wanted to pardon Pelosi's attacker. — Christoffer

Is that so? I didn’t know that.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest at about the same time: 3 kids wounded including the shooter who died, in just another High School shooting. Nothing to talk about here, not newsworthy at all - none of them had 1m followers or a history of ranting, so none of us cares a damn.

https://abcnews.go.com/US/shooting-reported-colorado-high-school-2-kids-transported/story?id=125452526

Is that so? I didn’t know that. — Wayfarer

"Pardon" was the wrong word, rather wanted a patriot to bail him out. Then rejecting that the right wing rhetoric had anything to do with pushing acts like this.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/paul-pelosi-charlie-kirk-bail-conspiracies-b2214680.html

On top of that he also called Kyle Rittenhouse “a hero to millions", so...

But now we live in a time when we're actively supplying weapons to Israel who is committing a genocide.

Yet the media harps on about the shame of what was a talking head and memorializing it. — Moliere

Yes. I don't know much about Kirk, but many unambiguously good people get killed around the world daily, particularly children, sometimes with the complicity of our government's, and the media often expects us not only to not feel bad about that but to support it. One can be against political assassinations while still bemoaning the fact that our media environment is composed merely of propaganda, any relationship of which to morality is purely incidental.

Also, I've looked through the thread I haven't found much in the way of ethical arguments one way or the other. The fact that it was a murder is irrelevant in the wider scope of things. E.g. for a Jewish person (or anyone) to have murdered Nazis in 1930s Germany would have been perfectly justified given the context. As I said before, I don't know Charlie Kirk enough to have any strong opinion of him, but I think part of @Moliere's point is to problematize the context and that's not in itself illegitimate, particularly given so much unjustifiable killing is legalized (e.g. the Gaza sniper example Moliere gave earlier).

EDIT: I am not saying America is Nazi Germany etc etc, only that it being a murder is not the end of the argument but the beginning.

(Last point: I'm not trying to provoke anyone here or disrespect Charlie Kirk's family etc. Charlie Kirk is more or less just a name to me. I'm trying to find a route to something rather coldly philosophical.)

I'm trying to find a route to something rather coldly philosophical.) — Baden

Are you asking when it's appropriate to add violence to your political activism?

Are you asking when it's appropriate to add violence to your political activism? — frank

Was operation Valkyrie political activism?

This is the question, when is it justified? What is justified? Is it ever justified? As a philosophical question, it is valid one as there's been many times in history it was very valid.

I think the more interesting discussion in terms of this specific assassination is why we have a rise of political violence. What is causing it? Of course we all know why; the rising polarization and extreme rhetoric driving radicalization.

So the follow-up question becomes, how do we stop this polarization and extreme rhetoric driving radicalization?

The solutions require an examination of what we allow in society, while still remaining free. This is the global problem for free societies to tackle in the coming years, because if they don't, they will become so polarized that political violence becomes a common practice. A form of room temperature war rather than a cold or hot one.

The assassination of political figures becomes retroactively justified and therefore simply justified depending on how history works out. The assassination of a Nazi functionary in 1934 by a Jewish sniper would likely have almost universally been condemned at the time. Now, I, and I suspect most of us, would consider the assassin a hero. This is just to say that what is obvious without problematizing a context or considering a possible future trajectory is not so obvious when you do so. I take @Moliere to be coming from that angle. The fact that this is about a real person who has really just been killed is unfortunate because it becomes understandably almost impossible to divorce oneself from the immediate tragedy of those who cared for that person. Maybe it's just all in bad taste to talk about it now. But I don't think @Moliere's thought process is completely wrong.

Another context we ought to problematize is context itself. Folks are very often going to react immediately based on political corner, no? When I first heard about Charlie Kirk, my immediate reaction was cold indifference, partly based of my limited knowledge that he was on the far right. But put me in a different context, e.g. in front of his family and, not being made of stone, I would have a very different attitude. Then, on here, I can take a purely intellectual stance. Same with Gaza, many on the right especially, dismiss, by default, the suffering there, but transport them next to a pile of rubble with Palestinian children suffocating beneath it, and it would most likely be a very different story. Contexts drive us and mislead us about the issues and about ourselves (to an extent deciding for us what is "obvious").

The assassination of a Nazi functionary in 1934 by a Jewish sniper would likely have almost universally been condemned at the time. Now, I, and I suspect most of us, would consider the assassin a hero. — Baden

And this is a problem with any discussion about politics and war. It demands a great deal of understanding of society to be able to say that a current event is justified or not. It requires both an understanding of history and psychology as well as philosophy.

To be able to understand current events without being wrapped up in biases and fallacies produced by the herd of people pushing and pulling on culture, or lesser intelligent people influencing media and social media into extreme bubbles, is extremely hard.

The fact that this is about a real person who has really just been killed is unfortunate because it becomes understandably almost impossible to divorce oneself from the immediate tragedy of those who cared for that person. Maybe it's just all in bad taste to talk about it now. — Baden

I disagree to some degree. I think it's important to discuss it because a person like Kirk, so involved in spreading the kind of hate he did, will easily become a martyr for that hate, whitewashed through the shallow charade of people ignoring what he stood for in order to score political points. I also think that this forum is exactly the place to discuss something like this, because here we discuss the philosophical ramifications of what is going on in the world... rather than what the rest of the internet is doing at the moment surrounding this event. And because of this, I think that a truly civil discussion like this is extremely important to have surrounding something like an assassination of a public figure of this importance to the current political climate.

I also think that this forum is exactly the place to discuss something like this, because here we discuss the philosophical ramifications of what is going on in the world... rather than what the rest of the internet is doing at the moment surrounding this event. And because of this, I think that a truly civil discussion like this is extremely important to have surrounding something like an assassination of a public figure of this importance to the current political climate. — Christoffer

Fair point. And I did get involved, so, performatively, I agree.

Precisely. Not good, or bad, or indifferent -- it's just the weather report.

And Gaza's weather reports are passed over.

The fact that this is about a real person who has really just been killed is unfortunate because it becomes understandably almost impossible to divorce oneself from the immediate tragedy of those who cared for that person. Maybe it's just all in bad taste to talk about it now. — Baden

Maybe so-- but then there are many people celebrating in bad taste in addition to condemning in bad taste.

There's a sense in which I want to say it's screamingly obvious that killing is wrong. And so we can condemn political assassination and genocide equally. But there's also a sense in which this viewpoint is incredibly naive -- not that the person who espouses such and such is so (a person can be a principled pacifist, for instance), but that it quite literally ignores a huge part of how decisions are made in our political world.

So the question is -- if killing is screamingly obvious, how do we get to a justification of the ": But..." one utilizes in justifying killing.

Malcolm X is a good example of a person who used political violence and its threat as a tool for liberation. A Jewish sniper killing a Nazi is similar. But, as you noted, these are in retrospect -- they only become heroes in the stories we tell of them after.

The reality in the moment is that we live with killing without thinking about killing because "that's just the way things are": Why argue that the moon shouldn't spin around the Earth?

Why argue that we must support Israel for our national interests in the Middle East? These are just the way of things.

But, surely, insofar that we can answer the question philosophically at all, we'd have to have some consistent basis for when that isn't just "Because I gave myself permission this one time" -- which is what the appeal to law looks like to me, except with a few extra steps "Because we talked about it and said this was when it's OK"


****

I suppose I see these questions are a bit more activated by current events, but yes I'm hoping to touch a philosophical ground somewhere. In a lot of ways this mirrors my argument for moral anti-realism: In the world we happen to inhabit even murder is justifiable, under the right conditions. Were the world to have morality as a part of it it seems to me that we'd live in a world where we have finally found ways to negotiate our differences without the tools of murder.

But we don't live in that world, and so such ideals seem to float above in some transcendental world away from us.

So how do we deal with the world we find ourselves in, imperfect and callous as it is?

But put me in a different context, e.g. in front of his family and, not being made of stone, I would have a very different attitude. Then, on here, I can take a purely intellectual stance. Same with Gaza, many on the right especially dismiss, by default, the suffering there, but transport them next to a pile of rubble with Palestinian children suffocating beneath it, and it would most likely be a very different story. Contexts drive us and mislead us about the issues and about ourselves. — Baden

Of course... but we also need to remember that when a person becomes an influential figure in politics, especially with extreme views that indirectly hurt people in society. What is the morality around that context surrounding an event like this? Does the suffering of the family take away from the suffering caused by his influence? Context change depending on perspective, but I think it's also important to remember that when it comes to political violence, it's no longer just about the act itself, but where it came from, what it leads to, and what it means to the political situation of the world.

Those topics are really what we're talking about, not really him as a human being, not really dismissing the suffering of the family and relatives. The killing of a human being is a tragedy... but the killing of him as a representation of his political views and hateful viewpoints, is another form of act and another form of context that has philosophical and historical proportions worth discussing.

The killing of a human being is a tragedy... but the killing of him as a representation of his political views and hateful viewpoints, is another form of act and another form of context that has philosophical and historical proportions worth discussing. — Christoffer

That's more or less my point. Where do we get consistency?

So how do we deal with the world we find ourselves in, imperfect and callous as it is? — Moliere

By finding an apparently impossible consistency across contexts.

The assassination of political figures becomes retroactively justified and therefore simply justified depending on how history works out. — Baden

My view, for what it's worth, is that murder is never justifiable. Violence takes place in an amoral realm in which survival is the goal on both sides. The will to survive can't be justified and requires no excuse.

Sometime before we descend into bloody apehood, we have a chance to see if there is some better way to do things, or if we're going to need violence, can we at least coordinate it so that it's not doing more harm than good?

But thank you for not calling me a f***wit for expressing that. We had a mod who would have made any sane discussion of the topic impossible.

I guess you're a deontologist on this, which is fair enough. And I don't even know if I can agree with myself on the topic, so I'm not in the strongest position to argue.

I guess you're a deontologist on this — Baden

I'm a moral nihilist.

And I don't even know if I can agree with myself on the topic, — Baden

:grin:

I'm a moral nihilist. — frank

Wasn't expecting that...

Anyway, having researched Charlie Kirk, it appears many of his views (anti-semitic statements, racism, homophobia etc) are not all that far off from the bigotry level of early era Nazi party rabble rousers. Regardless, I don't condone the assassination.

My view, for what it's worth, is that murder is never justifiable. Violence takes place in an amoral realm in which survival is the goal on both sides. The will to survive can't be justified and requires no excuse.

Sometime before we descend into bloody apehood, we have a chance to see if there is some better way to do things, or if we're going to need violence, can we at least coordinate it so that it's not doing more harm than good? — frank

How does that rhyme with...

I'm a moral nihilist. — frank

Seems like you are arguing through a Kantian perspective, which is the opposite of a nihilist.

I would say that history shows lots of examples of situations which would have justified political violence. Events that would have saved a lot of good people. It's the prime example of how naive the Kantian perspective can sometimes be.

No one would deny that killing most of the upper elite of the Nazi party would have saved a lot of people, even if it happened before wartimes.

I think the more interesting question isn't if an obvious bad person who will obviously kill or cause deaths directly in the future deserves to be put out to save them, but rather what happens when someone is indirectly responsible for deaths and suffering.

I think there's very little talk about how hateful rhetoric slowly shifts society into a place where that hate becomes action onto those this hate was aimed at. Nazi Germany is always talked about in the context of what eventually happened, but society eroded its views on jews long before that and shifted society into a place where the suffering for jews became more commonplace.

No one really address the fact that when an influential elite spread hate speech that shift society, it actually hurts people down the line.

And if we are morally arguing that political violence to prevent innocent people from getting hurt, killed or suffer, is justified, then why do we not accept that for when hate speech rhetoric leads to such suffering and death? Is it because people are unable to logically connect hateful speech to people becoming radicalized under such speech, to those radicalized people actually carrying out that hate in action against the people that hate was aimed at?

Case point... Hitler never killed any jews himself, he never killed. Why do we consider him responsible? Because he orchestrated the thing, he pushed for it, he argued for it, he spread the hate, he influenced the nation.

So if the hate speech influence that leads to violence in society becomes the foundation for viewing an assassination of that influential person as morally good in order to stop that societal violence and decline into violence against a certain group of people; what does that mean? What context does such political violence against an influential person become valid?

What did he say about black people or "predominately black neighborhoods?" — Outlander

Yeah, 's analogy makes no sense. I guess when you're justifying murder you have to make up analogies that make no sense.

What did he say about black people or "predominately black neighborhoods?" Again, I never heard of the guy until just yesterday, so. Just curious as to what information or knowledge you have that makes that analogy valid in your mind. — Outlander

His Wiki page contains some of the racist, anti-semitic, and Islamaphobic statements he's made. Of course, he was (apparently) a more vocal, rather than a more extreme, version of a significant minority of Americans and his killing will likely radicalise these people further.