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Well, when you thought the week was boring...
Charlie Kirk was just shot at an event, shooter in custody. There's apparently a video going around of the attack, but I haven't a desire to see it. People who have seen it are suggesting he was shot center mass in the neck, and is likely dead. That makes this the second time that a shooter targeted a conservative political figure at a political event in two years. If Trump hadn't moved his head at the last second, it would've been him, too.
I've never followed the young conservative influencers much, but Kirk always seemed like the moderate, respectable sort -- it's wild that he would be the victim of political violence and not someone like Fuentes.
I fear this is what happens when the culture war is at a fever pitch. Political violence in the US is at heights not seen since the 1970s, from riots in the 2010s and especially 2020 over police-involved shootings, to the capitol riot in 2021, to the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, to the United Healthcare killing, to finally this murder of a political influencer. I fear for my country when I look at how divided we are, and how immanently we seem to be sliding into violence.
I guess I just find politics tiring nowadays. I vote for a Democrat and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. I vote for a Republican and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. Whether J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom wins in 28, there will be no future in which Americans look each other eye to eye.
I actually believe things are much better in this country than people think: our economy is surprisingly resilient, we've never suffered under the kind of austerity that's defined post-colonial European governance, our infrastructure, while declining, actually functions in a way that most of the world isn't blessed with, our medical system is mired in governmental and insurance red tape yet the standard of care and state of medical research is world-class, our capacity to innovate technologically is still real and still compelling, and one of our most pressing political issues, illegal immigration, exists solely because people are willing to climb over rocks and drift on rafts simply to try and live here.
We have real problems. And intense escalations on the part of our political tribes are absolutely in the top five. We also have a severe problem with social atomization -- and these two things are related -- which has led to our intimate relationship and loneliness crisis, the rapid decline in social capital, and the technological solitary confinement of the smartphone screen which dehumanizes people like real solitary confinement while confining them to the most intense narrative possible. "If it bleeds, it leads" means that many will be led into bleeding.
I don't know how we rebuild the world, or come to a point where Americans of different views can view each other as well-intentioned. But Kirk is just the latest victim of a crisis that I don't know if there's any way to solve.
I'm gonna admit, I'm feeling some simmering rage.
Years, YEARS of being told that right-wing violence vastly outstripped the amount of left-wing violence. Which was even technically correct if you consider prison gang murders to be ideologically motivated. Which is to say, a perfect motte and bailey. "Right wingers are more violent [in prison], therefore we should crack down on right wingers [outside of prison] because they're more of a threat."
But in real life, especially the past few years, the majority of the stories I actually find is lefties shooting politicians, threatening politicians, engaging in riots, or some rando popping a CEO (I admit that MAY not have been ideologically motivated). Oh, yeah, that recent attack on ICE Agents that many have already probably forgotten. Sometimes the lefties self-immolate instead, which is something you almost never catch righties doing.
J6 was indeed an example of right-wing 'violence' but of course only one person died in that event. Who was in fact a rightie.
I'm old enough to remember:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_baseball_shooting
So Trump gets shot... and has multiple other attempts on his life. Lefties more or less OPENLY suggest that it'd be morally good to kill him and his associates. Punch Nazis. Where "Nazi" is anybody who believes what the median voter did circa 2007.
And then Charlie Kirk, whose WHOLE FUCKING SHTICK is that he tries to win debates and spread ideas rather than push for fighting, gets popped by what will probably end up being another lefty type. I'm prepared to be wrong on that, but I'll take bets with any comers at this point.
And all of that might not piss me off, if it weren't for lefty media running constant cover, tacitly agreeing that the violence was justifiable and refusing to actually lower the temperature surrounding these events.
I'm tired. But not in the "won't it all stop" sense. More in the "when do we actually fight back and do something about it" sense.
For the time being, stay strapped.
EDIT: oh, I forgot, someone took a run at Nicholas Fuentes, too. I don't even like that dude but its exactly more of my point. Lefty commentators are not in the crosshairs.
Because people are going to ask for examples, they aren't hard to find.
https://x.com/Banned_Bill/status/1965860260368822399
MSNBC
If you've seen the guy they arrested, he looks like he has terminal MSNBC brain. Old white boomer who's brain has probably been soaked in MSM propaganda about Kirk for years.
Yes, that's accurate. But latest indication is he wasn't the shooter and the shooter is still at large.
I'm not wishing one way or the other, but if the shooter turns out to be an illegal immigrant that'll just be the crap cherry on this shit sandwich.
I'd be interested in a pool, if it weren't so ghoulish, and if I thought at this point that the shooter will ever be conclusively identified. But if they still don't know who it was, idk how they ever will. Might be some really impressive surveillance/detective work here. We'll see.
My money would be on trans-woman, since in my experience they're the majority of extreme leftists who also happen to be competent with long guns.
I emphasize that we do not know yet.
Did the shooter paraglide onto the roof, wipe the gun of all prints, abandon the rifle, rappel down, and walk away with hands in pockets, or something? Otherwise it's very hard to imagine the killer getting away unidentified.
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They found Mangione. It's not impossible.
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Since Trump is personally involved and also mad, he’s going to pressure the FBI to step in more, and they will do the thing where they comb through tons of video footage and such. I give it maybe 85% odds they catch him, but that includes taking a few weeks to do so.
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On a college campus?
Surveillance cameras and eyewitnesses abound.
I can't think of the last time a shooter in the U.S. actually got away with this sort of act.
And uh, the victim in this case was a personal friend of the guy who controls the entire Federal Law Enforcement apparatus.
Trump could walk into NSA headquarters and probably have the Killer's name, face, and full DNA sequence in five minutes.
I don't think they have ever found who placed the pipe bombs at the RNC and DNC headquarters on January
65th (the night before).That was a false flag. The previous night a cop looking MF places the backpacks, the next day another also cop looking doesn't find them randomly or search for them or whatever, instead they beeline straight for where the backpacks are, pick them up and go talk to a police cruiser.
Gee, what tight little coincidence and nice justification to RICO the lot of the jan 6 protestors.
They also fought tooth and nail not to have the surveillance footage of what happened released.
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Well, when you are investigating yourself, it’s easy not to find the culprit
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This wasn’t a particularly difficult shot- this could easily be an actual Trotskyite or one of the tens of remaining red tribe leftists, or some kind of apolitical loon. There’s a lot of people who can make that shot.
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