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Culture War Roundup for the week of June 9, 2025

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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.

People in this thread are claiming that the shooter is a Blue, given that he appears to have been appointed to office by Tim Waltz and possibly by other Democratic politicians, with one of the victims being a democrat who recently voted with the Republicans on an important issue, resulting in much criticism from her own party. Also, he apparently had a stack of No Kings flyers in his vehicle. This seems quite premature to me.

I'm going to bet that the motivations for this assassination end up red-coded. Per CNN, the shooter is apparently a devout Christian, with him being caught on video "pointedly questioned American morals on sexual orientation". I've seen reports that he had a target list of pro-choice politicians and abortion providers. And not to put too fine a point on it, but he just shot two democrats.

Apparently the police have a manifesto, so we'll probably know the truth soon enough.

I've seen reports that he had a target list of pro-choice politicians and abortion providers

If the politicians were all Democrats, then yeah they'll all be pro-choice. As your comment indicates, Christians and pro-life not wanted in the Democratic Party.

Depravity, depravity, the Democrats like depravity,

For they are fiends in human shape, monsters of depravity.

You may meet them in a by-street, you may see them in the square —

But when a crime’s discovered, then a Democrat's not there!

(Because it was really a pro-life, homophobe, transphobe, racist, conservative theocrat, bigot, Republican in disguise only pretending to be a Democrat)

  • -19

This is way too boo-outgroup.

Okay, maybe the T.S. Eliot parody was over the line.

But show me where I'm wrong that it is more likely than not that Democratic politicians are pro-choice. The bodies are barely cold by this stage so I don't want to go digging out "what did Representative A and Senator B get as scores from Planned Parenthood?" but assuming that "oh this guy must be pro-lifer because he had a list of pro-choice politicians" doesn't track when it comes to Democrats. If he had a list of Democrats, he had a list of pro-choicers, more likely than not. Correlation is not causation, isn't that the saying?

No one is disputing that Democratic politicians are more likely than not to be pro-choice. That wasn't the boo outgroup part.

Please (I mean this sincerely) don't start playing this game again just because you're back under a new alt.

I don't want to fight over this. But if someone can come along and presume that the shooting happened because of some Christian extremist, I'm going to answer that in the same spirit as it was posted. "Gosh, he must have been a radical anti-abortionist, he had a list and everything!"

Says who? When we get proper information, go right ahead. Right now we have bits and scraps and no clear pictures, and what little information we do have points towards the guy being a Democrat, but already some comments here are trying to spin it that "yeah well it was really all the fault of the Republicans".

Are you under the impression that FC is a Democrat supporter?

I don't know what their views are (I don't track closely "aha, X said Y so that must mean Z" on here). Whether they're Red, Blue, Green or Orange, professing to have insight into the mind of the shooter because the magic crystal ball is showing the shape of a black dog is proposing an explanation too soon.