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Notes -
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.
Kirk peacefully went and spoke with people in order to change their minds and promote his message.
You're equating that to someone interfering with federal officers while armed, multiple times, while shouting, "assault me."
It would be laughable if there were any humor in it.
There's humor in everything, you just need to look for it.
I am not claiming Kirk violently assaulted people, and I never have. There might be some sort of masculine honor in that at least. Instead, he advocated for the state to go inflict violence on people, he advocated for a return to laws and norms that would physically hurt his out group, he engaged in running political campaigns to do that. He knowingly kept the temperature of political discourse high and cultivated a following out of these efforts that provided him with a very very lavish lifestyle/worth. And he was effective in doing so. Apparently his out-group can predict the future better than you can, they felt this future violence, real or imagined. And they decided to act, to do something about it.
Act like a mean-girl, and maybe someone is going to violently attack you for it. Profit off of stirring tribal hate and division and maybe society should "Turn a blind eye" when some of that hate and violence finds you.
You started all this by saying “Devil’s Advocate”, so do you really believe it was fair to kill Kirk or is this still just a provocation to prove a point? Because it is sounding like genuine belief
It is an application of the original argument applied to a topic I've been thinking about. "Fair" is very load bearing and I am unsure if I believe it was "fair" to kill Kirk and it definitely wasn't morally right.
The idea I've been thinking about: mean-girl behavior in adult politics is not sacrosanct. Free Speech is wholly a more pure thing and tarnishing it by association with the afore mentioned behavior degrades it. Exploitation of words by mean girls to coordinate social/political violence does not make them untouchable just because they aren't directly engaging in violence.
The ramification of said concept are still being thought through.
I still don’t understand what mean girl behavior is other than policies you disagree with. I could easily frame any leftist figure as engaging in equally mean girl behaviors from my POV. Obviously ii understand your broader point, if he were literally advocating for the government to start throwing trannies into gas chambers then I agree, the distinction between this and doing violence directly would arguably be quite thin, but I don’t think he was doing this any more than pro-immigration activists are doing White genocide to me, even if I disagree with then
Mean Girl behavior: Feminine violence? Like I said I'm still fermenting the concept. It's not just policies I disagree with, I'm not a lefty and probably agreed with Kirk on things, but I still think he was engaging in a sort of Feminine violence. This "I'm not violating the letter of the law" concept of just being rhetorically intelligent enough to imply the violence he wanted to inflict through policy applied by the state, not him. Feminine violence is never directly violent, it applies that violence socially, or through an authoritative figure.
I can easily frame much of the left as engaging in feminine violence. I think it is super applicable. It grates on me, I hate it. I hate it so much I voted for Trump in 24. Doesn't mean I don't hate in when the right does it too.
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