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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 6, 2026

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Eh, I'm more than happy to make fun of anything - 9/11, rape, my own crippling need for validation from strangers (especially women).

But frankly I'm still pissed that he got killed and that the bloodthirsty circlejerk online and IRL went largely unpunished. The double-standard for violence between the right and left is untenable. I was, perhaps, even more furious with this than Trump's first assassination attempt, and I considered Kirk a bit of an edgelord previous to his murder.

There's been a minor news story recently after a teacher got well over a million bucks in settlement money, and there's a strong argument she shouldn't have gotten fired originally... and then you think about everyone who got fired and didn't get anywhere near the compensation or an order of magnitude under that, didn't get their jobs back, and didn't get the fawning political coverage, for something far less charged than saying the target of a political assassination (and his family!) deserved it.

But what really gets me is the dog that doesn't bark. Nicholas Decker's "When Must We Kill Them" (answer: when he wanted the substack revenue) wasn't accompanied by an involuntary commitment and a warrant; PopeHat's complaining about a Bluesky ban rather than the solitary confinement and involuntary medication after he called for people to kill Musk. Trace is back from his internship and has a lot to say, and can't quite get his dander up about the forum he built because TheMotte didn't respect the humanity of spree criminals and arsonists can't reflect on the humanity of a guy who talked. There's no serious investigation of all those Tesla arsons, nor are we getting lawsuits by people fired for supporting the Tesla arsons. Damore isn't independently wealthy; he got judges informing people the law required his speech be infringed. William Kelly probably got his job back, and if he got anything else it was a rounding error, for 25 USD in Rittenhouse donations.

We know what happens when people do things that progressive leadership oppose. It's not a surprise when it didn't happen here.

and then you think about everyone who got fired and didn't get anywhere near the compensation or an order of magnitude under that, didn't get their jobs back, and didn't get the fawning political coverage, for something far less charged than saying the target of a political assassination (and his family!) deserved it.

Welcome to the difference between public sector jobs and private sector jobs. https://www.fire.org/research-learn/what-free-speech-rights-do-government-employees-have

But what really gets me is the dog that doesn't bark. Nicholas Decker's "When Must We Kill Them" (answer: when he wanted the substack revenue) wasn't accompanied by an involuntary commitment and a warrant; PopeHat's complaining about a Bluesky ban rather than the solitary confinement and involuntary medication after he called for people to kill Musk.

Because their speech is protected from the government under the 1st amendment. They did not make a True Threat. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/true-threats/ https://www.fire.org/research-learn/how-and-why-true-threats-are-unprotected-speech

Their speech would not be protected from private actors, such as a future (private sector) employer or their friends or whoever else.

Welcome to the difference between public sector jobs and private sector jobs.

In case you missed the reference

Because their speech is protected from the government under the 1st amendment. They did not make a True Threat.

That stops a conviction (maybe). It does less than nothing against a warrant. Moderators here have been Very Concerned about warrants for speech that would easily avoid Brandenberg.

Moderators here, quite properly, have decided that they don't want fedposting on their forum. Even if it wasn't a legal risk to the mods, tolerating fedposting makes the forum less able to fulfil its stated purpose.

That doesn't mean that the mods receiving a warrant for a common or garden fedpost is particularly likely.

Amadan has specifically and repeatedly noted concerns about a possible warrant to Zorba as a major motivating factor. Whether it's "particularly likely" enough for you to let it count, it's clearly enough for an actual person who actually hosting a website to care -- but only for one political allegiance.

I don't get it. Is fedposting against the right allowed on this forum?

Nope.

But there's a lot of places it was tolerated, and not only did their management have no concerns about lawfare, more importantly, literally zero have shown up in the news having been hit by or having to resist that lawfare. There's no sequel to ARFCOM; there's no even a sequel to 'Discord Channel Shut Down for making fun of George Floyd'.

This isn't perfect information, just like there are limits to our ability to extrapolate from the lack of Brendan-Eich-facepunching aimed at modern day interleft-battles. It's still information.

I don't really understand what you are trying to say here.

First you say that fedposting is allowed only against figures on the right without lawfare. Then you provide a long post with examples of people saying kirk deserved to be shot and then say that no discord channels were shut down for this sort of behavior.

However, it's quite clear that saying that someone deserved to die is not fedposting. So the connection is unclear to me.

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