The way I as a leftist want to deal with the Charlie Kirk problem (aka online far right influencers) is via a national online forum. Not shooting people. The problem is that people like Charlie are getting undo influence via various foreign and domestic groups donating to him via Crypto and advertising for him for free, especially to children on video games.
A democracy means everyone gets a say fairly, not that one asshole gets to flood our every commercial and social media feed with his hateful illogic constantly (and there’s something to be said here about good faith arguments, freedom of speech, the law, and democracy as well). If his comments were on a classic forum with classic moderation, no vote systems, everyone with one say, he wouldn’t be treated like anything special, and he wouldn’t be able to interrupt and talk over people either. He’d be like everyone else and his words would have to stand for themselves individually one time, and they are dumb.
But conservatives solve everything with violence because it’s their one solution, just like they have the one joke. This is why we shouldn’t spank kids, it just teaches them to incorporate violence as a solution or to use violence before actually problem solving. So they project this regressive ideology onto the left, the progressives which means new ideas that address issues and create progress, which then “conveniently” allows them to justify violence- their one solution that they were always going to arrive at anyway.
The Right has more to fear from the Right than the Left. The Left doesn’t want to fight. They will if they have to, but they’d much rather avoid it at all costs.
The Right WANTS the fight. They are stoked, armed, and itching for it, and now some have become so obsessed with political purity that they have become idealogically twisted and are starting to “clean up” their own backyards first.
Hypocritical Conservatives… journalists don’t even bother checking for redundancy
kyle was so stupid, the magats couldnt even use him as a political talking head.
All that money and all he amounted to is a booth babe at a Gun shop in Milton, Florida.
Local gun store was advertising on their LED sign that he would be in town and speaking.
Look, I get why he got away with homicide. Watch the video, pretend you are a juror, be cynical as you like. He had a solid case for self-defense.
“Shouldn’t have been there in the first place!”, isn’t a legal defense.
For whatever legal reason I don’t understand, the buyer of that weapon should have been hung from a telephone pole. But he’s not guilty, not innocent. And that’s a distinction in any sane legal system.
Anyway, I’d take a shot at him myself, just to shut him the fuck up. Seems he’s easy to provoke?
Look, I get why he got away with homicide. Watch the video, pretend you are a juror, be cynical as you like. He had a solid case for self-defense.
“Shouldn’t have been there in the first place!”, isn’t a legal defense.
So, I do agree that, under our legal framework as it exists, his self defense case was solid. The first shooting was 100% self defense. He had an aggressive man larger than him charging and chasing him unprovoked for some distance. That man then grabbed the barrel of the gun, which could have been used against him, which is a lethal threat for which lethal defense is justifiable.
But where I think it gets less clear/reasonable is the second and third shoots. He ran from the scene where he shot someone rather than call the police and wait for them (this is the crux of my problem with the outcome of the judgement, which I’ll come back to). Many bystanders understandably ran after him as it seemed he was evading the consequences of the shooting. Some physically assaulted him, including the second victim who who attacked him with a skateboard and tried to take his gun. The circumstances of this, from his perspective, are nearly identical to the first. But, notably, this assault and attempt to disarm is probably legal under Wisconsin law if there intent was to restrain him to deliver him to the police (i.e. citizen’s arrest) as he had been witnessed committing what could have reasonably been viewed as a felony and reasonable force is allowed to execute and arrest. Nothing done to him would be illegal if a citizens arrest was deemed appropriate. Though that is inconsequential in determining self defense as it is about the mindset of the shooter that matters, and this attack would reasonably lead him to fear for his safety as he could not know if they were simply arresting him or indeed attacking him for retribution. So his shooting there was also self-defense under our current legal system.
Then, given his mindset and fear for his life, when he came face to face with someone weilding a gun, and that person made a move to raise their weapon, firing at them was likely justified as self defense given all of the facts that he was privy to at the time too. This was the ruling made, and I think that the law as is was probably on his side here.
But I don’t think it should have been, entirely.
Two things to point out here. First, had the other guy with a gun shot him instead, it would have been equally justifiable for the same reasons. He could have claimed self defense for the exact same reasons Kyle did, and he should and would likely have been found not guilty for exactly the same reasons. This is interesting from a legal stand point because that means two people can be independently justified in shooting/killing the other at a given moment and have no legal consequences for it under the law as it is. But I think that that is wrong, at least in this case.
The reason I think this is wrong relates to my second point. The kid ran. Was it understandable that a kid was scared shitless after just being attacked and shooting someone? Absolutely. Was it reckless and negligent and the direct cause the outcomes any to happen? Yes!
There is room in the law to hold someone accountable to gross negligence, where you know full well that a dangerous or illegal outcome is very likely if you do something and yet you do it anyway. For example, leaving a child in a car on a hot day. It doesn’t matter your intent in such cases, you’re still responsible for the outcome, period. I don’t necessarily think that, in this situation, it quite rises to the level of gross negligence. It could definitely be argued, but it’s hard to say you should know that running from the scene like this would have likely led to two other shootings and one more death. Mainly because as that really depends on the unpredictable mental states and actions of others. However, I think there should still be room for accountability here.
If your actions are at all negligent (even if not grossly so), and through those actions you cause others to fear for their lives and this results in gross consequences like death or serious injuries, I think you still should bare some legal responsibility for this. That is even if the circumstances you find yourself in, outside of the context of how you got into those circumstances, justifies your actions therin.
Another such example being the murder of Treyvon Martin. George Zimmerman can argue all day that he was justified in killing that kid in defense, but the fact of the matter is that he died because he unreasonably created a circumstance where both parties feared for their safety and then someone died.
I don’t know to what extent they need to be found responsible/guilty in those situations or what the degree of punishment should be. Generally negligent crimes are treated as somewhat lesser given no criminal intent. But I know that no responsibility and no punishment is not justice.
Didn’t he go back to his car to get the gun “because he felt scared”? I reasonable person would remove themselves from the situation
What if, they are cunts for doing it, AND, so it is anyone else doing it now?
Seriously, why the fuck is “they are cunts” now the go to excuse for being a cunt???
I take it reading isnt your strong suit, mate?
Funny I looked you up and basically everyone dislikes your opinions on this platform 😂 I think you might be the one with the issue
I do have an issue. All you cunts laughing at a dead man, laughing at the trauma his kids are going through, and calling for more deaths for the high crime of people who dont agree with you. Youre all fucking batshit insane. The fact you think being surrounded means Im the asshole, is a fucking wild theory, mate. Maybe take a look at the echo chamber you are in, and ask yourself if laughing at people being murdered and the subsequent pain of their loved ones makes you the fucking good guy in all this… Spoiler alert, it doesnt. Its fucking ghoulish behaviour. The fact there so many of you, is fucking scary.
Do you have the same empathy for the innocent people who died in Iraq/Afghanistan/Gaza? Other gun deaths? Gang members have families too. The tens of thousands who die to car accidents every year? The answer is NO. You’re just using a single death to attack people you don’t like. When Hillary, Biden, or some other democrat dies MAGA will celebrate.
Not only did he excuse gun violence and the deaths of innocent people, he also disparaged the concept of empathy. Now that he is the victim of the gun system he endorsed, you expect us to offer him the empathy that he denied other, more worthy people?
People who don’t offer respect or tolerance to others, shouldn’t expect it in return. It’s not a difficult concept to understand, nor is it immoral.
“Disagreement” is not the same thing as doing active harm to myself and people I care about. His right to speech ends where violating the rights of others begins.
Imagine YOUR child gets murdered in cold blood and some scumbag shithead goes on national TV and talks about how they’re a necessary sacrifice and we should be ready to accept that, and then prevents any action that could prevent the next one.
Here’s my free speech: while I don’t condone extrajudicial murder, the world is better off without him and I won’t pretend it’s not because of how that came to be. It’s a tragedy that his children will grow up without a father, but the hundreds of families of murdered children that won’t have to hear him mocking and fighting them will grow up in a better world. Plenty of horrible people who do horrible things have families. If you want to be remembered fondly, stop doing horrible things.
And you want to talk about ghoulish? Being a good father to your children with the money you get from stripping rights from other people and ruining their lives and ability to have good relationships and lives of their own, and not feeling the tiniest bit of remorse about it? That’s ghoulish. That’s the definition of ghoulish.
I felt more sympathy for his poor kids when he was still alive.
It’s just a regular murder. Not even remotely as horrific as the KIDS that got shot in Colorado on that same day.
not even as bad as assasinating the senators.
100%.
The Colorado even is far far more important than some hate spewing trash catching lead feelings.
Because its a competition? You do know he has/had 2 young children, right? And now, you, and all the other ghouls are cheering on their fathers death. Funny how none of you give a tiny rats ass about those kids…
The man spent his life advocating for political violence. It’s not a secret, it’s not a mystery, and no amount of convoluted gymnastics changes how Charlie Kirk lived his life.
I’m sorry for his children, that they were ever born to such a reprehensible, utterly devoid wad of human filth. But like children borne to abusers, this man’s psychopathic hate that he turned into a fanatasism and a career that has poisoned the will of public discourse: his kids are better off with him dead than to live in the world which he was working, night and day, to create.
What would you say to the children of Adolf Hitler, Or Goebells, or Polpot? That their father’s political ambitions are worthy simply because he happened to spill his seed any where but his own palm?
No. Spare me the crocodile tears. The man was a vehement and abhorrent racist. It’s a better world for all and also for his children without him in it. Like a child should not have to grow up in a household of abuse, this man was an abuser of the very social fabric that marks all. Charlie Kirk had not one redeemable quality, and it’s a better world without him in it.
The man spent his life advocating for political violence No he didnt. I never paid much attention to him before you all starting posting shit he said. But unlike you, I didnt just take the headlines word for it. Was a right winger? Yeah. Did he have some dog shit ideas? Yup. But he wasnt anything you lot claimed he was. The amount of shit you all posted thats been taken extremely out of context is fucking insane.
You are no better than the maga weirdos who claim all the trans people are rubbing out in toilets, because fox news said it was so.
Shut up, fascist apologist.
You live in delusion.
I care about those kids. That’s why I’m ecstatic that the shit head is worm food so they’ll never have memories of hearing his BS in person.
You think watching your dad die and then watching the world laugh, is good for those kids? Are you fucking high?
You think bein’ raised by a nazi is good for kids.
That wasn’t a question.
All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
When was the last “regular murder” of this kind—against a political figure of such prominence? Say all you want about their bigotry, I agree, but that is currently mainstream politics. Like it or not, the kids were not prominent, and lives that are not prominent get buried despite their status as preventable horror.
You can’t murder a Nazi. It’s just putting them down.
Dehumanization does nothing but feed into the bad faith right wing’s smearing of progressivism as a whole. Even uprisings need to consider opponents as capable of thought and assume more than constant misery. Just using different words is not going to change reality for the better, especially if said words are misleading. This is the kind of rhetoric that can be used to justify them shooting us. It’s just more excuses for Trump to create a police state.
Didn’t the media and far right call democrats « rats » in the wake of those events? Saying they would come for « them »? (Who?)
To your initial question, political violence under all forms is extreme in the us right now, and it’s only the logical continuity of all the previous events. Including, to answer your first question, the murder of two democrat representatives less than two months ago.
Let’s not forget the soldiers in the streets, nor the pizza deliveries to democrats houses to scare them, nor the ice raids… nazis reap what they sow.
I agree with what you say, and I don’t think it conflicts with what I say above. (I talk about the Minnesotan State Legislators below, too; I disagree that it is at the same prominence.)
I understand what you’re saying but Trump just canceled his trip to Chicago so, I’d say you are proven wrong. The more this happens the more they fear, And since it is them getting hurt – I don’t see any problem here. You sound quite like a conservative, protecting conservatives. You should be ashamed of yourself
Assuming that’s what you’re talking about, Trump already talked about announcing sending the National Guard to Memphis instead of Chicago the night before the shooting; see https://www.cbsnews.com/chicago/news/chicago-national-guard-deployment-in-question-ice-immigration-crackdown/.
The threat of a police state and arbitrary removal is enough for progressive activists to defend against already; encouraging possible grassroots 4chan snipers on every building is not going to help. Furthermore, this shooting has allowed the Trump administration to prominently represent those like you with “If you read this, you are gay LMAO”. (I am bi and I absolutely do not intend to say LGBTQ+ representation is bad for the movement; I am saying that this representation of us as closed-minded childish trolls encourages the right to make statements like those the Zeteo article is criticizing and act on them to “preserve national order”.)
We’re under the whims of the state. We don’t have an uprising. Until then, we should preserve the parts of the state that actually protect us as the only defense against the tools of oppression. If you want to debate people no matter how good or bad your arguments are without getting shot, you should have a problem with this, because the existence of the state precludes chipping away MAGA figureheads’ bunkers without having the same done to progressive figures. Having to see bad arguments reach people all day is much better than those people pointing a gun at you.
I think this thread represents other aspects of my views here well:
https://kbin.melroy.org/m/anarchism@lemmy.dbzer0.com/t/1184816/Kirk-Assassination-Propaganda-of-the-Deed-and-Luigi
I don’t agree. We need more 4chan Nazis popping people who aren’t “right wing” enough. The problem solves itself. I’m firm I’m my opinion.
chances are they’ll pop progressives instead. the charlottesville rally was called “unite the right”, after all
Like 2 months ago in Minnesota.
Right? They totally forgot about them because they just wanna be mad at something. They don’t fucking care lol
The two state lawmakers were as prominent as Charlie Kirk?
No you’re right that’s insane. Two elected officials are obviously way more prominent than a YouTube personality.
I didn’t hear about them before they died. And Turning Point is pretty much the MAGA youth league. Dismissing the US’s most influential MAGA voices as just “a YouTube personality” is not doing anything any favor.
Just because he was prominent in your life doesn’t mean he was to others. I’ve had to explain to more than a few people who he was since they’d never heard of him at all.
and they’ve heard of the minnesotan lawmakers before they died? even if they have, way less people have heard of them compared to hearing of kirk.
What is your goal with these comments you are making?
nothing more than the goals of the other commenters here
It sure seems like you hold his life in greater regard than theirs.
unfortunately, our current hierarchical society does ascribe lower value to them than e.g. Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks. i’m not saying Kirk as nearly as good as Uygur, but they have had a similar impact.
Stating plain truths.
Lemmy: “I don’t like that!” <smashes downvote>
Y’all children.
Welcome to *realpolitik" my friends. Doesn’t matter if you like it or upvote it, it’s real.
They are projecting. They are accusing the left to be exactly what they themselves are.
Conservatives are self proclaimed domestic terrorists. And they should be handled as such.
I’m worried the center is gonna help 'em. Centrists have always hated the left and always wanted the approval of the right.
