserves to be put to death
This is totally fine, and how dare you even question it.

And not only is it totally fine, we will have to have a semantic debate about the difference between advocating for someone’s murder and advocating for someone to be executed based on fabricated accusations.
 
Yet another example of why Democrats suck at memes. Keep in mind, he didn't text these to a fellow Democrat, he texted them to a Republican. At the very least, thick as a brick.

The current hot meme on the right is Democrats wearing sombreros.

Something for all of us to keep in mind when we hear a conservative criticize anyone else’s memes.
 
Last edited:
Okay... except the emphasized bit didn't happen. You're arguing for retaliation against something that is a might have been that never was.
The first part did happen, the second part was attempted, and the third part about having Biden executed for treason is just something that some people were batting around as an idea which you and Ziggurat were attempting to gloss over as having an important moral distinction from an assassination.

And no, I am not arguing for a "retaliation". I am pointing out that you shouldn't be an apologist for that kind of talk and expect to be seen as taking the moral high ground.
 
Last edited:
The current hot meme on the right is Democrats wearing sombreros.
I know what a sombrero is. But what does it mean in the context of these memes?
Something for all of us to keep in mind when we hear a conservative criticize anyone else’s memes.
Trump has reposted memes of himself as a "more cowbell" Grim Reaper monk or something. Also as Superman, Rocky, a cowboy and an astronaut. So I rather think he is trying to build up the whole Village People vibe all on his own. Not that he realises he is doing that, of course. He's as dense as osmium.
 
And not only is it totally fine, we will have to have a semantic debate about the difference between advocating for someone’s murder and advocating for someone to be executed based on fabricated accusations.
It's like the difference between a porn video that's just a sex scene, versus the one that starts with the pizza guy delivering an extra large pepperoni to the sorority. The latter is high cinema, and not lewd in the slightest.
 
It is. But the trouble with that old joke is that it normally works because the punchline is obviously hyperbolically absurd. In the current climate, the joke does not work. Not as a joke, anyway.

Yeah, I read the article last night and that guy needs to drop out of whatever it is he's running for. I think the person on the receiving end told him to stop as well. It's not like it was desired, or wanted banter. Not that it would be any more acceptable.
 
Ideally the US would have effective firearms regulations...
I don't think even the most aggressive U.S.-based gun control groups are advocating for bans on antique bolt-action hunting rifles such as the one used in the Kirk murder, so you'd need more effective regulations than anyone has actually proposed for so far.
seems it depends how hispanic you look and how stereotypically hispanic your job is right now.
With a name like "Damion Hector Torres" on government forms (e.g. Selective Service, DEERS) I don't think it will be very difficult for ICE to jump to the correct conclusion should they start looking into DOGE's comprehensive databases. Of course that assumes they want to start implementing ethnic-based criteria without any consideration of citizenship or birthplace, a dystopian future not yet realized here and only fantasized by a handful of white supremacists like Laura Loomer.
At what point do you think it becomes appropriate to use the term "Nazi"?
I happen to be re-reading Eichmann in Jerusalem this week; in that narrative there was a specific break point—just after chapter 4—where the regime shifted from the sort of deportation efforts common to any nationalist regime to concentration camps followed by death camps. In reality, all three schemes worked together in a stepwise process, so the real difference lay in the ultimate goals held by higher-ups, which were generally concealed under several layers of obfuscatory language and practice.

To my knowledge, despite ample effort at internet outrage archaeology no one has yet discovered anything from TPUSA which crosses the line from common European fascism to the genocidal impulses of the NSDAP, but that won't stop progressives from making the comparison.
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Back
Top Bottom