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Yesssss, one of us, one of us.
Pretti was the obnoxious child running up to much bigger kids, putting his finger 0.0000001mm away from their faces, and chanting "I'm not touching you" until the bigger kid punched him in the face. After which point, having accomplished precisely what he set out to do, Pretti cried that he was hit and demanded that the bigger kid be punished because technically he didn't deserve to be punched by the rules as he understands them1. And yes, technically we don't want to encourage children to punch other, smaller, more obnoxious children. But sometimes, as a parent, you have to play dumb. "I didn't see anything, just learn to get along."
We, as a nation, need to play dumb. Let however many of these adult children face consequences (even unfair ones) for the first time in their entire lives. I wasn't there, and neither were you. I didn't see anything. Now go learn to get along with ICE.
Devils Advocate:
Can't we apply this to other killings? Charlie Kirk was engaging in calls to coordinate state violence against his out group (ie running on political issues that would negatively effect the alphabet folks). He was destroying the fabric of our society for profit and fame. He technically is allowed to do that by the first amendment, but it is rules-lawyering. We as a nation should "just play dumb" when his outgroup coordinates violence directly against him in response, because influencers profiting on division and tribal polarization of our society is bad. Let the adult children face the consequences of their rhetoric.
If you can find a clip of Charlie Kirk spitting on a woke snowflake and then roundhouse kicking her car causing enough damage that it is no longer street legal, then I will agree with this take.
The urge to create this in Sora is strong...
This is what I am talking about. In the OPs metaphor, Kirk is analogous those middle-school mean girls who go spread rumors, sick the teachers on you, maliciously turn people against you. All without actually personally inflicting violence on you. Their motives are to get fame, popularity, social cred, friends, all very banal human things. Are you the sort of person that when someone fights back violently, for being bullied, you punish them because those mean girls weren't physically violent? Or are you the adult that "plays dumb" because those mean girls need to face the consequences of their social violence?
If you are the former, then a lot of people on the right complain about this zero-tolerance fighting problem and how it punishes people for standing up for themselves. If you are the later then the Kirk situations is just that scaled up with far deadlier consequences.
Even if this were true, "sticks and stones" is much more typical advice on dealing with meangirls than "it's OK if you want to shoot them in the neck"?
Probably because violence against mean girls has been so restricted that once something pops past the threshold it is insanely more violent than it should be. This is an argument that some earlier low level of violence probably would have prevented later lethal violence.
It is hilariously a very feminine argument that mean girls should just be ignored. You ever see the videos of female privilege to mouth off colliding with someone who doesn't recognize it? Maybe we really do live in a longhouse.
You are actually advocating for violence as a response to mean words?
Fascinating -- I do agree that men tend to be politer to each other because violence is always on the table -- but historically the accepted response to unacceptable speech is a challenge to violence, not skipping straight to the party.
If the dude had challenged Kirk to pistols at dawn in defence of his boygirl-friend's honour that would be fine with me -- but sneaking around to get yourself a sucker-punch opportunity is not in fact a masculine activity.
A challenge to violence is definitely the preferred approach but it is not always going to happen. Sometimes you just get punched. I'd argue that skipping straight to violence is because a challenge to violence is not legal and would be giving away the opportunity.
I'm openly unsure how to square this honor cultures being absolutely shit places to live.
As a government policy? Absolutely not. As a social reality? Yes with caveats.
When is the last time you just got punched? Even in a barfight something like "you want a piece of me?" is usually de rigueur IME, and "stepping outside" is a real thing...
Notably this... actually is still pretty legal in most jurisdictions; "mutual combat" is also a real thing, and even in places where the courts would technically not accept it, a fight in which both participants were on board is highly likely to be ignored by authorities so long as it doesn't get too far out of hand.
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