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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   42546 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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Serious question: at what point is political violence justified? At what point is it defensible to take up arms in defense of one's community? I know we're all ostensibly against violent remedies, but at some point, practical and moral concerns ought to overtake an abstract commitment to the rule of law, yes?

Look at the Catholic just war doctrine, kind of a checklist of criteria violent action must satisfy to be right in the eyes of God: is there a competent authority organizing the armed action? A realistic possibility of success? A just cause for which you're fighting? And is it your last resort?

If so, then one is justified in extraordinary and violent action. The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?

If not, why? So as to not to break the state's monopoly on violence? To reap the civilizational benefits of settling disputes with words not weapons? After exactly how many presses of the "defect" button do you, too, press "defect"?

And after what point does insisting that people who've experienced "defect" after "defect" continue to play "cooperate" become itself a form of evil, of gaslighting, of denying people their fundamental dignity?

I'm not sure about the answers to any of these questions, but as I see parts of the Internet seething and roiling, and as I see other parts of the Internet gloating, and as I see it all spill over to real life --- the DNA lounge in San Francisco has a "neck shot" special tonight --- I have to wonder whether we're at one of those points in history at which it is less moral to follow man's law than to uphold God's law.

The DNA lounge is owned by the well-known internet lolcow jwz. Seems a really odd choice to pick for evidence of internet discourse writ-large spilling over to meatspace. It would not surprise me if he has advocated for violence and assassinations as a result of disputes about xemacs and xscreensaver.

There is obviously a point where you could argue for political violence, but the US is miles and miles away from that. It would be something like it being several orders of magnitude more common, the perpetrators not being brought to justice, stuff along those lines.

If you think the US is anywhere near a failed state where we should revert back to the state of nature I implore you to log off and seek therapy.

We aren’t.

Other commenters have asked the important meta-questions like “why do you think your socials are representative?” and “who exactly are you planning on shooting?”

So I’ll engage purely on Catholic terms.

  • Is there a competent authority organizing your violence? No, there’s no credible counterpart to the existing government. To satisfy this one, you’d be better off joining the army or at least the police.
  • Is there a realistic possibility of success? The caveats about an organized authority ought to apply here. But you’ve also got to have a goal which is actually compatible with whatever you’re trying. There are remarkably few which benefit from acts of terrorism.
  • Is the cause just? I consider this the free space on your bingo card.
  • Is it your last resort? Ask yourself whether Republican control of the White House, Supreme Court, both houses of Congress, 28 state legislatures and 27 state governors represents a total collapse of your legal avenues.

One in four criteria. Make of that what you will.

The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?

Who is 'the left' here? Do you really believe that a majority of say, US Democrat voters think that political assassination of right wingers is justified?

The Economist has, un-fucking-believably, deleted their article on it and scrubbed it from search engines. Probably to support their crappy hand-wringing retro on Kirk they shat out.

It may not have been an overwhelming majority, but the percentage of Democrats who believe assassinations are justified is insanely high.

There's something I learned back in the gamergate kerfufle, Archive, fucking everything. The media lies constantly and would rather pretend you are a dumb idiot who just spawned into the PvP server yesterday.

Do you have the URL or an archive link? Wondering if it's available on wayback or something.

No. Stupidly, I saved it in the Economists' systems and nowhere else. I also don't have even a screenshot locally. I've sent an email and will see if they respond.

justified?

Not sure I'd go quite that far. I think a majority would be callously indifferent to it though, especially if they didn't fear backlash from it.

People underrate the old adage about the opposite of love not being hate, but indifference.

Yes, I do.

In the year 2025, the remaining rank and file registered democrats are amongst the most successfully propagandized people in the history of the world.

I’m not talking about the occasional voter. Imagine the modal democrat primary voter; the habitual democrat who votes down ballot every election. The people that really form the core of the Democratic Party voting bloc.

I genuinely think of you handed that person a button which would explode a bomb underneath Elon Musk’s feet they’d wait about a millisecond before slamming it.

And yet according to a (very) recent survey, only 11% said political violence was justified, while 72% said it wasn't.

You're demonstrating the same outgroup hatred that you accuse Democrats of.

No, I think not.

I’ve seen enough ass covering in the last 48 hours from the same people who had been calling Kirk a Nazi for years to not take these people seriously.

Well we're gonna have to square those two results.

Given that the survey you cited also found that 20% of right-wingers thought the assassination of Donald Trump could be justified, my assumption would be that whatever methodology the NCRI used caused respondents to be much more sympathetic to political assassination (when surveyed) than you would expect from the general opposition to it shown in the Yougov survey.

Looking into the survey itself, that seems to be the case. They gave respondents a scale of one to seven, where only an answer of one is taken to mean that the respondent is opposed to political assassination. I don't think this is an honest way of presenting the question.

An answer of two could easily mean 'Well I'm opposed to political assassination, but Trump sure has pissed off a lot of people' or 'Musk tried to fire hundreds of thousands of people, I wouldn't be shocked if someone took a pop at him'. Presenting seven options rather than three that Yougov did biases the results towards demonstrating far greater support for political assassination than actually exists (which I suspect was the goal).

Taking those results as evidence that 'left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence' isn't reasonable to my mind.

I'll just say, I have no argument to make against your belief. But from my experience as a blue living in one of the bluest areas of the country where that modal Democrat voter you described is likely a majority (certainly D voters are a supermajority, but whether that specific modal D voter is a majority is questionable) and if not that, a plurality, I don't think many of them would murder Musk if given a chance like that. Most of them go along with the most extreme of the progressive demands, and most of them do have lots of antipathy towards Musk, but straight-up cold-blooded murder is still beyond the pale for most, by my perception. That's probably changing, with the left's reaction to Mangione pushing things somewhat and perhaps its reaction to Kirk's murder pushing things even more.

Now, if you selected for young, college-educated people among those D voters, especially women, among the modal D voters, then yeah, I'd probably take the under on a millisecond.

Now, if you selected for young, college-educated people among those D voters, especially women, among the modal D voters, then yeah, I'd probably take the under on a millisecond.

I'm not convinced that progressive women would be more likely to enact political violence than progressive men. That would just be woefully unintuitive to me.

I think there's simply fewer straight-laced party-line progressives among men, and my experience of liberal/progressive men is that their views are either normie and passive (and thus unlikely to make them feel a desire for violence) or weird in a way that doesn't fit the "habitual democrat" mold even if it were to drive them to extremism.

So you might find the guy who hates racism, but thinks women are stuck up; or the guy who thinks Che Guevara was awesome; or the guy who gets conspicuously upset about school board corruption; or the Soviet Union defender; or the guy who loudly insists people call it the "CPC" and not the "CCP." Not really woke capitalism, IMO. Male leftists have more of a tankie image to me. And the important bit is in the name.

That said, I do remember a few male friends I've had that I'd describe as by-the-book progressive -- but they're all gay. Straight male progressives are just weird.

I'd put Mangione in that category. And the Trump shooter whose name doesn't deserve to be remembered and also I just don't remember it. Pretty unidentifiable motivations, general grievances, not a twitter full of clapbacks. Probably this latest guy will turn out to be a dateless loser who was crushing on a trans girl and wanted to impress her by DEFENDING HER HONOR, or something really stupid like that.

I'm not convinced that progressive women would be more likely to enact political violence than progressive men. That would just be woefully unintuitive to me.

I think it depends on the hypothetical of the button. Men, progressive men included, have more of a stomach for violence, for getting their hands bloody. But women are more inclined to hate.

I have been thinking about this a lot recently. There's always a discussion that goes like this:

"50% of Group X think Group Y are partially responsible for Group X violence against Group Y. But, only 3% of Group X would be willing to actually commit violence against Group Y."

Group Xer: "See, that proves Group X is 97% peaceful."

Group Yer: "See, that proves that 50% of Group X is violent."

I have always tried to lean toward the former interpretation. Citizens of fascist or communist tyrannies who supported and participated in their regime are AFAIK never seen as completely blameless. And as the violence becomes more egregious, it gets harder and harder to believe it.

The way I see a situation of X and Y there is that a Group Xer has an obligation to think about it the latter way, and a Group Yet has an obligation to think about it the former way, at least if getting at the truth is a priority. Because, as you pointed out, the pattern shows that such people will almost always be biased in the other way, anyone in that situation who trusts his base judgment on this is untrustworthy as a seeker of truth.

A lot of the conversation, I've noticed, has to do with trying to label that 47% that's not peaceful but not violent. Too many people try to cast advocacy for violence as a form of violence when, of course, advocacy for something isn't the same as that thing. But it could be morally just as bad to call for violence as it is to commit violence. Could, but also maybe not. Which is inconvenient if you want to claim half your outgroup are bloodthirsty monsters. So a Group Yer can't afford to show nuance around words and violence and must elide between the two. OTOH, a Group Xer will wiggle and wiggle and wiggle until the wiggle room is a gap that you could pass the Milky Way through. They'll split every hair, pick every nit, look at everything in every possible angle and degree of squinting until they can convince themselves that these people are justified in calling for violence or condoning violence in this particular case (which is every case).

I appreciate your perspective on this and offer a counterweight, if you will.

There was a joke going around on X, that I’ll paraphrase;

Red state republican: “Democrats have some crazy, stupid ideas and I’m sure glad they aren’t in charge here but I know a few and they’re not all bad.” Blue state republican: “I, personally, am willing to volunteer to pilot the helicopters throwing democrats overboard over the ocean if it means there’s a 1% chance to escape this never ending hell.”

While this is very funny, I also think the opposite is largely true; the hicklib, the blue tribe striver living in red states, is by far the most extreme example of what I’m talking about.

If you’re in a comfortably blue city in an area in a blue state, it’s hard to communicate how rabidly partisan these types can be.

I travel a lot for work, and not just from urban center to urban center, I spend a lot of time in little mountain towns and beach towns, places really just for locals.

The stereotype of the urban blue tribe applies triply to blue tribe people in smaller towns & rural areas as their identity is so tied up with bitter struggles with their own background and family.

I think that is at least a strong probability.

Civilization is a delicate thing. It's not the natural state of man, and when lost it needs to be rebuilt. And you're as likely as not to end up in the abyss as you are to successfully rebuild.

It's not something to give up lightly.

I agree with @DirtyWaterDog below. There is a lot of ruin in a nation, and America is nowhere near the point where the sane should want to grab arms and begin fighting to the death with their neighbors. Civil war sucks, many unpleasant situations are worth bearing to avoid it. This isn't even the greatest period of civil unrest the States has seen in living memory! I'm not American, but I know full well that things were awful in the 70s.

If they're rounding up your friends and family in gulags, taking so much of your wealth that you are genuinely unsure that you will survive the winter, beating you like a dog? Then it is worth grabbing your gun and finding a hill with good sightlines and excellent cover to die on. That day is not today, and it is exceedingly unlikely to be tomorrow.

I know we're all ostensibly against violent remedies

I'm not. I'm not inherently opposed to violent means. Hell, they come to mind distressingly easily. The thing is, I like to think of myself as reasonably rational, and I can't come up with a way that personal violent means would actually serve my purposes.

I support civil liberties. The main opponent of civil liberties is hysterical fear. I don't think there's a way to reduce hysterical fears via terrorism. It's right there in the name: terror.

I want us to not all die from AI. There's definitely a place for state violence toward that goal; I don't think it can be accomplished without such. But the level of violence that must at least be credibly threatened in order to shut down the neural net field worldwide is far, far in excess of what I could bring to bear as a terrorist; you need a nuclear triad. And random murders aren't going to help me, or the general Yuddist movement, win over the people who can actually bring a nuclear triad to bear.

I want my country (which is Australia) to not turn into Mad Max. Going out and shooting a bunch of people seems like the kind of fraying of the social contract that might wind up resulting in Mad Max... which brings us back to the point at issue.

Civil war is bad. Civil war is really, really bad. As in, if the USA went into a full civil war, I'd expect at least 7-digit deaths, more likely 8-digit, and possibly as high as 9-digit; combat deaths aside, you're talking about a war between the farmers and the people making fertilisers, which puts the food supply in severe jeopardy. If you're very, very lucky, maybe 80% of those corpses will be of those playing for the other team. And that's just the ones in the actual USA; the USA is load-bearing in the world order, so there'd be plenty of blood spilled elsewhere as the rest of us try to figure out what the fuck to do about the PRC. Nuclear war's a serious possibility in that chaos.

I support at least a fair degree of co-ordinated violence in this matter. Most obviously, I think the police are entirely justified in using violence to arrest the lunatic who did this. You can assuredly come up with all sorts of laws that might help, which would of course be backed by the threat of police violence. But un-co-ordinated violence has far less capacity to deter and far more capacity to provoke. It's not very useful at removing your enemies in the current political context, it has a potentially-much-larger PR effect of pissing off the neutrals and making them into new enemies, and most importantly it adds straws to a very-overloaded camel and risks pushing your country into a different political context - that of civil war, which is worse in at least the short- and medium-term than your enemies outright winning.

Let the cops do their job. Let Donald Trump do his job. Do your job by keeping your noses clean.

combat deaths aside, you're talking about a war between the farmers and the people making fertilisers, which puts the food supply in severe jeopardy

The petrochemical industry is super duper red.

The petrochemical industry is super duper red.

Not the owners of the petrochemical industry.

They're... pretty red though? Maybe not so much at the board of directors level, but if you've met any O&G execs, "Landman" is not too far off base there.

try to figure out what the fuck to do about the PRC.

?

US can't do anything about PRC and no county save Russia has enough nukes to engage it, so what are you talking about.

US can't do anything about PRC and no county save Russia has enough nukes to engage it,

I'm going to assume there's an unstated "in this scenario" there, because obviously outside of this scenario the USA also has enough nukes to send China back to being a basket-case.

so what are you talking about

There'd be a combination of 1) various US military assets, likely including nukes to at least some extent, being "adopted" by allied countries, 2) a large number of First World countries (most obviously South Korea and Japan) denouncing the NPT and making a mad sprint to build their own nukes.

The time pressure and uncertainty created by all of that could well end in a nuclear exchange.

And that's just the ones in the actual USA; the USA is load-bearing in the world order, so there'd be plenty of blood spilled elsewhere as the rest of us try to figure out what the fuck to do about the PRC. Nuclear war's a serious possibility in that chaos.

I was reacting to the questionable assertion that US is 'load bearing' part of the international order.

Well, yes, the US military, including but not limited to its nuclear arsenal (on par with Russia's and far more than any other state), is a very-large chunk of what's keeping the PRC (and others) in check.

.. seems doubtful as we're witnessing the US being unable to intimidate Chinese, hell, even intimidate Indians into sanctioning Russia.

Taiwan hasn't been invaded (yet). The PRC hasn't threatened to blockade South Korea or Japan (both of which need international shipping to eat) in order to extort extreme concessions (e.g. the Ryukyu Islands). Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Yeah, and we're also witnessing a spectacle of US president trying to get Europeans to put suicidal tariffs on China over Chinese trade with Russia.

Curious, very curious.

The PRC also can’t do anything about us. Descending into civil strife gives them strictly more options.

at what point is political violence justified?

Never. Or, not as long as you 'live in a society'.

When society collapses, the conversation changes. Sri Lanka is a good example. It started as a stable middle income country. Within a few years, the govt. passed bills that put Sri Lanka on track to become a poor nation again. The nation went bankrupt. There was no plan. There was no democratic process for the removal of the Rajpakshas and peaceful protests had been futile. Here, political violence was justifiable. Political violence begets more political violence. It destroys national morale. It destroys the economy. It destroys institutions. If the current situation is going to cause these negative outcomes outcomes anyway, then political violence is justifiable. Otherwise, it's a net negative.

The US is at peak polarization right now. But, the system is still working. Economy is hanging in there. Broadly, violence is trending down. The average person's life in unaffected. They'd be none the wiser about this wider polarization if they disconnected from social media. That's a working society. At America's GDP, it is a fantastically working society. The narratives don't fit, but A LOT would have to go wrong for political violence to be justified in the US.

Remember, JFK & RFK were shot dead. MLK & MalcolmX were shot dead. Neither of them led to breakdown of civic society. The killings of Charlie Kirk and a young Ukranian refugee are tragic. But, in the grand scheme of things, they aren't politically significant events. I believe the same was true for George Floyd, and the riots were therefore unjustified. Yes, there's some schadenfreude about Kirk death. I don't believe it's an anomalous amount. Weird broken people always existed. Social media just makes them easier to find.

America has bounced back from worse. Yes, It took years. Yes, there were (now missing) responsible men on both sides of the isle who met in the middle. Yes, America wasn't facing a China sized existential threat at the time of these turmoils. But, the nation has shown the capacity to stay civilized in harder times.

I don't think we're even 1% of the way towards a situation that justifies political violence.

It does seem notable that Democrat national politicians seem to be..almost blaming Kirk for being murdered.

It does seem notable that Democrat national politicians seem to be..almost blaming Kirk for being murdered.

Can you offer some links?

I have only seen unequivocal sympathy.

Some Republican public faces have jumped to blaming the left for this. The response by Dems has been silence or carefully phrased clap backs towards those public faces, but not towards Kirk himself.

Can you give me examples of national Democratic politicians blaming Kirk ? Especially in the 24 hour frenzy following his death.

Ilhan Omar

Yes, America wasn't facing a China sized existential threat at the time of these turmoils.

Those turmoils were in the 60s and 70s, peak USSR cold war era. US and China, while clearly rivals, are more economically and diplomatically interconnected than US and USSR ever were, and children are not doing duck and cover drills because of constant fear of Chinese nukes, nor are we engaged in Vietnam level proxy wars vs China's client states.

The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?

Your social media algorithms are almost certainly not feeding you opinions representative of "the left", just like "the left's" social media feeds are currently displaying the dumbest and most overwrought reactions from conservatives.

The issues show up without diving into algorithmic media.

I happen to visit a left-leaning gaming forum, and the response (almost 8000 posts in the thread since yesterday) is nothing short of gleeful, with even the moderate voices ("he was a terrible person and will not be missed, but violence is never the answer") getting shouted down and dogpiled.

Another haunt of mine, reddit's /r/neoliberal is not quite as overtly giddy, but the median response seems to be ~"he fucked around and found out, shouldn't have attacked trans people".

I don't think it's just a few crazies on bluesky this time around.

I don't think this actually applies this time. Multiple meat space humans have celebrated this in front of me

I was in the peculiar position of being in the presence of a group of young college educated environmentalist types when this news broke. I didn't know much about them, but they were clearly progressive in their political orientation. One of the women scoffed when she announced the news that Charlie Kirk had been shot, and made a mocking whinging sound. This was followed by a long uncomfortable silence by everyone else present. Clearly they did not feel okay with what she had said, but nor could express that except with silence. Perhaps they felt inhibited by the mixed company.

My redneck friends, on the other hand, are responding to the tragedy by buying more guns and ammo, literally and figuratively.

More generally true, people never are able to see true representative opinions of a broad group. Polling is only a little more accurate than augury, and at least that way you're having a little fun.

I'm in two mostly general audience discords for reasons that are not politics, but which have a politics channel. The left in there is bloodthirsty over Charlie Kirk, and there's no social media algorithm filtering the messages.

You could say that the people there have been reading filtered messages themselves and then posting to the discord channels, but at some point this just becomes "most of them actually are bloodthirsty, filtered messages are just the cause" rather than "filtered messages make them look bloodthirsty".

I can definitely feel murderous towards my outgroup, but my feelings about it are grim and sad that it has to be this way. I support the death penalty, and I sincerely think that some political leaders deserve to be executed for treason, but the number of people relishing the murder of Charlie Kirk with such glee is disturbing. The woke mind virus is a scary thing, but it does seem that for many people the fever broke with this event.

I think there is also an underlying asymmetry here that makes it easy to get a lopsided picture. By its very nature as the "authoritarian", top-down, hierarchical side, the Right tends to totemise individual leaders, while the Left as the collectivist, bottom-up side instead totemises abstract groups and occasionally individuals that are taken to be representative of those groups (but don't particularly matter as individuals).

What is really proving irresistible to the tribal warriors here is the urge to celebrate a takedown of the outgroup's symbols. The proper mirror image to the Left gloating about the assassination of Kirk is not any Right gloating about assassinations of Left leaders, because there are not a lot of such leaders whose assassination would be taken to hurt the Left in such a symbolic way. Instead, compare to the Right's widespread bloodthirst over Floyd, taken as a stand-in for the whole totemic demographic of derelict urban Blacks, or over Rittenhouse's victims, taken as a stand-in for the whole demographic of middle-aged bohemians looking for romance and meaning in activist mayhem.

while the Left as the collectivist, bottom-up side

Debatable. Collectivist maybe, but "trust the experts" is not the slogan of of a non-hierarchical, non-authoritarian, bottom-up movement, and ideas like "the working class is mired in false consciousness" are indicative of someone who believes minorities and individuals can be more representative of a group, even as they contradict the majority opinion.

It's about a hierarchy and order of abstractions, as opposed to a hierarchy and order of individuals. "The experts" is itself an abstraction. Any individual expert can be bad and wrong; even a majority of individual experts can be bad and wrong. But, taken as an abstraction, the experts are always right.

That's fair, however:

But, taken as an abstraction, the experts are always right.

'Member "question authority"? I 'member.

This matches my experience. I first saw it in a Discord that's explicitly unanimously left-wing by nature, but the sentiment quickly also appeared and dominated in a Discord that's implicitly left-wing-dominated but explicitly avoids inflammatory political content (but obviously actually doesn't because it's obvious who actually controls the territory).

I have an effortpost cooking - probably in a week or two - about different philosophies about secession and which of them provide cover for violence. Which touches some similar topics, but it’s not ready yet.

For now I want to emphasize that large-group action (the kind that leads to revolutions and such) is dramatically different in its dynamics and political philosophy than individual or small-group action (lone shooters through Weather Underground type groups). I think this is under-appreciated. A large group usually has more of a deliberative process, even if flawed, while individuals and small groups can get swept away by mental illness, a charismatic leader, or an extreme emotional reaction to a specific event or person in a way bigger groups who are actually capable of making more considered decisions do not. For example, the American Revolution had pretty strong buy-in across colonies and delegates were sent in many cases directly by legislatures to form what would eventually become the Continental Congress.

I think one possible more minor way to evaluate: is violence mostly for “attention” or similar? If so, 99%+ of the time this is terrorism, a bad thing, and often counterproductive to boot. You’re very rarely “defending” anything with violence in any real way. At least in most Western democratic countries, that is.

The “Left” is not a centralized entity, it is a memetic ecosystem, so violence would not be effective. You can put your anger toward creating a cultural ecosystem with robust social reinforcement and allegiance rituals toward the right ideology, and then organize sophisticated propaganda operations to persuade the mainstream public. That would be more effective and more fun. But that’s less dramatic than SamHydePosting.

The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence

The 50 million or whatever Leftists in America don’t feel that way. Like two people do. There’s this guy and then Luigi Mangione. Maybe someone I’m missing but too lazy to google. It’s 0.0001% of people. Then there are people who post online as catharsis but will never do anything ever. By the way, killing Charlie Kirk harms Leftism more than it harms conservatives. Kirk was aging out of his role as youth debate bro and now he’s an incredible martyr for the exact ideology he promoted (the virtue of free speech). The killer made hundreds of thousands of liberal chicks pity Charlie Kirk and his family.

The killer made hundreds of thousands of liberal chicks pity Charlie Kirk and his family.

What I’m seeing is thousands of liberals chicks laughing and celebrating and saying he deserved it. The most arguably moderate conservative influencer just got his head blown off and broadly the left seems jubilant

It's the internet. A million people could be appalled and quietly battling cognitive dissonance to adjust their stance in his favour, and a thousand laughing and celebrating would still fill every feed you see, because the Algorithm favours certainty, extremity and outrage.

On the other hand, the main Reddit thread had many deleted posts, and you know those were probably more radical that what was allowed to remain uncensored.

Also, of the politically active American lefties I know IRL, once they thought they were in a safe space about 60% expressed disappointment that the attempted Trump assassination wasn't successful. I can't imagine their reactions to Kirk's death will be much more considerate or circumspect.

Even without algorithms, there is a huge bias between posting and lurking, too.

I'm surprised by this shooting, I know nothing about Charlie Kirk except mentions online where I got the impression that he was some guy on the right. The only things I've seen about him have been, for instance, in a recent dispute online about "is Gavin Newsom a transphobe?" where someone in the comments gave out about Newsom being on a podcast with Charlie Kirkkk (yes, three Ks, KKK geddit?)

So that was my view of their view of him: he is (of course) a fascist Nazi white supremacist because he's a right-wing conservative.

And now this happened.

We have no idea what the killer's motivations were, so backseat psychiatry about "was this just another crazy disgruntled person?" is useless. But I do hope it was a random crazy. If someone really thought "right-wingers are all Nazis, and everyone agrees that it's okay to kill a Nazi", then things in America are really bad right now. I hope they're not at that stage yet (or ever).

That people believe this is no surprise; we’ve known.

Based on what? I don’t have social media, but the reactions of group chats I’m in have been broadly negative about the future. Who are these thousands and how do you know them?

Social media posts with hundreds of thousands of likes

The far left looks absolutely terrible right now, and the disgusting celebration of his death is absolutely real but the contrarian in my cannot help but point out:

These types of people bot their likes. Often very blatantly. Some six figure likes could be organic but I’ve seen too many clear cases of botting to take them all at face value

That said it’s obvious that there’s an appetite among many leftists for killing enemies between Luigi and this

“Far left” it’s just regular leftists afaik Plenty of normie looking people. Esp young women are jubilant and putting their faces and real names out there cheering for this murder. They’re going to vigils and attacking people and heckling

Almost without exception violent leftists are broadly negative about the future, so that's not surprising.

So are regular liberals and people who don’t care about politics.

The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence

The 50 million or whatever Leftists in America don’t feel that way. Like two people do. There’s this guy and then Luigi Mangione.

You mean that like two people were willing to pay the personal price. Do you really believe if we distributed Death Notes to the other 49,999,998, MAGA figures wouldn't start dropping dead?

History shows that people readily indulge in violence against the hated outgroup when they feel perfectly safe from blowback. Are leftists moreso? I would suspect a little, since right-left are self-sorting groups moreso than tribal conflicts of the past, and the hard left does not even have a fig leaf moral code against violence. We can't know if the 50 million Death Notes distributed in the other direction would stay any blanker. (My unproveable guess is, maybe 20-30% blanker.) But "only two leftists feel violence is justified" is ludicrous; if favorable circumstances opened up, millions would sign off on killing at least the leadership class of their enemy.

I think a large chunk of it is that people on the Left of you are just more inherently sympathetic than the other way. I look at people on my left and I generally feel that they're misguided but generally either from an excess of empathy or just not understanding the tradeoffs involved. It's hard to genuinely want somebody dead when that's the perception.

I think a large chunk of it is that people on the Left of you are just more inherently sympathetic than the other way.

...Suffice to say, that is not an intuition I share. A considerable number of current leftists are isomorphic to Nazis.

Just wanted to say that I still think about that post sometimes.

Fair but I just think of normie friends I know who have takes on say Palestine that essentially start and stop at 'I've heard of dead Palestinian babies, this is bad' and then don't have any sort of solution beyond Israel is mean and should stop. Whilst I think this is misguided, it's hard to be mad at them for it. Likewise for racial issues where due to the media 'racism is mean and is the worst thing' which is dumb but it's hard to get really violently mad over it.

Whilst I think this is misguided, it's hard to be mad at them for it.

Why? If you made the same argument about dead Israeli babies, would they not be mad at you for it?

The reason the left's ideas are considered more sympathetic is not inherent; it's due to a decades long full court press in education and the media. A result of the Long March Through The Institutions. If instead of a media that focused on the plight of the poor and minority and homeless, we had a media that focused on the plight of white working-class-and-above victims of crime, small store owners struggling between shoplifting on one hand and taxes on the other, all while hoping they wouldn't get stabbed, the sorts of actual violence that produced "white flight" in some neighborhoods, the "inherent sympathies" would lie elsewhere.

I'm thinking of terms of like normie middle-left randoms. Their views might be more 'bedtime abolishment' than anything but it's hard to hate a Toddler for wanting to abolish bedtime.

For what it’s worth, regardless of current Catholic teachings, the early Christians (pre Constantine) would never have advocated for political violence whatsoever. They were martyred in the hundreds and saw it as a gift to be martyred for Christ.

Personally while I’m not sure I ascribe to that level of extremity, I am confident that we are far, far from morally justifying any political violence in the U.S.

The US elite has effectively decided that you are getting a mass surveillance state, wars in the middle east and outrageously expensive medical care regardless of who you vote for. The US political establishment is far more loyal to their donors than their constituents.

The Second Amendment is not about hunting and burglars, it is about defence against the state. Clearly the US establishment has overstepped their bounds far beyond what the founding fathers would have considered reasonable for a Second Amendment solution. Had they known about the level of mass surveillance or the current level of taxation they would most definitely supported a Second Amendment solution.

Yep, we’re getting maga patriot act. Maybe as an executive order, or by repurposing existing anti communist laws.

It certainly feels that way. Even if this wasn't planned by the powers that be, all they really had to do is wait for some other act of political violence and use that one as their reasoning. This is the perfect opportunity for them to introduce it, and people, in their emotional state, will support it. I don't think it can be avoided.

The US political establishment is far more loyal to their donors than their constituents.

This is the biggest issue. Complete regulatory capture.

That Tree of Liberty looks rather dried-up by now. My guess as a foreigner is it never could survive in a country that no longer had a frontier to push. By now I doubt there's any amount of blood sufficient to revivify it.

Going off random internet comments I see, apparently the exact moment for political violence is precisely when you personally feel that you are being attacked by "the other side" and thus your belief justifies any and all response back. There is no need to question "Ok, maybe most of The Enemy isn't actually evil monsters?" or "Maybe my perception could be flawed" because our perception is never flawed and The Enemy is 100% evil monsters, and even when they say they aren't it's all pretend.

If so, then one is justified in extraordinary and violent action. The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?

Is that true? Basically every single left wing politician and pundit has spoken out against the attack, and we don't even know the motive! I think Hanania put it best

Beyond that, I don’t think individual political assassinations have anything to tell us about our politics. These are stochastic events. This is a country of 350 million people, and widely available firearms. Some of our fellow citizens are insane, like in any country, and if you’re a public figure, one of the risks you face is that an unstable individual might come after you.

But that’s not how right-wing Twitter is reacting. Charlie Kirk was apparently not killed by an individual gunman, but something called “the left.”

Of course it was only a few months ago that a Democratic Minnesota State Representative, along with her husband, was killed, and a Democratic State Senator was shot and survived. This was obviously not the responsibility of “the right,” but one deranged individual. It is overwhelmingly likely that when the facts come out about the Kirk assassination, it will also turn out that there was no wider conspiracy behind what happened.

I suppose an argument of revenge needs to ask itself if the Charlie Kirk killing is a fair response of the Minnesota Dem killing.

The anti political violence crowd, like me, has an easy answer to both, of course not. The "yes in case of revenge" crowd is gonna be struggling to explain why that is an exception. Or how far back do we go to find the start and who is originally responsible. Five years? Ten years? What's the limit and how was it chosen?

I'm not sure about the answers to any of these questions, but as I see parts of the Internet seething and roiling, and as I see other parts of the Internet gloating, and as I see it all spill over to real life --- the DNA lounge in San Francisco has a "neck shot" special tonight --- I have to wonder whether we're at one of those points in history at which it is less moral to follow man's law than to uphold God's law.

It's crude, but this dark humor is not particularly abnormal. People were making jokes about Paul Pelosi's beating being a gay lovers quarrel, and that one trans person a few months back who killed themselves jumping off a bridge had tons of memes made from 4chan and X. Just look at those replies, prominent names like Stonetoss even joined in. 9k likes for "Not a cell of value was lost. Rest in piss"

9/11 has been made of for years bipartisanly at this point by youth, I've seen plenty of memes and jokes about dead Gazans now, likewise dead Israelis are mocked too.

We had a sitting senator just joke about shooting journalists for "fake news" a few months back.

It's sad, but it's not justified to respond to dark humor and gross jokes with violence.

And in general the same way you don't jail or kill a murderer's kids and neighbors, it's also generally not justified to use political violence "back" against people who haven't done any. Individual actions, individual responsibilities.

You mean the same Dems who tried to shout down an attempt for prayer for Kirk in Congress? Or Ilhan Omar with Medi Hassan? How bout Liz Warren?

You mean the same Dems who tried to shout down an attempt for prayer for Kirk in Congress?

Let's approach this in good faith, is it possible they shot it down because attempts for prayers don't happen with other victims of gun violence? There's an argument to be made about the implications there, that his life is more important than the life of a kid who doesn't get it when they die.

And hey, that's exactly the point they said

House Administration Committee ranking member Joe Morelle (D-N.Y.) told Axios that saying a prayer on the House floor in response to a tragedy is something "we don't even do for fallen members."

"What about the kids in Colorado?" one Democrat was heard shouting, referencing the Colorado high school shooting that transpired in Boebert's state on the same day and left three people in critical condition.

Maybe you disagree there's an implication like that made with such an exception, or heck maybe you believe that children who get shot or military who die aren't deserving of prayer in the same way, but I hope you can understand the point at least.

  • -10

It's important to note on the prayer thing that it was called for literally seconds after they had just finished a moment of silence for Kirk. The whole thing was performative, they could have prayed during the moment of silence if they wanted to. I half expect if the prayer motion went through they'd then call for a brief poem in his honor and escalated until someone objected so they could get this type of headline.

That's a degree of dark brilliance I wouldn't have expected from them. Big, if true.

That seems more likely an explanation after the fact; not one during the moment. If my timeline is right, they didn’t know if Kirk was dead.

These are the same Dems that booed a kid with cancer. Also, the story doesn’t hold—did the republicans block attempts to hold prayer for the Colorado kids? For a fallen member? Why would this hill be the one you want to fight on? My guess is again the Dems realized afterwards how ghoulish it was and they made some shit up.

Let's approach this in good faith, is it possible they shot it down because attempts for prayers don't happen with other victims of gun violence?

Whatever the reasons that the Republicans of Congress have for not praying after other deaths, shouting people down while they are trying to pray seems awfully uncouth, at the very least?

I'd go so far as to say Just Not Done -- I don't personally pray over things, but if somebody wants to say Grace at dinner, I do bow my head and say Amen -- where are their damn manners?

Whatever the reasons that the Republicans of Congress have for not praying after other deaths, shouting people down while they are trying to pray seems awfully uncouth, at the very least?

Refer back to the point about implications being made regarding other victims of other tragedies if you elevate someone over them in a place like Congress.

Maybe the Democrats should start having prayer sessions for people involved in incidents that they think should be elevated then, instead of shitting all over other people's tragedies?

Where's the prayer for the high school students shot by a neonazi a few days ago? How about the officer who got killed by the antivaxxer CDC shooter? Are officers protecting our country dishonorable and undeserving?

Refer back to the point about implications being made regarding other victims of other tragedies if you elevate someone over them in a place like Congress.

Where's the prayer for the high school students shot by a neonazi a few days ago?

That's the neat thing about praying -- you can pray for whomever you want!

If the Demcritters had asked for a prayer for those people, do you think the Repcritters would have shouted them down?

More comments

Let's approach this in good faith, is it possible they shot it down because attempts for prayers don't happen with other victims of gun violence?

How is that approaching it in good faith? It's completely normal for legislative institutions around the entire world to occasionally honor somebody with a moment of silence or other ritual. Obviously this isn't done for everybody, and the demand for it to be seems to have been pulled out of thin air.

It's completely normal for legislative institutions around the entire world to occasionally honor somebody with a moment of silence or other ritual.

If it's completely normal as you say, then why is it not done for service members or school shootings? We're still left with the same issue, are they not deserving of honor?

Obviously this isn't done for everybody,

Even you acknowledge it's not just done all the time then.

If it's completely normal as you say, then why is it not done for service members or school shootings?

How many examples do I need to post to establish that this happens, and is not treated as an aberration worthy of protest? Which part of "not for everybody" did you not get?

Even you acknowledge it's not just done all the time then.

The argument never relied on it happening "all the time".

How many examples do I need to post to establish that this happens, and is not treated as an aberration worthy of protest? Which part of "not for everybody" did you not get?

So are service members deserving of honor or not?

Maybe? Depends on the situation. This isn't something governed by codified rules.

Maybe you disagree there's an implication like that made with such an exception, or heck maybe you believe that children who get shot or military who die aren't deserving of prayer in the same way, but I hope you can understand the point at least.

For what it's worth, I can. I think I have an understanding of why Reds are infuriated over it, but I think their fury is foolish and counterproductive.

Is that true? Basically every single left wing politician and pundit has spoken out against the attack, and we don't even know the motive! I think Hanania put it best

Once upon a time I was playing a game of Werewolf. First turn, the moderator sets the scene with a villager torn limb from limb, entrails strung from the post, head left in a bucket by the well, etc, etc. I'd never played before, so being cute, I joke "Are we sure it wasn't suicide?"

The entire village pointed at me, yelled "Werewolf!" and I was dead in 30 seconds.

Now I haven't weighed in on who I thought killed Charlie Kirk, because deep in my heart I'm terrified it will turn out to be some right wing nut. Maybe they didn't like Kirk's positions on Israel. I don't even know what Kirk's positions on Israel are, I'm just saying, anything is possible.

But I also lived through BLM burning down cities and making us all live in fear when they jumped to conclusions over "Hands up don't shoot" lies, and George Floyd lies, and the show trial of the poor cop just doing what he was trained to do while a congenital felon ODed under his care. I watched the ecosystem of misinformation about Kyle Rittenhouse which somehow left most Democrats believing his mom dropped him off at a BLM rally across state lines and gunned down a bunch of black people.

I watched the left jump to conclusions, cause trillions in damage, irrevocably destroy cities, and murder random people in a carnival of violence for years. Now I'm not saying the right has a blank check. But if I were to put a dollar figure on it I'd start with the insurance claims from all the BLM riots. And these fake tears because now it seems the left has finally pushed things to the point where backlash is inevitable, and the frog finally noticed it's being boiled, I just don't care. I can't care. I remember.

the point where backlash is inevitable

Not only is backlash not inevitable, it's incredibly unlikely. There'll be some grumbling, some muttering, and then we'll just roll over and take it like the powerless, ground-down peasants we are.

Now I haven't weighed in on who I thought killed Charlie Kirk, because deep in my heart I'm terrified it will turn out to be some right wing nut.

The ARFcom thread on the incident is annoying yet informative -- sounds like the shooter carved trans/antifa positive messages onto the shells in his gun (which has now been recovered) -- so "right wing nut" is looking unlikely, barring an unrealistically convoluted false-flag attempt...

These are stochastic events

Gee whiz what an interesting way of thinking.

It's sad, but it's not justified to respond to dark humor and gross jokes with violence.

Agreed.

Individual actions, individual responsibilities.

I wish that had been a more popular position over the last several years.

Serious question: at what point is political violence justified?

Look at the Catholic just war doctrine, kind of a checklist of criteria violent action must satisfy to be right in the eyes of God: is there a competent authority organizing the armed action? A realistic possibility of success? A just cause for which you're fighting? And is it your last resort?

The Catholic church has an explicit social teaching on this. From Catechism 2243:

Armed resistance to oppression by political authority is not legitimate, unless all the following conditions are met: 1) there is certain, grave, and prolonged violation of fundamental rights; 2) all other means of redress have been exhausted; 3) such resistance will not provoke worse disorders; 4) there is well-founded hope of success; and 5) it is impossible reasonably to foresee any better solution.

Traditional leftist revolutionary violence has run afoul of 3 and 4 at least. Likewise, so would any right reactionaries eyeing violence, even in a truly horrible situation like South Africa. I would say Francisco Franco was in the clear, probably.

You are right to bring up just war theory. The throughline of all Catholic teaching on "When am I allowed to harm?" is the double effect. You are not allowed to do anything that is intrinsically evil (which, contrary to mischaracterizations of Matthew 5:39, violence is not). You must not desire the evil outcomes (so no wanting to hurt enemies for the sake of hurting them). Evil outcomes must not directly cause the good desired end (so no terrorist killing of civilians, even if that helps lead to victory). And there must be a proportionate cause (so no rebelling over the government failing to fix that nasty pothole).

In some ways, this is a hard teaching for many people, but the Christian POV on violence is not as alien from intuitive morality as is often suggested.

Where the Christian POV is alien is that rebellion against an authority you're born under is truly the last resort. God put you under a prince, even an evil prince, as part of his active or at least permissive will. 'Consent of the governed' is nonsense. Does a child get to choose whether to obey his father? No. There may be extreme situations where a child must run away or even fight his father, but that requires extreme justification. David stays loyal to the evil king Saul, simply running when Saul tries to kill him. Jesus meekly submits himself to be executed by Pilate.

I would say Francisco Franco was in the clear, probably

Considering it was literally a declared crusade…

The political violence gap is always going to be atleast partly tempered by the inherent divide in how people see people to the left of them and to the right of them, especially with the current polemic.

Most people on the Right see people to the left of them as overly empathetic but ultimately hearts in the right place despite an impractical belief on the allocation of scarce resources. I believe it's hard to find the motivation for political violence when you believe the other party simply cares too much, or has impractical views that are nonetheless downstream of that. Abortion is one of the few Leftward issues that generated meaningful Right Wing violence, since it's one of the few areas in which somebody on the Right could genuinely cultivate enough ill-feeling.

If I understand you correctly, you are approaching this question as a deontologist - you treat "justified"/"defensible"/"right" as irreducible categories, whether their extensions came to you in a dream, are ascertained on demand by gut feeling, or are passed down by a religious text or interpretation of one or a social consensus you trust. This leaves me a little confused as to why you are asking, and what you would do with answers that you get. Presumably, if you are Christian, the responses of a non-Christian deontologist should be completely meaningless to you? A hypothetical Hindu responder telling you that political violence is justified when the signs show that we have reached the relevant epicycle of the Kali Yuga would not sway you, right? What if it's a Christian responder, but he is from a Christian denomination that is markedly different from yours, and invokes theology that you do not recognise? To begin with, are deontologist judgements about morality "created" (so you could take an argument you hear from someone and extend your own moral understanding with it - but then what's the criterion by which you choose which arguments to accept and which ones to reject?) or "discovered" (so you might at most expect to get use out of an answer by someone who is "exploring" the same moral system as you are, and has discovered a bit more - but then, going back to the "responder that is similar to you but slightly different" case, how do you convince yourself that your online interlocutor is in fact exploring the same moral system?)?

I'm not trying to be clever here; the mechanism by which a deontologist would be persuaded by someone else's opinion on right or wrong, unless his deontologism already contains the premise that this other person is an authority to be deferred to, is genuinely a mystery to me.

From a utilitarian perspective, your question just seems like one that is easy to break into subquestions and hard to conclusively resolve. Do you expect the world in which you did political violence to be better than you expect the world in which you did not do political violence? Then you should do political violence; otherwise, you shouldn't. So what would be the consequences of you doing political violence? Would you attain your immediate goal? Would you trigger a counter-defection that will result in a world that you find worse than the current one?

These are all difficult hypotheticals, but my gut feeling is that we are far from the point where in any Western country, political violence that is apparently towards a particular end would actually serve that end. The memetic antibodies against political violence are still quite strong, and most people (especially the less terminally online ones) actually feel like they have a lot to lose from chaos. I guess even a successful Trump assassination would actually have been a wash in the long run, and that was one of the cases where I'd peg the expected benefit for the anti-[target] cause as the highest because of how much of a unique outlier he is in the American political system. None of this, however, is an argument against potential benefits of well-executed false flag political violence, and I think that there is a lot of potential there. The problem is that currently the only ones ready to engage in political violence are so far gone for their respective team that it would be difficult for them to pass the Turing test for their outgroup if they are caught, and so it becomes a "do political violence without getting caught"-complete problem.

the DNA lounge in San Francisco has a "neck shot" special tonight

That is in exceptionally poor taste.

At what point is it defensible to take up arms in defense of one's community?

You're glowing.

the DNA lounge in San Francisco has a "neck shot" special tonight

That is in exceptionally poor taste.

Historically, that kind of thing would have likely resulted in some form of mob event - tarring and feathering the proprietor, smashing of the saloon, etc. But we live in more temperate, and less small-d "democratic" times...

That is in exceptionally poor taste.

People do these things because they believe they will be popular with those around them.

People do these things because they believe they will be popular with those around them.

To make my position clear, I think this in completely absolutely no way justifies political violence against the left. But the (from my point of view) typical leftist can be incredibly vicious even when the person who was killed wasn't someone who advocated that gun deaths are worth it if it meant protecting the second amendment.

And probably most people (including the typical leftist) feels weird about this on some level, but there's varying levels, like "I probably shouldn't say this, but my friends will get a kick out of it", "I probably shouldn't say this, but other people are doing it so I guess it's okay", "I probably shouldn't say this, but he did have it coming", etc.

Half the Internet is glowing today. Practically every commentator is just barely stopping himself writing an explicit call to put all the leftists against a wall. The "glowing" bit is really part of my point: embedded in the term is a blanket and universal taboo on political violence, and it's not obvious to me that there ought to be such a taboo.

Yeah, the FBI department that deals with this is gonna be working overtime for a while.

Practically every commenter where? If you're looking at your Twitter FYP that's specifically tailored to you personally to maximize your engagement, which in practice tends to cash out as "that which makes you personally angry or afraid".

Do we even know yet that the shooter was a leftist rather than a random crazy person with no coherent ideology?

at what point is political violence justified?

When it's productive. It's almost never productive.

Productive is relative to ones goal.

I would argue that the more evil you are, the more likely that violence will further your twisted goals.

Take the Hamas attacks. Under the assumption that they were meant to prevent further normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors, they were a resounding success -- Israel did even bomb Qatar. Only if you take a broadly humanitarian view (e.g. are unwilling to sacrifice all of Gaza for a slight increase in the odds of getting to genocide all the Jews) do Hamas' actions become unreasonable.

Another type of violence depends on your favored type of decision theory, in that it is simply retaliation. In causal decision theory, you will not retaliate. If your enemy launches their nukes, nuking their cities will not have a beneficial troops saved to civilian death ratio.

In other decision theory systems, you will retaliate, not because it will improve the situation in your branch of reality but because being the kind of person who will punish defection will lead to a lower chance of finding yourself in that situation in the first place.

Personally, I think that thinks have to go very badly before punishing the other party should become your main goal, think Warsaw Ghetto Uprising or their-ICBMs-are-already-launched levels of bad. And I still think that obviously innocents (e.g. kids) should enjoy their deontological protection even then, so a retaliation which deliberately targets them would be evil. But nuking their cities would definitely be on the table.

The great thing about violence is the simplicity of it. If violence hasn't solved the problem, then what you need is an escalation to more and greater violence. Obviously punching one nazi won't solve the problem of fascism if it's 1942, and killing one moor won't make Andalusia Christian again if you don't throw out the entire Emirate of Granada. Violence isn't productive when it simmers at low levels. It almost always productive when escalated far enough - but yes, it's possible that the belligerents may not be willing or capable enough to escalate to levels of violence that actually force a productive conclusion to their conflict.

"Productive", in this context, is naturally the same as "destructive".

This is the nature of war, whose stake is at once the game and the authority and the justification.

productive != produces outcomes.

productive = produces the outcomes you want.

Great violence almost always produces outcomes you don't want. Often, societies hit rock bottom as a result of this violence. In rare cases, a great leader rises and the society gets back on track again. But, that's the exception that proves the rule. With great violence, things always turn bad at first, and in most cases they continue to stay bad.

At the very least, violence should start with a clear outcome in mind. Or else, it's a riot.

If right-wing America was to turn violent today, what would it do ? Overthrow the friendliest Govt they've had in decades ? Replace democracy with something else ? Turn autocratic to suppress their enemies, and in the process become who they hate most ?

When I think of outcomes, there are radical options that are achievable democratically. If anything, they need significant funding. And a stable economic center is a prerequisite to executing on them.

  1. Too much crime - More prisons. Longer sentences
  2. Too many crazy people - Bring back asylums
  3. Institutional resistance - Defund them

Can't do any of these if you're inciting an internal revolution at the same time.

If right-wing America was to turn violent today, what would it do ?

Eradicate the Blue Tribe as a culture.

Overthrow the friendliest Govt they've had in decades ?

If by "friendly" you mean "slightly less hostile," in that our mostly-meaningless elections have put some (ostensibly) "friendly" politicians into the mostly-powerless figurehead positions that are elected office, while the Deep State and >90% lefty Permanent Bureaucracy that actually rule remain just as hostile as ever.

Replace democracy with something else ?

As a monarchist, I say hell yes! Bring on our Augustus!

Turn autocratic to suppress their enemies, and in the process become who they hate most ?

I am sick and tired of this "if you kill your enemy you'll become him" trope. It's an overused cliché coming from Hollywood, and it's even worse as a real-world argument. There is more than just one single thing that distinguishes me and mine from my enemies. An Red Tribe turned "autocratic" is still a totally different thing from the Blue Tribe, along axes far more important than the one you're pointing to here. Suppressing my enemies — eradicating their culture from the earth — will not make me "become them" on any dimension I care about.

When I think of outcomes, there are radical options that are achievable democratically.

And how do I achieve the total destruction of the Blue Tribe as a culture, set of values, way of life, et cetera, through democratic means?

“Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history than has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms” ― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

It's said over and over that violence doesn't help, is always wrong, and is "almost never productive". I sense orthodoxy doth protest too much. Violence, especially tit for tat reciprocal violence, is probably more effective than commonly admitted: there's just this tacit understanding that if you admit it, you open the gates of hell.

Well, we're already in hell. Now what?

Well, we're already in hell. Now what?

Anyone who claims that things can not possibly get worse on a societal level is having a terminal lack of imagination, just like the people who think that things will have to get worse before they can get better.

The US is doing fine. Ukraine is doing fine. Even fucking North Korea is doing okay, perhaps rating a 2 on the xkcd pain scale as adopted to societies.

Historically the good cop, bad cop approach seems to have had success in some contexts. South Africa had Nelson Mandela preaching peace and tolerance, while his wife cheered on the practice of necklacing alleged informants, and her security detail carried out kidnappings, torture, and murders. There was a less extreme dynamic in the civil rights movement, with MLK positioning himself as the reasonable alternative to violent radicals like the Black Panthers. People mostly want peace and stability, so the idea of compromising with moderates can be appealing given the alternative. Of course that depends on the moderates having a palatable message, and support from elites and the media.

Of course this doesn't always work out and sometimes results in violent suppression of the entire movement, including both the moderate and radical elements. The Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka are likely a good example, with the situation evolving from a political campaign, into an insurgency, and finally a full-blown civil war.

Well, we're already in hell. Now what?

We're not. We're barely above baseline. This is America. We shoot each other a lot. What we are is acting like we're in an apocalyptic struggle.

What are you gonna do? I'm not seeing the path to the boogaloo from this, that mean lone wolf or very few involved parties. I can think of single digit kinetic actions that even come close to being arguably "productive".

Are there any places you would want to live where violence along partisan lines is commonplace? If not, why do you think that is?

When is violence against a person justified? Usually the legal boundary is immediate threat. So if a politician is advocating for you to be put into camps, then that seems like a reasonable starting point. But then you have to consider 'reasonable fear of immediate threat' and things get much murkier. Is it reasonable to fear that pro-mass migration politicians intend to destroy your community with foreigners?

In America it's still only the crazies/extremely disaffected that are actually willing to go out and kill for politics, usually. People will cheer on the killer but almost none of these people would actually be willing to do something similar.

In a war, do you need to show that each and every soldier you neutralize presented an imminent danger to you personally? Is there a legitimate concept of a movement or an ideology as a whole presenting a grave danger and justifying violence against any of its adherents as self defense?

To mix my metaphors, War is a switch, not a dial. If you have (justly) declared war, then the restrictions on lethal force are much looser. If you haven't, then the original standards hold. You don't get to judge them as 70% enemies and therefore only deserving of 30% of the protections of civil society.

War is a switch, not a dial

Is it? Is the US at war with Afghanistan? Has it ever been?

The post-911 AUMF was (although it didn’t use the words, and probably should have done) a declaration of war against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

Does this mean the US is still at war with them?

For the Taliban, no. Donald Trump surrendered in 2020 and Biden rather notoriously botched the implementation of the surrender agreement in 2021.

To the extent that Al-Qaeda still exists, the US is still at war with them.

Depends on whether its a peer conflict, really. If you are vastly more powerful than your opponent, you can afford to treat it as a dial. See US-Afghanistan, US-Iran, Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine. That last looks a little more switchy by now, and I think that's because Urkaine turned out to be more resilient and Russia to be less capable than anticipated.

Okay. So the question stands: at what point can one segment of society justify a war against another? The answer clearly isn't "never". It's also pretty clearly not "defend against individuals on a case by case basis and reserve violence for imminent personal threats"

At some point, the totality of circumstances justify, even demand, a war, yes?

Were the troubles justified? That seems to be the closest analogue for what is getting envisioned.

The answer clearly isn't "never". It's also pretty clearly not "defend against individuals on a case by case basis and reserve violence for imminent personal threats"

but you repeat yourself: The first sentence is against "don't ever declare war", while the second is against "act like you haven't declared war".

At some point, the totality of circumstances justify, even demand, a war, yes?

Of course, just civil wars happen.

The criteria you posted upthread (competent authority, chance of success, just cause, last resort) is as good as any other, but I don't think the specifics are that important. If a rational group of responsible, representative leaders decides that war is the best option, then I don't think that any checklist could fully predict my reaction.

The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence.

Depends what you define as "the left". Social media and a venue in San Francisco are not necessarily good representatives of, say, Democratic Party voters as a whole.

It's easy to play "no true Scotsman" here: all the politicians and almost all the big pundits on both sides have said reasonable things in the last day. Honestly I've been a bit surprised at some of them.

But that isn't everyone: there are plenty of terrible takes on the Internet, some by even marginally-famous ones. I struggle to quantify it (open to ideas!) but it feels like shitty takes are coming in larger numbers from people much closer to the establishment on the left (universities, trendy blue city bars mentioned in this thread, popular internet sites) than the reverse: the likes of David Duke, Alex Jones, and Nick Fuentes are seem thoroughly disconnected from any sense of real power like that.

I'm sure that can be argued indefinitely, but IMO that means it's a good time to step back from the details of this particular case and try to come to agreement on what "your fellow travelers are, in aggregate, worse than mine" even means quantitatively, and then how we might address that before deciding which way to point it.

If not them, then who. Thought leadership in the democratic party leadership now is a midget boxing match between Ezra Klein Abundance vs Mamdani DSA and Newsom picking the ball up from Clinton and Obama. In that gaping absence whatever counts as thoughmass in the democrat space is whichever reaches escape velocity without censure or successful clawback. Plausible deniability means the accusations stick as a cloud.

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