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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   42264 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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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.

I happened to see the video before I knew what I was watching and I would amazed if he survived.

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.

Unlike Fuentes, Kirk did a lot of public appearances, so even if he's not nearly as provocative a figure he was simply more exposed. I personally never thought of Kirk as anything more a suited buffoon - a borderline caricature of a YR. Not a figure of any real note. The only reason I can think of to go after Kirk is pure availability on the part of a shooter who was determined to shoot somebody.

What is of moderate interest to me is that the report as of now is that a single shot was taken from a rooftop 200 yards away. That is not Zangara stepping out of the crowd. Assuming that detail is correct, that is someone who knew what they were doing.

And intense escalations on the part of our political tribes are absolutely in the top five.

I don't anticipate these cooling because we are talking about fundamental disagreements about the shape of society. There will presumably some reconciliation (in a thesis-antithesis sense, not in a everyone-hugs-it-out sense) eventually, but society can sustain quite a high level of civil violence between now and eventually.

But let me offer at the same time: this is (unfortunately) not that unusual in American politics. We had two state legislators assassinated in Minnesota in July. An attempt on Trump in July of last year. The attack on Paul Pelosi (was targeting Nancy Pelosi). The congressional baseball shooting. Giffords being shot in Arizona. And that's not getting into terrorism/politically motivated murders not targeted at prominent individuals or foiled plots that never got within striking distance. An attempt to present a one-sided narrative of violence is, itself, likely meant to rationalize more violence.

Unlike Fuentes, Kirk did a lot of public appearances, so even if he's not nearly as provocative a figure he was simply more exposed. I personally never thought of Kirk as anything more a suited buffoon - a borderline caricature of a YR. Not a figure of any real note. The only reason I can think of to go after Kirk is pure availability on the part of a shooter who was determined to shoot somebody.

Charlie Kirk hasn't been a buffoon for years. This is an old bias you hold.

Instead he is(was) basically the equivalent of what Democrats would call grassroots movement for most of the last 5 years. In other words, he was normie conservative.

But still he was assassinated because???

I don't anticipate these cooling because we are talking about fundamental disagreements about the shape of society.

Do not all previous high-profile debates in this country involve fundamental disagreements about the shape of society? From free speech to abortion to...

Abortion, in particular, involved a whole pile of murders.

Many of those also resulted in violence, or at least intense conflict, before reaching a measure of reconciliation. But no, it's not just about the existence of disagreement but the gap. This is part of why, e.g. there was so much violence during the Civil Rights Movement. Free speech debates don't become nearly as heated because the scope of disagreement is much narrower.

Meanwhile, right now we have a movement that simultaneously controls every branch of the federal government and thinks it is on the verge of extermination.

before reaching a measure of reconciliation

That's what happened with the abortion debate in your view?

Yes. We've been burning social cohesion to resolve those issues. We are out of social cohesion, so we're burning other things now: norms, laws, institutions, credibility of social movements. At some point we run out of things to burn, and the darkness closes in.

In the past, crazy people targeted celebrities. Today, they target political figures- just one more symptom of politics eating everything.

Define 'today'. If we walk backwards through notable assassinations and attempted assassinations, the assassins usually turn out to be massive weirdos.

What is of moderate interest to me is that the report as of now is that a single shot was taken from a rooftop 200 yards away. That is not Zangara stepping out of the crowd. Assuming that detail is correct, that is someone who knew what they were doing.

200 yards is not a particularly notable distance for a scoped rifle. The level of competence here is someone who bought a scope, mounted it, and then spent 20-30 rounds at a range zeroing it.

That's still pretty damn competent as recent perpetrators of high-profile public shootings go.

For a trained sniper, no, but I doubt the assassin was a trained sniper. For the typical guy with a scoped rifle who hunts deer a few weeks out of the year, anything beyond 100 yards is dicey enough that they'll think twice about taking the shot.

To be clear: I'm not positing the shooter was a professional. I am positing that this is not some crank who bought a gun last week. It is probably (again, assuming the above info is true and not more rumors) someone with significant experience/training shooting. That's not that rare in the US, but it's far from common.

100 yards is dicey enough that they'll think twice about taking the shot.

You're east coast/Pittsburgh right? A 200 yard shot in southwest PA is difficult because of the elevation changes, dense foliage, unpredictable winds, and inversion-effect haze that smears everything in your visual field.

Out west, things are different because the terrain is a lot more open. 200 yards is table stakes just to keep the game from getting spooked. If it's a local assailant, I wouldn't be surprised if he was familiar with shooting at longer ranges.

Not at all. 200m is easily attainable your first time shooting. Accounting for wind, 500m's not hard either.

There's apparently some confusion over the distance. Some outlets are reporting the shot was from only 200 feet away (see this comment).

Agreed. IIRC, 300 meters (more than 300 yards) is part of the standard military marksmanship table in NATO countries, and that can be with iron sights, let alone scopes.

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