My guess is that people who prefer preventable deaths over government assistance have been convinced that resources are so scarce that we can't afford to have a government that prevents those deaths. The "we" excludes, whether those extreme "small government" people realize it or not, the percentage of people among us whose wealth is unimaginable to many of us "regular" people.
It's not the poor schmucks without insurance who are hoovering up our national wealth. Look elsewhere, says me.
Wonkie's last sentence reminds me of an old Steven Wright joke where someone points out that he's wearing mismatched socks because they're different colors, and he responds, "I go by thickness."
And the FB poster’s joke was more an illustration of how I wouldn’t rely on him for information about Kirk...
I wasn't relying on him for information. I linked to him because he wrote something that expressed what I was already thinking and did so in a better way than I probably could have. (I could have copied and pasted what he wrote in full and pretended to have written it myself. Then you'd be left researching my history to discredit me.)
HSH: I have a problem with jumping right to Hitler as a primary means of criticism, especially after an actual assassination. It is a form of “he deserved it.”
I guess you're referring to comparisons of Kirk's potential martyrdom to that of Horst Wessel. I don't know how that's a form of "he deserved it." Nazi comparisons generally occur when people are concerned about the possibility of fascism making a comeback because the Nazis are, by far, the most significant historical example. Your problem is ... well ... yours.
The guy you link to celebrates the murder of Brian Thompson and notes he (the FB poster) “felon love” with Luigi Mangione. He thinks Charlie Kirk’s LIFE was a tragedy, not his death. All based on ideas. His comments about Kirk’s debate style are simply not representative of what I have seen.
I don't know anything about the guy. I just thought his criticisms of Kirk's "debates" were on point. I'm sure Kirk has had other conversations on a more level playing field, but those are for a different audience - people who are probably older and don't pay attention to his college-campus antics, for whom he could portray a more moderate version of himself to people who aren't otherwise familiar with his internet schtick. "Oh, gee, he seems reasonable." Kind of like Vance debating Walz.
Am I really going to be the first to mention that love makes a house a home? I've read that in more than one kitchen. Come to think of it, I've also read that home is where the heart is on a few house walls. I guess that logically means that love puts the heart in a house, though I've never seen it put that way in a cutely decorated kitchen.
Before ruminating, I will mention how odd I find it that Klein is lamenting the use of social pressure and shame in the aftermath of one person shooting another in the neck with a bolt-action rifle - that is, murdering another over political differences.
I felt oddly at home while visiting London many years ago. I haven't been back since. Aside from leaving a lot of people behind, my lack of UK citizenship, and the high cost of living there ... eh, never mind.
Seriously, though, I immediately felt like I belonged there.
Someone once said, “‘Home’ is where you bury your bone.”
Roger Waters wrote and sang a variation on that, the only one I was previously familiar with:
So, I don't feel alone on the weight of the stone
Now that I've found somewhere safe to bury my bone
And any fool knows a dog needs a home
A shelter from pigs on the wing
I never thought I'd paste a link to a facebook post, but here it is. A friend of mine shared it. The original poster is someone (I'm guessing an actual human) going by Cory Nichols. I haven't a clue who that is.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DC6bLNdGj/
The first 20% or so:
The misinformation surrounding Charlie Kirk is astounding - and I’m not talking about average people sounding off on social media - I’m talking about the BS being spread by major news outlets.
While Kirk’s shooter was obviously overly steeped in internet whackadoo memelord culture - the “normies” don’t have a clue about how internet culture works at all.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t someone who was looking for honest debate. He was a political operative spreading hate and divisiveness. When you show his fans his racist, sexist or bigoted rhetoric - they defend it by saying “That’s not (racist, sexist, bigoted) - it’s true.” And that was his goal.
The whole “Prove Me Wrong” setup that made Kirk famous wasn’t really about proving anyone wrong. It was about creating content. Kirk mastered a specific type of performance that looked like debate but functioned more like a carefully orchestrated show designed to make his opponents look foolish and his positions seem unassailable.
What the writer gets into later tracks with some of the things nous has said about what constitutes meaningful dialogue.
Ta Nehisi writes the plain truth. Kirk was unabashedly a white Christian nationalist. For me, all his various bigotries flow from there.
No one who isn’t an immediate threat to others deserves to be shot. At the same time, it doesn’t make Kirk a good person simply because someone killed him.
I think my approach is a less formalized version of what nous described. If we disconnect completely and irreparably, the alienation from each other and the dehumanization of each other both become that much easier. That makes people more willing to harm each other in various ways, and that's dangerous for everyone.
Someone on another thread some time ago brought up one of the ways the divide between sides during The Troubles in Northern Ireland was narrowed. IIRC, it had much to do with talking about things other than politics to rehumanize each other.
I have a lot of friends on the right - people I've known since I was a kid. My approach these days is more or less the same as russell's. I talk about other stuff. A few of them will try to bait me into a debate on whatever topic has them spun up at the moment. It usually prompts me to say something like, just as one example, "Let's start with this: Do you think global warming is a hoax?" I respond to anything even close to a "yes" with, "There's no point in talking about this. How about those Phillies?"
I can usually play the argument we would have had in my head, anyway. I know these people.
I'm trying to guess how many of the people coming out of the woodwork to extol Kirk's virtue on social media since the shooting had much of an idea who he was or what he had to say before he was killed. I know a number of politically "conservative" people who are quick to form opinions and spout them off, but who aren't truly politically engaged or well informed. I could be underestimating how much he would have shown up on their feeds over the last few years, though, given their interests and clicking habits.
Kirk used his notions of civil discourse and open debate as cover for his bigotry. When I hear "Prove Me Wrong," I can only wonder why a normal person would need someone to prove such horrible ideas wrong.
I will gladly contribute from the large chest of doubloons I recently discovered in a shipwreck at the bottom of Horse Pond Bay, which is only ten feet deep. It's hard to believe no one got to it before me.
There are activists on the left bringing books into schools that are, at best, not age-appropriate or shouldn't be in schools at all.
Gotta cite? Either way, "activists" don't sound like people weilding sanctioned government power.
Removing books from school libraries isn't the same as banning them.
It is the same as banning them from the school-district libraries in question, which is what GftNC’s statement was limited to. But build your straw man and make your irrelevant point.
Is there a playbook for this, because it’s the same tired thing I’ve seen too many times?
Absolutist free-market ideology and anti-government rhetoric have poisoned the minds of too many. Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics and his "nine most terrifying words" got "nice" people to buy into what it becoming a klepto-techno oligarchic feudalism.
I don't know how to convince people that they've been talked into becoming modern-day serfs when they blame everything on wokeness, immigrants, and what they think is socialism.
On “Ad futurum”
I wrote something in FORTRAN about 38 years ago. Is that good?
Seriously, though, thank you for your efforts, lj.
On “Ezra Coates DESTROYS Ta-Nehisi Klein!!!”
We can only hope the kids we've kicked off our lawns, when we weren't too busy yelling at clouds, will get things straightened out.
"
My guess is that people who prefer preventable deaths over government assistance have been convinced that resources are so scarce that we can't afford to have a government that prevents those deaths. The "we" excludes, whether those extreme "small government" people realize it or not, the percentage of people among us whose wealth is unimaginable to many of us "regular" people.
It's not the poor schmucks without insurance who are hoovering up our national wealth. Look elsewhere, says me.
On “Un morceau de blog”
Wonkie's last sentence reminds me of an old Steven Wright joke where someone points out that he's wearing mismatched socks because they're different colors, and he responds, "I go by thickness."
On “Precursors”
And the FB poster’s joke was more an illustration of how I wouldn’t rely on him for information about Kirk...
I wasn't relying on him for information. I linked to him because he wrote something that expressed what I was already thinking and did so in a better way than I probably could have. (I could have copied and pasted what he wrote in full and pretended to have written it myself. Then you'd be left researching my history to discredit me.)
"
HSH: I have a problem with jumping right to Hitler as a primary means of criticism, especially after an actual assassination. It is a form of “he deserved it.”
I guess you're referring to comparisons of Kirk's potential martyrdom to that of Horst Wessel. I don't know how that's a form of "he deserved it." Nazi comparisons generally occur when people are concerned about the possibility of fascism making a comeback because the Nazis are, by far, the most significant historical example. Your problem is ... well ... yours.
The guy you link to celebrates the murder of Brian Thompson and notes he (the FB poster) “felon love” with Luigi Mangione. He thinks Charlie Kirk’s LIFE was a tragedy, not his death. All based on ideas. His comments about Kirk’s debate style are simply not representative of what I have seen.
I don't know anything about the guy. I just thought his criticisms of Kirk's "debates" were on point. I'm sure Kirk has had other conversations on a more level playing field, but those are for a different audience - people who are probably older and don't pay attention to his college-campus antics, for whom he could portray a more moderate version of himself to people who aren't otherwise familiar with his internet schtick. "Oh, gee, he seems reasonable." Kind of like Vance debating Walz.
On “Rule Six, there is NO … Rule Six!…”
Am I really going to be the first to mention that love makes a house a home? I've read that in more than one kitchen. Come to think of it, I've also read that home is where the heart is on a few house walls. I guess that logically means that love puts the heart in a house, though I've never seen it put that way in a cutely decorated kitchen.
On “Precursors”
Before ruminating, I will mention how odd I find it that Klein is lamenting the use of social pressure and shame in the aftermath of one person shooting another in the neck with a bolt-action rifle - that is, murdering another over political differences.
On “Rule Six, there is NO … Rule Six!…”
I felt oddly at home while visiting London many years ago. I haven't been back since. Aside from leaving a lot of people behind, my lack of UK citizenship, and the high cost of living there ... eh, never mind.
Seriously, though, I immediately felt like I belonged there.
"
Someone once said, “‘Home’ is where you bury your bone.”
Roger Waters wrote and sang a variation on that, the only one I was previously familiar with:
On “Precursors”
Maybe we need a "Meta Godwin's Law" regarding the probability that someone will invoke Godwin's Law.
"
Whose fault is that?
"
I never thought I'd paste a link to a facebook post, but here it is. A friend of mine shared it. The original poster is someone (I'm guessing an actual human) going by Cory Nichols. I haven't a clue who that is.
https://www.facebook.com/share/1DC6bLNdGj/
The first 20% or so:
What the writer gets into later tracks with some of the things nous has said about what constitutes meaningful dialogue.
"
Ta Nehisi writes the plain truth. Kirk was unabashedly a white Christian nationalist. For me, all his various bigotries flow from there.
No one who isn’t an immediate threat to others deserves to be shot. At the same time, it doesn’t make Kirk a good person simply because someone killed him.
On “Guestpost from Wonkie”
I think my approach is a less formalized version of what nous described. If we disconnect completely and irreparably, the alienation from each other and the dehumanization of each other both become that much easier. That makes people more willing to harm each other in various ways, and that's dangerous for everyone.
Someone on another thread some time ago brought up one of the ways the divide between sides during The Troubles in Northern Ireland was narrowed. IIRC, it had much to do with talking about things other than politics to rehumanize each other.
"
I have a lot of friends on the right - people I've known since I was a kid. My approach these days is more or less the same as russell's. I talk about other stuff. A few of them will try to bait me into a debate on whatever topic has them spun up at the moment. It usually prompts me to say something like, just as one example, "Let's start with this: Do you think global warming is a hoax?" I respond to anything even close to a "yes" with, "There's no point in talking about this. How about those Phillies?"
I can usually play the argument we would have had in my head, anyway. I know these people.
On “Kuzushi and Charlie Kirk”
I'm trying to guess how many of the people coming out of the woodwork to extol Kirk's virtue on social media since the shooting had much of an idea who he was or what he had to say before he was killed. I know a number of politically "conservative" people who are quick to form opinions and spout them off, but who aren't truly politically engaged or well informed. I could be underestimating how much he would have shown up on their feeds over the last few years, though, given their interests and clicking habits.
"
Kirk used his notions of civil discourse and open debate as cover for his bigotry. When I hear "Prove Me Wrong," I can only wonder why a normal person would need someone to prove such horrible ideas wrong.
On “What to do?”
I will gladly contribute from the large chest of doubloons I recently discovered in a shipwreck at the bottom of Horse Pond Bay, which is only ten feet deep. It's hard to believe no one got to it before me.
On “The Schadenfreude Express”
Proof means little without due process. Good luck.
"
There are activists on the left bringing books into schools that are, at best, not age-appropriate or shouldn't be in schools at all.
Gotta cite? Either way, "activists" don't sound like people weilding sanctioned government power.
"
Removing books from school libraries isn't the same as banning them.
It is the same as banning them from the school-district libraries in question, which is what GftNC’s statement was limited to. But build your straw man and make your irrelevant point.
Is there a playbook for this, because it’s the same tired thing I’ve seen too many times?
On “David Brooks in Laodicea”
Absolutist free-market ideology and anti-government rhetoric have poisoned the minds of too many. Ronald Reagan's trickle-down economics and his "nine most terrifying words" got "nice" people to buy into what it becoming a klepto-techno oligarchic feudalism.
I don't know how to convince people that they've been talked into becoming modern-day serfs when they blame everything on wokeness, immigrants, and what they think is socialism.
"
Hungry people don't stay hungry for long - RATM
On “A New Gilded Age”
GftNC, it made me a little nauseated. Weirdos in a bad way. I'd take an hour-long shower after being at that gathering.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.