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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   34189 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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What are the odds?

In the chaos of the Charlie Kirk shooting, a lot of people forgot about the weirdness of the multiple arrests. Immediately after the shooting, George Zinn reacted in a very unusual way. He insisted that he was the shooter and police arrested him, allowing the real shooter to get away.

Was he an accomplice? No, it doesn't look that way. There's no evidence that he knew the shooter ahead of time.

So that leads to the first, "what are the odds?" Online, we saw leftists explode into cheers of support for Kirk's killer and suggestions for the next victim. But we are told that this represents a small fraction of the left, only the most politically deranged. But a random person in the crowd didn't just cheer on Kirk's death, he was willing to risk arrest, possibly death (if you claim to have a gun during an active shooting, you can't really be surprised if you wind up shot.)

BBC says there were about 3,000 people at Utah Valley University when he was shot. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5yev470d59o. At least 1 of those people were very clearly supportive of the assassination. 0.03% isn't that bad, I suppose. There were also several people on a balcony cheering (I saw this on video, I don't have any desire to find that video again for hopefully obvious reasons so if you don't trust me on this that's fine.)

So let's say .03% willing to take extreme lengths in support of political violence, .3% immediately visibly excited by political violence. As a percentage that's low. It's a really, low, comforting percentage. Except when you see it happen in real life. Then it's not so comforting.

Every time you go out in a large enough crowd, there is a high chance that at least one person is kind of crazy. The kind of person willing to take the fall for someone else's crime. This is not comforting at all.

Another set of odds

What brought this on was a press release Andy Ngo shared from the county sheriff's office. Not only was Zinn a political extremist, he was also in possession of Child Pornography (real children, ages 5-12.) He also distributed this material to others.

Now, you might think such a person would have a strong incentive to avoid being picked up by the police and have his phone searched, but Mr. Zinn did not seem to have much hesitation.

Zinn is well known among organizers of public events in Salt Lake City and often showed up in public forums intending to disrupt the event or question the high-profile speaker, The New York Times reported.
He was arrested in 2013 for sending a threatening email to the organizers of the Salt Lake City Marathon days after the Boston Marathon bombing, according to The Salt Lake Tribune.

Per Newsweek

A lot of people cheered on his death or supported the killer, but the tradeoff of LWOP or death penalty to exact political revenge, is a poor one. Hence why the incidence of these situations is very low, and most people do not have a agency to pull it off even if they wanted to.

So let's say .03% willing to take extreme lengths in support of political violence, .3% immediately visibly excited by political violence. As a percentage that's low. It's a really, low, comforting percentage. Except when you see it happen in real life. Then it's not so comforting.

That is why statistics is useful. otherwise there is no way to quantify the risk. Seeing someone win the lottery does not make it more likely you will win. Even if there is a correlation between killings instead of being purely statistically independent events, the odds are still tiny.

LWOP

?

All a quick Google gives me for this is "leave without pay" (i.e. temporary absence from your job). As I've said before, people need to get in the habit of defining their acronyms.

IMO English is an unfortunate language (compared to Japanese) in that it is difficult and disapproved-of to shorten words and phrases in a way that is still readable. You can't just stick a couple of kanji together or throw out half the sounds. You can't turn 'leave without pay' into 'no-pay leave' without sounding childish, let alone 'go-no-pay' and 'life without parole' can't be turned into 'forever-jail'. I think part of it is the cultural love-affair with sophisticated latinate vocabulary (he says as someone with an impeccable classical education, but we're all hypocrites here).

Acronyms are an attempt to solve the job but are often too complicated in their own right and are mostly unreadable unless you already know what they mean (BATNA).

Yeah, when I see BATNA I tend to think of the BOFH and so I never remember what BATNA is supposed to mean...

There's no hope for me :D

The solution I'm proposing is pretty simple (and required by many style guides for whatever that's worth), and is simply to expand the acronym the first time, and then go on using it to your heart's content. You come out ahead in legibility right away, and in reduced word count by the third use or so.

Of course, for relatively short posts here this might not make sense because you're not going to get to that third use. But in that case there's no meaningful loss in just spelling it out and doing without the acronym.

Agreed, I meant more than I don’t find acronyms a great solution in general.

I’m sure we didn’t use them before 1900. I’m not sure what we did do.

I think they were pretty tied to capitalism and business development. One early example in English would be the East India Company, who had EIC on their merchant mark. The gilded age in America saw company marks and names like AT&T, plus the similar practice of abbreviating names like "Nabisco" or "Esso". I imagine WW1 saw it take off in the public sphere. The concatenating type always struck me as a practice that was faintly German (Gestapo, Stasi etc.) with the Russians sometimes going with the acronym (KGB) and sometimes with the abbreviated form (Komsomol).

In some old writing, they would just put a dash --- in some places when it was assumed both the reader and writer new what word was supposed to go there.

"life without parole" (LWOP)

Life without parole I'd expect

He seems to have been a political schizo, liar and clout chaser since the 80s and from Utah. It isn’t surprising he was there and it is even less surprising that when the assassination happened he made the split second decision to commit knowing that his face might be everywhere in the country and world in short order.

The only reason this is getting traction online is because some Twitter users (notably Candace Owens) alleging that Kirk was actually assassinated by Israel decided he was Jewish because of his name (as @DoctorMonarch says, this is far from clear, the name is German and there are plenty of non-Jewish Zinns on Wikipedia) and so must be involved.

In the chaos of the Charlie Kirk shooting, a lot of people forgot about the weirdness of the multiple arrests.

Apropos of nothing, I'd like to talk about a tangent that I picked up on in Patel's Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing today. He was directly asked by Senator Kennedy if there was the possibility that the shooter wasn't working alone. Patel said there were a number of individuals currently being investigated and interrogated by the Feds.

I'm pretty much caught up on the trans partner and their chat logs, but it seems like the FBI is doing a deeper dive into some of the other connections. Perhaps other users in the Discord channel of interest?

Does anyone else have anything on accomplices? Does the idea of the trans partner knowing nothing about the shooting seem a little suspect? I know the partner is apparently an AnCap follower of Jordan Peterson and immediately cooperated with the police, but the text logs seem a little off. Particularly when combined with an 'IT WAS ME!' note left by the shooter under his keyboard for his partner to find.

Edit: Additional links

I know the partner is apparently an AnCap follower of Jordan Peterson

Wait, what?

Hoo boy. I don't have a solid link to confirm that, as referencing /pol/ is like pointing at yesterday's sandcastle on the beach.

Best I can do with the Peterson reference is this. I've got nothing for the AnCap thing, but you could do a deep dive on the partner's suspected reddit account history if you have a real interest in this.

Also it was in 2020-21. I don't think 'Guy reads Jordan Peterson 5 years ago then re-pivots over to the Left side' is some historically unprecedented swerve plus I assume a lot of terminally online people have 'Arm the babies with assault rifles to defend themselves from abortions' radical centrism.

Yeah I agree, it should be taken with a large grain of salt. Someone in their early 20's can change their views a lot from when they were 18. I'm not trying to focus on the partner's political point of view as much as their trans identity and the possibility their 'innocence' was deliberately telegraphed by actions pre-planned with the shooter.

I mean, how do you surprise your live in romantic partner with a political assassination? They really didn't see any signs?

I mean, how do you surprise your live in romantic partner with a political assassination? They really didn't see any signs?

If their household was particularly leftist, then explicit death threats aimed towards people who have opinions that they sufficiently disagree with being just background noise isn't unlikely. Given that he's an adult with his own gun already, I don't think keeping this a secret would've been hard for Robinson regardless, but even if he didn't keep it secret, it's perfectly plausible that his lover just had no reason to believe that it was anything other than the umpteenth hyperbole said by him.

Most people think highly of their partners and don’t want to believe they’re murderers? Intentional ignorance is a hell of a drug.

I mean, how do you surprise your live in romantic partner with a political assassination?

The same way you surprise everybody else: keep your mouth shut and your material hidden? We are here on the Devil Sacrament three principled libertarians and a zillion witches website; I know some people here share everything with their SO, but we do realize that it's not the only option, right?

I never really considered that users might be 'hiding their power level' from their spouses. Sounds exhausting, but considering the amount of polarisation in Western political discourse, its not that surprising.

Sounds exhausting, but considering the amount of polarisation in Western political discourse, its not that surprising.

It is, and it's not. My wife regularly tries to initiate struggle sessions with me because I took the black pill over a decade ago and started pointing and laughing at politics instead of taking it seriously. "I know you're a good raven, Muninn and I'm trying to understand how a good corvid like you wouldn't be alarmed at $Latest_Thing," is typically how these things go, and I just feed her the, "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's," line that I feed just about everybody these days because a single specimen of bacteria residing on the flesh of a random state legislator has more influence over national politics than I do and long experience has taught me that if I actually engage and start talking about the landmarks that the US passed on the way to arriving at $Latest_Thing, I'm likely to be seen, at best, as an argumentative and pedantic asshole, and at worst as a misguided rube with inordinate sympathy for the obvious Fascists. Sticking to my guns will eventually lead to grudging acknowledgment that paying so much attention to that shit is making her miserable too, and for bonus points maybe we can even have a productive conversation about some of her more heretical thoughts.

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I mean check out the graphs of growing divide between women and men.

They are starting to be separate circles with little overlap, many women on dating websites make clear their political affiliation, and most high quality men pay lip service only to progressive politics if they acknowledge it at all. Anyone who still wants to date has to lie a bit.

Historically women have been willing to take on or ignore the politics of their partner a bit more, we'll see if that stays true....if it doesn't......

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I mean, how do you surprise your live in romantic partner with a political assassination? They really didn't see any signs?

I think it is entirely possible that Robinson had been mentioning that he wanted to kill Kirk for a while and the partner assumed he was just being edgy and joking around. This would be entirely consistent with the slightly weird text logs, where there’s (imo, at least) a clear tone of “oh god please tell me you didn’t actually go out and do this”, even as Robinson is talking about it in a tone that’s more like “lol obviously I did, why are you so surprised?”

By all accounts the partner started talking to the police/feds almost immediately after Robinson was identified/arrested and turned over the chat logs voluntarily. I suppose it is possible that the partner was involved and either regretted it or decided to play innocent, but that seems to require a lot of epicycles compared to the simple scenario where the partner knew Robinson hated Kirk, but didn’t know about the actual assassination plot. Any signs he may have given off would be much more readily explained at the time as “edgy jokes” than “literal murder plot”, until he went out and did it.

I agree that its possible that the partner knew nothing (or at least thought the shooter was just being edgy/hyperbolic). It reminds me of observations of a friend before he took his own life. It was similar in that he was considering a massively life altering choice that his loved ones would disapprove of and send shockwaves through the lives of those around him. He pretty much managed to keep it hidden with only small hints that were only obvious in hindsight.

So, while I'm not entirely sold on the partner being completely innocent in all this, its probably best to go with Occam's razor until there's any new official revelations. Better than the alternative.

Or is it?

The chat log doesn't read genuine. It feels off, staged. Rumor has it the roommate was no shrinking violet but quite vocal in their extremist politics. [EDIT: Specifically, the chat log reads like bad exposition where one party asks stupid questions so the villain can explain his dastardly plan to the audience].

My guess is that you have a local trantifa group, mostly online, immersed in far left ideology but veiled in ironic internet meme culture. They talk about assassinating Kirk and egg each other using innuendo and cryptic memes and such. They make plans, but there is no mastermind. One or more of them say they are going to do it. The others encourage the assassination but are unsure whether they'll follow through, because such discussions about violent action happen often in these circles but rarely does anyone actually do it. A few people in this group post suggestive messages that something big is about to happen for internet clout. The shooter and his roommate, meanwhile, agree to obscure the roommate's role in the planning by staging exonnerating chat logs.

While thrilled with the assassination, the other trantifa are genuinely surprised that the shooter actually did it. Usually people chicken out. They might not have posted those suggestive messages if they knew, so now they scramble to scrub the internet of any evidence of their complicity or foreknowledge. The roommate "cooperates" with the police as part of their plan to obscure their role in the murder.

I seem to recall that in at least one of the alleged Discord group[s?], someone thought the photo looked like him and they joked about it. That implies that at least that group more broadly wasn't aware. I presume it's possible a Discord friend helped him on a more individual basis, but nothing other than maybe the questioner really required any help. In fact, he literally used a drop spot for the rifle, so I'd assume an actual accomplice would have been ready to grab it - actually would have been smart, or even worked, since no cameras covered the area and the other person would have looked different, though transportation would still be risky. Kirk's last questioner was interviewed and seemed innocent to me, despite affiliation with a group that usually hounds Kirk with gotchas allegedly he wasn't doing so on that particular day, though I supposed given the context and timing it's possible (OTOH, it's a right-wing AMA, of course guns are going to come up and probably trans issues too at some point no matter who has the mic).

The texts suggest that he really thought there was a good chance he'd get away with it. He was maybe loosely correct, but criminals of all types often forget that they have more human connections, even when loners, than you might think. Plus witnesses are everywhere in a manhunt, and he seems to literally not have planned for cameras (I mean come on dude, there are ALWAYS cameras somewhere, and an accomplice probably would have said as much). The grandpa recognized the rifle, and at least three people that we know of instantly thought it looked like him based on the pictures only.

The lone caveat then is I don't think we were told exactly how he got back home to Washington county - one report I believe mentioned a vehicle, but it wasn't clear if they actually matched its location to anywhere relevant that day, or found out where he parked, etc. I suppose someone could have driven him?

The dolt had his damned phone in his pocket, these days the devices are semi-online and ping the towers even when you think they are turned off. This level of incompetence blows out of the water any theories of isreal involvement(as alleged on our favorite internet watering holes) or grander strategy plan in my view.

these days the devices are semi-online and ping the towers even when you think they are turned off

If you turn them "off", they do shut down the radio and don't ping anything. Unless they've been infected by certain sorts of malware. (And if you happen a target of an investigation, there is special firmware that shuts down everything but the radio that can be loaded onto your phone by a co-operative carrier, which is to say any carrier whose CEO doesn't want to go to pound-me-in-the-ass Federal Prison)

So if you're a nobody with a clean phone, you're PROBABLY ok if you turn it "off". But it'd be dumb to bet on it.

Yeah, you can never know how "off" these devices are unless you have one of those older samsungs that you could physically take the back off and take out the battery. Those are rarer now tho.

newer iPhones have their bluetooth running when they are 'off' (i think this runs for up to 1 day?) in order to network with nearby iPhones to support the find-my-phone feature. https://www.wired.com/story/apple-find-my-cryptography-bluetooth/

I'm sure he would have been identified eventually, but on the other hand he had sufficient leeway if he didn't confess/brag to probably get out of the country without anybody raising him. Even the photos were like enough that somebody who knew him would have a reasonable suspicion but they weren't exactly smoking guns.

I'm sure he would have been identified eventually, but on the other hand he had sufficient leeway if he didn't confess/brag to probably get out of the country without anybody raising him.

Get out where?

If you look at succesful escapees from highest profile manhunt, the secret is to have friends/family in third world country who will hide you (while the authorities are not looking very hard).

If you are Diego Robles, your chances are good. If your name is James Robinson, forget it.

There are some really obvious selection effects going on at a political rally.

Mmm, yes, but selection effects going both ways. Yes, people who don't care about politics don't tend to show up at rallies. But social justice warriors also don't tend to show up at religious-right rallies unless they're explicitly planning to attack or disrupt them in some way. Not sure which is the stronger effect.

The design of this particular rally is that you're meant to debate him so his ideological opposition had some grounds to attend.

Now, you might think such a person would have a strong incentive to avoid being picked up by the police and have his phone searched, but Mr. Zinn did not seem to have much hesitation.

I mean, someone who immediately fesses to a high profile assassination in a red state is willing to suffer the full wrath of the criminal justice system. Having kiddy porn on him might be strictly worse, but does it really change the calculus?

About 4%, no? All the mitigating and exacerbating factors are going to be lost in the noise. At the point someone is turning himself in for an unrelated crime, I don’t think normal reasoning about behaviors holds up.

And did it actually help the shooter escape? Setting aside the delay, I have no idea if the cops who were handcuffing this guy had any chance of chasing down a shooter from a couple hundred yards.

About 4%, no?

No.

There aren't actually people who are 18008765309 feet tall that you can contact by dialing 5'10" on your phone. There are people who will cheer at a completely unrelated car chase the moment news of his death breaks, but nowhere near 4%. EDIT: There are truly innocent people that have solid evidence against them (similar to what TMZ claimed), but nowhere near 4%.

Rare events are rare. Data entry errors are common. "several people on a balcony cheering" are not data entry errors.

https://x.com/ChefGruel/status/1966595667637248388

It seems that the "car chase" was a news broadcast that then had breaking news of Kirk's assassination talking over the top.

Thanks, that probably would've stuck in my mind without your correction.

Except that you'd expect someone like Zinn to be over-indexed for when you hold a giant "debate-me" event. Yes, you get a lot of people who want to participate in good faith, but you also have put out a honey-trap for wackos with outsize grievances.

It's the same mechanism that draws people like this to city council open comment sessions.

Since G is right next to H, my first response to learning this information was, "The author of A People's History of the United States happened to be there and also decided to, in the moment by snap decision, run interference for the assassin!?" Of course, Howard and George are different names. Basic research doesn't reveal any relation between those 2, but I hope it comes out that it's his nephew or cousin or something. Would make this timeline that much more dank, or whatever the kids these days are saying.

Looked into it for a few minutes and nah.

This guy's full name is listed in some reports as George Hodgson Zinn, an obnoxious person from Salt Lake City https://www.theblaze.com/news/who-is-the-71-year-old-man-detained-after-charlie-kirk-shooting-who-police-say-is-not-a-suspect

I'm fairly confident he's related to https://www.deseret.com/1997/7/29/19326549/death-norma-hodgson-zinn-simmons/ I initially thought this was his grandmother, but real chance she is mother if she gave birth in her late 40s. Could just be that this character is George Hodgson Zinn jr and the reports left that out. A brief account by a person named George Zinn regarding their father Overton- https://www.up.com/heritage/history/stories/families/true-up-man-zinn/index.htm

So I'm pretty sure this guy is coming from a Utah Mormon family.

Howard Zinn's parents were Ellis Island Jewish immigrants to NYC.

Zinn means "tin" in German, so not extremely rare name for Jews or Gentiles whose ancestors held that profession when adopting a surname.

So I'm pretty sure this guy is coming from a Utah Mormon family.

He was adopted at an age of 19 months from a Greek orphanage into a Utah Mormon family.

It's not super common, but it's not all that weird for Mormons in my lived experience. My mother was a fifth child adopted from a local hospital, I have two cousins adopted from Kazakhstan, a cousin from a different side adopted from Ukraine (one of the very literally very last actually), and I've heard of a few other cases besides.

Appreciate that, could you link me to where you found that?

https://x.com/icu_luci/status/1965901613207605359

it's weird.

Appreciate it! Well, he's definitely weird. Not unheard of for families with 4 daughters 0 surviving sons to adopt a boy historically.

A brief account by a person named George Zinn regarding their father Overton

Of window fame, no doubt

If so, would have been a family split over Mormonism that isn't easily found online.

I looked into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Overton the eponymous describer of the political window, who was a libertarian who died in a light aircraft crash 22 years ago. Family moved from New York to Michigan in the 1850s, though some served Union in Civil War in New York units. He is related to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hall_Overton and his son https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rick_Overton

I thought the same thing at first, had to re-read the first paragraph like 3 times.

Keep in mind that people who are willing to go in person to a political debate are not representative of the general population. The vast majority of people could easily think of many dozens of things they would rather spend their time doing than going to a political debate. I'm pretty interested in politics, as is obvious from the fact that I post here, and even I find the idea of going to see a political debate to be extremely boring unless maybe there are some hot women there I could flirt with.

Now granted, this was on a college campus so my point is to some extent reduced by the fact that it might have been relatively easy even for people who aren't very interested in politics to just wander over to the event. I don't know if people had to get tickets to get in. Still, I think that overall, my point stands.

My post was mostly a musing that, even if there's a small percentage of crazies in the world, the odds of encountering a crazy is not terribly small in a large enough public gathering. But your point is also noted.

Zinn appears to be a long-term psycho. Did jail time for calling in a bomb threat to a marathon, some possible 9/11 fakery etc. A sort of political gadfly loonie like the second Trump shooter, not sure on his actual politics.

Perhaps not surprising that someone extreme in several areas of his life might be extreme in another.

As a side note on the child porn, let me ask a conspiratorial question: Without any opinion on this particular case, given the level of tech access of government agencies and corporations, what are the odds that nobody is putting child porn files onto the devices of people they want to discredit?

As a side note on the child porn, let me ask a conspiratorial question: Without any opinion on this particular case, given the level of tech access of government agencies and corporations, what are the odds that nobody is putting child porn files onto the devices of people they want to discredit?

Remember Stephen Paddock, current solo mass shooting world record holder? And remember his brother, who, by coincidence, happened to possess indecent images of children (until he hadn't).

Did... this guy need discrediting? Convicted felon conspiracy theorists who claim to personally commit high profile murders they obviously weren't behind seem like the last people the government would try to discredit. More likely he just happened to be deranged in more than one way.

I don't think that's what happened here, I just got thinking.

Another way to use planted CSAM material would be to "upgrade" charges. this guy was probably not going to prison for throwing off the search by claiming to be the shooter. He is probably going to prison now, though.

I figure this is a good time to chime in on it, since in this case the discussion does "my side" no good, and so has less of a chance of polluting the discussion. I don't like this guy, but this is an issue I've considered before and am rather worried about.

I figure this is a good time to chime in on it, since in this case the discussion does "my side" no good, and so has less of a chance of polluting the discussion. I don't like this guy, but this is an issue I've considered before and am rather worried about.

I have zero doubts that unscrupulous government actors would stoop to planting CSAM material.

However, I am also aware that it is shockingly common for defendants arrested for a routine, unremarkable crime to have CSAM on their phone when it is searched. I am skeptical that local police in my jurisdiction are planting this material. Such materials appear to be growing in popularity and greatly complicate defending a run of the mill drug possession charges, DUI, whatever.

Yeah, I'm not so worried about CSAM charges against random scumbags; I assume there's usually not a cop who wants to nail them bad enough to falsify evidence.

I'm more worried when it turns up in extremely-high-profile cases like this one. It seems like the cost-to-value ratio goes way, way up in a politically-charged case, and I have very little confidence that effective countermeasures are in place. I know basically nothing about police digital evidence procedure, but what I do know about general cybersecurity in large institutions does not fill me with confidence.

I assume there's usually not a cop who wants to nail them bad enough to falsify evidence.

It further seems like the usual false evidence a beat cop would plant would be drugs.

Let me go a bit further: how confident are you that there's no child porn on your device right now? As far as I know, there's no exemption for things like browser caches, so merely having clicked a bad link once might make you a potential felon. For a more malicious scenario, what if somebody sends you an email attachment with a trivially-encrypted form of it? IANAL, but I think society has decided that having a certain pattern of bits anywhere in your computer makes you the worst kind of criminal, and I hold no faith that "common sense" will be applied at any stage of the legal process. Especially with tech-unsavvy judges. Double especially if they want to get you for political reasons.

You have to go through a pretty substantial amount of double checking for a conviction.

The prosecutor to even charge you in the first place, then convincing a grand jury (about 16-23) which while typically very permissive especially with just a majority rule often aren't a rubber stamp, and then generally a judge for pretrial and then a trial jury of 12 who typically all have to agree, and while rare you can also get a JNOV and then you can often still appeal upwards multiple times if you feel that strongly about your case.

While wrongful convictions can and do happen, it's often due to a combination of bad luck and a case/evidence being really complex. It is not perfect, it will never be perfect without forfeiting many of the freedoms and privacies we have (a price most citizens do not wish to pay), but we try really hard to make sure only the criminals are punished.

Many of the founding fathers believed strongly that the courts must be trusted to punish the criminals and that the innocent must be safe. Such as this from John Adams, where he believed that a society where the innocent don't feel safe for their innocence breaks down the very rule of law, and they were determined to err on the side of caution to keep free society secure and stable.

The reason is, because it’s of more importance to community, that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt should be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world, that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner, that it is not of much consequence to the public, whether they are punished or not. But when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, it is immaterial to me, whether I behave well or ill; for virtue itself, is no security. And if such a sentiment as this, should take place in the mind of the subject, there would be an end to all security what so ever.

Thanks for the reply, you clearly know more about the process than I do. I definitely lean more towards @Jiro's sensibilities, where the system should work by not criminalizing normal behaviour rather than not convicting normal behaviour (kinda, usually, unless we don't like you). But we live in a complex world, and I'm not a hardcore libertarian. I do understand that there are sometimes tradeoffs, and going after both producers AND consumers of child porn leads to less child abuse than the alternative.

Mind you, we're now in a world where AI can produce child porn without any victimization at all. So there's much less reason to criminalize certain patterns of bits. Will the laws adjust? I doubt it. The ratchet only goes one way. Even Rand Paul probably doesn't want his name on the "Free the Pedophiles" bill.

You have to go through a pretty substantial amount of double checking for a conviction.

"The law makes it possible to charge a lot of innocent people, but it's okay because the system will probably use discretion and not put them in jail" is a recipe for tyranny.

The usual scenario is where the government wants to get you anyway, either because they hate the actually-legal things you're doing, because some prosecutor or cop knows in his heart without evidence that you're guilty of some crime, or because finding you guilty will cover their asses after some kind of mistake, or because it would be good publicity to catch a criminal. Then the double-checking miraculously vanishes. Three felonies a day is a little exaggerated, but it only takes one felony to ruin your life.

There's no exemption but I'm guessing if you seriously didn't know, like one of your antis sent you an email that you ignored, then the charges won't stick and you cpuld probably get a jury nullification.

Also according to the fake news this guy admitted to liking the cheese pizza

My feel is that he was deliberately trying to commit suicide-by-cop.

Without any opinion on this particular case, given the level of tech access of government agencies, what are the odds that nobody is putting child porn files onto the devices of people they want to discredit?

I would put the odds at roughly zero, and it's something I've wondered about in numerous previous cases. Maybe we should now use child porn accusations as riders on otherwise-political indictments?

The facts of this event are increasingly looking like AI slop. It's all too on-the-nose. It would be bad writing in a TV show.

But we are told that this represents a small fraction of the left, only the most politically deranged. But a random person in the crowd didn't just cheer on Kirk's death, he was willing to risk arrest, possibly death (if you claim to have a gun during an active shooting, you can't really be surprised if you wind up shot.)

https://web.archive.org/web/20250911013626/https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/09/10/george-zinn-what-we-know-about-man/

Often, Gill said, Zinn was arrested on suspicion of trespassing. He said Zinn was politically conservative, leaning libertarian, and would “give me a hard time for being a Dem.” Zinn had a curiosity about politics and “almost every political event you can think of, there was always George somewhere in the background, listening.”

It's very, very common for conspiracy obsessed loons to have an idiosyncratic hodgepodge of beliefs that look like the far end of whatever side of the spectrum you find most distasteful.

Yeah it's like the whole 'somebody's entire political ideology is whether they voted Blue or Red at the latest election' thing when there's a large population who'll zigzag wildly across the border on vibes or random pet issues.

Not for nothing, but the Salt Lake Tribune is pretty notoriously one-sided in its political slant. Think New York Times or Washington Post, but without all the attempts at balance and editorial oversight. The article lists a bunch of things tying Zinn to republicans and sort of glazes over the things tying him to local Democrats. For example, the 2019 protest where he was arrested was a left-leaning protest over environmental issues. If I had to put money on it, I’d say he’s an opportunistic loon.

Even if the salt lake tribune is "one sided", the quote comes from.

Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill told The Tribune on Wednesday that his office had prosecuted Zinn, whose criminal history dates back to the ’80s, numerous times.

They have a lot of direct experience with this man, and it seems they've talked on numerous occasions. Unless you think the DA is just making it up out of thin air (and "no true conservative could ever do anything wrong ever" is not a rational argument). there's little reason to distrust it here.

I would also guess opportunistic loon, mainly posting it as a reply to the idea that Zinn was uncontroversially a representative of the left / acting as he did for specific leftist reasons.

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