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Yay! To think it only took a fucking bullet to the neck of a public speaker in a peaceful setting to accomplish. This one is totes not gonna get memory-holed in a month.
You don’t even live in the US, right? Or am I forgetting? Why is this element of domestic politics hitting you so hard? I can understand the emotion from people who live here, but I’m a little surprised by your take.
Yeah, no duh it sucks what happened to him. But nobody cares about lock-out-tag-out until some poor Mexican gets filleted. Very often the only way things change is through truly horrifying consequences. I’m not suggesting you shrug about an assassination. It’s normal, human to be rattled by it. But it’s right to control your response, to think about what did and did not happen, what it does and doesn’t mean for you. A lot of people are reading this as “Comradx Queeria is preparing the firing squads.” I don’t think that’s right. I think a lot of malicious idiots on the left were getting excused for their language - sanewashing - for much longer than they had any right to, and finally enough truly insane people are coming out of the woodwork that the normies are shook. I know I am. But this place in particular does not need more doomposting. To my lefty friends and family, I’ve been saying this is important, language matters. Here. I say to take it in stride. The consistency? Lowering the temperature. Even if that might be upsetting.
"Bro why do you even care" is... certainly a response. I guess you got me, I'm actually a Russian shill paid to stir shit on a Congolese fish filleting forum?
I'm not even sure how to respond, I don't feel offended but I'm genuinely baffled. Does not being a US citizen definitionally preclude me from caring about the culture war, whose ramifications reached me across the pond since at least, may Allah forgive me for uttering this word, g*mergate? Does the Kirk killing being "domestic politics" somehow supposed to dampen the visceral impact of seeing a man get interrupted mid-speech by a casual gush of blood from his punctured neck? Am I supposed to not care about the general response to a public, overtly political murder (something almost unthinkable in my home country) being, shall we say, less than enthusiastic condemnation from the usual suspects and galaxy brained mental gymnastics from resident Marxists? I might not be an American but as a straight white male chud with problematic faves, I most definitely make the cut for their outgroup, and since culture > race/nation that's all that matters.
More flippantly but no less seriously, do you have predictions if this will decrease or increase the frequency with which the lunatic political "fringe" of the US shuts down my spaces and shits in my hobbies? I can't believe I actually want Jack Thompson back, that one was at least funny in his retardation.
You joke but for a Very Online chud like me, the proverbial firing squads have been here for quite a while already, that's why I'm on the fucking Motte.
I'm mostly a lurker so rest assured you won't have to deal with my "doomposting" too often. Trying to reduce temperature is a noble endeavor, you do you, but I don't appreciate the sanctimonious call to be the better man. Taking the high road is how we got here.
That’s not what I mean to imply.
I have an acquaintance with family in South Africa. Things there are legitimately quite bad. I would not travel there - and yet, I don’t feel nearly so strongly about things which happen there as things in the US, even if they’re more severe. That’s because I don’t live there. My day to day is not affected by it, and does not affect it.
On the other hand, I live in the US, and take things much more seriously here.
That’s a very fair point. I don’t necessarily recommend living life on the internet, but understanding that moralizing is not going to affect your day-to-day, I understand why this is a big deal for you. This was a very internet killing, and as such happened in your back yard, and now you have to deal with the consequences. Thanks for explaining it.
Quite frequently, when people care very strongly about something that has little direct relation to them, it’s because it’s a symbol for something that does relate to them. I wasn’t sure whether this was happening for you, but it sounds like it isn’t.
Tactically, I disagree, it was the right-wing retreat from academia that precipitated these problems. The left wanted to kick the right out, and the right let that happen long enough that an unacceptable proportion of the youth got educated in an echo chamber. That meant the online flame wars in early Tumblr days were a losing cause, since social media companies were hiring the lefties and not the righties. But that’s showbiz.
As someone from a country on the opposite side of the world, US politics are taken seriously down here as well - the US is the western hegemon and the decisions made there have severe consequences for the rest of the world. What matters in the US matters to the rest of the world as well - our Murdoch media whipped up a storm talking positively about Charlie Kirk despite nobody here really caring about him at all.
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We got here because not enough people want to take the low road? And what does the low road look like to you?
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