JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
No bio...
User ID: 4009
wasn't there a scandal where he came up as a fragile Jew a few months back?
Was there? If so, does the median republican voter know about it? If they do know about it, do they care?
I doubt that the median republican voter even knows who David Fuentes or Richard Hanania are, and if they do, I would bet that it is because they were either on (or were mentioned on) either Rogan or Barstool Sports.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
2d ago
What are you trying to say?
Ben claimed to have gone to the employer's website and filed a complaint form about their "racist" driver, it was going that extra step that formed my opinion of him as "not a BGP".
The Heritage Foundation has not been "the" think-tank for a while now.
The idea that groypers as a faction have even a percent of the influence over the Republican party as men like Joe Rogan, Elon Musk, Dave Portnoy, and Donald J Trump, seems absurd to me when the only groyper currently running for office is running as a Democrat.
then the common practice of sentencing perpetrators to probation and community service is one of the grossest injustices imaginable.
I would agree. It is grossly unjust.
When Decarlos Brown was released for the 14th time I actually think that somebody thought they were making the world a kinder, more empathetic, and higher trust place. However what they were actually doing was rolling the dice with someone's life for a 14th time. Sooner or later the dice were going to come up either "Daniel Penny" or "Iryna Zarutska".
I don't care about Lauren's day. But I do care about Lauren. Through multiple interactions, I've come to find that Lauren is what I would call a basically good person (BGP). She hasn't ever thought deeply about a values system, metaphysics, or a general philosophy of life. But she takes care of her aging mother and is nice to people in that normie kind of way. Lauren's never going to be a close friend, but I wish her well.
I hear what you're saying, and yes I recognize irony in saying that given the capital-N noticing in the following paragraph. My Lauren is named Katie but it is the same vibe, the same relationship, and I do really wish her well.
As a contrast I would like to tell a story about someone I used to know, Alex (also not their real name). Alex was a good respectable kid, from a good respectable family, attending a very respectable school. We had a lot in common, similar interests, similar hobbies, we were both aspiring writers, and we were both studying the law. Naturally we became friends.
The story starts with Alex's childhood friend Ben (again not his real name) Like Alex, Ben was a good respectable kid, from a good respectable family, attending a very respectable school, and looking forward to a good respectable career. Both Alex and Ben were very active on sites like 4-chan, one of my first encounters with Ben was a discussion with him and Alex of a then ongoing psy-op to convince people that the "ok sign" was a white-nationalist dog whistle. The two of them thought it was hilarious that they had helped get some truck-driver fired over it. My response was to tell both of them that I thought it was kind of fucked-up that someone's livelihood was being disrupted because some college kids in another state thought it would be fun to do a bit of trolling. "Lighten up and grow a sense of humor" Ben told me. It was through this interaction and others like it that that I came to understand that Ben had a very "flexible" approach to morality, and as funny, charming, and well-read as he might be, he was also callous and cruel. He was not, as you put it, "a basically good person (BGP)".
Sometime after we had all graduated, Alex asked me if I would act as a reference for Ben. I declined In part because I did not think that Ben was a BGP and in part because I had plans to run for office was increasingly conscious of who I wanted my name to be associated with. I could tell that my refusal hurt Alex's feelings but they did not press the issue. Sometime later it came to pass that Ben was in some serious legal trouble. What had started a low-key investigation into allegations of professional misconduct had uncovered evidence of far more serious crimes.
Naturally this was a topic that Alex and I talked about, and something that Alex kept coming back to was how "unfortunate" it was that Ben had lost his job and was likely going to go to prison. This was a thread that I just could not help but tug at, leading to the following paraphrased conversation.
- How is it unfortunate? You just acknowledged that the charges are likely true.
- It just feels like people want to make him suffer for no reason.
- It's not "for no reason" Alex. He did real harm to real people and that requires a response.
- And your response would be to harm him back? Didn't your mother ever teach you that two wrongs don't make a right?
- This is not about two wrongs making a right, this is about crime and punishment. Do you believe that what Ben did should be legal?
- No. Of course not.
- But you also do not want Ben to suffer any consequences?
- I don't believe that anyone should ever be made to suffer as a consequence of anything.
This took me aback. Someone who I quite liked, for whom I had a lot of respect seemed to be making a fully general argument against having any legal code at all.
I tried to argue that we can not have a safe high-trust society where rapists murders and thieves are free to rape murder and steal without consequence. For Alex's part, they argued from first principles. Harm and suffering were axiomatically bad. Ergo inflicting harm and suffering on another was always wrong regardless of the circumstances. I would ask things like "How is saying nobody should ever be punished for a specific crime, any different from saying that crime should be legal?". "Don't you have any sympathy for the accused?" and "Are you arguing that harm and suffering are good?" Alex would respond. And so we went in circles, and as we did the conversation became more vitriolic. It ended with Alex accusing me of being hateful, vindictive, and wanting to hurt Ben out of jealousy, and with me calling them an enabler and "a fucking sociopath". The next day I found that Alex had blocked me on social media and had blocked my number.
This happened a while ago but I have been thinking about it lately because I feel like my falling out with Alex illustrates a quintessential failure mode of the sort of polite liberalism espoused by commentators like David Roberts, Bill Kristol, and Scott Alexander. And I feel like I've been seeing the results this failure mode more and more of late across multiple stages and venues in my professional, personal, political, and online life.
Scott Alexander was wrong. The natural end state of liberal discourse is not "seven zillion Witches and three Principled Libertarians" it is "seven zillion Witches and zero Principled Libertarians" because all the libertarians have been shouted down, driven off, or banned, for refusing to compromise on one point or another.
I see all these people lamenting increasing polarization, lack of trust, and proliferation of "Stand Your Ground Laws", and the question I really want to ask all of them is; To what degree have you been the Jack Kerouac to someone else's Dean Moriarty?
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
3d ago
But can you tell me with a straight face that it's comparable to being shot or stabbed?
Yes. Having some familiarity with the common outcomes of all three; If you give me the choice between getting my skull cracked open, getting shot or stabbed, or getting set on fire. I am going to choose the option of getting shot or stabbed every single time, it's not even up for debate.
Given how easy it is for a bad fall to cripple or end someone, and how unless you actively practice a relevant martial art you are now effectively at the mercy of your attacker, I would argue that once someone has been knocked to the ground they are squarely inside the "in reasonable fear for your life" box.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
7d ago
I'm trying to explain to you why people naturally infer that victim must mean innocent.
JeSuisCharlie
Sumner, Hebdo, Kirk
7d ago
But it seems that people think "victim" must mean "innocent."
When you say that someone is a "victim" of something you are saying that their situation is not one of choice but rather something that has been inflicted or forced upon them. This is why there is a taboo against victim blaming.
Decarlos Brown can not be both "a victim" by the common understanding of the word, and responsible. This begs the question; If Brown is not responsible, who is?
Ok, but then what should be done? Who should be held responsible for the killing of Iryna Zarutska?
What does it mean for Decarlos Brown to be a "victim of circumstance"?
Would you support charging whoever it was who decided to release Brown after the 14th time he'd been arrested with reckless endangerment and negligent homicide?
Brown is clearly not in the drivers seat of his life
Just so that there is no misunderstanding, do you believe that Brown not being "in the drivers seat of his life" should absolve him of responsibility?
I'm not trying to suggest that Trump is anywhere in the same league as Lincoln, but it is interesting how closely the contemporary complaints about Lincoln and the nascent Republican movement mirror those about Trump and MAGA today.
He is shrill. He is crass, He is uncultured. He is not even a proper gentleman, he is a backwoods bumpkin who grew up in a log shack. Electing him would be an insult to the institution of the presidency, and make an already tense situation worse.
Republicans in turn would point to the Caning of Charles Sumner and the ongoing civil unrest in the Kansas and Missouri territories claiming that the Democrats have shown zero interest in reigning in their violent fringe while the Whigs care more about losing gracefully while getting fat off the public trough than they do tackling the serious problems facing the nation.
I imagine there is an alternate timeline where moderate Democrats did more to police their extremists or the Whigs showed more spine and as a result Abraham Lincoln never became president. Is that the better timeline? I do not know.
As I said during the whole Charlie Kirk thing...
I do not know we will see a second American Civil War in the next 5 - 10 years but If we do, I imagine that future historians will draw parallels between the killing of Charlie Kirk in 2025 and the Caning of Charles Sumner by Preston Brooks in 1856. As bad as the act itself was, being seen celebrating it is what did the real damage to the social fabric.
What do you mean by "normie"? because if you are talking about the sort of polite anodyne neo-conservatism espoused by men like Bill Kristol and David French. I agree. Nobody under the age of 60 is buying what they are selling in the year of our Lord 2025.
If you are talking about "normal Republicans" that is a completely different story. If you take a video of a "No Kings" protest and a video of a Charlie Kirk Memorial and compare them to see which one has more grey hair in it, I am guessing that it won't even be close.
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