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Latest updates, now that it's spreading around official media outlets: a suspect is wanted, Vance Boelter. He has ties to Tim Walz and the greater Democratic Party. Still no released motive.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/14/democratic-lawmakers-minnesota-shot
A man masquerading as a police officer is shooting politicians in their homes. The why is debatable; the theories I see floating around have to do with these two Democrat's recent voting records, and breaking from Dem consensus to support the Republicans. I don't know if this is true, I didn't check their records -- I share only because it's what I heard.
The why is also, I think, insignificant. There are so many reasons to be violent in modern society, if you're not intrinsically against violence itself -- punishing defectors, rallying your side with a show of force, intimidating people and politicians on the margins. I don't care what specific social ill or rage drove this would-be assassin.
More interesting, to me, is that we're seeing assassinations and their attempts more and more. It seems that way to me, at least -- I'm going off vibes and a gut reckoning with the numbers, not a reasoned analysis. Maybe I'm entirely wrong! But the vibe I get is the willingness to use violence on one's enemies is becoming significantly more normalized by the day, and eventually, I suspect, we're going to hit a turning point where no one pretends they don't want the other side dead and we get to it.
I don't particularly want that end result, but I find it hard to argue against murderous force on principle. The arguments supporting it seem obviously correct; the protests against it seem sincere, well-meaning, and completely wrong.
It makes me think. We're materially better off than ever. We're spiritually dead. We have more freedom than ever. We're trapped in our heads like anxious prisons. We solved hunger, and crippled ourselves with food.
We don't build. We don't conquer. We prosper, sort of, the numbers on the charts go up and the useless shit is really cheap -- but the precious things are rarer than ever.
I dunno. Nobody died this time, I guess that's nice. And the future, rough beast that it is, continues to slouch toward Bethlehem.
edit: scratch that two died, I guess that's less nice. RIP.
I have a different take- there are so many reasons not to be violent in modern society because modern society has set it up so that being violent tends to end up with you being less likely to get what you want over the long run.
It is not hard to imagine a society where the elites are more violent than the lower orders- there have been quite a lot of them throughout history. But we live in the reverse. It's fairly plausible to me that for the very bottom rungs of society- the homeless, male(adult women in these communities are much better off) residents of the worst black ghettos, etc- violence is net positive on an individual level. But for everyone else? Violence decreases as you rise on the social totem pole for a reason and that reason is that people towards the top are better at avoiding maladaptive behavior. In polite society, the top four-fifths or so, willingness to resort to private violence is strongly correlated with being towards the bottom, starting with literal dogs.
I don't share that take. I've noticed a steady rise over the years in left-wing violence, and seen how it's correlated with a steady rise in the left getting their way on various matters of national significance. I look to history, where violence is both the cause of and solution to many problems. Violence is costly, enormously costly, if you don't perfectly get away with it -- but the rewards are high.
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