Eleocharis
1mo ago
I think there is something really perverse about how social media shapes discussions, namely that people are often reacting to something, but the thing that they are reacting to isn't explicit. So what happens is a bunch of rights post extremely positive things about Kirk after his death. Then lefts see that and are like "what the hell, this is a bunch of bullshit", and post what they think about Kirk, to (in their view) correct the record. Then a bunch of other rights see that and are like "why are you saying this stuff, why can't you just condemn the violence and leave it at that?", not realizing that these statements are in reaction to statements by other rights. And so on. This is mostly not anyone's fault and happens on both sides every day.
That is to say that, while statements that take the form "It's bad that Kirk was shot, and also he was a bad person/contributed to the climate that made this happen" may be unwise, unkind, unproductive etc., I think it is completely reasonable to take them at face value, as in these people genuinely do believe it's bad that Kirk was shot.
That said, I can't speak to your personal experiences, but:
- The article you linked about Congress includes four things that Dems said. Three are people blaming guns/Republicans for the shooting. Whatever you think about this argument, it certainly implies that they think the shooting was bad. The fourth is someone pointing out that prayer in Congress is not something that is ever done.
- Everything else you include seems consistent with the poll I posted above, that ~30% of Democrats under 30 think the shotting was justified. That's pretty damn bad. But it still leaves the large majority of the left on the other side. You could dispute whether my "extremely high level of agreement" is a reasonable way to frame it, I'm not going to die on that hill. But what I see is pretty strong evidence that most on the left would prefer Kirk hadn't been shot.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Yes, which is why the reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination was so demoralizing for people
I honestly don't understand what people are talking about here. As I said elsewhere in this thread:
I think that there is an extremely high level of agreement on the left that Kirk's death was both bad in its impact on the world and unjustified based on Kirk's actions. I think it's really irrational to read between the lines that the left don't "disapprove of the methods behind Kirk's removal" when this is directly contrary to all public statements and even on a private survey of random people you can only get 20% [of Democrats] to agree that it was justified.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I too wish we had more polite political discourse, I agree it isn't polite to be criticizing Kirk a couple of days after he died. I also think that many on the left genuinely see Trump and his cronies as the grand evil, it isn't an act. That's not really what this thread is about though.
I think that there is an extremely high level of agreement on the left that Kirk's death was both bad in its impact on the world and unjustified based on Kirk's actions. I think it's really irrational to read between the lines that the left don't "disapprove of the methods behind Kirk's removal" when this is directly contrary to all public statements and even on a private survey of random people you can only get 20% to agree that it was justified.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I believe this is the first thing Omar posted about it, and the only statement the day he died:
https://x.com/IlhanMN/status/1965866576206508255
I think this example is basically similar to that of every dem politician and prominent figure, I'm open to counter-examples.
I don't really know what you're asking for. That people lie and pretend they think Kirk was a good person or a positive force in the world for some unspecified period after he died, while the right gets to hagiographize him?
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I couldn't find any polls for that or any other historical assassinations. But 20% is about the number of Americans who claim to believe there are microchips in the COVID vaccine.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Did the left disapprove of the methods behind Kirk's removal? (No.)
What are you talking about? Authority figures on the left universally condemned his assassination. Just 20% of Democrats think his death was justified. https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/justifying-murder/
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I am not against deporting criminal illegal aliens.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I hope a few deaths will bring down the temperature, but signs are worrying. A lot of people in my city's subreddit are talking about getting guns, which is the absolutely wrong lesson to take from this weekend.
Deaths will only bring down the temperature if people feel that the risk of death is worse than the thing they are fighting. I think a pretty large contingent of the left is well beyond that point. With nobody in charge, the only way I see the left backing down is if there is some tragedy that is unambiguously the fault of protestors. Or maybe the threat of the midterms gets the administration to actually back down. But I think mounting civil unrest is probably the way this goes. It's pretty interesting to see from a historical perspective even if I'm genuinely worried and come down squarely on one side of the conflict.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
"Paramilitary force" here is just used as a snarl term; pretty much all uniformed law enforcement, except that which is part of the military, consists "paramilitary forces".
The (non-)uniforms, the masks, the limited training, the recruiting efforts for people of a specific ideology, the mass deployments, feel like qualitatively different things to me. Perhaps paramilitary is not a useful word here but that's what I'm talking about.
ICE is not "unaccountable"; they have a defined chain of command (goes along with being paramilitary), and are additionally accountable at least to Federal courts.
That chain of command stops with Donald Trump and his people, and they seem to be the only people whose opinion matters. For example, the state of Minnesota has been actively blocked from involvement in investigating these incidents.
ICE continues to deny members of Congress their legal right to inspect detainment facilities: https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/article/judge-is-asked-for-emergency-hearing-after-congress-members-blocked-from-ice-facility-in-minneapolis/
ICE is routinely ignoring court orders: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/trump-administration/judge-threatens-hold-acting-ice-director-contempt-flouting-court-order-rcna256107
ICE does not appear to be confronting the administration's political opposition
Intimidation does not require that you have been directly affected. The reason they are in Minneapolis in such quantities is because the president resents Tim Walz and Minnesota in general, and because of a news story about fraud that has little relation to illegal immigration.
And enforcing immigration law is an established thing; if it's authoritarianism it isn't NEW authoritarianism so there's no frogs being boiled here.
Sending thousands of masked agents to roam around a city and stop people based on their race is absolutely a new thing.
This is a step change from what we've seen before, under a president who continues to support an insurrection done in his name, continues to muse about third terms and cancelling elections, uses the legal system as a cudgel against people he doesn't like like Powell, etc. I'm sure you could quibble with all of these things too. I don't expect to convince you, but surely you can see why people are worried?
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Would you find it surprising to know that only 20% of Democrats believe Kirk's killing was justified? https://www.cloudresearch.com/resources/blog/justifying-murder/
Or that only 40% of Republicans believe Pretti's killing was justified? https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/53972-what-americans-think-about-immigration-enforcement-and-the-death-of-alex-pretti
Eleocharis
1mo ago
With no control over the media, the right can't chose the game to play
What definition of media are you using that does not include the most-watched cable news channel, several of the most prominent social media sites, and a large ecosystem of right-wing podcasts, youtube channels and so forth?
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Yes, in a democracy you will not achieve total victory on a policy debate where there is large disagreement in the populace. I view that as a feature, not a bug.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I'm not sure you really appreciate how this looks and feels for someone like me. I would say the current equilibrium on illegal immigration is weird and it isn't desirable to have large numbers of people without proper rights and responsibilities in society nor to select for people who are willing to break or skirt rules. But my genuine honest opinion is that the impact of illegal immigrants is net positive even if you ignore the utility of the immigrants themselves in your calculus (which I don't), and most of the negative effects are the result of NIMBYism and problems in policing and the court system that should be fixed regardless.
From that perspective, what I see is that the right has created a scapegoat in illegal immigrants (and in the farther reaches of the right, non-whites), and has decided that removing them is the fundamental cause that will fix all of the problems in society (much as 2020-era wokeism decided that prejudice is the fundamental problem with society). The administration clearly cares more about increasing deportations than respecting constitutional rights, following court orders, upholding freedom of speech, and otherwise maintaining the things that have made Western society prosperous while also mostly treating citizens and people around the world morally. I find this really, really scary.
In Minneapolis, what I see is an administration sending in an unaccountable paramilitary force to intimidate its political opposition and frog-boil the country into authoritarianism. Yes, they ARE deporting illegal immigrants including many people I am glad to see deported, but that is not the ultimate goal. What I see in Pretti is someone who was rightfully mad about this, and got slightly carried away during an honorable protest and spit on an officer and damaged their car. I would not be opposed to him facing minor criminal charges for this. But that doesn't change my perspective of his death. We have it on video and what I see is that the federal agents were repeatedly the ones who escalated the situation into violence. I'd be interested to see more footage from before what we have seen, I wouldn't be surprised if there was some level of minor violence by a protestor, but I don't expect it to change my views significantly.
As you say, it is unarguable that Pretti was taking actions that increased his risk of being killed. You'll certainly see plenty of coverage on the left claiming false things about his actions (e.g. that he was not seeking confrontation), just like we are seeing people on the right claiming obviously false things (e.g. that he was trying to kill agents). But we can look past the bullshit, and what I see is a courageous man trying to defend someone from being assaulted by thugs.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I don't really see how. America is perfectly capable of setting whatever asylum laws it likes including a complete refusal to consider any asylum-seekers.
The anti-immigration side has tons of political capital to spend on changing the system in the way they claim to want. Instead they are squandering it by electing idiots to live out their fascist dreams of hurting people who are not doing anything wrong.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
What a useful reply that seriously engages with my arguments.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Everything Trump is doing right now is the moderate option.
What do you consider would be the non-moderate option?
Eleocharis
1mo ago
The phrasing of the article implies that it happened immediately upon arrival. If you want something different, here's one where it is explicitly happening immediately due to an inmate expressing that they could not keep their head low due to a spine problem: https://www.hrw.org/report/2025/11/12/you-have-arrived-in-hell/torture-and-other-abuses-against-venezuelans-in-el
It seems unlikely to me that these awful things just keep being inflicted by several different authorities to a totally innocent person.
I mean he presumably had some tattoos or something implying a gang connection. That is perfect justification to detain him during the asylum process. You can choose to believe that people in CECOT are only being beaten after doing something wrong but I do not find that credible.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
As I said in the post you're replying to:
Perhaps you should petition your elected representatives to change the laws to do so. Until then, the United States has offered people a legal process to be allowed to live in a country, and if they are taking part in that process exactly how they are supposed to, it is obviously not legitimate or moral to suddenly deport them to a torture prison because you don't like what the laws say.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
I mean you can decide that your goals are so important that you can just steamroll any objections. I think most people have enough of a view of history to know where that tends to end up (30 thousand dead Iranians in the streets anyone?) but I guess you think this time is different? I'll stick with liberalism and democracy, thanks.
People who think like you have plenty of power within the system right now to make changes in the direction you want. Every time the Vice President of the United States blatantly lies about the motives of someone who the government just killed, you lose some of that power. Seems like everybody would be better off if that power was used to pass a law tightening the asylum process rather than kidnapping random minorities off the streets of Minneapolis.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
At the very least, I don't think it's disputed that prisoners in CECOT are in horribly crowded cells and do not have any right to visitation or communication with the outside world.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Why are you asking me a question that is both readily answered by reading the linked article and completely irrelevant to whether CECOT can be characterized as a torture prison?
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Sanctuary cities have been the subject of various legal challenges which have generally determined that cities and states are not compelled to enforce or assist with federal immigration law.
Again, it would be completely reasonable for the Republicans, who control the legislative and executive branches and have a favourable Supreme Court, to change how the asylum system works. They aren't doing that!
Eleocharis
1mo ago
Ah yes, those bleeding heart liberals worrying about things like due process and the rule of law and, uh, preventing torture.
I guess don't be surprised that people actually believe in these things and are willing to put their lives on the line for them. Sure seems like it would be a lot better to, say, propose a bill to change laws around asylum etc., but for some reason those who are currently in power don't seem interested in doing that.
Eleocharis
1mo ago
That's fair, probably shouldn't be in that list. It's clearly not being done in good faith though when they are not investigating the ice agents involved.
Me: "Every Democratic politician immediately condemned Kirk's assassination and in private opinion polls only 20% think it was justified"
You: "Democrats are uniformly evil and want me dead."
?????????????
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