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PaperclipPerfector  3d ago (text post)   16043 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 26, 2026

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One was gunned down in completely cold blood whilst the other was deliberately trying to make an already hectic and confusing environment yet more stressful essentially entirely for the purpose of generating videos of bad activities by making them more likely.

"One was killed advocating and coordinating political action to remove the individual liberty and bodily autonomy of minorities while the other was executed in cold blood trying save a woman who was pepper sprayed and protect his neighbors from a violent authoritarian regime"

The inability to exercise some cognitive empathy or minimally some epistemic humility is a sign of being a tribal partisan.

There is no possible argument for the Charlie Kirk killing being in anything but cold blood with an abundance of forethought. Even if you are maximally pushing the 'he was doing harm through espousing his ideology', you have to acknowledge that it was a planned assassination from somebody who sat down and rationally thought through the plan. I don't think the Pretti killing was necessarily good or justified, but it was a spur of the moment decision from somebody in an inherently stressful and chaotic situation.

I'm not disputing the details of a premeditated assassination vs a spur of the moment decision.

I'm arguing the meta level lens of the metaphor around turning a blind eye to immature child-like behavior in adults when it has deadly consequences and how it applies to both sides evenly in ways that gore both sides sacred cows/martyrs.

But discourse about government isn’t child-like behavior. Go around kicking SUVs is child like behavior.

You seem to be making a category error.

But discourse about government isn’t child-like behavior.

I, at least in this thread, am not really discussing government behavior. Government is blunt instrument and this is a problem that requires a scalpel. I have no desire to put a loaded gun on the government's table for use in restricting speech.

Go around kicking SUVs is child like behavior.

Absolutely, Pretti/Anti-ICE movement acts like a child, deliberately attempting to toe the provocation line and claim injustice when they get punch back. WhiningCoil's argument is that we should should ignore it to teach the left a lesson. I think this idea can be applied to other behavior as well, that he might really hate. Like Kirk's mean-girl like behavior.

It is a meta-argument around people trying to abuse the rules-as-written but wanting to avoid the natural consequences of people recognizing that as defection and responding/punishing it.

You described both actions as child like. I’m saying as a society we’ve decided one is child like (ie kicking cars and spitting on people) and the other (political speech) is not child like. So you have a category error.

So Charlie Kirk is not entitled to his beliefs due to them potentially being against the absolute maximum freedoms for other people, or is simply not allowed to advocate for his beliefs in public if it may result in any modification of society that resembles that?

To be fair, Charlie Kirk said Biden was a "corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America." He was generally pretty decent to people and was willing to agree to disagree, but there's evidence of him occasionally making a controversial comment that would concern moderates and really piss the left off.

There are no direct calls for violence, but I'm pretty sure he made a few comments that kept the political temperature nice and high.

The point here is that we see extralegal justifications from both sides. I still think the Pretti shooting wasn't justified, but the extralegal justification for his shooting gets more arguable when a video of him behaving like a leftist agitator surfaces. People hate this type of person, especially here.

He can advocate for what ever he wants. If his beliefs are around restricting the negative rights of others then he can also face the consequences of what happens when people don't want their rights restricted.

The government should not be in the business of restricting speech, but people are allowed to respond to coordination of violence with violence. To do otherwise is just letting the fantasy of rabbinically-inclined and wordcells to replace reality

He can advocate for what ever he wants. If his beliefs are around restricting the negative rights of others then he can also face the consequences of what happens when people don't want their rights restricted.

The government should not be in the business of restricting speech, but people are allowed to respond to coordination of violence with violence. To do otherwise is just letting the fantasy of rabbinically-inclined and wordcells to replace reality

Please let us all know how you feel about Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing. After all, he was fighting against the government trying to restrict his right to keep and bear arms.

I'm pro-ish... I'm not sure this is the gotcha you think it is.

Yes but any elaboration at all of your concept means that essentially any speech that could be considered objectionable and/or catalyzing a group could be responded to via assassination.

Would you be equally comfortable with pro-choice advocates being assassinated due to directly advocating for something that could be equivocated to murder?

I'll admit its still cooking as a concept. I used to be much more of a free speech maximalist. I need to work on defining the boundaries a bit better. But to me this is a concept that I think is more accepted that people give credit for.

If you are at a bar and start mouthing off towards someone, they might enforce reality on you, through a punch to the face. I think people have gotten too used to the idea of words as a sacred inviolable medium and naturally that allows the verbally intelligent to exploit that to get away with things. Sometime you need to punch that person so they understand there is consequences to their rhetoric. Seems pretty basic. People have seem to have forgotten that and it has escalated to a point it is no longer just a punch.

That sounds an awful lot like you can murder anyone you want as long as they're a political enemy whose agenda can be framed in terms of 'rights' however nebulously. (All of them can.)

I am reminded of the activist who told me with tears in his eyes that throwing a David Bowie themed party constituted violence against the victims of sexual assault.

Moreover are you prepared to accept that, since you are clearly advocating for violence against those you disapprove of, it is entirely valid to gun down you yourself on the same principle?

With regards to the anti-ICE movement, it is very clearly an organised militia and no sane country could or should permit such behaviour to continue.

Well actually negative rights is a pretty defined concept. Coordinating violence is almost always used to remove or restrict NRs from people.

I am reminded of the activist who told me with tears in his eyes that throwing a David Bowie themed party constituted violence against the victims of sexual assault.

What negative rights is this David Bowie themed party removing from SA victims?

it is very clearly an organized militia and no sane country could or should permit such behavior to continue.

The 2nd amendment very clearly is designed, in part, for an organized militia, so this is about an unamerican statement as it comes. If anything the anti-ICE movement should avail themselves of their 2nd Amendment rights and have armed protestors protecting their right to protest. Obnoxious as they are.

Yes, but the problem is that anything can be defined as a negative right given sufficient desire. In this case it was the right not to be deeply harmed and re-traumatised by the rape culture inherent in celebrating the life of a man who once slept with an underage groupie (yes, that was the literal argument). Trans people have the right not to be genocided by people using the wrong pronoun. Etc. etc.

The 2nd amendment very clearly is designed, in part, for an organized militia, so this is about an unamerican statement as it comes.

Fair's fair, you got me. I'm a Brit who regards the American bill of rights as being broadly an insane document drafted by some intelligent but rather blinkered revolutionaries who could not conceive of an America 100/200/300/400 years old. It worked sort of okay for ruling a small number of extremely patriotic, highly confederated Anglo Americans but survived beyond that through a combination of unusual geography and very selective reading and interpretation, which is the Federal Government imposes limits on speech every day, why it interferes in commerce, etc.

None of which is a refutation of your point, of course. I do note that said militia would be fairly unlikely to support 2nd amendment rights as pursued by say the NRA.

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He can advocate for what ever he wants. If his beliefs are around restricting the negative rights of others then he can also face the consequences of what happens when people don't want their rights restricted.

Says the "radical centrist" who doesn't think we are in a civil war. Yeah man, sometimes if your speech in an abstract sense might harm others in some abstract way, you just get assassinated in cold blood. Whatever. I'm a centrist.

And this is how they lie. Launder their radicalism in under the radar as "just being normal".

No.

Yeah man, sometimes if your speech in an abstract sense might harm others in some abstract way

I did not follow the guy, but looking at his Wikipedia page, he advocated the following:

  • Banning trans women from using women's locker rooms
  • A ban on trans gender-affirming care ("We must ban trans-affirming care — the entire country...")
  • The right for people to burn Pride and BLM flags.
  • Not wearing masks during COVID
  • Criminalising abortion

I have worded the above very carefully, to reflect stuff he literally said (as opposed to things that could be reasonably inferred, like "I believe marriage is one man, one woman" -> ban gay marriage)

The mechanism is not "abstract". He directly advocated for society to do things that would deprive certain people of (negative) rights. Nor is the harm "abstract" - it is a form of harm to not let trans women use the women's locker rooms, prevent them from getting hormones, not letting LGBT people live in a society where no one burns pride flags, etc

This logic cuts both ways, e.g. the trans activist's words attempt to deprive him of the right to live in a cisheteronormative society. But this logic is sound (both ways)

I'm not really going anywhere with this, because this sort of thinking basically ends with endless conflict. I can't think of a better practical option than just tabooing this sort of inference. But I do want to point out, for the sake of epistemic clarity, that it is not as simple as you claim.

Notice the "Radical" in radical centrist, I ain't laundering shit. But nice stupid word game.

I like most motteposters am heterodox as hell.

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