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Wildly? Half of the left wing said it was a good thing, and that he deserves it. (The other says its a bad thing, but also deplores what he said, thus negating the virtue of the first.) Virtuous centrists are a rounding error.
Maybe you are sincere. But there are certainly players that are not, and I am tired of listening to the snide and back-biting commentary of the partisans of the other side. You take it seriously because a man is dead because he was killed for speech, a right that he had every freedom to exercise. Nothing can diminish that, although you've certainly tried.
Comments celebrating his death were actually quite uncommon. They were so rare that the "Charlie's Murderers" site that was being passed around had to cast a web so wide for a decently sized list that it includes people saying things like I hope there isn't more violence in response, dark humor jokes, and comments literally saying it was awful he got shot. That's how far the digging had to go, it includes people who literally said it was bad the shooting happened but that they don't personally like Kirk and think it's hypocritical to care about him but not dead children. Outside of the generic internet edgelords who say edgy things about everything, there wasn't really much actual pro violence talk, and we can't take the edgy shitposters seriously given that they're edgy shitposters.
Of course if you choose to cast a ridiculously wide net of nonsense, you get a lot of fish. But most of them were not what was actually looked for. If you actually look at what political leaders were saying, anti violence was the general rhetoric from the left.
Come on. You're doing the thing that every edgy leftist is doing, and pretending that their not-so-subtle mockery wasn't concealing their glee at getting him. It does not convince, no more than 'in minecraft' is a defense against conspiracy. No comedian ever went on television and said that George Floyd was probably killed by a commie, and certainly no con was going around saying he deserved to die because he punched a pregnant woman (which is something he actually did.)
And yet, Kirk's assassination is deemed his own fault because of some amorphous harm to leftist causes, or something.
I'm not stupid. I can see the winks and the smiles. Your argument is unconvincing and insults the intelligence of anyone credulous enough to extend you the benefit of the doubt. The people who called him a Nazi have blood on their hands. People who use that word to rile up extremists to kill their political opposition have blood on their hands. If this isn't stoastic terrorism, it is at the very least 'turbulent priest' levels of wishcasting.
It is not too far to suggest that you have some infinitesimal part of his blood on your hands.
"If I substitute what you're saying with this imaginary thing you didn't say, it's just like you said the imaginary thing"
Yeah I guess so.
Damn, not only are words dangerous they can kill too?
Not a thing. It's never been a thing. You can tell because it's a modern invention for something that if it was real, should have been an established concept already. It's what gets said when people can't claim incitement (a legal term with actual standards) but still wanna whine about name calling or insults.
If you can't see that the memes about Kirk postmortem come from the desire to rile up the genuinely aggrieved right - that you stubbornly insist that the fig leaf is an burka - then there's no point to arguing with you. We simply don't share the same reality. You may skirt the rules of the Motte in doing what you're doing, but I refuse to let you bait me any further. Even if I did write a well-written, precisely worded argument, you'd just duck out and say that you didn't have time in your busy life to respond.
I'll merely reiterate what FCfromSSC said already, and add on: it's easy to win arguments when you run around the field with the goalposts. Or, in other words, you have already contradicted your past positions, and it's hard to see if you have any principles whatsover.
Yes I live in the world where the things I say mean the things I say, and you live in the world where you can just imagine stuff and it's as equally representative of me as my actual words. What meaningful conversation can be had then?
You literally called me a Nazi. Did you meant that when you said that? Here, I'll link it again for your convenience.
So, taking this new principle of yours you seem to have found, when you said this, you meant it, honestly and earnestly. What did you mean by that? What could you possibly mean? Please, explain yourself. Elaborate in detail. Let's suppose that you're right. I am a fascist. If a leftist radical killed me, would you be overtly bothered? Would you engage in the same minimizations and evasions you're doing here? Please. Do clarify, if you have the time.
Surely, if Kirk the nonnazi is a matter of humorous anecdote, an actual Nazi would be quite funny!
For I live in the real world too, and I don't have to take your prepositions naively on their face. You twist yourself into pretzels trying to win the argument. If you mean what you say you mean, and not just as political polemic, I must hold you to account. I asked you this question almost a year ago, and you've never answered. You've never apologized, either. I'd take that as well, because in my reality, calling someone who isn't a Nazi a Nazi is an insult.
Go ahead. I'm waiting.
You said
Do you still agree it's an understandable reaction to be a Nazi? I live in the world where I take your words as you say them.
Now maybe you were just joking and I misunderstood it, fair enough. Common autism thing after all, exacerbated by the internet. But the wording doesn't seem intended as humor.
"The map is not the territory." OP's point is that they aren't going to dispute your label of "Nazi". You are attempting to change their behavior by extending the label of "Nazi" to cover them and in doing so tar their behavior by association with "Nazis". They are saying they would rather accept the label than change their behavior to suit you. You are now doubling down on the shaming attempt by trying to reinterpret this as a move towards the more agreed upon definition of the label rather than the refusal to bow to your shady tactics it is.
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