domain:abc.net.au
faceh
3m ago
There is definitely a lot to be said about proportionality in defense.
If somehow pokes you in the chest with their finger, even with anger, you should probably (read: DEFINITELY) not shoot them.
They shove you, you should probably not punch their lights out.
But either of those acts is "Proof via demonstration" that they do not respect your bodily autonomy, and consider it fair to physically engage in violence.
That's what makes it 'justifiable' to return the same to them, as far as I'm concerned.
"minimal force necessary" works as a limiting factor, but I don't know that it works as a justification in and of itself.
faceh
3m ago
"unless they use it against me first" is adding a special exemption.
Not really.
I'm not conferring any privilege upon myself that I think they don't have. There is no special 'quality' that I possess that grants me some moral authority over them.
I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt, in fact. I do not believe myself entitled to enact violence on others without justification. I assume that other people ALSO believe this... until proven otherwise.
When I think of "Special exemption" I mean something like "I'm white and you're black, therefore I'm allowed to beat you." (see: the history of slavery in the U.S.). "I'm a woman and you're a man, therefore you can't hit me back."
Creating a category that you count yourself in that permits you to do things to people outside that category.
I'm quite simply not doing anything like that. "I'm defending myself and you're attacking" doesn't rely on the qualities of the people involved. Simply a question of whether one is doing it to the other without 'justification.'
I could admit there's an amount of social construction going on here, but I think reasonable minds can reach a LOT of agreement as to what constitutes 'aggressive' violence, simply based on what you would agree you DON'T want others doing to you.
Capital_Room
rather dementor-like
3m ago
I still think of myself as a socialist, perhaps less so recently, and I want to shake this person and ask what good this kind of statement actually does for our cause.
Well, to quote one trans activist's video:
You don’t have to like violence, but I’m confused at how you thought the revolution would be magically bloodless.
srf0638
4m ago
Strongly endorse all this, but re:
Inevitably, this rabbit hole includes taking the plunge and roasting green coffee beans for your own consumption
I'll add that this step entails the initial promise of freshly roasted beans on demand for the (low) cost of green coffee and amortized equipment costs, but also the dawning realization that you will have to spend a lot more time and money than you think to match the quality of product you can get from specialty roasters. Not to say it isn't 100% worth it, at least at the level of hobby roasting and freshly but not especially artfully roasted beans, but it's something to consider.
srf0638
9m ago
Try making a few cups with bottled water and see if you like it better, or at least that's what I did.
In response to one of your other comments, Sweet Maria's used to say that the blade grinders were good enough for pourover, and I'd say that one will at least pay for itself while you decide if you want to spend any more money on the hobby.
07mk
15m ago
"Self-Defense" is actually quite simple. "I will not use violence against any person... UNLESS they use it against me first." Both defense and offense are 'using violence.' But generally speaking, offense is the one who initiated, and defense is the person responding to it.
This is a tangential point, I think, but I don't think of self defense this way. I see violence in self defense as justified not because of some sort of reciprocity around someone marking themselves as an enemy combatant when they initiate violence on you, but rather because some form of violence is almost always the minimal force necessary to prevent (further) damage on you when someone is enacting violence on you.
This is one reason why, even if the whole 6-degrees-of-Kevin-Bacon-logic of Kirk enacting "violence" on oppressed minorities or whatever were accepted, I fully reject that that would justify physical violence against him. Presuming that everything every one of Kirk's haters are 100% true about their characterization of Kirk's words, physical violence is still several orders of magnitude greater than the minimum force necessary to prevent the government from enacting the violence that Kirk's words would eventually cause many months and years down the line.
Tanista
15m ago
I feel like this should be my handle at this point but: It's Just Twitter.
Remember learn to code? No? Why would you?
What sounds like innocuous career advice is, in many cases, part of targeted harassment. The phrase “learn to code” was added to Know Your Meme four days ago, where it’s described as “an expression used to mock journalists who were laid off from their jobs, encouraging them to learn software development as an alternate career path.” Part of the Know Your Meme entry explains that those posting the phrase “believe those news organizations have been shitting on blue-collar workers for years.” Additionally, writer Talia Lavin posted screenshots from 4chan that suggest the “learn to code” tweets were a targeted attack by the notorious online message board. “Learn to code” is more than internet schadenfreude. It’s also the most recent rallying cry of an anti-media faction.
There was word Twitter was taking down “learn to code” tweets because they fall under the umbrella of abusive content, but a Twitter spokesperson clarified its position in an email: “It’s more nuanced than what was initially reported. Twitter is responding to a targeted harassment campaign against specific individuals—a policy that’s long been against the Twitter Rules.” Twitter also directed me to its policy on targeted harassment, which prohibits “behavior that encourages others to harass or target specific individuals or groups with abusive behavior.” I also asked Twitter whether it was able to identify coordinated efforts directed at the mass of recently laid-off writers, or whether it could tell where those efforts were coming from, but the company did not respond as of publishing.
They broke any attempt to coordinate what is basically a mean-spirited joke (assuming it was coordinated in the first place - if it's anything like reddit and "brigading" there's a lot of crying wolf). No way would they allow this sort of thing. Elon not only allows it, he signal-boosts it.
YMMV on which is better.
Shrike
16m ago
What is the clear evidence that an afterlife belief is instrumental? Afghanistan of the 90s and before was possibly the most theistic country in the world, and all Muslims believe in an afterlife. Bacha Bazi is an Afghan costume that coexisted alongside Islamic belief for a millennia until the Taliban banned it.
What I am suggesting is that without the belief in the afterlife, that Taliban would never have done what they did, which makes it instrumental. The fact that other people believed in the afterlife is immaterial to the question of whether or not belief in the afterlife was instrumental for the Taliban.
But if you like, we can take another angle: we've already discussed (and agreed) that religious people give more to charity. Surely belief in an afterlife is at play in at least some individual cases?
This argument falls short because the Christians who do not have dependents also don’t give all superfluous possessions to the poor, neither do the wealthy Christians with dependents usually live austerely after providing for their relatives.
"Give all superfluous possessions to the poor" as such isn't really a clear Christian teaching (which the exception of some sects, I think) so, again, if we are judging Christians by their own standards I don't really see the issue here. (Might be different for the specific sects).
I think criticizing Christians who do no charitable works at all (and I am sure such Christians do exist) is fair. But also they are (arguably) not supposed to be ostentatious about donating, so it can be tricky.
we see condemnation in the Church Fathers about nearly every conspicuous expression of wealth, even rings.
Sure, but setting aside the fact that the Church Fathers said a lot of things, many of which many Christians do not hold to today (unless they are in Scripture, they are not considered canonical, although they are often considered helpful) criticizing displays of wealth is not the same thing as saying wealthy people will go to hell (as you seem to suggest above).
then it should follow that those who believe in the greatest reward imaginable for all of eternity should be able to put up with a few decades of poverty. I’m at a loss for why this wouldn’t happen unless the belief is not quite fully believed.
Well, first off, this does happen. There are nuns and monks and religious orders and missionaries. Those all exist. There are still people being persecuted and even executed for their faith. That actually happens. But secondly you seem to think that Scripture says "be poor and you get into heaven" which isn't the case. Really, your soteriology isn't in line with what most major Christian congregations teach.
the parable of the rich man and Lazarus...Luke 12:33...Acts 4-5
In all of these cases I think you are stripping out some context. Your gloss of Acts 5 is misleading; it's very clear from the text that Ananias died after Paul's rebuke because of dishonesty – here's Acts 5, versus 1 - 10:
But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, And kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet. But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God. And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things. And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him. And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in. And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much. Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out. Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.
There's probably a good argument that Luke 12:33 ("Sell what you have and give alms; provide yourselves money bags which do not grow old, a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches nor moth destroys.") applies to Christians broadly, particularly viewed in light of 12:15 (" Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.") and it's often viewed this way. But we should also consider the context of Luke 12 is that Christ is preparing the apostles for persecution (see e.g. Luke 12:11 "And when they bring you unto the synagogues, and unto magistrates, and powers, take ye no thought how or what thing ye shall answer, or what ye shall say: For the Holy Ghost shall teach you in the same hour what ye ought to say.")
In my experience Protestants do take Luke 12:33 seriously, but not literally – that is, they do believe (and act as if they believe) that giving alms is good, and giving possessions to charity is good, and stores up rewards in heaven, but they also don't try to liquidate everything that they have immediately to give alms – perhaps because they often have or aspire to have families, perhaps for the same reason they don't expect to be taken into the synagogues and questioned, perhaps in some cases as you suggest because they don't really believe, perhaps because they have reasoned their way out of the application of the verse through various means. (The standard line in Protestant denominations, I think, is that "you should tithe.") And certainly it's quite arguable that while the principle of giving alms is good, the context of the passage suggests the specific instruction was meant to be acted on by the Apostles. Now, maybe you don't find this persuasive! And maybe Christians who would argue that are wrong and you are correct! But contextualizing it like that is not crazy.
As for the story of Lazarus, I think the closest suggestion to rich = hell is this line:
Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.
A full reading of the parable might lead one to wonder if his sin was being insanely wealthy, or not doing alms to the beggars outside of his gate. Considering that the moral of the parable seems to be as follows – "And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead." – it seems likely that the actual thrust of the parable was aimed at the Pharisees (see Luke 16:14 - 18) who would not hear Christ's message even after His resurrection. That doesn't mean that there's no theological information about wealth here, of course, but again the context needs to be kept in mind.
To step back for a moment, I think what's happening here writ large is that you're taking a (not necessarily incoherent) reading of Scripture – which I do think some Christians share – and then insisting that all Christians are hypocrites for not sharing it. (Notably absent from your collection of verses: the many verses in Scripture that celebrate accumulating wealth and offer concrete advice on how to do so.) Setting aside the fact that your methodology here is unmistakably Protestant (and thus your root assumptions are not shared by many Christians!) it's just true that Christians' reading of Scripture and what it means varies considerably and that it might be more parsimonious to assume that most Christians simply do not share your interpretation of Scripture, rather than insisting that most Christians are hypocrites. Certainly (although a great many Christians are hypocrites) it's a bit more charitable, I think.
I want to circle up on this entire thing by saying, firstly, apologies for the late reply (I've been busy, but I found our conversation thought-provoking and I appreciate that!)
Secondly, to circle back on the broader point – you've been arguing that nobody is convinced by Scripture in the Year of Our Lord 2025. But the reasoning you offer suggests at best that few people believe this. (Which some Christians would agree with emphatically, citing Matthew 7:14!) Moreover, your original point was that it's harder today to believe than it was in the past. But all of your arguments (that Christians don't truly believe in the teachings of their religion because they engage in conspicuous displays of wealth) were true throughout most of the history of the Church. The problem of hypocrites and pretend believers was real even in the 1st century, and the accumulation of wealth and power by the Church over the course of history – which you seem to suggest is downstream of a lack of conviction on the part of Christians due to modernity – happened long before modernity and the scientific method as we currently would identify them posed an ideological threat to Christianity as such.
Pulpachair
16m ago
Does the analogy still hold if it’s your son who dynamites the house because he is seeking your approval?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
17m ago
Sure, I can agree with that. If one is to engage with people who are cheering upon the news of this murder, it is more accurate (and more productive!) to respond along the lines of "hey, it's not really ok to be happy someone got killed" than "hey, it's not ok to support assassination".
Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty. Tolerance is a social norm because it allows different people to live side-by-side without being at each other’s throats. It means that we accept that people may be different from us, in their customs, in their behavior, in their dress, in their sex lives, and that if this doesn’t directly affect our lives, it is none of our business. But the model of a peace treaty differs from the model of a moral precept in one simple way: the protection of a peace treaty only extends to those willing to abide by its terms. It is an agreement to live in peace, not an agreement to be peaceful no matter the conduct of others. A peace treaty is not a suicide pact.
[...]
No side, after all, will ever accept a peace in which their most basic needs are not satisfied — their safety, and their power to ensure that safety, most of all. The desire for justice is a desire that we each have such mechanisms to protect ourselves, while still remaining in the context of peace: that the rule of law, for example, will provide us remedy for breaches without having to entirely abandon all peace. Any “peace” which does not satisfy this basic requirement, one which creates an existential threat to one side or the other, can never hold.
If we interpreted tolerance as a moral absolute, or if our rules of conduct were entirely blind to the situation and to previous actions, then we would regard any measures taken against an aggressor as just as bad as the original aggression. But through the lens of a peace treaty, these measures have a different moral standing: they are tools which can restore the peace.
Right-wingers perceive left-wingers to be approving of and encouraging the murder of people like them. This is because a lot of leftists objectively, unquestionably are doing so, and a lot of other leftists are doing things that are arguably doing that, or in some cases flirting with it, or in some cases might be perceived as flirting with it, etc. down the chain of increasing abstraction.
I think you are probably correct that in at least some cases, celebratory leftists perceive Kirk's death as some crazy random happenstance like a lightning strike; I have not yet observed the limits of human self-delusion. I am not sure what can be done for such people, any more than I have a solution to the tide pod challenge. Some people apparently need to learn the hard way.
100ProofTollBooth
Dumber than a man, but faster than a dog.
19m ago
An army-navy surplus store jacket is fine because it's not indicative of going out of your way to find a particular article of clothing. You're an outdoorsy or vaguely military-style-ish kind of guy. Rolling down to your local surplus store happens in the same trip as buying a drill at Loews / Home Depot.
But if you're rocking Crye Precision gear at the local fudd Rod and Hunt club firing range, you're fucking up. Patel didn't go full autist and like, render a salute and call for 'present arms', but his valhall-ing is pretty the same as the guy who shows you his 6.5 creedmoor while saying, "Yeah, it's actually the only round SEAL snipers use now. The rest just don't cut it"
Then I suppose a tie has lost all association with Croatian mercenary light cavalry from the thirty years war.
Do go on!
KingOfTheBailey
20m ago
Fair point, that's unfortunately where the escalating cycle of "punch XYZs"/"everyone I disagree with in an XYZ" ends up.
oats_son
22m ago
I think a lot of these posts are missing the horror that I am feeling.
I personally listened to this guy debating all kinds of people in the background of other things I was doing. I was impressed by how there were very few below-the-belt attacks on the interlocutors, and multiple bouts of praise from Charlie Kirk for the debaters being brave enough to step up and be material for content. I wished I was as skilled as he at setting up such angles of argument so quickly.
When I heard he was shot, it was like I was punched. I couldn't believe it. I still can't believe he's dead. It got even more unbelievable with the second video showing blood flowing out of him like a fountain. I wept upon seeing this. This murder is the closest thing to pure evil that I've seen in my life, ala No Country for Old Men. It makes absolutely no sense, he was making arguments that I genuinely agreed with, he was so young, he had kids, he was a good Christian, you've almost certainly heard all this before. He was upholding the values of this country by engaging in such public discourse. Democracy does not die in darkness, it dies in broad daylight in front of thousands of people, in front of its family, viewed by millions online, everyone powerless to do anything as it bleeds out.
None of what happened afterwards was what I expected at all. Immediately, celebrations, dark ironic pitiless humor, and hideous one-liners with no thought put into them started everywhere. It was official, the Hermann Cain Award logic about when it's acceptable to dance on the graves of your enemies extends about as far as certain leftists want it to. If you have certain values, and you express them, there are tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of people who would love to see you get decorated with your own blood, watch you exsanguinate, a chunk of mineral tearing through your vital structures, turning you into a pile of meat instead of a man. Your entire life will be characterized by years-old quotes picked out of a mountain of words you've spoken over the course of your short life.
Today, after gathering enough stock of public reactions, I've come to an even more disturbing conclusion: there are even more people out there who will run cover even for this awful behavior. Here's a small collection of everything I've witnessed: They're all bots. There aren't that many of them. They're only online. It's because of Trump's escalation of rhetoric. It's because this was where this would lead for the kind of life he lived. He was a white supremacist. He wanted gays to be stoned to death. He accepted gun deaths and became one, such a natural consequence. The shooter wasn't one of us. He was a groyper. We can talk about cooling the rhetoric once the 2026 elections happen. Until those go well, it's perfectly understandable why people talk this way. Let's talk about something else, let's talk about January 6th again. Let's talk about Epstein. Let's talk about the Minnesota lawmakers. Anything but this topic. Even many of the moderate lefty politicians couldn't muster up much other than "political violence is bad", saving face in an easy way. Almost none of them did the difficult thing that Gavin Newsom or Cenk Uygur did and confronted the real issue at no small cost to their own image. Some of them even used it to forward their own agendas. AOC put something out in favor of gun control. That's right: we shoot you, and then we use your death to try to convince you to lay down your issues and let us win. Ilhan Omar doesn't believe that anyone genuinely liked the man or is being genuine. After seeing all the downplaying, I have no doubts that she will lose barely any support, because it's tacitly approved.
So many of my own friends, too. I've tried to reach across the aisle for years. I've even discounted some of my true beliefs to coax out some admission that I really wanted to see. I've always tried to model fairness in my political arguments. It got me nothing. All that goodwill, swallowed up, like water falling on the dusty ground.
I thought such a clear case of senseless murder would make people snap out of the usual sanewashing, but no, and in fact, there's so much on this website, too, even among people who are much better than the median social media poster at understanding arguments and taking context into account. I am incredibly sad that there's actually nothing that could happen that could get people to agree with each other without clearing their throat before doing it. The entire internet is a /r/watchpeopledie thread. There's video, and then there's the awful comments under the video. There's no good ending to this. It's painful. This discourse is a grueling journey to the ugliest end of the country imaginable. This discourse is the cumulative societal hangover from more than ten years of a cancerous outgrowth of the most toxic kind of politics, and just like a regular hangover, the world doesn't stop for you. You have to go back into work in the morning and do it all over again. It's unbearable. I was not willing to believe a large portion of the other side was evil up until now. I hope someone cooler-headed than me can make some headway on this issue somehow, because I will go insane if I think about this any more.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
23m ago
Even if we assume that the clergy member in question is a Catholic priest, the seal of confession only applies to things said during the sacrament. If you go up to a priest after mass and say "I just murdered someone", he could report you as that wasn't said during the sacrament of reconciliation.
Charlie was definitely in the political game in a way that gramps wasn't
This is true, but the celebrators don't say he deserves it because he was in politics, but specifically because of his opinions.
Effectively grandpa is only safe because they don't know his name. You can't share a society with people who hold this belief system. Not one where you're free anyhow.
The left needed to purge people who believe this, or widespread violence becomes inevitable. And I've been saying this since before this forum existed. Too late now.
TheDemonRazgriz
28m ago
Huh. I think I remember that guy actually, but not the FLCL iconography. Thanks
Soteriologian
29m ago
This argument is the radical claim that one cannot store wealth
I think taking an economic view makes it easy to miss the forest for the trees. Always look to more fundamental aspects like thermodynamics and biology first, then bend your economic model around that.
With this perspective, what’s really happening is that the supply and demand of labor is changing over time: an aging population is a population where labor is increasing in value, since there are more old people needing care and fewer people available to do the caring.
If your economic system gives too much of a claim on young labor to old demographics, then your society will die. I’m not saying the allocation has to be zero—that there can be no long-term store of wealth—but it clearly has to be less than whatever it takes for the fertile to reproduce at replacement.
Call my model radical if you want, but the fertility data speaks for itself: you will adopt a radical solution, or you will be replaced by those who do.
Tretiak
30m ago
Cenk and some of TYT as of late have mellowed out. I always tried to keep my ear close to the ground and always tried to keep left-wing content somewhere in my media diet, lest I put myself at risk for living out the world in my own bubble. I think they've realized to some degree that it doesn't pay dividends to advancing your cause by being ham fisted and angry all the time at your political counterparts.
I first remember getting that impression when I saw a brief clip between Cenk and Patrick Bet David that seemed unusually civil, considering the gulf between their political views. You can still find Cenk occasionally raging on Piers Morgan and I can't really blame him for that. I wonder if Piers really is as dumb as he presents himself at times or if it's part of his overall act. Ana Kasparian's appearance on Tucker Carlson really surprised me and I always thought she was even more of a lunatic than Cenk was when she was having a moment. In either case it's good for them to broader their horizon and engage in active discussion with those they disagree with more than satirizing and sneering at them and conservatives should do the same as well.
WandererintheWilderness
32m ago
I agree, but again I see a great deal of difference between "deserves to be killed" and "fair dos if other people are relieved when they happen to die". For a trivial analogy, if someone buys the lot opposite mine, and builds a huge concrete eyesore that ruins the view from my patio, then my neighbor in no real sense deserves to have their home destroyed, but it would be perfectly fine for me to drink a toast the day the house collapses by happenstance. Those are very different things in my book.
SSCReader
34m ago
Bernie did a series of well received town halls in Trump Country, and he was literally just in Lenore, West Virgina, population 1300 that went 74% for Trump, I don't think you can rule him out so easily.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
37m ago
Yes, I misunderstood what you were asking for. The mods discussed it and we'd prefer you not start a new megathread since there is already a big thread on the topic right now.
KingOfTheBailey
38m ago
I disagree with the "Charlie was like your Republican Grandpa" argument. He may have had similar political positions, and he definitely should never have been shot, but Charlie was definitely in the political game in a way that gramps wasn't. He founded TPUSA, he organized events, he ran streams, debated people to change the public's mind, and judging by the heartfelt tributes that have come out he was an important node in the institutional right's network.
I think the following propositions are all true:
- Charlie should never have been shot
- Charlie was "in the game" in a way that normie (R)s weren't
- Dealing with potential political violence is a regrettable part of holding political office
- Assassination of people not holding office but in the game, with weapons that require at least some planning and skill to use, is a very worrying erosion of the norms around how the game is to be played
- There are enough people on the left made crazy by the memetic environment that normie (R)s are correct to worry when they see a relatively normal "in the game" guy get assassinated to plenty of cheers, excuses from MSNBC presenters, and milquetoast statements from many politicians. (Some thankfully bright anti-examples: Cenk, Newsom).
This would make sense.... if they weren't so against gun control.
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