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Notes -
UK, are you OK?
Labour councillor calls for people to 'cut the throats' of 'Nazis and fascists'
Suspended Labour councillor arrested over video ‘urging people to cut throats’
Probably anyone reading this is familiar with the story so far: three gradeschool children in Southport were knifed to death, and ten others injured, on July 29th at a Taylor Swift-themed holiday club. The alleged perpetrator, Axel Rudakubana, is reportedly the son of Rwandan immigrants and was 17 years old at the time of the incident, but has apparently since passed his 18th birthday. The events, allegedly in part as the result of some false reporting concerning Axel's identity, led to a number of protests, which led to a number of counterprotests.
Why would you counterprotest a protest against the knifing of schoolgirls? Well, apparently the original protests were racist. It's pretty important to not be racist. Sufficiently important, I suppose, that people would rather talk about that, than about the dead schoolchildren who, but for recent immigration from Africa, would likely still be alive. Not that Axel is an immigrant, of course. He was born on the magic soil of the UK, so it's apparently racist to notice that his parents weren't. I saw one article suggesting he might be autistic? Good sources are hard to find.
That brings us to the current events! Labour councillor Ricky Jones apparently found some inspiration in Axel's extracurricular activities, as he is very clearly articulating additional knife violence as the proper response to people protesting the murder of little girls. I actually had a surprisingly difficult time finding the original video; most of the articles throwing around the word "alleged" did not judge me fit to judge for myself. I assume Ricky was born tone deaf because throat cutting seems like an especially poor choice of words given the circumstances--though I guess I don't know for certain that Axel managed any literal throat cutting in the process of (EDIT: ALLEGEDLY) butchering schoolchildren. The UK does not have any particularly meaningful or toothy Free Speech legislation, either, though in this particular case I can imagine Mr. Jones facing consequences even here in the United States. Remind me, is it still okay to call for the punching of U.S. Nazis? Was it ever? I seem to have lost track.
Axel's knifework is not being treated as a terrorist attack (yet?), but here's where things get weird.
AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT:
Taylor Swift shows in Vienna canceled over alleged planned terrorist attack
Suspects in foiled attack on Taylor Swift shows were inspired by Islamic State group, officials say
Will we hear more about Axel's motivations? I suppose Taylor Swift is just so famous that at this point any plot to kill large numbers of people would, statistically, run into Taylor Swift events eventually. But now I'm wondering if Axel was just, you know, reading the same weird terrorist handbook as the Austrian terrorists. They were even the same age--the two arrested in Vienna are 19 years old and 17 years old. If I had a nickel for every time a 17 year old boy tried to murder Swifties en masse, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice!
I'm sure much smarter and well-connected analysts out there are way ahead of me on this one. And probably it's nothing! And it wouldn't really matter if it was something, beyond maybe bankrupting a handful of Taylor Swift event ticket scalpers in the near future. But it's all very weird.
Especially the part where counterprotesters started literally calling for and cheering on more knifings.
Reminds me of a tweet to the effect of "He's Welsh, but I'm still on stolen land after hundreds of years? How does that work?"
Anyways, pleasantly surprised the councilor was arrested.
A tinfoil hat large enough to cover Everest take: Extreme guerilla marketing to reduce the popularity of her concerts.
Huh, that's interesting. I never thought about that before. How does that work?
Moreover, why have I been anti-leftist and interested in anti-leftist modes of thought for a decade and I've never heard this argument before, and why does no one else seem to see that sort of obvious double speak when examining leftist stances on immigration vs leftist stances on colonialism?
I wouldn't mind hearing pro and anti arguments for that particular argument. I mean, it is a "gotcha", but it sounds to me like a thought provoking gotcha.
The simple counter-argument would be that 'stolen' land remains 'stolen' no matter how much time passes, wheras 'gifted' land (or rather, 'gifted' citizenship) is fair and legitimate.
Gifted by the illegitimate Norman government of Britain?
Gifted by the democratically elected governments of Britain since the early 1950s, presumably.
The only moral action is to use Neanderthal DNA to bring back some Neanderthals and then abandon Europe to them.
Non-Africans have what, 3% Neanderthal? I daresay there's more Neanderthal DNA in those lands than there ever was under the rule of pure Neanderthals.
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Yes, terminating competing land claims if there are no survivors, but not terminating land claims if there are survivors, encourages leaving no survivors.
Thus de-extinction - the land claims return even if there were no survivors.
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Truly ethics for dead people.
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Well, this brings up one interesting counter argument (which I don't particularly agree with). When I argue with people about land acknowledgements, and bring up that I think that they're stupid because every land is stolen land, the only interesting argument I heard in return is that since the native Americans's descents are still around, it's important to give land acknowledgements at events for native Americans as a sign of respect. Basically respect for the living. However, the people the native Americans had long ago slaughtered to get their land are long gone (as are the neanderthals), so there's no reason to acknowledge their previous ownership.
To me this sounds like they're saying we only need to apologize for the past if the descendants of the victims are still around. This quickly gets to a repugnant conclusion, which is that in some ways it's better to have killed off an entire population then leave any descendents, because if there are no descendents, there's no need to apologize.
I think this also sounds similar to another argument, which is that the only reason white people are held so guilty for slave owning is because previous slave owning populations sterilized the slaves, or the slaves otherwise went extinct before the modern era. This makes it sound like the real "sin" of white people which makes them distinct from other slave owning populations, is that they freed the slaves, and gave them enough resources that their descendents lived to the modern age. Once again, no descendents, no guilt. And white people are demonized as "literally the worst", when in fact they were one of the few groups of people noble enough to end slavery.
Copenhagen ethics strikes again. This also naturally applies to sexism and racism.
Yeah, now it's the people that solved the problems that are more bound than those for whom they solved the problems for. And while you could argue that it's not really nobility that ended these practices, and more just good business sense (slavery is not economical in the face of industrialization, and the British were the most industrialized leading to them being the most anti-slavery) with a side of taking the comparatively-unindustrialized colonies down a few pegs (which also applied to the southern US), that is not the argument most of the nags use. They do it just to nag as is their nature.
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Yes but did native britons (not those of Saxon or Norman or Dane decent) vote for that?
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