domain:mattlakeman.org
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
5m ago
It would be trivially easy to dispute the point about shared culpability without minimizing or relishing the gravity of the event. In fact, such a rebuttal would be far more credible in the absence of those comments.
Pongalh
7m ago
I don't know, people not waiting some minimum amount of time to be critical, and doling out "why can't we all get along?" platitudes, just can't be sustained in the attention economy. It's not the people are just so much meaner now.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
7m ago
Debate is mostly fake.
What is more real, other than raw violence?
Wave_Existence
9m ago
zoink
10m ago
I don't much care what the Courts has to say when it comes to what I believe. I think private businesses should be able to fire anyone for any reason. I personally would give people a lot of leeway when it comes to off the clock speech. I think government entities should have virtually no speech restriction.
WandererintheWilderness
11m ago
I'm not accusing you of deliberately moving the goalposts, but I will say, as far as I can see this is the first time in this thread you've brought up a question of time-frames, where some types of commentary are wrong now but will be fine later. And I don't think that makes a ton of sense, unless you're making these comments right to the face of Kirk's surviving family. Respect for the dead doesn't have an expiry date, or if it does, it isn't measured in weeks. And I don't see how "too soon" impacts on the main topic at hand, ie whether criticizing the victim would or should be perceived as signaling support for assassinations like his.
Wave_Existence
11m ago
good thing i wouldn't hold him up as one, but my point isnt that he his a virtuous person or even that he represents my views. That he is on the left and participating in the kind of live events you claimed that NOBODY on the left would DARE to even attempt makes the whole diatribe about how people like him don't exist seem kinda silly.
Throwaway05
15m ago
Personally I'd prefer to go the Jackson Lamb route and just fart repeatedly.
ToaKraka
Dislikes you
16m ago
Volokh on the caselaw regarding firing government employees for speech
Generally speaking, the government may discipline an employee based on the employee's speech if:
(1) The speech is said by the employee as part of the employee's job duties (Garcetti v. Ceballos);
(2) The speech is not on a matter of public concern (Connick v. Myers); or
(3) The damage caused by the speech to the efficiency of the government agency's operation outweighs the value of the speech to the employee and the public (Pickering v. Bd. of Ed.).
When the government is administering the criminal law or civil liability, such a "heckler's veto" is generally not allowed: The government generally can't shut down a speaker, for instance, because his listeners are getting offended or even threatening violence because they're offended. But in the employment context the Pickering balance often allows government to fire employees because their speech sufficiently offends coworkers or members of the public. (The analysis may differ for public university professors, though it's not clear how much; see this post for more.)
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
16m ago
The 2a angle is so silly given he was shot by the fuddied gun to ever fudd on a university campus that probably doesn't allow people to carry.
KMC
16m ago
Kirk was, at the very least, aiding and abetting evil, and most probably significantly evil himself
Yes, people mistake fiction for reality, they think that Kirk is evil like the characters from their books and movies, and open their minds and pour their brains out on the ground in response.
I mean, allocating group responsibility within huge, poorly-coordinated populations is a tough problem, and one with potentially different answers depending on whether you're talking about it as an ethics problem of a game theory problem.
Yeah, but I'm not going to be a stooge and claim that Anders Brevik was really a leftist, because that's absurd. We know what these people want by watching what they work to accomplish, and those ends serve one side or the other.
It seems as understandable for normie non-murderous Dems to say "we aren't responsible for the Kirk assassination" as it is fair for Second Amendment activists to disclaim any responsibility for the latest school shooting.
Nobody is inciting school shootings the way that Democrats are inciting violence on their political opponents. Your comparisons continue to miss the point by a mile.
WandererintheWilderness
18m ago
Probably not. Celebrating when bad things happen to someone is evil, plain and simple. I'm not going to claim I've never done that (I have, I'm not a perfect person), but I regard those occasions as personal failings which I tried very hard to rectify. I would like to think in the future I would be more successful in avoiding it.
I absolutely agree! But even if it's wrong, I think the internal experience of this kind of Schadenfreude makes it clear that it's not at all the same subjective experience as supporting vigilante murder at the political level. One is much more common, much more human, than the other, even if it isn't good. And I don't think it's fair to accuse people who are only guilty of that lesser sin to secretly harbor the explicit pro-assassination view. When I say that we should "have more sympathy" for them I don't mean infinite amounts of indulgence, I just mean affording them the intellectual charity of not treating them as covert assassination-supporters. That's not where they're at. Where they're at isn't good, but it's not that.
"What a horrific tragedy". And then a week later go ahead and write your thinkpiece about how he had it coming.
(this was written before your edit, I'll update to your update when I have time)
Catsnakes_
22m ago
I could absolutely respond by acknowledging what a horrible tragedy this was for her loved ones and the country, and could even deny the involvement of the right, without having to criticize her at all.
thejdizzler
23m ago
Yep my comment makes no sense in the light of the Oz universe. But as analogy to the Charlie Kirk situation, I think it still fits. The democrats aren't "slaves" to Charlie Kirk (maybe you could make this argument about Trump).
"Absolutely" yes, "correctly" no. Again, what else would you expect a sincere Second-Amendment-opposing non-assassination-supporting person to say? "This is why the Second Amendment is bad" is an obvious, vanilla thing for any anti-2A commentator to say when there's been a prominent murder of this kind, whatever the opinions of the victim. Why should it suddenly become verboten just because the victim happened, as icing on the cake, to support gun ownership? And wouldn't it be pretty odd to write around that pretty salient fact?
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
25m ago
No. The Munchkins were literally the Witch's slaves, and treated quite badly. They had legitimate cause to celebrate her death, and if half of Oz supported the witch, well, the Munchkins kinda fucked but they shouldn't consider the feelings of those people.
Charlie Kirk had no slaves.
WandererintheWilderness
25m ago
Furthermore, the Wicked Witch is EVIL, which Charlie Kirk wasn't
Well, that's rather the crux of the issue. I am obviously talking about the perspective of people who believe that Kirk was, at the very least, aiding and abetting evil, and most probably significantly evil himself. Granted that someone believes Kirk was evil - as is their right - then is it acceptable for them to publicly display relief that he's dead, without thereby coming across as supporting assassinations? I don't think this is a trivial question. I think people who fall afoul of it are at least sympathetic.
Of course it was something their tribe did, that's blatantly obvious to everyone who's not delusional,
I mean, allocating group responsibility within huge, poorly-coordinated populations is a tough problem, and one with potentially different answers depending on whether you're talking about it as an ethics problem of a game theory problem. I don't think anything about it is "blatantly obvious". It seems as understandable for normie non-murderous Dems to say "we aren't responsible for the Kirk assassination" as it is fair for Second Amendment activists to disclaim any responsibility for the latest school shooting. Certainly it's pretty dumb of them not to anticipate that the Red Tribe would blame them, but it doesn't follow that the Red Tribe is trivially right to do so.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
28m ago
Politicians are fairer game for political violence, getting shot at by nuts is a small if regrettable part of their jobs. It's already getting seriously dangerous if the shots come from sane people. But this is worse.
Shooting Kirk is like shooting your republican Grandpa, he was effectively just a dude with milquetoast normie republican beliefs with no office or power beyond talking to people and organizing events to talk to people.
Anybody to his right, and that's half or more of the United States population at this point, can only take supporting his assassination as an existential true threat.
KMC
28m ago
It's the purest, most concentrated and distilled Democrat space on the internet. It's the essence of the Democrat party, its beating heart.
Sure, the whole party is dilute with normies, but it's the people on bluesky that determine the flavor of the party.
pusher_robot
PLEASE GO STAND BY THE STAIRS
28m ago
Several young local school employees have been fired in my area, and I think they should have just got a stern talking to.
I disagree inasmuch as I think teachers, being placed in a special position of public trust to, as part of their official duties, partake in the moral instruction of their students, have a special duty of moral care.
EDIT: Though I think the comma phrases are grammatically correct, I don't like how that sentence scans. Let me try again: I disagree because I think that teachers have a special moral duty. They have this because they are entrusted in their official capacity with the moral education of our society's children.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
29m ago
What? Make your point clear please.
zoink
30m ago
In one case it was a private tok that a contact released. She was in a school shirt which I would say is a big no no, but still I believe warrants a conversation and being put on notice.
DaseindustriesLtd
late version of a small language model
30m ago
I think everyone here recognizes that the George Floyd sanctification was extraordinarily pathetic and even humiliating for the US. It will be very hard to beat, frankly impossible in this case, not least because Kirk was a normal and respected person (no matter how little worth I personally see to his political work) and Floyd was scum of the society. But this is not a good reason to try.
Are you arguing that there's no such thing as evil people in real life? "Evil" is obviously a tough thing to define rigorously, certainly I doubt there's anyone who's monomaniacally wicked in the way cartoon witches are "evil" without a single trace of benevolence anywhere in their hearts. But for sanity's sake, understand it here as meaning the semi-tautological "sharing whatever qualities the Wicked Witch has that make celebrating her death acceptable" for the purposes of this question. ie, are you arguing that there's no one in real life close enough to the archetypal fictional depictions of "evil" that a Ding Dong The Witch is Dead parade would be an understandable and unconcerning emotional response upon their demise? Genuine question; I initially understood you as simply saying that a normie family man with conservative opinions was "obviously" not an example of that class, not as decrying the very concept as unrealistic/incoherent.
More options
Context Copy link