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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.
Which makes me think that politicians should say as little as possible in the immediate aftermath of an event like this or any other tragedy or natural disaster, because it only leads to egg on face (as well as shooting off your mouth based on inadequate information).
Walz was quick off the mark with "this is a politically motivated assassination", presumably on the basis that if Democrat politicians were attacked, it must be those dastardly Republicans to blame. Well, turns out that (it's looking like) the guy is one of your own, Tim. So now what is the political motivation, and how is your party to be held accountable?
Particularly if (let's do some wild speculating here) the guy was motivated by the David Hogg approach of "let's go after the moderate Democrats, after all they're to blame for co-operating with Republicans and enabling Trump to be elected"?
The connections to Walz are incredibly tenuous, that he was reappointed six years ago to a large bipartisan workforce advisory board (one of 130 total state boards, advisory councils, task forces, etc) with this including volunteer small business owner representatives from around the state where most of the nominations came from basically just rubber stamping local council choices.
It's a ridiculously weak connection, but that's not really the point now is it? The bigger point is the implications people try to make like you put here
The bigger logic employed here is "bad guy tenuously connected to your side did something wrong? That's proof you're evil!" and this logic means a person using this logic simply can't accept that anyone bad ever exists on their end of the political spectrum or they'd have to contend with the same implications.
And it reminds me of this point from SSC about the Ashley Todd case https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/04/ethnic-tension-and-meaningless-arguments/
And let's be honest, the large majority of the time this logic gets used it's as an isolated demand for rigor.
The other side is accountable for all their bad actions, whereas my side just has a few bad apples. I'm going to assume you're Republican aligned based off previous comments and context so let's ask that question.
Should we be holding Republicans responsible for the recent stories of people trying to kill protestors yesterday?
I think no and I've been consistent with my beliefs. I said it about Charlottesville, Gamergate, BLM, the "stochastic terrorism" accusations against LibsofTiktok, Palestine activists, Israeli activists, January 6th protestors, protestors in France during the pension strikes, etc etc that blaming groups for the actions of a few individuals is just poor reasoning.
So will you be consistent with your argument and agree Republicans should be held accountable for cases like these car attacks or the attempted assassination of Pelosi, the attempted kidnapping of Whitmer, the murder of a cop during Jan 6th, etc?
Now I'm not going to assume bad faith of you, but I will say that I find most people, right and left wingers alike tend to agree with my position that they aren't responsible for a few crazies once they're asked about their side.
Held responsible? OR Get credit for?
This is the really intractable portion, because killing protestors is probably net pretty good when done by private individuals. Protesting, even the "peaceful" kind is still highly antisocial, at best being a massive waste of time and resources. But usually also significantly interrupting business and people's lives. And more realistically, nowadays, most are used as cover fire for violent crisis actors. Its probably bad if police just shoot them, but guys sniping them out of windows would get us back closer to a more healthy equilibrium where protesting is reserved for important government scandals like covering up sex rings and the like, not for when a teacher's union wants a 10% raise or ICE agents are check notes executing lawful detention orders.
Killing people also disrupts a lot of lives too, including taking court and police time away from other crimes. It disrupts the employers of both, the family members and friends of both, etc. It increases the fear of violence level of the rest of society. It devalues nearby property by increasing the crime rate.
Murder doesn't just hurt the murder victim.
How so? If I’m not planning on participating in a protest, why would my “fear of violence” be increased by the knowledge that protestors may suffer negative consequences for protesting? Their circumstances do not appear to mirror my circumstances in any important way, so why should I draw any conclusions about what’s likely to happen to me based on what happens to them?
Not if the police agree to do only a cursory investigation, informed by the assumption “Eh, whatever happens to these people happens, no need to look too deeply into it.” In that scenario, no arrest would be made and no court resources would need to be expended.
Putting aside any morals, I don't see how you're feasibly going to make a law that allows for people to kill others easily that also doesn't inevitably end up with a bunch of people dying because "I thought they counted as a valid target" becomes an obvious excuse with very little ability to counter, and not to mention it pretty clearly violates the entire principles behind the first amendment if we start killing people over them just existing together in a public space with signs and speech. Even with self-defense/stand your ground laws which are generally easier to work off of, we still see things with murderous people shooting doordash drivers and pulling guns on girl scouts trying to exploit it.
It comes off as "I'm bloodthirsty and I want to justify it, no one will be bothered if I just shoot that guy I find annoying right?"
No, no, no, you see, it works very well if the only people that the police is gonna give a pass to are Hoffmeisters and everyone who isn't a Hoffmeister gets hit with the full extent of the law if they try to lynch the shooter.
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