Another potential terrorist foiled by authorities in Washington. One might assume his politics (and his mental capacity) by noting the potential targets.

A man had more than 200 handmade destructive devices — including bottle rockets and molotov cocktails — in a tent on the steps of a D.C. cathedral where Supreme Court justices were expected to attend Mass on Sunday, court records show. During his arrest, Louis Geri threatened to ignite explosives and handed authorities pages of his notebook that, according to court records, expressed animosity toward the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, members of the Jewish faith and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2025/10/06/bomb-threat-catholic-church-supreme-court/

These sorts of acts, along with the ongoing insurrections occurring throughout the country, hint at a country on the verge of civil war.

I tend to agree, but isn't this ultimately a matter of worldview? The challenge, it seems, is how to persuade someone with a strongly libertarian or individualist orientation that communitarian values might offer a more viable or meaningful framework for social life. But if foundational assumptions differ how might we expect genuine persuasion to occur? Whatever the direction.

It depends on what the communitarian means by “community”. If they mean the people we interact with, deal with, family and friends, then there is no contradiction. But as we can see they mean the state, the political community, where people are supposed to affiliate with others, even if they’ve never met, because they have the same letters on their passport or birth certificate.

If all available options violate rights, can morality demand a choice at all?

Whatever the choice would be, should it violate rights, it would be an immoral choice.

Does the reframed problem prove that utilitarianism is the only viable framework when non-interference is impossible?

It only proves that one has to remove other options for utilitarianism to be a viable moral framework.

Can an individualist ethic survive scenarios where all choices involve direct harm?

Yes. The future is unknown. One cannot know if his choices result in direct harm until that time comes. One can only do his best to avoid inflicting that harm or protect others from it. In your scenario, his only option is to try to stop the train or remove the people from the track.

Is the moral guilt of killing one equal to the moral guilt of killing three, or are outcomes morally significant regardless of principles?

I assume killing more people equals more guilt, but then again I’ve never killed anyone.

Does the reframed trolley problem show that philosophy must move beyond rigid doctrines and toward pluralistic ethics?

Next time we might try removing the utilitarian options and asking the same question.

I think Japan is going the robot route to handle elderly care. Apparently they’ve been working towards a technological solution for decades. According to the article below, such a solution might only end up creating more work. It will be interesting to see if this option prevails.

https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/01/09/1065135/japan-automating-eldercare-robots/amp/

The labor shortage means a decrease in tax revenue for the state, which in turn means less state “services” for those who were promised retirement, healthcare, and so on, in their twilight years.

One might logically think that with a decreasing population, the size of the state would decrease in tandem, as it has less people to account for overall. Government for the people and all that. But the state refuses to decrease. So it will move to replace the waning population with new populations. Therefor immigration and campaigns to increase the birthrate is their only choice, and I suspect this is the way they will hitherto move.

That’s right, it’s Comey’s word versus McCabe’s, and it’s frightening that this stupid dynamic was once present at the highest levels of law enforcement management. These were supposed to be the experienced adults in the room, and they all turned out to be bickering hacks. Now Comey’s lawyers are going to have to convince a jury that McCabe is a liar and Comey isn’t. That’s hilarious.

On the other hand, your inexperienced prosecutor convinced a grand jury that there was enough to indict.

Andrew McCabe testified to the inspector general that Comey authorized leaks. Comey in 2020 testified in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing that he did not. One of them lied and obstructed justice. Given that during a hearing in 2018 Comey said he “can’t remember,” “can’t recall” and “doesn’t know” 245 times I’m leaning towards him being the liar. They threw people in jail for far less.

Fair enough, I’ll take your word for it. But there is another way to frame it, and it doesn’t involve attributing to scratches on paper and articulated sounds from the mouth special powers and unseen forces. Perhaps your disposition is to blame for your purchases, and not the words.

I’m with you. The sheer amount of causal theories is mind-boggling.

But I’ve come to prefer a version of the so-called Transference theory of causation, where causation ought to be reduced to the transference of physical conserved quantities, like “momentum” or “energy”, from one object to another. Though I’m not sure I believe in “physical conserved quantities”, it is at least intuitive and empirical to say that one object hitting another caused the other to move.

The statute of limitations to indict disgraced FBI director James Comey for lying to congress expire next Tuesday. Knowing the two-tiered justice system, I doubt we'll see charges.

Justice Department weighing whether to charge former FBI Director James Comey, sources say

Why would we have advertising, prayer, speeches or Fox News if language was powerless?

Just curious, but how many products have you bought in ratio to how many advertisements you’ve seen? Using the power of your speech, perhaps you can convince those who say “nay” to hate speech legislation to believe otherwise. Both of these demonstrations ought to inform you on just how powerful speech really is, and that we’re not just thinking magically.

Does all this then mean you approve of the political correctness which societally, though not legally, mitigates hate speech as previously defined, this as the optimal mode of societal checks and balances?

Not at all. I disapprove. I’m just trying to argue that speaking speech that can be construed as hate speech is riskier than hearing it.

So if we take away all political correctness, what checks and balances remain to prevent speech that can easily lead to mass murders and genocides?

More often than not, hate speech incites violence on the one who speaks it. It’s why police defend the KKK and the American Nazi party to hold their rally’s and marches, in order to protect them from violence. That threat of violence is always there, I suppose, and acts as somewhat of a deterrent.

On the other hand, hate preachers, holocaust deniers, and racists of all types are viewed as cranks in American culture. Chomsky makes this point, that anyone can publish works of holocaust denial in the US and no one really pays them much notice. If you do that in Europe, where it is often illegal, their work gets all sorts of press.



If you’re ever in New York go watch the Black Hebrew Israelites hold their very public displays of street preaching. They speak hate speech pretty much daily, out in the open, with little to no effect on anyone. It’s almost comical to watch.

At any rate, the idea that free speech leads to genocide is ridiculous in my view. No government ever involved in genocide had any commitment to free speech. In fact, quite the opposite. Clearly the issue is state-sanctioned mass murder.

I believe the checks and balances is greater free speech.

You answer that, in light of your support for the Trump Administration's threats to ABC.

Personally, I do not think those in power should wield that power to limit free speech. I believe that is likely unconstitutional, but absolutely believe it is wrong.

There you have it. That’s a principle. I guess it’s a good thing Kimmel, the multimillionaire who celebrated other people being fired or censored, is still doing his show.

We just found out the other day from Google that the Biden admin pressured them to remove accounts for misinformation, many of whom were Trumpists like Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon. Terrible isn’t it?

Enjoy Kimmel tonight.

https://nypost.com/2025/09/23/us-news/google-to-reinstate-youtube-accounts-banned-for-repeated-violations-of-covid-19-content/

But you can lie and say I turned off Electrical Grid B to an electrician, perhaps in theory even just walking by without being employed by the company, and an electrician goes to work on it and gets killed. That's illegal. Or, you can stand by a bridge you know is dilapidated and cover leaves over it and if a person asks if it's safe, you can say "Sure", and they are also killed. That's quasi-legal, simply because no one can prove you did anything. So, no, this idea that speech cannot lead to real human death, possibly mass causality has already been legally codified. That ship has sailed, mate. So, that realization hitting you (or anyone who was ignorant of such) aside. What are you truly hoping to proliferate?

Here’s a chance to prove your case. Let’s see you injure me with words.

The capacity of speech to injure, or the capacity of speech to lead to injury? How can speech injure?

You can damage someone’s ear if you yell too loudly. That’s about the only way to injure someone with speech.

As you know these sorts of censorial claims, used as they are to justify silencing others, are testable. Injury is measurable. We can simply ask them to injure us with words and examine the results. I would even offer myself as the victim and sign a waiver. At the very least it would be interesting to know which combination of sounds can lead to the worst injury. But you and I both know that no such tests are forthcoming and the claims are piffle.

You abhor government censorship.

The President and the chair of the FCC using their words to threaten their critics into not saying the things they're saying and/or to have them deplatformed under the pretence of legal responsibility is government censorship, even if not said face-to-face, officially and formally. It isn't just them casually speaking their mind. No reasonable person accepts "will no one rid me of this troublesome priest?" as plausible deniability. You're engaging in poor apologetics, plain and simple.

I abhor all censorship and I oppose ABC’s decision. I also respect their right to do whatever they want to Kimmel. He’s an employee. His waning popularity and the collapse of ratings probably made the decision much easier.

Watching everyone now twisting themselves into pretzels to blame Trump, after a decade of trying to silence him and his movement, is just added enjoyment on my part.

Now that you abhor censorship I hope you carry your new-found principle further and oppose the censorship prevalent in your own country, union, and continent. Sadly, I doubt that’s something I’ll ever read.

Yes, because that's what he was doing. Whereas Carr and Trump are using transparently tenuous and bullshit justifications to attack their critics. Everyone other than absurd apologists like you can see it for what it is.

Uh oh, “attacking their critics”. Scary stuff.

I don't know what you believe, but what you said in earlier posts was a defence of Carr's and Trump's words, pretending that they weren't doing the very thing that you claim to abhor.

I don’t abhor speaking. In fact I want to know exactly what those in power are thinking and what they believe, and I wish they’d speak more.

Let’s get this out of the way first—do you believe those in power should decide what you can and cannot say?

So the free speech absolutist makes an exception, when it entails retaliation by his side; a retaliation that's an order of magnitude worse because it entailed explicitly political speech, and threats to misuse the office of the FCC to inflict that punishment*, and threats of expensive lawsuits

If retaliation (in spades), is acceptable, then you should be fine if there were to be counter retaliation from the left. But obviously, you have no principles.

No, I’m pointing out that this is the world that people like Kimmel built. You want censorship you get censorship.

Your (apparently faux) commitment to free speech absolutism has left you incapable of understanding nuance and that the real world isn't black and white.

That I disagree with your claim that all speech regulation is bad isn't that I believe that all speech regulation is good.

Laws against defamation, conspiracy, and incitement to violence are both prudent and justified. The government and the President threatening to revoke the licenses of news organisations that are critical of them is bad.

It's ironic that your obsession to defend Trump even leads you to turn a blind eye to blatant, unjustified, government censorship, trying to whitewash it away as being something other than what it is. Even Ted Cruz and other Republicans are calling it out. This isn't just some liberal, anti-Trump hysteria.

Right, but when the EU commission directly threatens Elon Musk with fines it’s just “Reminding someone of their legal obligations to moderate their platform”. You appealed to law so using that logic a president and fcc chairman reminding those companies of their legal obligations to moderate their platforms is just that. I was just pointing that out. I believe all such laws are stupid, and all such regulating bodies should be abolished. I have never wavered from this belief.

It's laughable if you think that something so insignificant, even if false, warrants revoking a news organisation's license. Compare that with basically the entirety of Fox News, which even has hosts suggesting that homeless people should be murdered. Silence from Trump, Carr, and the FCC.

I don’t believe that at all. I believe Kimmel, Kirk, Fox News and indeed anyone who speaks should govern their own words. But this isn’t the world you advocate for. It’s you who advocates for those in power to set the conditions for speech, and here you are having to deal with the consequences of those beliefs.

Network stations owned by companies like Nexstar and Sinclair Group also have an obligation to abide by FCC rules. Their licenses forbid them from spreading lies like Kimmel did and must consider the public interest. And it is in their power to moderate their own content, which is exactly what they chose to do.

Hopefully you’re aware Trump doesn’t have the power to fire Kimmel or anyone else on television, nor does the FCC. Neither ABC nor Disney are under their authority. If he does seize that sort of power I’ll start to worry.

For someone so defensive of government censorship and speech regulation, though, you’re suddenly so adamant about free speech.

When an EU commissioner did the same to Elon Musk, threatening him with penalty under the digital services act, is this the same sort of thing? He wasn’t just saying this to some YouTuber I’ve never heard of, but directly.

Subtext. Yet there were no conversations between either of the parties you mention. I guess this subtext just floats in the air, moving people around.

Perhaps it is the case that Newstar and Sinclair group didn’t want to show the episode because they didn’t like it, just as they said. Are you just going to dismiss this as lies?

I didn't mention Kimmel. I was alluding to this:

Oh, that’s right, Trump talking is government pressure in some circles. Forgive me.

You might appreciate this.

Democracy is at threat when a television show gets cancelled, but when a guy holding a microphone gets publicly assassinated we should refuse to show empathy. Your comments over the past week are a the perfect instantiation of Western political hysteria.

ABC and Disney ended Kimmel because their local affiliates refused to air his inflammatory episode.

There’s a difference between “cancel culture”, i.e boycotts, and government pressure to fire critics.

Nexstar media group said they made the decision to stop showing Kimmel unilaterally, without discussion with the government. They had the betterment of their audience in mind. I’m afraid they also have the free speech right to broadcast whatever they wish.

Only a totalitarian would expect to be able to speak without any consequences.

Why do you say that? Speaking without consequences is precisely what free speech is.

I remember. Also, so-called “election denial” was verboten. Anti-Trump pressure campaigns even got the president removed from the largest social media platforms, along with vast swaths of his supporters. That’s why I don’t care too much about the victims here, and their cries ring rather hollow. This is what you get.

Hate speech is a censorship term of art like blasphemy, heresy, or sedition, and functions much the same. It’s a kind of sacrilege speech a ruling class and orthodoxy does not want people to hear because they fear the deleterious effects to their order.

Pam Bondi, many republicans, and the conservative wing of MAGA have moved to censorship in order to defend Kirk’s honor, which is something Kirk himself would have abhorred. And now those who have worked to silence opposing speech worldwide are claiming “free speech” as if they never hated such a concept just moments ago. This confirms the theory that no one really cares about free speech until it benefits them.

ATLANTA (AP) — Georgia’s highest court has declined to consider Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis’ appeal of her removal from the Georgia election interference case against President Donald Trump and others.

Citing an “appearance of impropriety” created by a romantic relationship Willis had with special prosecutor Nathan Wade, whom she had hired to lead the case, the Georgia Court of Appeals in December ruled that Willis and her office could not continue to prosecute the case.

https://apnews.com/article/fani-willis-appeal-georgia-supreme-court-trump-7be50feee272612484490b53592e7e08

The hopes and dreams of the anti-Trump brigade lied with the corrupt because their hopes and dreams were corrupt.

I think you had to delete what you wrote because you could be arrested for it. I couldn’t imagine.

Many Americans see what is happening to the UK and it only reaffirms the reasons we should never give up our guns.

Other’s have noticed that the quote of Kirk speaking about the 2nd amendment has spread like a disease among his enemies, like most propaganda does. Even Elon Musk has noticed, and posted a video of a woman proving how it was taken out of context, as per usual.

It is an interesting phenomenon.

My question is: what psychological benefit does one receive from posting it on social media?

I wonder if they’ll ban 3D printers in Scotland since a kid was recently jailed there for plotting a mass shooting at his/her school.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clyj2g5l1g2o.amp

An idea is indeed a misinterpretation of the body, just as the gods were a misinterpretation of the cosmos and thunderclouds. This is to be expected of a being who wishes to peer inwards but can only see out, and has behind him an entire of history of guesswork to rely on. Those ideas, at least as they are manifested as language and literature, are difficult to let go, no doubt; but like the gods behind the clouds, under the oceans, the earth, and other places we cannot see, soon they will have to be let go.

So an idea’s nature is invariably our own.

My apologies for the confusion. I only read a couple posts on the last page. I wasn’t aware there was a longer conversation there.

I do disagree because I do not believe the good and the bad can be found in thoughts, only actions. For instance, the assassin may have had the most beautiful thoughts ever conceived. Perhaps they were so good that he opposed fascism and the spreading of hate. Kirk, on the other hand, wanted to bring back the death penalty, and probably believes you or I will go to heaven and hell. Those are bad thoughts, in my view. But from the stories of Kirk I’ve been reading the last couple days, he was very kind. As far as I know he never hurt anyone, and gave a platform to opposing views. The shooter, who apparently opposed fascism, murdered someone in cold blood. So who is good or bad?

In my view there is an increasing conflation between words and deeds in Western moral literature and it leads directly to these sorts of acts.

I’m not sure what your conversation was about, because I didn’t read it. It doesn’t even appear that you’re involved at all.

Do you want me to quote exactly which sentences I’m referring to? Because it is all there above, unless there is some formatting issue that I am unaware of.

For instance, I read the accusation “He's part of the same side that spread hate, calls for violence, and for dividing people into us vs them.”

In the paragraph after I read this.

The point being, we could actually divide the world into two sides of legitimate good and bad. The good stands for respecting human rights and rejecting the concept of an individual as a means to an end. Those who argues for equality, the respect of each individual, respect for another group than them etc. ...and the other argues in opposition to that.

What do we have?

I explain in the following paragraphs.

A charge of "spreading hate" -- but I'm the one who has used "evil", not @Christoffer, except this one time in quotes:

I cited the words I was responding to in preceding paragraphs.

This assassination seems to whitewash what Kirk spread around, and it was not to spread love. He's part of the same side that spread hate, calls for violence, and for dividing people into us vs them. This side has no political color. It just happens to be more common on the extreme right in this time in history.

The point being, we could actually divide the world into two sides of legitimate good and bad. The good stands for respecting human rights and rejecting the concept of an individual as a means to an end. Those who argues for equality, the respect of each individual, respect for another group than them etc. ...and the other argues in opposition to that.

Arguing for the good side is arguing for the side that, with evidence in living standards and quality of life in the world, produces the best living conditions in a society.

Right now we're seeing a rise in the spread of hateful, polarizing rhetoric. Something that divides and makes enemies of neighbors. This rhetoric is eroding society and causing a lot of suffering and even deaths.

When speaking on a topic like this thread, I think it's important to be aware of which stance people holds in an argument. Which also means we can't ignore what someone like Kirk spread around. We can't whitewash what he did with spreading hate because he was the target of political violence, just as much as we can't ignore that the assassin acted out according to the bad side as well through his violence.

I think it's important not to get lost in these basic ideas about what is good and what is bad. The reality is that we can't justify the assassination, but we can't justify what Kirk stood for either.

And there we have it.

Note here the charge of “spreading hate”, and the making of a threadbare connection between the act of holding and espousing one’s belief and being evil, as if Kirk’s brain state and the combination of sounds that came from his mouth is all it takes to make such an accusation. On the one hand Kirk committed the sin of dividing people into Us vs Them, but on the other Kirk resided on the wrong side of the Good and the Evil, those who speak like us and those who speak like them.

The problem is there is not even a string of chewing gum between the premise and the conclusion, between one duplicitous phrase and the next. It is no strange wonder that the assassin himself accused Charlie of such evil, for “spreading hate”, days before killing him.

This sort of piffle can be read all over social media and presents a window into the empty logic of the censors among us.