Current Events > Red Hood Series Gets Canceled Because of Trans Writer's Remarks on Charlie Kirk

(+) Yeah! (+)

It's kinda stupid to me that people protect the dead so much. Being dead doesn't wash anything you did away, even those with a prolonged death being nice while being incapable of doing anything else doesn't absolve them of their past.

People viciously mock and defend dead celebrities and influencers on the regular and no one genuinely gives a shit unless they go a little too far(violent threats, harassing family irl/online, etc).

When you live a contentious life, so too will people speak of you in the same fashion in death. A culture where people don't accept consequences for their actions is becoming all too common. Speaking strictly of discourse here, I didn't care for the guy and also don't agree with how he met his end.

Many of us will be seen as insufferable dickheads after our death to some, and loyal reliable friends to others. The more public a person the more extreme reactions on both ends, just how it goes.

darkknight109 posted...

Are you saying you agree with him? Because that's the only way this statement makes sense.

If you think that Kirk was a moron to say that the US should accept a certain amount of death as a sacrifice on the altar of gun rights, that just reinforces the point that he shouldn't have been murdered just for being a shithead.

I'm saying that people regularly say such callous things without being fired for it. I fail to see why it's only a problem now.

"Disarmament" from what? Behaving like dickheads?

I don't see any downside to that. Again, what advantage is there to be gained from being able to mock the death of someone whose only "crime" was talking (admittedly saying vile shit, but unless you have an extremely conservative view of the death penalty, most would not suggest that talking is worthy of the death penalty)?

Decorum isn't just mocking the death of a fascist. It includes being able to speak properly on what an awful person says and does. The lack of doing so is a part of the reason we're collectively in this mess to begin with. Even in your post, you've reframed spreading disinformation, Sinophobia, white supremacy, homophobia, xenophobia, racism, antisemetism, climate change denial and a whole host of other disgusting insanity as "only talking". You aren't alone, that's kinda how the whole media has treated him. This inability to call a spade a spade is a major part of why the far right controls America.

That's fine. As I said in my original post, you don't have to mourn or grieve him. You can recognize that he was an asshole with hateful views. And you are free to think that the world is better without him in it. Personally, I think all of those views are aboveboard and if you want to complain about people getting fired for voicing similar sentiments (and there have been several that have been documented so far), I'm right behind you.

But you can do all that without mocking his murder. That's where the line is drawn and I think it's a good place for it.

I enjoy dark humour, so I'll continue mocking his murder, same as how I love terrible jokes about people I've admired or respected. However, I also think his murder is less important than the circumstances leading up to it. If we're being brutally honest, this is literally the America he and people like him wanted. The fact that the country is on this course is awful, but the people with the power to change it are the same as the people who set course in the first place. With how decorum and going high has done sweet fuck all to fix things, I can now only hope that a taste of their medicine will open their eyes a little.

To be clear, I do not want more terrorism and violence. If there is gonna be such violence though, the only people who should suffer are those trying to inflict it upon everyone else.

Again, do you think that's acceptable behaviour? Do you want to see more of it?

Because if you think it's unacceptable and should not be tolerated in polite society - and I certainly do - then that's where you have to set the standard.

As above, ask yourself the reason you don't like Republicans mocking the deaths of Hortman or Floyd. Is it because they're making light of innocents who were brutally murdered and that sort of shit is vile? Or is it because you also want to be able to mock people's deaths, as long as they're someone you don't like, and you're not currently allowed to do that? Because one of those is a very defensible viewpoint and the other is not, and that should guide how you want to respond to this.

I think you place significantly more value on civility and decorum than the GOP does. You also seem to think that they have any interest in being more civilised.

darkknight109 posted...

"Again, those comments would get you fired from most jobs, regardless of who the victim was."

It doesn't feel like it would.

Only a handful of people who openly supported the murder of Heather Heyer ever saw consequences for it.

None of the Republicans who openly called for violence against trans people... amended: openly called for hate crimes to be committed against trans people before footage of the shooter was even released aren't facing consequences.

People don't get fired for laughing at Rittenhouse's murder victims, but there sure seem to be public consequences for calling him a quite supremacist when he hangs out with white supremacist militias and flashing white supremacist signs.

Kilmeade keeps his job for talking about murdering homeless people with a fake apology.

The comments getting people fired are only getting people on the left fired. No one on the right saying the same things for different victims is getting fired.

The victim totally matters when it comes to who get fired.

darkknight109 posted...

You say that he was not simply someone with noxious views, then go on to list all his noxious views. Do you not see the disconnect there?

Keyword, I think, in his argument is "simply."

Charlie Kirk wasn't the guy at the water cooler making an off-color joke about black people. His views weren't just reprehensible, they served as a call to action and to violence.

There's noxious and then there's actively leveraging and influencing the administration to harm trans people and genocide Palestinians, in two examples.

I don't think there's a disconnect for anyone in looking at the scale of his words and views, and then recognizing the impact they have on his followers and policy that directly affects people.

It's not "simply noxious views," because it's incitement to political violence using (among other things) the levers of power.

That's my read, if it's worth anything.

darkknight109 posted...

But you can do all that without mocking his murder. That's where the line is drawn and I think it's a good place for it.

That line is only ever drawn for people on the left. That's the crux of his argument, isn't it?

It's not whether or not he can mock someone's death, but that others are given license and liberty to do so without consequence.

darkknight109 posted...

Me, I think the second one is the problem. If you do too, then why are you advocating for more of it?

Because going high when they've gone low has been a consistently losing proposition?

Also, half of the "mocking" I've seen on other social media amounts to speaking truth to power/punching up, and doing it with some sarcasm on their tongue.

But that's enough for a termination for someone on the left while the entire right wing is posting for war and literal blood in the streets and keeps getting to punch in each morning.

It's just fucked, man. And doing the right and noble thing to not even speak truth in any tone of voice for fear of reprisal has left the marketplace of ideas selling only one thing unchallenged.

PeteyParker posted...

Yeah good luck on that one. You have a better chance of finding a leprechaun riding a unicorn on the way to visit Bigfoot than having any Republican being fired for mocking someone's murder. It's a character feature for them, not a flaw.

Must be my lucky day then: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53287892

Yes, right-wingers do get held accountable for noxious views as well. Which is as it should be.

LightSnake posted...

What's happening is the weaponization of state power to attack and silence critics in a double standard that cannot be extricated from the situation.

The subject of the topic is an employee of a private company. To the best of my knowledge, the Trump admin did not play any role in her firing.

If you want to talk about the public sector employees that have been fired over their posts, that is a different discussion.

LightSnake posted...

Again, this is not "left wingers should have carte blanche to celebrate deaths." This is, again, a vulnerable minority being targeted for expressing joy over the death of a man who actively attempted to foment violence against her and wished her eradicated.

The problem that I have with this is that as soon as you open the door to "It's OK for some people to celebrate and mock murder, depending on who they are and who the victim is", you're going to get a lot of people trying to cram in that space. You're going to get the mouth-breathers screaming "George Floyd was a criminal who deserved what he got!" trying to parrot that same justification.

I don't think it's unreasonable for us as a society to set the standard of "murder is bad and should not be celebrated" without provisos attached to it. This individual can feel happy and relieved that Kirk is gone from the public sphere, and I am sympathetic to that... but she should still bear in mind that publicly celebrating his murder in a way that can be tied back to her is probably going to make a large number of people mad which, in turn, is going to get her fired by a corporation that reasonably does not want to court controversy.

LightSnake posted...

Charlie Kirk: We need to genocide transgenders
Transgender people: Hah, Charlie Kirk got got!

You see how these two are not morally equivalent, right?

Never said they were and I'm not sure why you're assuming otherwise.

LightSnake posted...

Meanwhile, MAGA is creating a massive database to punish anyone who so much says "Charlie Kirk was not a saint," so miss me with this "it should not be acceptable to celebrate ANYONE dying."

I fail to see how the first half of this sentence connects to the second.

MAGA going after people who are saying relatively benign things is wrong. I've said so in this topic already. That doesn't suddenly justify celebrating murder.

reincarnator07 posted...

I'm saying that people regularly say such callous things without being fired for it. I fail to see why it's only a problem now.

It's not "only" a problem now, nor should it be.

There have been plenty of campaigns in the past for people to be fired for saying or doing legal-but-shitty things. Like the woman who got fired for making a racist joke about not catching AIDS in Africa because she was white. Or the cops I posted up there who got fired for mocking George Floyd's murder. Or the various people who got fired for celebrating the January 6 insurrection.

Those sorts of statements should carry consequences, I think.

reincarnator07 posted...

Decorum isn't just mocking the death of a fascist. It includes being able to speak properly on what an awful person says and does.

I'm not objecting to speaking properly and honestly about what Charlie Kirk - or any other "awful person" - said and did. The person who got fired for pointing out that he was "no saint"? Yeah, I object to that firing - that's over the line, because a calm and dispassionate discussion of who Charlie Kirk was and why he was a bad person is not the same thing as celebrating his killing. We are allowed, and should be allowed, to talk about how he was not a good person and how his shitty viewpoints measurably made the public discourse worse. I'm not objecting to any of that - that's all fair game, as far as I'm concerned. It's fair and it's healthy to talk about how Charlie Kirk shouldn't be venerated.

But you can do all that without resorting to callousness or mockery. Talking about why Charlie Kirk was an awful person does not require us to celebrate someone murdering him.

reincarnator07 posted...

I think you place significantly more value on civility and decorum than the GOP does.

Yes - that's the point. The Republicans lost that decorum years ago and look at what they've become: proudly bigoted, ignorant, and hateful. I do not want to risk that contamination spreading to the left as well.

DnDer posted...

Only a handful of people who openly supported the murder of Heather Heyer ever saw consequences for it.

None of the Republicans who openly called for violence against trans people... amended: openly called for hate crimes to be committed against trans people before footage of the shooter was even released aren't facing consequences.

People don't get fired for laughing at Rittenhouse's murder victims, but there sure seem to be public consequences for calling him a quite supremacist when he hangs out with white supremacist militias and flashing white supremacist signs.

Kilmeade keeps his job for talking about murdering homeless people with a fake apology.

And do you think this is a good thing? Do you think those people should get away without consequence for saying those things?

If not, why are you suggesting that this is different?

DnDer posted...

Keyword, I think, in his argument is "simply."

Charlie Kirk wasn't the guy at the water cooler making an off-color joke about black people. His views weren't just reprehensible, they served as a call to action and to violence.

There's noxious and then there's actively leveraging and influencing the administration to harm trans people and genocide Palestinians, in two examples.

I don't think there's a disconnect for anyone in looking at the scale of his words and views, and then recognizing the impact they have on his followers and policy that directly affects people.

It's not "simply noxious views," because it's incitement to political violence using (among other things) the levers of power.

That's my read, if it's worth anything.

I don't disagree. But I think we can all agree that's not a justification to murder him.

And I'll point out that if you consider Charlie Kirk's great sin to be inciting violence against those different from him, it's not a great look to be celebrating violence done to him.

DnDer posted...

Because going high when they've gone low has been a consistently losing proposition?

So what advantage do you think "going low" is going to confer on the left if the gloves are removed?

DnDer posted...

Also, half of the "mocking" I've seen on other social media amounts to speaking truth to power/punching up, and doing it with some sarcasm on their tongue.

My comments in this thread are restricted solely to Gretchen Felker-Martin and the comments she made, as posted in the OP. Others have been fired for far more mild commentary, and I do have a problem with those firings because I don't believe they were in poor taste or constituted celebrating political violence.

To be clear, I am not for a minute saying that Charlie Kirk is beyond criticism and that any negative statements about him should be grounds for dismissal; quite the contrary, I think it is perfectly reasonable to have a frank discussion on why his views were so vile and why he had a hand in the conditions that led to his killing by stirring up anger and hatred in the US. But, as I've said several times, you can do that without mocking or celebrating his killing.

This novels are gonna be worth a lot.

darkknight109 posted...

Must be my lucky day then: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53287892

The subject of the topic is an employee of a private company. To the best of my knowledge, the Trump admin did not play any role in her firing.

This is an omission and I know you know the difference here. This isn't just "bad publicity," this cannot be divorced from the President and his Admin's open threats to retaliate against private actors. We have private companies and donors do things specifically because they are afraid of retaliation.

If you want to talk about the public sector employees that have been fired over their posts, that is a different discussion.

Yeah, that's happening, too.

The problem that I have with this is that as soon as you open the door to "It's OK for some people to celebrate and mock murder, depending on who they are and who the victim is", you're going to get a lot of people trying to cram in that space. You're going to get the mouth-breathers screaming "George Floyd was a criminal who deserved what he got!" trying to parrot that same justification.

"As soon as you do it?" It's happened. That's here. This already happened. The double standard has been established.

And again, "don't celebrate murder" is not an equal, level set of standards because not all victims are equal.

I don't think it's unreasonable for us as a society to set the standard of "murder is bad and should not be celebrated" without provisos attached to it. This individual can feel happy and relieved that Kirk is gone from the public sphere, and I am sympathetic to that... but she should still bear in mind that publicly celebrating his murder in a way that can be tied back to her is probably going to make a large number of people mad which, in turn, is going to get her fired by a corporation that reasonably does not want to court controversy.

Which ties back to how we are policing the marginalized in how they respond to the deaths of people who openly wish for harm upon them. Again, let us discuss this honestly and seriously:

Kirk made a living on preaching hate and inspiring harm against people like Gretchen Felker Martin. He wanted Gretchen Felker Martin harmed. He did not want her to exist. He preached that hate his entire life.

By the same token, would you be doing this if a gay person said "Burn In Hell Fred Phelps" when he died? Should that fall under the same umbrella? Isn't it a little shitty we are enforcing this standard?

Never said they were and I'm not sure why you're assuming otherwise.

I fail to see how the first half of this sentence connects to the second.

I am not sure how you fail to see that.,

MAGA going after people who are saying relatively benign things is wrong. I've said so in this topic already. That doesn't suddenly justify celebrating murder.

This comes off as an attempt as enlightened centrism but earnestly just feels like it is attempting to find an equivalence that doesn't exist.

Every standard should be taken in its full context. If Richard Sackler was shot by someone addicted to opiates and people celebrated it (note: I am not saying this should happen at all) for the harm he had done, then should we be attacking them for "celebrating murder?"

Sometimes shitty people get got and people they hurt are gonna have feelings about that.

SadButTrue posted...

good

Humble_Novice posted...

What.

I understood that reference.

darkknight109 posted...

Must be my lucky day then: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53287892

Yes, right-wingers do get held accountable for noxious views as well. Which is as it should be.

I mean it's not really proving much if you had to go back 5 years to find a couple of police officers who got in trouble.

Also, uh...

This 100 percent violates a policy with cops. Cops are intended to have a public trust.

If, like, a doctor posts racist content, you're damn right they need to be fired because they cannot be trusted to administer equal care in an emergency situation and treat patients neutrally. This is not a standard we apply to a comic book writer

darkknight109 posted...

It's not. You're misconstruing what I said. Here is is again:

"Again, those comments would get you fired from most jobs, regardless of who the victim was."

I didn't say that people shouldn't mock dead politicians; I said that they shouldn't mock anybody, regardless of who they are. And yes, right-wing extremists do fit in that group.

You're not wrong that Charlie Kirk's extremism has been normalized, but you're drawing the wrong conclusions from it. There's a frankly disturbing number of people on the right who admired him and liked what he said. Mocking his death without consequence is simply going to encourage those people to do the same, because all they're going to read from that is, "It's OK to mock the deaths of people I disagree with and doing so should not be a fireable offence."

Yeah, no thats not true and never was. Professionals have mocked the death of dictators, terrorists, rapists, murderers, dictators, child/domestic abusers and other sorts of criminals and people that harm society regularly and was no harm no foul. Mocking a KKK members death wouldnt have been seen as scandalous in the past. The fact that youre just treating Kirk as a standard politician rather than an activist of hate and domestic terrorism is part of the problem. Those people already think that and theyre already being shown its true. The only people being limited here are left wingers.

You say that he was not simply someone with noxious views, then go on to list all his noxious views. Do you not see the disconnect there?

Having noxious views would be a random low info voter or anonymous shitposter. Kirk was an active professional activist who built organizations, endorsed actions, and targeted children with them. The fact that you cant tell the difference between those is crazy.

I'm not acting like he's "equal" to victims of racial injustice, save in the idea that people who mock his death are probably going to lose their jobs, and understandably so. That he's a piece of shit doesn't really factor into that equation.

Again, listen to yourself. Your argument has shifted from "It was just a light joke" to, essentially, "We should be allowed to mock his death because he's a right-wing extremist." You know who uses both those arguments on the regular? Fucking Trump cultists. Is that really the road you want to go down? Using redcaps as a bellwether for acceptable behaviour?

As above, dictators, terrorists, abusers and other awful people do acceptably get their deaths mocked. You are treating him as equal when youre acting like hes just a normal activist instead of someone that pushed hate and violence himself.

Yes, these are just light mockings of his death. They arent outright saying he deserves it, or endorsing that it should happen more to other people like him. They arent cheering for it. Its jokes meant to show hes not something worth feeling sorry for. And your this is the logic of trumpers, dont be like trumpers! is Both Sides pearl clutching concern troll logic that applies to acting like left wingers shouldnt gerrymander because then theyd just be like right wingers.

Unlike gerrymandering, there is no political or strategic advantage that comes from mocking a man's death. There is no reason why the left should be involved in normalizing that sort of behaviour.

Showing its acceptable to treat nazi hate groups with the disdain they deserve rather than normalizing them as regular activists is something that society widely needs right now. Are you against the punch a Nazi belief? You seem to be from a country that has Nazis illegal in the first place so do you believe they should be legal because its just regular views that shouldnt be censored?

Yes - that's bad! That's my entire point, chief. Doing shit things because "the right did it first" is a crappy way to conduct yourself. We do not - and should not - use the right's bad behaviour to justify doing the exact same thing on the left.

People mocking, say, Paul Pelosi's attack wasn't vile because they were targeting Democrats; it was vile because they were mocking someone who was the victim of a violent attack. Well, guess what, Charlie Kirk was the victim of a violent attack. So you need to ask yourself at this juncture, are you against treating death and murder as a joke, the way the Republicans do? Or are you OK with it, as long as it's someone you don't like? Because if it's the latter, you're a lot closer to the Republicans in your line of thinking than you'd probably like to be.

Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable. Youre still trying to compare bog standard politicians who never advocated for violence with hate groups who died from their own rhetoric.

Equating "being against Republican-style bad behaviour on the left" with "being a right-winger" is a frankly ridiculous reach. It is perfectly possible to fight against the rise of fascism in the United States without behaving like a callous asshole, the way the Republicans do after any one of these events targeting someone on the left.

Being fine with the state of things simply because Dems at least have decorum and are going the high road while they dont do anything but watch as Republicans regress the world back to the 1910s would basically make you a Republican. Taking the high road and decorum isnt working for Democrats. All its doing is limiting left wingers while right wingers run amok doing whatever they like. Its time to fight fire with fire.

And I'll point out that if you consider Charlie Kirk's great sin to be inciting violence against those different from him, it's not a great look to be celebrating violence done to him.

This is peak enlightened centrist tolerate peoples intolerance. You against making fun of Herman Cain award deaths of covid deniers because making fun of regular people dying of covid is reprehensible?

Darkknight is a contrarian that has surpassed even Unfairrepresent levels. By his logic, leopards eating faces shouldn't be pointed at because we wouldn't be making fun of someone whose face got eaten but didn't vote for the leopards.

LightSnake posted...

Cops are intended to have a public trust.

Not what SCOTUS ruled.

Cops are intended to protect property, not people. Been that way since day one in America, if you know the history of American policing.

Humble_Novice posted...

What.

He's a chud.

LightSnake posted...

This is an omission and I know you know the difference here. This isn't just "bad publicity," this cannot be divorced from the President and his Admin's open threats to retaliate against private actors. We have private companies and donors do things specifically because they are afraid of retaliation.

I'm not suggesting that's not a horrendous overreach of governmental power, but I'm unconvinced it actually did anything in this specific case. Gretchen's remarks were what I would consider fireable, even without Trump admin fuckery.

LightSnake posted...

Yeah, that's happening, too.

It is and it's bad. But, like I said, that's a different conversation, because whether or not someone's remarks on Charlie Kirk's death constitute a fireable offence depends significantly on what exactly was in those remarks. For instance, few reasonable people, even amongst Kirk's most ardent detractors, would suggest that the teacher who got let go for showing their class of 10- and 11-year-olds Kirk's killing and remarking several times that he deserved to die didn't earn their dismissal. By the same token, most reasonable people will agree that the broadcaster who said that Kirk was "no saint" was being perfectly fair and should not have been fired.

Hence why I'm trying to keep this on the subject of Gretchen's remarks specifically.

LightSnake posted...

"As soon as you do it?" It's happened. That's here. This already happened. The double standard has been established.

Yes, but right now the left can reasonably call for people to be fired who mock the deaths of, say, trans individuals or victims of police brutality to lose their jobs. If we then turn around and say, "Oh, but this person attacked a public figure on the right, so they shouldn't be fired," that's a pretty clear-cut case of hypocrisy.

Either you're OK with mocking murder victims (in at least some circumstances) or you're not. Personally, I'm not willing to go down that road, no matter how vile the victim is. I would hope most reasonable people would agree.

LightSnake posted...

And again, "don't celebrate murder" is not an equal, level set of standards because not all victims are equal.

So who gets to make the call as to which murder victims are OK to mock and which ones are off limits?

If you're open to the idea that some murder victims are OK to mock but not all, you kind of lose the justification to complain about Gretchen's firing because her employer decided, "Charlie Kirk is one of those victims we think isn't OK to mock."

LightSnake posted...

Which ties back to how we are policing the marginalized in how they respond to the deaths of people who openly wish for harm upon them. Again, let us discuss this honestly and seriously:

Kirk made a living on preaching hate and inspiring harm against people like Gretchen Felker Martin. He wanted Gretchen Felker Martin harmed. He did not want her to exist. He preached that hate his entire life.

By the same token, would you be doing this if a gay person said "Burn In Hell Fred Phelps" when he died? Should that fall under the same umbrella? Isn't it a little shitty we are enforcing this standard?

Fred Phelps wasn't murdered, so somewhat different circumstances there. That said, as Kirk himself discovered, in his last moments in this plane of existence, the anger you send out in the world has a nasty way of returning to you in ways you don't like or expect.

But to your point, I don't believe in giving minority groups, even those facing tremendous discrimination like trans people, some sort of "moral pass" to do things that no one else is allowed to do without consequence. I mean, what would it look like if DC said, "Ordinarily we would fire Gretchen for what she said, but she's trans so we've decided it's OK."

If a target is fair game for mockery, it's fair game for all.

LightSnake posted...

I am not sure how you fail to see that.,

I explained it here: "MAGA going after people who are saying relatively benign things is wrong. I've said so in this topic already. That doesn't suddenly justify celebrating murder."

LightSnake posted...

Every standard should be taken in its full context. If Richard Sackler was shot by someone addicted to opiates and people celebrated it (note: I am not saying this should happen at all) for the harm he had done, then should we be attacking them for "celebrating murder?"

YES.

Again, don't celebrate murder. It's really not that difficult.

We can acknowledge that some people - including murder victims - did shitty things without celebrating their deaths.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Yeah, no thats not true and never was. Professionals have mocked the death of dictators, terrorists, rapists, murderers, dictators, child/domestic abusers and other sorts of criminals and people that harm society regularly and was no harm no foul. Mocking a KKK members death wouldnt have been seen as scandalous in the past. The fact that youre just treating Kirk as a standard politician rather than an activist of hate and domestic terrorism is part of the problem.

The difference between Kirk and the other examples that you listed is those other people are criminals; Kirk, to the best of my knowledge, has never committed nor been charged with any crime. He stayed within the bounds of what society has said is acceptable conduct, vile and scummy though that conduct was.

You want to mock a criminal who died? Fine. If I'm honest, I dislike that too and I don't do so myself, but I will fully acknowledge I'm in a distinct minority on that one, so fill your boots - the odds you get fired for it are pretty close to nil. But Kirk, for better or worse, was not a criminal under US law.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Yes, these are just light mockings of his death. They arent outright saying he deserves it, or endorsing that it should happen more to other people like him. They arent cheering for it. Its jokes meant to show hes not something worth feeling sorry for.

Perhaps my sense of humour is broken, but explain to me the "joke" behind "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch". Because that strikes me as a less of knee-slapper, and more of a "I'm glad you got killed" statement.

So where's the humour? What's the part I'm supposed to find funny?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And your this is the logic of trumpers, dont be like trumpers! is Both Sides pearl clutching concern troll logic that applies to acting like left wingers shouldnt gerrymander because then theyd just be like right wingers.

I've asked this several times, to several different people, and so far no one has answered: what advantage are you hoping to gain from being allowed to act like antisocial troglodytes the way MAGA does?

And no, this logic does not apply to "acting like left wingers shouldn't gerrymander" - that's a ridiculous strawman, given that I've literally said the exact opposite in this topic and explained my rationale as to why.

Not wanting to see the last bastion of relative sanity in American politics descend into the same sort of braindead madness that has consumed the Republican party wholesale is not "Same thing, both sides."

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Showing its acceptable to treat nazi hate groups with the disdain they deserve rather than normalizing them as regular activists is something that society widely needs right now. Are you against the punch a Nazi belief? You seem to be from a country that has Nazis illegal in the first place so do you believe they should be legal because its just regular views that shouldnt be censored?

To the best of my knowledge, Nazis are not illegal in my country. We do restrict hate speech, and I support those laws, so perhaps that's what you mean.

To your question about "punching a Nazi", let me ask you this: are you saying you support violence against people like Charlie Kirk? People who espouse hateful views, but have not broken any laws in the US? Think very carefully before you answer that question.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable.

Has it? Then can you point me in the direction of another public, non-criminal figure whose murder was widely mocked and uncontroversially so?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Being fine with the state of things simply because Dems at least have decorum and are going the high road while they dont do anything but watch as Republicans regress the world back to the 1910s would basically make you a Republican. Taking the high road and decorum isnt working for Democrats. All its doing is limiting left wingers while right wingers run amok doing whatever they like. Its time to fight fire with fire.

Again, to what end? What the fuck do you want to do by removing basic standards of civil behaviour? In what world does that get the US back on a path towards sanity and reasonable governance? Explain what you're hoping to gain from this other than balming your own anger.

And no, me wanting the Democrats to retain some standards of sanity and decency doesn't make me a Republican. Looking at MAGA as role models to be emulated rather than psychopaths who should be taken as an example of how not to conduct oneself would make me a Republican, but I'm not the person in this conversation doing that.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

This is peak enlightened centrist tolerate peoples intolerance. You against making fun of Herman Cain award deaths of covid deniers because making fun of regular people dying of covid is reprehensible?

Herman Cain award winners died eminently preventable deaths because of their own decisions and refusal to acknowledge basic medical science. Not the same situation.

As above, I don't celebrate anyone dying, but I understand the schadenfreude when it comes to Herman Cain Award winners.

darkknight109 posted...

The difference between Kirk and the other examples that you listed is those other people are criminals; Kirk, to the best of my knowledge, has never committed nor been charged with any crime. He stayed within the bounds of what society has said is acceptable conduct, vile and scummy though that conduct was.

You want to mock a criminal who died? Fine. If I'm honest, I dislike that too and I don't do so myself, but I will fully acknowledge I'm in a distinct minority on that one, so fill your boots - the odds you get fired for it are pretty close to nil. But Kirk, for better or worse, was not a criminal under US law.

A KKK member isn't technically a criminal either. One can acknowledge the harm they caused society is even worse than many criminals. It seems you're just basing your belief here on social values that have been pushed by the supremacist elites, not by actual logical values people can reason out. And that itself is part of the problem. The system, that you're upholding the values of, is the problem right now.

darkknight109 posted...

Perhaps my sense of humour is broken, but explain to me the "joke" behind "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch. Because that strikes me as a less of knee-slapper, and more of a "I'm glad you got killed" statement.

So where's the humour? What's the part I'm supposed to find funny?

The issue here may be the harsh profanity but "thoughts and prayers bozo" and the bait and switch from the somber phrase to the insult is amusing. It's not exactly celebrating it like going "good!" or "did a service to society", it's showing disdain.

darkknight109 posted...

I've asked this several times, to several different people, and so far no one has answered: what advantage are you hoping to gain from being allowed to act like antisocial troglodytes the way MAGA does?

And no, this logic does not apply to "acting like left wingers shouldn't gerrymander" - that's a ridiculous strawman, given that I've literally said the exact opposite in this topic and explained my rationale as to why.

Not wanting to see the last bastion of relative sanity in American politics descend into the same sort of braindead madness that has consumed the Republican party wholesale is not "Same thing, both sides."

It should be obvious. The same reason people don't feel bad about the mocking of deaths of criminals. Because the message is that these people's actions and beliefs are as vile if not worse than criminals. That left wingers shouldn't be forced to constantly gag themselves, making them not just look but be weak and impotent while their oppositions can do the flashy and savage jabs that it's clear most of society is drawn to. It gives the same sort of message as gerrymandering. Far Right ideology need to be shunned and stamped out. There's no trying to reach across the table with them.
Trying to insist so enlightened centrism.

darkknight109 posted...

To the best of my knowledge, Nazis are not illegal in my country. We do restrict hate speech, and I support those laws, so perhaps that's what you mean.

To your question about "punching a Nazi", let me ask you this: are you saying you support violence against people like Charlie Kirk? People who espouse hateful views, but have not broken any laws in the US? Think very carefully before you answer that question.

And what kirk does would be hate speech so he'd be a criminal thus mocking his death shouldn't be an issue. The fact that you put more stock in the corrupt American laws than the actual idealogy of things says a lot.

darkknight109 posted...

Has it? Then can you point me in the direction of another public, non-criminal figure whose murder was widely mocked and uncontroversially so?

"non-criminal" huh? So you can understand some groups that it's acceptable to make light of their deaths of but you want it to be government approved. You don't see the problem here?

darkknight109 posted...

Again, to what end? What the fuck do you want to do by removing basic standards of civil behaviour? In what world does that get the US back on a path towards sanity and reasonable governance? Explain what you're hoping to gain from this other than balming your own anger.

And no, me wanting the Democrats to retain some standards of sanity and decency doesn't make me a Republican. Looking at MAGA as role models to be emulated rather than psychopaths who should be taken as an example of how not to conduct oneself would make me a Republican, but I'm not the person in this conversation doing that.

A society that doesn't view people like Kirk that deserve anything but disdain instead of bending over backwards to cry tears for him is a good one. Making light of horrible people's death is far less associated with MAGA and Republicans than gerrymandering is. At some point fire must be fought with fire. And you are the person trying to go to bat for far right extremists by playing playing concern troll. "Don't fight back against the bully!"

darkknight109 posted...

Herman Cain award winners died eminently preventable deaths because of their own decisions and refusal to acknowledge basic medical science. Not the same situation.

As above, I don't celebrate anyone dying, but I understand the schadenfreude when it comes to Herman Cain Award winners.

And Kirk died a preventable death because of his own hateful rhetoric and contributing to violent gun culture. Very similar situation.

darkknight109 posted...

The difference between Kirk and the other examples that you listed is those other people are criminals; Kirk, to the best of my knowledge, has never committed nor been charged with any crime. He stayed within the bounds of what society has said is acceptable conduct, vile and scummy though that conduct was.

You want to mock a criminal who died? Fine. If I'm honest, I dislike that too and I don't do so myself, but I will fully acknowledge I'm in a distinct minority on that one, so fill your boots - the odds you get fired for it are pretty close to nil. But Kirk, for better or worse, was not a criminal under US law.

Why would it be different if they were a criminal or not? Whether someone is a criminal is a strangely arbitrary distinction, as we collectively decide what a crime is. The justice system is currently not fit for purpose. People are being locked up for the crime of being a POC in the wrong place, meanwhile convicted felons like Trump get put in the highest office of the land.

Kirk did not stay in the bounds of acceptable behaviour in society. The levels of bigotry and intentional deception would be punished in a previous USA that wasn't run by fascists.

Perhaps my sense of humour is broken, but explain to me the "joke" behind "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch". Because that strikes me as a less of knee-slapper, and more of a "I'm glad you got killed" statement.

So where's the humour? What's the part I'm supposed to find funny?

"Thoughts and prayers" is the stock response to every preventable tragedy, the tens of thousands that die every year in preventable shootings. People like Kirk were on the side fighting against this prevention. He was a Nazi bitch. "Thoughts and prayers" is the exact sort of thing Kirk would say in response to his murder if it was someone else, so long as it could stave off gun control measures.

I've asked this several times, to several different people, and so far no one has answered: what advantage are you hoping to gain from being allowed to act like antisocial troglodytes the way MAGA does?

And no, this logic does not apply to "acting like left wingers shouldn't gerrymander" - that's a ridiculous strawman, given that I've literally said the exact opposite in this topic and explained my rationale as to why.

Not wanting to see the last bastion of relative sanity in American politics descend into the same sort of braindead madness that has consumed the Republican party wholesale is not "Same thing, both sides."

Enjoying schadenfreude is a long way from acting like MAGA. To act as if they're the same is either ignorant or disingenuous.

To the best of my knowledge, Nazis are not illegal in my country. We do restrict hate speech, and I support those laws, so perhaps that's what you mean.

To your question about "punching a Nazi", let me ask you this: are you saying you support violence against people like Charlie Kirk? People who espouse hateful views, but have not broken any laws in the US? Think very carefully before you answer that question.

Why do you place so much stock in legality? If it was criminalised, would you now be okay with it?

Has it? Then can you point me in the direction of another public, non-criminal figure whose murder was widely mocked and uncontroversially so?

Do you want a list of countless black people who have been murdered and then laughed at by people just like Kirk without consequence?

Again, to what end? What the fuck do you want to do by removing basic standards of civil behaviour? In what world does that get the US back on a path towards sanity and reasonable governance? Explain what you're hoping to gain from this other than balming your own anger.

And no, me wanting the Democrats to retain some standards of sanity and decency doesn't make me a Republican. Looking at MAGA as role models to be emulated rather than psychopaths who should be taken as an example of how not to conduct oneself would make me a Republican, but I'm not the person in this conversation doing that.

In what way does playing nice while they metaphorically punch us in the dick get the USA off its dark path?

Herman Cain award winners died eminently preventable deaths because of their own decisions and refusal to acknowledge basic medical science. Not the same situation.

As above, I don't celebrate anyone dying, but I understand the schadenfreude when it comes to Herman Cain Award winners.

These sorts of shootings are preventable, that's the whole point of gun control. No other developed country has this level of gun violence. Hell, the only reason people are taking note is because Kirk was a public figure, ignoring all the other people who have faced such a similar fate. Not being funny, but there was literally a school shooting at the same time the next state over. No one cared, despite more people dying.

darkknight109 posted...

It's not. You're misconstruing what I said. Here is is again:

"Again, those comments would get you fired from most jobs, regardless of who the victim was."

That is 100% not true. It wouldn't get you fired from most jobs.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

A KKK member isn't technically a criminal either. One can acknowledge the harm they caused society is even worse than many criminals. It seems you're just basing your belief here on social values that have been pushed by the supremacist elites, not by actual logical values people can reason out. And that itself is part of the problem. The system, that you're upholding the values of, is the problem right now.

Are you saying that people should be allowed to mock a murder victim if they're right-wing or trying to get people to sign on to a revolution? I'm starting to get whiplash trying to piece through this post.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

The issue here may be the harsh profanity but "thoughts and prayers bozo" and the bait and switch from the somber phrase to the insult is amusing.

"Thoughts and prayers, bozo" is not what she said, though; "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch" is. That's not amusing or joking, that's just a straight up insult.

If you're going to defend her statement, at least have the intellectual honesty to call it what it is. You're allowed to try and defend her statement as within the bounds of what should be tolerable conduct, but don't try to insult people's intelligence with the, "She was only joking, guys!" angle - again, that's a MAGA trick that they use to defend Trump's bullshit when he says something outlandish. You're better than that.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

That left wingers shouldn't be forced to constantly gag themselves, making them not just look but be weak and impotent while their oppositions can do the flashy and savage jabs that it's clear most of society is drawn to.

Again, why are you using MAGA as a role model? Why are you looking at the sort of bullshit that Trump, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and, yes, Charlie Kirk himself trafficked in and saying, "Hey, we should do that too, except on the left!"?

Remember when we all pointed at Trump's insane blather and recognized it for what it was? Can we go back to that? Why are we now saying, "They can do it, so we should too!"?

Just because MAGA has done its best to carve out a space where they can behave like rabid baboons doesn't mean you need to emulate them.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

There's no trying to reach across the table with them.
Trying to insist so enlightened centrism.

At no point have I suggested "reaching across the table" to MAGA and the far-right. This is just straw-manning.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And what kirk does would be hate speech so he'd be a criminal thus mocking his death shouldn't be an issue. The fact that you put more stock in the corrupt American laws than the actual idealogy of things says a lot.

But Kirk's not from my country; he's from the US. And what he said was legal there.

And yes, that does make a difference. He followed the laws as Americans have set them. That means American society, as a gestalt whole, has said that what he did is acceptable - or, at least, not unacceptable enough to face formal punishment. If you disagree, get the laws changed. If American society is as on your side as you seem to believe, that should be very much doable.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

"non-criminal" huh? So you can understand some groups that it's acceptable to make light of their deaths of but you want it to be government approved. You don't see the problem here?

I mean, I've already stated my personal standard - no mocking death, no exceptions - but I acknowledge that I'm not in the majority in holding that view.

But no, it has nothing to do with government approval. All of the people you named previous are people who used violence, rape, and murder to achieve their goals. Charlie Kirk did not. Whatever you think of his views - and they were vile, no arguments there - all he did was talk. Reasonable people should agree that that should not earn him a bullet to the throat.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Making light of horrible people's death is far less associated with MAGA and Republicans than gerrymandering is. At some point fire must be fought with fire.

"I don't want to behave like MAGA, I just want to do the exact same thing that they're doing." Are you even listening to yourself anymore?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And you are the person trying to go to bat for far right extremists by playing playing concern troll.

Wrong. I am trying to preserve whatever sanity is left on the American left, because the American right is very clearly a lost cause. Again, I find it frankly alarming that people in this topic seem to have absolutely no issue aping MAGA's behaviours, because of "fighting fire with fire" or some bullshit like that.

This will not give you any advantage. This will not return your country to sane governance. There is no gain to be had in behaving like a toddler with rage issues - not unless you want to slap on a red cap and go join the other guys.

Nothing about fighting MAGA and the far right behooves you to act like them. If anything, doing so gives them the ultimate victory, because it proves that their approach works and is the way that politics is supposed to be done. I hope I don't have to explain why that's a disastrous line of reasoning.

I am not doing this out of any concern for Charlie Kirk or any others of his ilk. I do not expect, nor want, anyone to venerate him or remember him as anything other than what he was - a hateful troll who learned, in his last moments on this plane of existence, that the hate and anger you send out into the world have a nasty tendency to get reflected back at you in ways you neither like nor expect. But perhaps that lesson is one that more people should take heed of - even those whose politics are diametrically opposed to Kirk's.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And Kirk died a preventable death because of his own hateful rhetoric and contributing to violent gun culture. Very similar situation.

Come on, dude, don't be obtuse. This is not the same situation and you know it perfectly well.

If Herman Cain Awards were awarded to people who got stabbed in the night by vigilante groups hunting down the unvaccinated, then you would have a similar scenario. That is not what happened.

reincarnator07 posted...

Why would it be different if they were a criminal or not? Whether someone is a criminal is a strangely arbitrary distinction, as we collectively decide what a crime is.

You answered your own question with that second sentence - "the law" is how society dictates what is and isn't acceptable conduct.

Moreover, all of the people named in those examples are violent felons. Kirk was not. And, as above, even if you want to remove the role of government in this discussion, all of the examples listed are ones that used violence, rape, and murder to further their aims; by contrast, all Kirk did was talk. However, vile his speech, and it was *very* vile, it was not a justification for his murder.

reincarnator07 posted...

"Thoughts and prayers" is the stock response to every preventable tragedy, the tens of thousands that die every year in preventable shootings. People like Kirk were on the side fighting against this prevention. He was a Nazi bitch. "Thoughts and prayers" is the exact sort of thing Kirk would say in response to his murder if it was someone else, so long as it could stave off gun control measures.

Yes, you explained why Gretchen said what she did. You didn't explain what part of it was supposed to be funny or joking.

reincarnator07 posted...

Enjoying schadenfreude is a long way from acting like MAGA. To act as if they're the same is either ignorant or disingenuous.

But you're not answering the question here - what is the gain? What is the advantage you're looking for in being able to mock murder victims, as long as they fit whatever definition of "acceptable target" you want to offer? How does this lead back to sanity in American politics and not just further into the quagmire of political polarization?

reincarnator07 posted...

Why do you place so much stock in legality? If it was criminalised, would you now be okay with it?

No, I wouldn't - I've already explained my views several times in this topic.

But I notice you didn't answer this question either - Do you support violence against people like Charlie Kirk? Do you think it's OK to physically harm people like him if he isn't doing anything other than talking and is obeying all relevant laws?

reincarnator07 posted...

Do you want a list of countless black people who have been murdered and then laughed at by people just like Kirk without consequence?

No, I want some backing for the argument that was posted. Alts said "Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable", with the implication that Kirk is one of those people. So find me another Charlie Kirk - someone who did not break any laws, was murdered for political speech, and whose murder was uncontroversially mocked.

You don't have to convince me that Kirk and others like him were and are pieces of shit - I'm fully aware of that. You also don't have to convince me that right-wingers have a long, disgusting history of mocking the dead, including murder victims. None of that is being disputed.

But that's not what Alts claimed. They said it has "always" been acceptable to mock the murder of someone like Charlie Kirk. So prove it.

reincarnator07 posted...

In what way does playing nice while they metaphorically punch us in the dick get the USA off its dark path?

By showing that there's an alternative to MAGA's loud, obnoxious, braindead brand. By showing that governance and politics doesn't have to look like people screaming epithets at one another while smearing their shit on the walls. By showing that there's a side in this fight that actually stands for common fucking decency instead of irreverent hatred for anyone they don't like.

I've heard many explanations for why MAGA has won the hearts of the disaffected in the US - some I find feasible, some not. You are not going to get me to ever believe that they're winning because they're assholes. As such, you definitely should not be emulating that part of their conduct.

reincarnator07 posted...

These sorts of shootings are preventable, that's the whole point of gun control.

Sure... but they weren't preventable by Charlie Kirk.

If the US ever moves towards sanity in gun legislation - and I'm doubtful I'll live long enough to see it, if it ever happens at all - it won't be one dude doing it. Either the US rises up as a whole and demands change or this continues. Given how comfortable the body politic in the US has gotten with schoolchildren getting shot at their desks - something the largely-unnoticed Colorado shooting you're referencing is striking evidence of - I know which one of those I think is more likely to happen.

Arcanine2009 posted...

This novels are gonna be worth a lot.

As time passes I have my doubts.

Is there enough collectors nowadays to care about preserving newer comics? Barely anyone reads them.

darkknight109 posted...

Are you saying that people should be allowed to mock a murder victim if they're right-wing or trying to get people to sign on to a revolution? I'm starting to get whiplash trying to piece through this post.

How about "a murder victim can be mocked if they're part of a hate group that actively pushes discrimination for groups to be oppressed and has significantly contributed to systems that do so to the point they've harmed just as much if not more than most criminals"? Dictators are technically not criminals.
darkknight109 posted...

"Thoughts and prayers, bozo" is not what she said, though; "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch is. That's not amusing or joking, that's just a straight up insult.

If you're going to defend her statement, at least have the intellectual honesty to call it what it is. You're allowed to try and defend her statement as within the bounds of what should be tolerable conduct, but don't try to insult people's intelligence with the, "She was only joking, guys!" angle - again, that's a MAGA trick that they use to defend Trump's bulls*** when he says something outlandish. You're better than that.

It's the same thing. Nazi bitch is just harsher. And saying she feels bad for the bullet is definitely a joke. The difference is that the "jokes" Maga use are just straight endorsement of violence and hate like "we should do them like Hitler did!" while then saying they weren't being serious while this here is just making silly statements like "thoughts and prayers, loser!" or "oh no, anyway". Again, the fact that you think these are equal is more an indication which direction you lean more towards.

darkknight109 posted...

Again, why are you using MAGA as a role model? Why are you looking at the sort of bulls*** that Trump, Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, and, yes, Charlie Kirk himself trafficked in and saying, "Hey, we should do that too, except on the left!"?

Remember when we all pointed at Trump's insane blather and recognized it for what it was? Can we go back to that? Why are we now saying, "They can do it, so we should too!"?

Just because MAGA has done its best to carve out a space where they can behave like rabid baboons doesn't mean you need to emulate them.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/9/9c897950.jpg

darkknight109 posted...

At no point have I suggested "reaching across the table" to MAGA and the far-right. This is just straw-manning.

Then why are you pearl clutching at a nazi's death getting made fun of? Who's that supposed to appeal to?

darkknight109 posted...

But Kirk's not from my country; he's from the US. And what he said was legal there.

And yes, that does make a difference. He followed the laws as Americans have set them. That means American society, as a gestalt whole, has said that what he did is acceptable - or, at least, not unacceptable enough to face formal punishment. If you disagree, get the laws changed. If American society is as on your side as you seem to believe, that should be very much doable.

Holy shit so you're not even being serious, you're just trying to play devil's advocate. "Um, it's legal in your country so it's not ok to make fun of him due to the laws in your country thus it somehow is morally different than if the laws were changed to make him a criminal. If you don't like it, change your laws" So I guess in places where abortion is illegal you support people getting charged for it? You support LGBT people being arrested in places where it's illegal?
You: https://twitter.com/reactjpg/status/1272042932036603913

darkknight109 posted...

I mean, I've already stated my personal standard - no mocking death, no exceptions - but I acknowledge that I'm not in the majority in holding that view.

But no, it has nothing to do with government approval. All of the people you named previous are people who used violence, rape, and murder to achieve their goals. Charlie Kirk did not. Whatever you think of his views - and they were vile, no arguments there - all he did was talk. Reasonable people should agree that that should not earn him a bullet to the throat.

He contributed to the rhetoric of violence, rape, and murder. Like dictators who didn't personally get their hands dirty. Again, nobody's going to cry at a KKK member's death. Nor would they cry at someone making fun of and harassing a raped and murdered child victim's grieving family snapping and killing them.

darkknight109 posted...

"I don't want to behave like MAGA, I just want to do the exact same thing that they're doing." Are you even listening to yourself anymore?

That exact same statement applies to gerrymandering which you support. Meanwhile you: I'm just going to die on the hill of pearl clutching for a dead Nazi who supported the very sort of violence that killed him. I'm definitely less of a far righter like him than the ones making fun of him!

darkknight109 posted...

Wrong. I am trying to preserve whatever sanity is left on the American left, because the American right is very clearly a lost cause. Again, I find it frankly alarming that people in this topic seem to have absolutely no issue aping MAGA's behaviours, because of "fighting fire with fire" or some bullshit like that.

This will not give you any advantage. This will not return your country to sane governance. There is no gain to be had in behaving like a toddler with rage issues - not unless you want to slap on a red cap and go join the other guys.

Nothing about fighting MAGA and the far right behooves you to act like them. If anything, doing so gives them the ultimate victory, because it proves that their approach works and is the way that politics is supposed to be done. I hope I don't have to explain why that's a disastrous line of reasoning.

I am not doing this out of any concern for Charlie Kirk or any others of his ilk. I do not expect, nor want, anyone to venerate him or remember him as anything other than what he was - a hateful troll who learned, in his last moments on this plane of existence, that the hate and anger you send out into the world have a nasty tendency to get reflected back at you in ways you neither like nor expect. But perhaps that lesson is one that more people should take heed of - even those whose politics are diametrically opposed to Kirk's.

You're not even American so you're speaking out your ass with no clue what you're talking about. The people screaming to uphold decorum have failed. The "lost cause" are the ones that are in charge and the majority. Fighting fire with fire is a possible solution out. Yeah, go tell the Nepalese youth that their corrupt dictator is a lost cause so they shouldn't be stooping as low as them, that they might as well just be part of the other guys. The allies might well have put on swastikas when they bombed the nazis and imperial japan.
darkknight109 posted...

Come on, dude, don't be obtuse. This is not the same situation and you know it perfectly well.

If Herman Cain Awards were awarded to people who got stabbed in the night by vigilante groups hunting down the unvaccinated, then you would have a similar scenario. That is not what happened.

No, it's you being obtuse and hypocritical, trying to deny it's the same scenario.
Kirk claimed gun deaths are to be expected to keep the 2nd amendment alive. He claimed empathy is a weakness. And now he got both of them. Just like Herman Cain recipients got the deaths from the disease they mocked and scoffed at.

darkknight109 posted...

You answered your own question with that second sentence - "the law" is how society dictates what is and isn't acceptable conduct.

Moreover, all of the people named in those examples are violent felons. Kirk was not. And, as above, even if you want to remove the role of government in this discussion, all of the examples listed are ones that used violence, rape, and murder to further their aims; by contrast, all Kirk did was talk. However, vile his speech, and it was *very* vile, it was not a justification for his murder.

What you say would be correct if society was who decided those laws. That is simply not the case in America. Many gun controls enjoy majority bipartisan support, yet America cannot pass any real gun control. People support taxing billionaires more, but the government does not. People support all sorts of healthcare reforms that even the Dems cannot pass when they had a supermajority.

Yes, you explained why Gretchen said what she did. You didn't explain what part of it was supposed to be funny or joking.

In this case, irony. He died due to the very thing he supported.

But you're not answering the question here - what is the gain? What is the advantage you're looking for in being able to mock murder victims, as long as they fit whatever definition of "acceptable target" you want to offer? How does this lead back to sanity in American politics and not just further into the quagmire of political polarization?

The gain is a hearty chuckle at the expense of people who also had a hearty chuckle at people dying from preventable issues. The gain is schadenfreude. To be clear, I personally do see everyone as an acceptable target for mockery.

How does being nice and polite to the point we don't even accurately call these people out bring sanity back to American politics?

No, I wouldn't - I've already explained my views several times in this topic.

But I notice you didn't answer this question either - Do you support violence against people like Charlie Kirk? Do you think it's OK to physically harm people like him if he isn't doing anything other than talking and is obeying all relevant laws?

I did back in post 52. "To be clear, I do not want more terrorism and violence". You didn't notice because you did not look.

No, I want some backing for the argument that was posted. Alts said "Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable", with the implication that Kirk is one of those people. So find me another Charlie Kirk - someone who did not break any laws, was murdered for political speech, and whose murder was uncontroversially mocked.

You don't have to convince me that Kirk and others like him were and are pieces of shit - I'm fully aware of that. You also don't have to convince me that right-wingers have a long, disgusting history of mocking the dead, including murder victims. None of that is being disputed.

But that's not what Alts claimed. They said it has "always" been acceptable to mock the murder of someone like Charlie Kirk. So prove it.

Melissa Hortman. Barely 3 months ago. Didn't break any laws, murdered for political gain and relentlessly mocked by conservatives.

By showing that there's an alternative to MAGA's loud, obnoxious, braindead brand. By showing that governance and politics doesn't have to look like people screaming epithets at one another while smearing their shit on the walls. By showing that there's a side in this fight that actually stands for common fucking decency instead of irreverent hatred for anyone they don't like.

I've heard many explanations for why MAGA has won the hearts of the disaffected in the US - some I find feasible, some not. You are not going to get me to ever believe that they're winning because they're assholes. As such, you definitely should not be emulating that part of their conduct.

How well did that work for Harris? She was the return to normalcy candidate, someone to take the positives of the Biden admin and build on them. She got wrecked, despite the fact that Trump could barely speak properly.

People know that there are polite candidates. They keep emphatically voting against them. They don't want normal candidates, they want Trump like figures.

Sure... but they weren't preventable by Charlie Kirk.

If the US ever moves towards sanity in gun legislation - and I'm doubtful I'll live long enough to see it, if it ever happens at all - it won't be one dude doing it. Either the US rises up as a whole and demands change or this continues. Given how comfortable the body politic in the US has gotten with schoolchildren getting shot at their desks - something the largely-unnoticed Colorado shooting you're referencing is striking evidence of - I know which one of those I think is more likely to happen.

My brother in Zodiark, who do you believe is running interference against gun control?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

How about "a murder victim can be mocked if they're part of a hate group that actively pushes discrimination for groups to be oppressed and has significantly contributed to systems that do so to the point they've harmed just as much if not more than most criminals"?

So let's say Barrack Obama was assassinated tomorrow. Shot in the throat, same as Charlie Kirk.

Then out come the redcaps mocking his death, saying how glad they are he's dead, laughing at him for fighting gun control but ultimately dying to a gun, the works. You decide to call one of them out - they point out that Obama oversaw an extensive drone campaign in Iraq that killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians.

Is that aboveboard in your world or no?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Dictators are technically not criminals.

You're taking the piss now, surely.

"Dictators are not criminals?" Really? Ignoring that this is blatantly incorrect, are you seriously attempting to advance that argument?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

It's the same thing. Nazi bitch is just harsher.

Yes, and that's the point. "Jokes" aren't supposed to be "harsh", they're supposed to be funny.

Gretchen wasn't calling him a Nazi bitch so that people would giggle - she was mocking his death by saying, in essence, that he got what he deserved.

Again, at least have the intellectual honesty to be real about what she was saying. We can do without the "What she actually meant was..." Trumpist bullshit, thank you.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Again, the fact that you think these are equal is more an indication which direction you lean more towards.

Oh yes, the guy who has spent the whole topic talking about what a piece of shit Charlie Kirk was and how the left shouldn't be copying MAGA because MAGA are trash is totally a right-winger. Brilliant deduction, Holmes.

And no, I don't think the two things you mentioned are equal, that is just more strawmanning from you and I'm getting a bit annoyed with it. Two things can both be wrong without being equally wrong. If I say petty theft and murder are both bad, that does not mean that I consider the two actions equal.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

[Comic]

Got some bitter medicine for you here, bud - pointing out how you're eagerly going down the same road MAGA has trod is not "same things, both sides". I get that people don't like having their hypocrisy pointed out, but it's needed from time to time. I may not be from the US, but the rest of the world benefits from the US not sliding any further into insanity than it already has. I'm not doing this because I think "both sides bad"; I'm doing this because I don't want the left to turn into blue MAGA.

Be better.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Then why are you pearl clutching at a nazi's death getting made fun of? Who's that supposed to appeal to?

Exactly who I've been talking to this entire topic - those on the American left who, as I've said several times so far, represent the last part of the American political system that's still somewhat sane. Again, I have no sympathy for Charlie Kirk and I'm certainly not doing this for his sake; I'm doing this for the sake of those in the US who represent the only hope of a return to good governance.

The right abandoned years ago the idea of calling one another out for their excesses and instead fell into the trap of purity tests and hatred. We don't need that shit infecting the left as well.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

So I guess in places where abortion is illegal you support people getting charged for it? You support LGBT people being arrested in places where it's illegal?

Nope, I do not, because those things are morally wrong.

You're talking about two different issues now - these examples are criminalizing "conduct"; what we're discussing is criminalizing "speech". The two are not going to have the same standards applied to them.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

You: [Twitter link]

The irony that you're calling me a right-winger while posting links to a literal Nazi website is not lost on me.

Anyways, I'm not giving fucking Twitter traffic. Repost it here or don't bother posting it at all, because I'm not clicking on any of those links.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

He contributed to the rhetoric of violence, rape, and murder. Like dictators who didn't personally get their hands dirty.

You have any evidence that Charlie Kirk ordered violence, rape, and murder the way a dictator does, Mr. "Dictators aren't actually criminals"?

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

That exact same statement applies to gerrymandering which you support. Meanwhile you: I'm just going to die on the hill of pearl clutching for a dead Nazi who supported the very sort of violence that killed him. I'm definitely less of a far righter like him than the ones making fun of him!

Take your purity test bullshit elsewhere, dude. My political beliefs are not so feckless that I need to be goaded into mocking a dead guy to validate them; I'm sorry you can't say the same about yours.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

You're not even American so you're speaking out your ass with no clue what you're talking about.

Hey, look at that - another classic MAGA line. I usually get this one when talking to Republicans about how ridiculous American gun laws are. Odd that you keep parroting their approach yet still insist you're not like them.

Anyways, I'll tell you the same thing I usually tell them: one does not need to contract cancer to understand how fatal it is. The fact that I don't live there doesn't mean I don't keep up with what's going on in the US; due to the outsize effect it has on global affairs, it's kind of a necessity.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Fighting fire with fire is a possible solution out.

So you keep saying, but you haven't bothered to explain why.

Do you think if you just, I don't know, insult people harder that all of a sudden sanity will return? How the fuck does that work?

It doesn't. No one who was brought up conservative has ever switched political allegiances because they heard a really good zinger from someone mocking a corpse. People change political allegiances when they think the other side can offer them a solution to their problems.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

No, it's you being obtuse and hypocritical, trying to deny it's the same scenario.

If an anti-vaxxer who died of COVID had instead gotten vaccinated, they probably would have lived.

If Charlie Kirk had a change of heart and advocated for better gun control, he still probably would have died because one person is not going to change the gun hysteria that America has been in thrall to for decades.

It is decidedly not the same scenario.

reincarnator07 posted...

What you say would be correct if society was who decided those laws. That is simply not the case in America. Many gun controls enjoy majority bipartisan support, yet America cannot pass any real gun control. People support taxing billionaires more, but the government does not. People support all sorts of healthcare reforms that even the Dems cannot pass when they had a supermajority.

Fair points, so focus on the other thing I said - the people named in those examples were perpetrators of violence, rape, and murder; Kirk, despite his many flaws, did not cross those lines.

reincarnator07 posted...

In this case, irony. He died due to the very thing he supported.

But that wasn't what she said. She didn't say something like, "Weird how there was no good guy with a gun, right guys?" or "Didn't Kirk say that the second amendment was supposed to stop this?" or something like that; she said, and I quote, "Thoughts and prayers, you Nazi bitch."

I see no joke in that statement; the only definition I can read out of that is, "Ha ha, you got what you deserved."

reincarnator07 posted...

To be clear, I personally do see everyone as an acceptable target for mockery.

"Everyone"?

So were you OK with George Floyd's death being mocked? Or Trayvon Martin's? Were you OK with Trump mocking the attack on Paul Pelosi? Or Republicans making fun of Gabby Giffords's shooting? Do you think no one should have lost their jobs over that sort of rhetoric?

reincarnator07 posted...

How does being nice and polite to the point we don't even accurately call these people out bring sanity back to American politics?

I've said this several times, but I'll repeat it here: I have no qualms against people calling out Kirk for what he was. I have no problem with people having discussions on how hateful his rhetoric was, how he worked to make the US worse, and how he did his part to help poison political discourse in America and beyond. That's all entirely fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

What I'm against is crossing the line into mocking or celebrating murder. I would hope we can all agree that while Kirk was certainly a piece of shit, he did not deserve to be killed for it.

reincarnator07 posted...

I did back in post 52. "To be clear, I do not want more terrorism and violence".

Good - I agree with this position.

But square that with what you said in Post 62 - the "punch a Nazi" idea. How does that relate to the subject of Charlie Kirk's death? Because it seemed like you were saying it would be heroic and just for someone to physically accost Charlie Kirk and those like him. Maybe that's me misunderstanding your post, so feel free to clarify, but any call to violence is something that should be treated very, very carefully, because it's damn near impossible to get that genie back in the bottle and it historically has led us to some very dark places.

reincarnator07 posted...

Melissa Hortman. Barely 3 months ago. Didn't break any laws, murdered for political gain and relentlessly mocked by conservatives.

Do you believe that Hortman "visibly actively harmed society" and "spread hate"? And was there no controversy or pushback against those who mocked her death? Because if not, she's not an example of what Alts was claiming.

reincarnator07 posted...

How well did that work for Harris? She was the return to normalcy candidate, someone to take the positives of the Biden admin and build on them. She got wrecked, despite the fact that Trump could barely speak properly.

People know that there are polite candidates. They keep emphatically voting against them. They don't want normal candidates, they want Trump like figures.

Counterpoint: The 2020 election. If the people want brash Trumpers, not polite people, how did Trump lose to Biden?

Again, you're not going to get me to believe that Trump and MAGA won solely for being assholes. There are plenty of explanations for why Harris lost, ranging from racism/misogyny to the pressures of inflation (which claimed more than a few other incumbent governments in the post-COVID era) to the chaos caused by Biden's late exit from the campaign, most of which I find more feasible than suggesting Harris lost because of her demeanour.

Correlation does not equal causation. Just because Harris lost and was the more polite candidate by far doesn't mean that she lost because she was the more polite candidate by far.

reincarnator07 posted...

My brother in Zodiark, who do you believe is running interference against gun control?

If I tried to name them all I'd use up the character limit for this entire topic.

Hence why I said one dude does not move the needle on gun control. If Charlie Kirk advocated for stronger gun control, that would have done absolutely nothing to stop him from getting shot in the throat. It would take a movement much larger than him to have a hope at preventing that shooting.

By contrast, just about any anti-vaxxer who died of COVID could have easily prevented their own death by, y'know, getting vaccinated.

darkknight109 posted...

Fair points, so focus on the other thing I said - the people named in those examples were perpetrators of violence, rape, and murder; Kirk, despite his many flaws, did not cross those lines.

His ideology and political positions that he pushed did. One is not innocent purely because they didn't pull a trigger.

"Everyone"?

So were you OK with George Floyd's death being mocked? Or Trayvon Martin's? Were you OK with Trump mocking the attack on Paul Pelosi? Or Republicans making fun of Gabby Giffords's shooting? Do you think no one should have lost their jobs over that sort of rhetoric?

I think as with humour in general, one should consider their position and audience, along with the context of that joke. I've said stuff among my friends that would absolutely get me fired. For example, I actually find a lot of racist jokes quite funny on a personal level, even as I've been on the other side of them when they clearly weren't meant as jokes towards me. I wouldn't tell any of them to someone who has been traumatised by racial abuse.

I've said this several times, but I'll repeat it here: I have no qualms against people calling out Kirk for what he was. I have no problem with people having discussions on how hateful his rhetoric was, how he worked to make the US worse, and how he did his part to help poison political discourse in America and beyond. That's all entirely fair game, as far as I'm concerned.

What I'm against is crossing the line into mocking or celebrating murder. I would hope we can all agree that while Kirk was certainly a piece of shit, he did not deserve to be killed for it.

He didn't, but I'm certainly not gonna pretend that I'm sad that he was killed when he spent his life hating people like me.

darkknight109 posted...

Good - I agree with this position.

But square that with what you said in Post 62 - the "punch a Nazi" idea. How does that relate to the subject of Charlie Kirk's death? Because it seemed like you were saying it would be heroic and just for someone to physically accost Charlie Kirk and those like him. Maybe that's me misunderstanding your post, so feel free to clarify, but any call to violence is something that should be treated very, very carefully, because it's damn near impossible to get that genie back in the bottle and it historically has led us to some very dark places.

Why does it seem like I said it would be heroic for someone to physically attack people like Kirk when the part you're replying to is literally where I said I was against political violence? I assure you, I'd much prefer the world where Kirk was silenced by ostracising him from society for his bigotry than the one where he was just killed. Dead people cannot try to make amends.

Do you believe that Hortman "visibly actively harmed society" and "spread hate"? And was there no controversy or pushback against those who mocked her death? Because if not, she's not an example of what Alts was claiming.

Your criteria was "someone who did not break any laws, was murdered for political speech, and whose murder was uncontroversially mocked."

Counterpoint: The 2020 election. If the people want brash Trumpers, not polite people, how did Trump lose to Biden?

Again, you're not going to get me to believe that Trump and MAGA won solely for being assholes. There are plenty of explanations for why Harris lost, ranging from racism/misogyny to the pressures of inflation (which claimed more than a few other incumbent governments in the post-COVID era) to the chaos caused by Biden's late exit from the campaign, most of which I find more feasible than suggesting Harris lost because of her demeanour.

Correlation does not equal causation. Just because Harris lost and was the more polite candidate by far doesn't mean that she lost because she was the more polite candidate by far.

Trump barely lost after getting over a million Americans killed to the VP of one of the most popular presidents of the modern era. When the choice was between the deranged version of Trump and a pretty standard Democrat who happened to be a black woman, they gleefully jumped to the former.

If I tried to name them all I'd use up the character limit for this entire topic.

Hence why I said one dude does not move the needle on gun control. If Charlie Kirk advocated for stronger gun control, that would have done absolutely nothing to stop him from getting shot in the throat. It would take a movement much larger than him to have a hope at preventing that shooting.

By contrast, just about any anti-vaxxer who died of COVID could have easily prevented their own death by, y'know, getting vaccinated.

TPUSA is unfortunately a major platform. It absolutely moves the needle, that's why millions of dollars flow into it. It's a cog in a massive machine, but that doesn't diminish its value.

What they posted was tamed to what my coworker from Sales department said (she made a Tiktok video encouraging her followers for more Trumpers/Conservatives to get shot while holding a Dessert Eagle in her hand...and yes she got fired for it).

reincarnator07 posted...

His ideology and political positions that he pushed did. One is not innocent purely because they didn't pull a trigger.

But do you see the difference between Kirk and the others mentioned?

Did he contribute to an environment of anger and hatred that is costing people their lives? I certainly think so. But he didn't actually attack anyone. To the best of my knowledge (and I am far from an encyclopedic authority on Charlie Kirk, so I freely acknowledge I may be wrong about this) I'm not even aware that he advocated for violence against anyone.

There is a line there and it is a line that most of society recognizes. Do violence and you're not going to earn much sympathy after death; don't and at least some people will probably want your memory respected, rightly or wrongly.

reincarnator07 posted...

I think as with humour in general, one should consider their position and audience, along with the context of that joke. I've said stuff among my friends that would absolutely get me fired. For example, I actually find a lot of racist jokes quite funny on a personal level, even as I've been on the other side of them when they clearly weren't meant as jokes towards me. I wouldn't tell any of them to someone who has been traumatised by racial abuse.

This is all fair and I don't disagree.

But consider the context in which Gretchen made her remarks. This wasn't a private gathering amongst friends; it was a very public statement. As you yourself observed, context matters and so does the audience. There are some people who Gretchen could have made those statements to who simply would have nodded and said, "Yup, fuck that guy." But when you're putting those statements into the public sphere, you're going to get a different reaction.

reincarnator07 posted...

He didn't, but I'm certainly not gonna pretend that I'm sad that he was killed when he spent his life hating people like me.

Again, completely fair. No one, including me, thinks you should be sad for a man who certainly wouldn't shed a tear for you if your situations were reversed. That's not what I'm suggesting at all and the people in the US government and elsewhere who are demanding that people mourn Charlie Kirk's passing and respect his memory are straight-up wrong.

reincarnator07 posted...

Why does it seem like I said it would be heroic for someone to physically attack people like Kirk when the part you're replying to is literally where I said I was against political violence?

That's why I asked you to clarify.

You did say that you were against violence and terrorism, which is good. Then a few posts later you asked me if I was against punching Nazis, which seems to run counter to your earlier statement. Why bring it up in that context? It seemed strange.

reincarnator07 posted...

Your criteria was "someone who did not break any laws, was murdered for political speech, and whose murder was uncontroversially mocked."

No, my criteria was "prove Alts's statement true." Follow that quote chain back and you'll arrive at this, posted by Alts: "Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable" as a way of justifying the mockery of Charlie Kirk. I disputed that, asking for an example of someone who fit that definition and wasn't a criminal, yet whose death was uncontroversially mocked.

Putting forward Melissa Hortman doesn't prove anything about Alts's argument - she didn't "visibly actively harm society", she didn't "spread hate", and those who mocked her murder received pushback on the left (less than they should have, but that mockery wasn't "acceptable" by any definition of the word, save amongst some pretty unsavoury people).

So, again, show me an example of Alts's hypothesis in action. Show me another person who looks like Charlie Kirk ("actively harmed society", "spread hate", not a criminal, murdered for political speech) whose death was mocked without significant controversy.

reincarnator07 posted...

Trump barely lost after getting over a million Americans killed to the VP of one of the most popular presidents of the modern era. When the choice was between the deranged version of Trump and a pretty standard Democrat who happened to be a black woman, they gleefully jumped to the former.

Sure, but again, correlation does not equal causation. We can sit here all day and talk about why the Democrats lost in 2024, but I am heavily, heavily skeptical that it was simply because they weren't rude enough.

Perhaps you feel differently, but I don't think that Kamala would have pulled off a crushing victory if she swore more often and called Trump playground names.

reincarnator07 posted...

TPUSA is unfortunately a major platform. It absolutely moves the needle, that's why millions of dollars flow into it. It's a cog in a massive machine, but that doesn't diminish its value.

Sure, I don't disagree.

But, again, how does Charlie Kirk going pro-gun control change that equation? Hell, let's go full wild and say that him deciding to speak out in favour of gun control causes the entirety of TPUSA to do the same (it very obviously would not, but let's pretend for a second) - do you really think that would lead to more/better gun control in the US?

Because I don't. Certainly not with the SCOTUS the US is currently stuck with. Given how expansive their view of the second amendment is, I don't see anything changing until the makeup of the court does (or a constitutional amendment is passed, but good luck with that ever going anywhere in the modern political era).

darkknight109 posted...

But do you see the difference between Kirk and the others mentioned?

Did he contribute to an environment of anger and hatred that is costing people their lives? I certainly think so. But he didn't actually attack anyone. To the best of my knowledge (and I am far from an encyclopedic authority on Charlie Kirk, so I freely acknowledge I may be wrong about this) I'm not even aware that he advocated for violence against anyone.

There is a line there and it is a line that most of society recognizes. Do violence and you're not going to earn much sympathy after death; don't and at least some people will probably want your memory respected, rightly or wrongly.

This is all fair and I don't disagree.

But consider the context in which Gretchen made her remarks. This wasn't a private gathering amongst friends; it was a very public statement. As you yourself observed, context matters and so does the audience. There are some people who Gretchen could have made those statements to who simply would have nodded and said, "Yup, fuck that guy." But when you're putting those statements into the public sphere, you're going to get a different reaction.

Again, completely fair. No one, including me, thinks you should be sad for a man who certainly wouldn't shed a tear for you if your situations were reversed. That's not what I'm suggesting at all and the people in the US government and elsewhere who are demanding that people mourn Charlie Kirk's passing and respect his memory are straight-up wrong.

That's why I asked you to clarify.

You did say that you were against violence and terrorism, which is good. Then a few posts later you asked me if I was against punching Nazis, which seems to run counter to your earlier statement. Why bring it up in that context? It seemed strange.

No, my criteria was "prove Alts's statement true." Follow that quote chain back and you'll arrive at this, posted by Alts: "Mocking the deaths of people that visibly actively harm society and spread hate has always been acceptable" as a way of justifying the mockery of Charlie Kirk. I disputed that, asking for an example of someone who fit that definition and wasn't a criminal, yet whose death was uncontroversially mocked.

Putting forward Melissa Hortman doesn't prove anything about Alts's argument - she didn't "visibly actively harm society", she didn't "spread hate", and those who mocked her murder received pushback on the left (less than they should have, but that mockery wasn't "acceptable" by any definition of the word, save amongst some pretty unsavoury people).

So, again, show me an example of Alts's hypothesis in action. Show me another person who looks like Charlie Kirk ("actively harmed society", "spread hate", not a criminal, murdered for political speech) whose death was mocked without significant controversy.

Sure, but again, correlation does not equal causation. We can sit here all day and talk about why the Democrats lost in 2024, but I am heavily, heavily skeptical that it was simply because they weren't rude enough.

Perhaps you feel differently, but I don't think that Kamala would have pulled off a crushing victory if she swore more often and called Trump playground names.

Sure, I don't disagree.

But, again, how does Charlie Kirk going pro-gun control change that equation? Hell, let's go full wild and say that him deciding to speak out in favour of gun control causes the entirety of TPUSA to do the same (it very obviously would not, but let's pretend for a second) - do you really think that would lead to more/better gun control in the US?

Because I don't. Certainly not with the SCOTUS the US is currently stuck with. Given how expansive their view of the second amendment is, I don't see anything changing until the makeup of the court does (or a constitutional amendment is passed, but good luck with that ever going anywhere in the modern political era).

Were at, what, 4 5 pages now of Gish-gallop trolling? The amount of times youve failed to recognize you were proven wrong, only to immediately pivot to another point or, even funnier, to introduce an irrelevant hypothetical false equivalence has to be near double digits now.

What are you even getting out of this?

Jolly_Bear posted...

The amount of times youve conceded a point being wrong

Show me where I've conceded a point being wrong.

Jolly_Bear posted...

What are you even getting out of this?

I've already explained why I'm doing this multiple times. If you've read my posts, you already know the answer to this.

Jolly_Bear posted...

Were at, what, 4 5 pages now of Gish-gallop trolling?

Imagine not viewing GameFAQs in 50-posts-per-page settings.

darkknight109 posted...

Show me where I've conceded a point being wrong.

I've already explained why I'm doing this multiple times. If you've read my posts, you already know the answer to this.

Imagine not viewing GameFAQs in 50-posts-per-page settings.

After reviewing your posts, my mistake! You fail to recognize when youre incorrect and thus dont concede any points before pivoting to the next false equivalence or irrelevant hypothetical - Ill go ahead and edit that part of my post to avoid putting words in your mouth

Judging from the posts as well, it seems like you believe that decorum is the most important component to political action and that none should voice disagreement against propagandic actions to launder white nationalists reputation after some potential friendly fire. Fascinatingly, you draw comparisons between the actions of this writer with the actions of MAGA - Id be more sympathetic to someone talking about something they have minimal familiarity with, but I dont think youd appreciate that regardless.

Feel free to correct me on anything I got wrong - maybe if we work together, we can refine your point into something that can stand tall and firm on its own!

Part of me just believes that they wanted to give rid of these workers for some time now and just wanted a good excuse to do so.

The writing was on the wall since the pivot all companies did after Trump victory, they might just use this to clean house.

Jolly_Bear posted...

Were at, what, 4 5 pages now of Gish-gallop trolling? The amount of times youve failed to recognize you were proven wrong, only to immediately pivot to another point or, even funnier, to introduce an irrelevant hypothetical false equivalence has to be near double digits now.

What are you even getting out of this?

That's darkknight in a nutshell.

https://gamefaqs.com/boards/400-current-events/80947129

It's purged now but you can still find if you know how to read it. Just insisting on Super Knuckles/Tails being treated the same as the Super Hedgehogs despite everything clearly indicating otherwise while he claims his personal made up criteria is the official criteria. One of those people that think the world revolves around them.

012yArthur0 posted...

Part of me just believes that they wanted to give rid of these workers for some time now and just wanted a good excuse to do so.

The writing was on the wall since the pivot all companies did after Trump victory, they might just use this to clean house.

Admittedly from some of the termination letters online, a few of these were "this is the last straw", but others were first time offenses

Jolly_Bear posted...

Judging from the posts as well, it seems like you believe that decorum is the most important component to political action

I don't, and I'm not sure what gave you that impression, so the rest of your post is just kind of you going on a tangent that doesn't really merit a response.

PBusted posted...

That's darkknight in a nutshell.

https://gamefaqs.com/boards/400-current-events/80947129

It's purged now but you can still find if you know how to read it. Just insisting on Super Knuckles/Tails being treated the same as the Super Hedgehogs despite everything clearly indicating otherwise while he claims his personal made up criteria is the official criteria. One of those people that think the world revolves around them.

It is absolutely hysterical to me that you even remember this argument, never mind felt like bringing it up in a topic about a shooting death.

How long ago did that happen? A year ago? Two? How long have I been living in your head that you still even have that link?

darkknight109 posted...

It is absolutely hysterical to me that you even remember this argument, never mind felt like bringing it up in a topic about a shooting death.

How long ago did that happen? A year ago? Two? How long have I been living in your head that you still even have that link?

The classic response of why do you still remember that? from regular shitposters. It happened 5 months ago, and your gish galloping narcissism here reminded me of when you did the same back then.

Apparently you spend a lot more time thinking about superpowered cartoon characters than I do, because I had honestly forgot about that topic until you brought it up.

But whatever, dude - keep that debate alive in your head for another half-year if you want, but it won't make you happy.

darkknight109 posted...

Apparently you spend a lot more time thinking about superpowered cartoon characters than I do, because I had honestly forgot about that topic until you brought it up.

But whatever, dude - keep that debate alive in your head for another half-year if you want, but it won't make you happy.

That topic is a good showing of your contrarianism, narcissism and dishonesty on full display in a spot where you dont feel the need to hide it. Its a showing of how worthless your posts are.

darkknight109 posted...

So let's say Barrack Obama was assassinated tomorrow. Shot in the throat, same as Charlie Kirk.

Then out come the redcaps mocking his death, saying how glad they are he's dead, laughing at him for fighting gun control but ultimately dying to a gun, the works. You decide to call one of them out - they point out that Obama oversaw an extensive drone campaign in Iraq that killed hundreds if not thousands of civilians.

Is that aboveboard in your world or no?

You haven't learned a thing have you? Still comparing standard politicians with nazi advocates. An actual accurate comparison to Kirk would someone that's Pro-Hamas, constantly advocated that annihilating Jews in Israel is what's needed and helped donate to Hamas, and then got picked off for it. That person would get sneered at even if all they did was "talk".

darkknight109 posted...

You're taking the piss now, surely.

"Dictators are not criminals?" Really? Ignoring that this is blatantly incorrect, are you seriously attempting to advance that argument?

Obviously they're not criminals in their own countries given that they own that country. And "the country they're in" was the whole reason you say Kirk isn't a criminal despite his speech being crimes in many other developed countries. Continuing to show your own disconnect.

darkknight109 posted...

Yes, and that's the point. "Jokes" aren't supposed to be "harsh", they're supposed to be funny.

Gretchen wasn't calling him a Nazi bitch so that people would giggle - she was mocking his death by saying, in essence, that he got what he deserved.

Again, at least have the intellectual honesty to be real about what she was saying. We can do without the "What she actually meant was..." Trumpist bullshit, thank you.

Harsh savage jokes can be funny. No, "thoughts and prayers, Nazi bitch" isn't saying he got what deserved, it's saying he's not someone worth mourning for. The one trying to speak for others is you.

darkknight109 posted...

Oh yes, the guy who has spent the whole topic talking about what a piece of shit Charlie Kirk was and how the left shouldn't be copying MAGA because MAGA are trash is totally a right-winger. Brilliant deduction, Holmes.

And no, I don't think the two things you mentioned are equal, that is just more strawmanning from you and I'm getting a bit annoyed with it. Two things can both be wrong without being equally wrong. If I say petty theft and murder are both bad, that does not mean that I consider the two actions equal.

It's called concern trolling. "Oh, MAGA is so terrible! That's why you should lie down and accept them because not accepting defeat is what MAGA does!"

The point is that the things she said about Kirk are jokes at its core. The "jokes" of MAGA are just straight up endorsements of violence that they just put the joke status over.

darkknight109 posted...

Got some bitter medicine for you here, bud - pointing out how you're eagerly going down the same road MAGA has trod is not "same things, both sides". I get that people don't like having their hypocrisy pointed out, but it's needed from time to time. I may not be from the US, but the rest of the world benefits from the US not sliding any further into insanity than it already has. I'm not doing this because I think "both sides bad"; I'm doing this because I don't want the left to turn into blue MAGA.

Be better.

No, it literally is same thing both sides. The only hypocrite here is you. The sliding insanity is all on the right, decorum isn't going to help shift it back the left now, fighting fire with fire might. Like gerrymandering which is much closer to blue MAGA which you apparently support yet you're pearl clutching at this.

darkknight109 posted...

Exactly who I've been talking to this entire topic - those on the American left who, as I've said several times so far, represent the last part of the American political system that's still somewhat sane. Again, I have no sympathy for Charlie Kirk and I'm certainly not doing this for his sake; I'm doing this for the sake of those in the US who represent the only hope of a return to good governance.

The right abandoned years ago the idea of calling one another out for their excesses and instead fell into the trap of purity tests and hatred. We don't need that shit infecting the left as well.

The tiny impotent part that can't do anything? So you just want to feel good and pat yourself on the back? This is like telling black people during Jim Crow to not make a fuss because you want it for their sake so that they don't join the obnoxiousness of the rest of the country including the "loud and obnoxious civil rights movement" around them.

darkknight109 posted...

Nope, I do not, because those things are morally wrong.

You're talking about two different issues now - these examples are criminalizing "conduct"; what we're discussing is criminalizing "speech". The two are not going to have the same standards applied to them.

And making fun of the death of someone whose harm exceeds that of criminals and who would be a criminal in another country isn't morally wrong. You're changing your acceptance of him getting his death made fun of because of the laws of the country which would be the same as changing your acceptance of someone getting charged for abortion or lgbt due to the laws of the country.

darkknight109 posted...

The irony that you're calling me a right-winger while posting links to a literal Nazi website is not lost on me.

Anyways, I'm not giving fucking Twitter traffic. Repost it here or don't bother posting it at all, because I'm not clicking on any of those links.

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/5/55453d26.jpg

darkknight109 posted...

You have any evidence that Charlie Kirk ordered violence, rape, and murder the way a dictator does, Mr. "Dictators aren't actually criminals"?

https://jacobin.com/2025/09/kirk-posobiec-political-violence-far-right

Take a look, for instance, at a 2024 interview he did with Jack Posobiec, a far-right commentator known for spreading the #Pizzagate mythos and for his association with various out-and-out white supremacists, none of which stopped Kirk from employing him for years in his organization Turning Point USA and cohosting a podcast with him. It was one of my favorite conversations Ive ever had with him, Kirk told listeners after interviewing Posobiec for his book Unhumans:The Secret History of Communist Revolutions (and How to Crush Them), which argues that right-wing dictators were right to torture, kill, and otherwise repress the Left, and that todays conservatives might have to take a page out of their book.
That is not hyperbole; it is literally what the book argues and is about.

And there is no indication that any of it gave Kirk any pause as he allowed Posobiec and his coauthor to hold forth unchallenged about how the Spanish fascist leader Francisco Franco and the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet responsible for hundreds of thousands of murders between them were great men who had a fathers heart for their country and were their countries equivalents to George Washington, whose great deeds are only remembered badly now because an omniscient, all-powerful left has infiltrated education and entertainment and rewritten history. Franco simply had to do what he did including concentration camps, mass rape, torture, and hundreds of thousands of killings because he was fighting a war, and doing it the same way that [William Tecumseh] Sherman fought a civil war, they explain.
Kirk didnt push back on any of this. As Posobiec explained that he endorsed killing his political opponents the unhumans of the books menacing title Kirk personally talked about how conservatives needed to stop being nice and said he wanted to emphasize the bit about how to crush them, meaning the modern liberal-left. He talked about how he wanted to see a right-wing revolution.
The only remotely challenging question Kirk posed was about whether it was truly possible to eliminate their opposition without using violence. Posobiecs reply was that the United States could merely rerun the earlier Red Scares and round up and expel thousands of people whose politics they disagree with the supposedly moderate solution and that the only times violence has been used is when right-wing forces were faced with violence already. The keen-eyed reader may note that this is a thinly veiled permission structure for conservatives to engage in political violence, if they can construe any violence against themselves as having been inflicted or incited by their opponents.
Are communists channeling the demonic? Kirk asked at the close of the interview. His subjects explained that communists, a label that to them describes ordinary liberals and Democratic officials, operate in the same way as Satan and demons do.

This is not an isolated example. We have an idea of what kind of revolution Kirk was thinking of when we look at his critical role in trying to help Trump illegally overturn the 2020 election. That didnt just include using his massive platform to spread lies that Trump had won the election but also busing people into Washington to try to storm the Capitol and stop the certification of the election.

darkknight109 posted...

Take your purity test bullshit elsewhere, dude. My political beliefs are not so feckless that I need to be goaded into mocking a dead guy to validate them; I'm sorry you can't say the same about yours.

This is the typical projection from right wing types. The one purity testing is YOU. "Make fun of a dead Nazi? That makes you a Nazi yourself!" That's your whole argument.

darkknight109 posted...

Hey, look at that - another classic MAGA line. I usually get this one when talking to Republicans about how ridiculous American gun laws are. Odd that you keep parroting their approach yet still insist you're not like them.

Anyways, I'll tell you the same thing I usually tell them: one does not need to contract cancer to understand how fatal it is. The fact that I don't live there doesn't mean I don't keep up with what's going on in the US; due to the outsize effect it has on global affairs, it's kind of a necessity.

That's rich coming from the guy whose getting all his lines from the playbook of "both siding" enlightened centrist right wing concern trolls.

darkknight109 posted...

So you keep saying, but you haven't bothered to explain why.

Do you think if you just, I don't know, insult people harder that all of a sudden sanity will return? How the fuck does that work?

It doesn't. No one who was brought up conservative has ever switched political allegiances because they heard a really good zinger from someone mocking a corpse. People change political allegiances when they think the other side can offer them a solution to their problems.

As I've already said, the message that hate advocates and extremists like Kirk need as much disdain as possible rather than treating them as just another commentator which is what's gotten the far right their power.

Nobody's switching sides from the left wing showing decorum and giving impotent "this shouldn't have happened but..." either. Being harsh however can help draw in the crowd that's drawn to zingers and "savage!" which American society has shown there's way more of than there isn't.

darkknight109 posted...

If an anti-vaxxer who died of COVID had instead gotten vaccinated, they probably would have lived.

If Charlie Kirk had a change of heart and advocated for better gun control, he still probably would have died because one person is not going to change the gun hysteria that America has been in thrall to for decades.

It is decidedly not the same scenario.

If Kirk wasn't a major well known controversial talking head speaking in a region where guns are everywhere he wouldn't have been in that situation.

It is decidedly the same scenario.

PBusted posted...

That topic is a good showing of your contrarianism, narcissism and dishonesty on full display in a spot where you dont feel the need to hide it. Its a showing of how worthless your posts are.

Imagine getting this upset about an argument about cartoon hedgehogs.

darkknight109 posted...

Imagine getting this upset about an argument about cartoon hedgehogs.

Says the guy who spent several days and several college thesises arguing about it and being wrong to boot. Classic narcissists with no self-awareness.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

You haven't learned a thing have you? Still comparing standard politicians with nazi advocates.

So if Charlie Kirk was a politician he'd be off limits? Is that the standard you're going with now? You seem to be moving all over the place on this point.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Obviously they're not criminals in their own countries given that they own that country.

If you ignore the substantive list of dictators who were imprisoned and/or executed by your own country, sure.

Oh, and also the fact that just because someone wasn't prosecuted or convicted of a crime doesn't suddenly make them not a criminal.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And "the country they're in" was the whole reason you say Kirk isn't a criminal despite his speech being crimes in many other developed countries.

I also think gay people aren't criminals despite the fact that being gay is illegal in some countries.

You seem to be pushing this weird idea that if someone does something that is legal in their country but illegal anywhere else, they're a criminal, which is a fascinating theory. Completely unhinged, but fascinating.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

No, "thoughts and prayers, Nazi bitch" isn't saying he got what deserved, it's saying he's not someone worth mourning for.

Which isn't her joking, it's her making a statement. Unless you're suggesting she didn't actually mean it, which we both know is not the case. People aren't supposed to laugh at that line; the intended reaction is a cheer from the people who agree with her.

So far you've characterized her statement as "light joking" then "harsh joking", and now a statement that the guy isn't worth mourning. You're finally getting somewhere in the vicinity of acknowledging the truth, so there's that.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

It's called concern trolling. "Oh, MAGA is so terrible! That's why you should lie down and accept them because not accepting defeat is what MAGA does!"

I'll take things I've never said for $200, Alex.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

The sliding insanity is all on the right

Yes, and you're trying to help spread it on the left, whether you want to acknowledge it or not. You're taking all those bizarre caricatures that Trump-humpers pretend are actual left-wingers and trying to make them an real thing.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

The tiny impotent part that can't do anything? So you just want to feel good and pat yourself on the back?

No, I've said exactly what I want several times - sane governance to return to the US. Nothing you've said makes me think you or anyone who thinks like you is up to the task of doing that.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

This is like telling black people during Jim Crow to not make a fuss because you want it for their sake so that they don't join the obnoxiousness of the rest of the country including the "loud and obnoxious civil rights movement" around them.

Things I've never said for $400 please, Alex.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

And making fun of the death of someone whose harm exceeds that of criminals and who would be a criminal in another country isn't morally wrong.

Yet when I asked you if Barack Obama was fair game to be mocked and scorned after his death for his drone campaign in Iraq - something that caused more death and destruction to innocent civilians than the most prolific serial killers in history - you balked because "he's a politician".

Your stance on this is wildly inconsistent.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

https://jacobin.com/2025/09/kirk-posobiec-political-violence-far-right

You've proved that Charlie Kirk supported partisan violence, which is not in dispute.

I asked you for proof that he ordered it. I chose that word for a reason.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

As I've already said, the message that hate advocates and extremists like Kirk need as much disdain as possible rather than treating them as just another commentator which is what's gotten the far right their power.

So the people who currently follow Kirk - and there are a lot of them - are going to hear your insults and realize they've been duped and they're following an extremist? That's the angle you're going with?

I'm torn between questioning whether you've actually thought two minutes into this plan or thinking you're just lying to yourself because you want to be able to insult people you don't like without consequence, presumably because you want to make MAGA as angry as they've made you.

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

Nobody's switching sides from the left wing showing decorum and giving impotent "this shouldn't have happened but..." either.

This is objectively not true.

Biden won 2020 on the back of disaffected soft-Republican voters who were sick of Trump's bullshit. Kamala infamously made a point of highlighting all the former career Republicans who were backing her because they recognized Trump for the menace he is.

I've yet to hear a single person say, "I used to be a Republican, but then I heard someone online post a funny photoshop of Steve Scalise getting shot and I changed my voter registration the same day."

ImagineUsngAlts posted...

This is the typical projection from right wing types. The one purity testing is YOU. "Make fun of a dead Nazi? That makes you a Nazi yourself!" That's your whole argument.

Let's go with things I've never said for $600, Alex.

Unlike you, I've not mischaracterized those who disagree with me in this topic. I've never called you, nor anyone else who doesn't agree with me, a right-winger, never mind straight up labelling you a Nazi. I've not suggested that you're arguing in bad faith, because I don't believe that you are. I *have* pointed out that you're advocating for doing the exact same childish sociopathic bullshit that Trumpers do, but that's not the same thing.

But apparently I can't expect that same level of discernment or respect from you. Probably shouldn't be surprised, given what you're arguing in favour of. Anyways, since you've been reduced to flailing and posting other people's pithy zingers from a website owned by an actual Sieg Heiling Nazi, I see no reason to continue this any further. Feel free to make a response if you really want to get the last word in, but I'm not going to be responding to any more of your posts absent a good reason.