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. — NOS4A2

S'all good.

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?

Yearp. That's the question -- less with respect to these individuals that sparked my feelings, but more with respect to ourselves: Who is good or bad? How do I agree or disagree with either response? Celebration because he spread hate, or condemnation because we're guilty of way more violence, in the big picture?

In some sense, to take the gun-control side, we could argue that we're all guilty for not regulating weapons well enough that a young boy hopped up on propaganda would not be able to shoot a celebrity for funzies.

But that's the sub-plot I'm asking for -- the main plot I'm asking is "Where and when?", but more with a reflection towards an uncomfortable aporia

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 don't think the thoughts are what does it as much as the material conditions.

Words/Deeds have been a question since at least 1900 in "Western moral literature".

The increase in random gun violence predates those questions -- whereas the proliferation of firearms coupled with a society that is actively engaging with violence (and thereby must find justifications for violence) leads to an every once-and-again one-off murder, especially when bifurcation alienates people through class divisions, and the internet spreads not news but propaganda to incite feelings that young men often aren't good at handling.

Yeah -- I've seen other reports too I've been sticking to the "conservative" ones because the topic is controversial, and really even the small counts were enough to my mind to justify my sorrow.

You're falling into a false argument. Why do people cut off their genitals? Because they feel socially-ostracized. Have you ever been a child once in a modern day school with low-income people? Even having any sense of morality gets you called a "snitch" or a "girl", and basically physically harmed IF you're smaller than the person. It's a cycle of useless people fornicating because they have no self control, often the largest "Strongest" what they call alpha, despite having the brains of rocks and no real purpose since 800 B.C. when the lever and pulley was invented. They can't cope with society. They were made to be slaves. To work, to use their size to lift heavy rocks under the command of a king. They have no purpose in modern society. They don't know how to raise kids. They get pleasure from seeing people, anyone, random strangers, suffer. It gives them "purpose," The things that bring an intellect joy and a sense of harmony, give them anger. The things that give us a sense of disgust and horror, bring a smile to their face. They are incompatible with modern society. — Outlander

I think this is a bit much.

You may not recognize it as transphobia, but you're talking the points up front while ending with classist points.

Sorry, my point being, no person who was not bullied or exposed to the idea that "oh you might be a girl, since you act like one" has ever once considered the idea that they were not born into the right body. Not a single one. — Outlander

And yet this is false.

Unless you can read minds?

Still -- this isn't the question at all.

I noticed there was an uptick in propaganda trying to tie Utah boy to "Trans influence" -- but I'd interpret that as yet another attempt to demonize a minority group and not take responsibility. Or divert it somehow to something to be angry about rather than think it through.

Just look around. Why are all the "transgenders" skinny, awkward people who just didn't fit in. It's not a coincidence. It's psychological bullying and deformation of the human mind by physical and emotional trauma. How can you not see that? How can anyone not see that? — Outlander

No more "transgenders" talk from here out, please.

It's a propaganda point in the sensationalist murder. Trans people are afraid because they're getting demonized again -- but they ought not be grouped with a person who shot someone for funzies.

As you noted -- "We aren't going to agree here"

And that's OK for the purposes of this discussion. Since I get my information from people from Gaza it's very likely that my information is "very biased" in my favor. Almost like that's why I believe what I do.

I don't want to judicate the boundaries because I don't have a personal stake in terms of which where etc., and I'm not even close to being worthy of negotiating that.

These events are important to me for the reasons outlined -- I'm not going to pretend to be the guy who can speak on every legal thing, but I will honestly answer your questions with respect to why I'm saying what I'm saying (and noting when I'm out of my depth)

The ongoing genocide in relation to the sensationalist murder is what causes the feeling of the absurd in me.

Where the lines get drawn after the genocide stops is less my interest, and stopping the weapons from continuing that is more my interest -- but these are moments in a reflection on political violence.

When and where?

Suppose 100,000 of your people were indiscriminately killed and you still lived.

Time to register to vote?

I should clarify I don't think anyone here is celebrating in that manner.

Including you.

There are memes out there in the wild that are.

Gaza is a region. "Palestine" you will find nowhere on a map. When you say "Palestine is an occupied territory," I'm not sure which geographic boundaries you have in mind. What is "Palestine" to you? — BitconnectCarlos

The wiki on Palestine defines this well enough for me. "Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip, collectively known as the occupied Palestinian territories. "

The reason it wasn't on a map is because it was still controlled by a colonial government, not because the people didn't live there.

Part of the absurdity I feel is the celebration I see. Not really people directly around me, but just generally on the internet and through the media and all that.

When the Healthcare CEO was gunned down I didn't feel so absurd -- he was directly responsible for many deaths. Anyone whose had someone live with chronic pain or die or any such travesty due to the cruelty of healthcare insurance company policies would naturally feel better in the sense of a kind of revenge-by-proxy.

Here the man spread hate, by all means. But it never feels right to me to outright jump for joy for the death of one random person that won't make a difference in how we live.

But then I could tell I didn't feel much care for him given what he said. And I said before when I saw him being lionized and the shooter shamed I couldn't help but think about how much death we already have on our hands -- on what basis do we condemn the shooter?

There's a sense in which all of this isn't even of concern -- there are sides and when your side "wins" one of these terrible games you celebrate, and vice versa. Which strikes me as a good way to lose our humanity in the process of feeling like we're winners.

Between these two extremes is where I felt, and further couldn't help but wish the kind of media given to his death was also given to the deaths we are still causing: it results in a numbly uncertain feeling about the world that I couldn't express easily.

I simply don't see it as a genocide. — BitconnectCarlos

What is a genocide, in your view?

I wouldn't say that Israel is "holding back", but that's a vague criteria.

I'd go with Merriam-Webster:

the deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political, or cultural group

Now if you're killing combatants that's one thing -- but Palestine isn't even a state. It's an occupied territory where we have stories of people shooting Palestinians where they excuse their shot by "I just didn't understand why he cared about that body" -- drawing a literal line in the sand for when to kill.

Differentiate away. How is this not that?

Anyway, I'm not still not sure what exactly is occupied in your view. Is it Gaza? Is west Jerusalem or Tel Aviv "occupied" by Israel? It's this lack of clarity that bothers me and it'll differ depending on who you ask. Complaining about "occupation" is can be cover for simply complaining about Israel's existence. — BitconnectCarlos

There's a sense in which complaining about its existence is like complaining about the United States' existence -- both are colony's that took other people's land. The US just has more years and more kills than Israel.

In this sense I complain about the United States' existence. It is a colonialist state with moral debts.

But that's where I live.

The part that I know is that I'm in the United States and we give weapons to Israel -- where the line gets drawn eventually or if it's a one-state solution all that, right now, is so far out of scope due to how long the genocide has been going on.

If you're asking if I'm for the genocide of Israelis on behalf of Arabs then no I am not -- but I think this is a line of propaganda more than a reality.

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. — NOS4A2

Eh, fair. I've been reading along and thinking here.

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. — NOS4A2

I think it's a "reader comprehension" issue on my part. I'm wondering what you mean because I felt what you said applied more to myself than Chris.

Not that he can't defend himself, of course -- I guess I just felt defensive because I thought you ought to be attacking me from what I read from you lol -- but I obviously could be wrong.

I've liked @Christoffer's contributions to this thread as a more hopeful perspective than I have.

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. — NOS4A2

I feel like that's an optimistic way of putting what we should go towards.

Do you disagree?

It didn't make sense to me how what you said connected to @Christoffer

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. — NOS4A2

Chris did not make a connection between the act of holding and espousing one's belief and being evil -- I'm the one using "evil" in this conversation, but I also didn't connect that to "Kirk's brain state..."

On one hand he divided, and on the other he was on the wrong side of the divide -- that's closer to my perspective than @Christoffer

I find it a strange wonder that the assassin accused Charlie Kirk so far -- and I'm confused about "not even a string of chewing gum between the premise and the conclusion"; which premise? Who said it? Which conclusion?

That's basically an accusation of a non sequiter inference, but what is the set of premises that you're talking about?

In another way a slave revolt is horrifying -- and it's a direct result of having been enslaved, and so is liberation.

What do you think would happen? Would Jews and Palestinian Muslims hold hands and sing Kumbaya?

What happened to the Palestinians is that the Arab world declared war on Israel in '47. Instead of wiping out the new Jewish state, the Palestinians lost and were put to flight as Israeli forces overran their annihilation attempt. — BitconnectCarlos

What I think is that this is a right I agree with -- but what I think is happening is far worse than what you're imagining, given that we're witnessing a genocide.

I agree with the right -- if someone took my home I'd want it back no matter how long it took.

But things have progressed so far from there now. It's a worthy goal to remember, and since you asked that's where I stand.

But let's step back a bit now.

You mentioned Hamas.

I tend to think Hamas is a direct result of the failures of the PLO and representation. In a way it's "the bullet" in the question.

Oct 7th is horrifying.

And so is this world we see of Israeli fascists posting videos of themselves enjoying killing.

And so is the past prior to that one event -- sometimes an occupied territory decides to revolt.

Perhaps it could not have been occupied.

And there we have it. — NOS4A2

What do we have?

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

I think you are blinded by the idea that people defend the murderer, but explaining why this assassination happened is not the same as defending it. I think we are all much more intellectually capable than the shallow reporting of news, social media and officials. Otherwise you are just summerizing this by the measure of "good vs evil", which isn't very respectful of the complexities of reality. — Christoffer

So:

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, — NOS4A2

I can't note that anywhere other than your interpretation.

Yes, that's what happens when people suddenly lose control of their political sovereignty/self-determination. Flood a nation of 5 million Muslims living under Sharia with 5 million Hindus and see what happens.

It would be like asking the US to absorb 200 million Muslims. — BitconnectCarlos

"Would" -- it's already there. And what you describe is ironic given that this is what happened to the Palestinians -- imagine a group of people show up and then....

Ethnic warfare would result. — BitconnectCarlos

Would?

But we're engaging in talking points now....

I take it that the demand is being pushed to the point that the families cannot even prove they owned such and such -- hopefully because the documents have been destroyed or the oral stories have been stamped out.

For my part I don't want to give Israel weapons to do the evil things they're doing now. Excuses either which way.

But even voicing the thought is met with cries of "anti-semitism" -- and many of the zionists follow along the same fascist scripts, in the darkest of ironies.

Occupying what? Gaza? Jerusalem? — BitconnectCarlos

https://bdsmovement.net/what-bds

3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194

What I've noticed, though, is that in all my time of saying we should seek non-violent solutions it doesn't matter what you say: The violence goes on and on and on, whether we trade eyes and make us both blind or don't and get to be blinded.

Not what happened.

But had the jews managed to stop the Nazis from their evil I think that'd been a good thing.

At least the genocide part.

Understandable, but a sign of a degenerate society. Even during WWII Jews didn't go around murdering or mass murdering German civilians. — BitconnectCarlos

Suppose they had the means, though.

And suppose it'd been an 80 year occupation.

Are you doubting that ~1200 Israelis were killed on 10/7, the majority of whom were innocent civilians? They went from house to house indiscriminately murdering. It's proudly recorded on video. — BitconnectCarlos

No, I'm not doubting that event. I'm doubting some of the reports, as one ought to, but I'm not saying "That never happened"

The report I've come to doubt is with respect to the dancing festival -- I read a news article which noted how it was an Israeli helicopter which fired upon that festival.

Could be for the same banal reasons of fear and retwisted in various ways, of course -- it just made me realize that the story isn't so clean as "OCT 7 justifies Amulek!"

I remember the second intifada in the early 2000s, where Palestinian terrorists would go into bars, restaurants, and buses full of civilians and blow themselves up. I recall they'd attach unclean material to their explosive devices, so for anyone who got hit with shrapnel, the wound would get infected. It never made sense to me. If you hate a government, why attack random people living there? Unless that hatred is much deeper. — BitconnectCarlos

Because that government has been attacking you in the exact same way, and old cynical men know the piss and vinegar of young men and convince them to in order to get a bargaining chip.

Now if that's what Malcolm X wanted or would accomplish or did accomplish then certainly that's bad.

I have a different feeling on what he did -- I have respect for him and the other civil rights warriors.

What you portray is bad, so I can see why you'd say MX is bad. I don't think that's what his politics would result in, though.

They're far from perfect, but that's part of dealing with this world we're in. Whatever counter-factual we can come up with I want to use his reality as a point of reflection because that's not what happened, and he had justifications for how he acted, and was basically a martyr to his cause like MLK.

If all it led to was something like what you say that'd be evil.

But that's not what happened.

And Malcolm X was full of shit. He wouldn't have accomplished anything but to get a bunch of black people killed. — frank

From my perspective he already accomplished many things, and died in that pursuit.

Like MLK.

Also, we're sure it's a political assassination now? When did that happen? I wanted to think it was my imagination but for some reason it just seems like more and more modern day conservatives take joy in crudeness and "crossing lines" for little reason other than to do so and illicit a negative emotional response in others I.E. to spread misery. Major turn off for me, despite being in favor of many stereotypical "conservative" things. Point being, you don't have to give a hoot about politics to not like a guy or what he has to say to the point of drastic action. People assault and murder people they don't like every single day. This guy just happened to be a bit of a minor celebrity who yes is known for engaging in political activity. — Outlander

I'm not certain. I could see it being as dumb as you say here: a banality of evil whereby a young frustrated man decided to do something dumb that was way larger than he understood.

That'd be the sympathetic reading, I think.

I've guessed inter-fascist, but that he was turned in by his own father is what persuaded me he could fit the school-shooter archetype (what a dark world where that's an archetype...)

And it could be a mix of these things. I'm far away from the situation. It hit me hard enough to want to say something that I didn't know how to say.

We're not going to agree on this. — BitconnectCarlos

Also, we don't have to. If I've said too much and that's that then no need to frustrate one another.

When I think "genocide," I think October 7th, when thousands of Palestinians went house to house murdering, raping, and torturing Israeli civilians living in border regions with the Palestinians as their neighbors. — BitconnectCarlos

The part that makes me hesitate here is that there were also immediate reports about finding hundreds of beheaded babies.

And then learning that Israeli attack helicopters shot on Israelis.

Sometimes states just say shit to demonize someone they want to kill.

I fear that's part of what's going on.

You like that word "valence" don't you? :grin: There's a big valence band around the whole nucleus of the situation. — frank

I do. It's something that makes sense to me both in the literary and the chemical sense.

If it's false then I can't clarify by analogy, but if it's true (non-chemically) then perhaps there's some analogy whereby we can "trade electrons"

It sounds like your concern is primarily political. — frank

Yes.

Hence Malcolm X.

Tho the event isn't the best one I'll admit now -- it was just the one that made me feel so frustrated at the absurdity of the world that I couldn't help but start the thought.

Does the fact that Gaza sticks in your craw have anything to do with the political scene surrounding it in the US? If so, you aren't honoring those victims anymore than anyone else is. You're just engaging in more tit for tat. Really coming to terms with humanity's potential for horror and bloodshed, now that's a philosophical problem. It's called Nietzsche's eternal return. — frank

The reason Gaza "sticks in my craw" is because I went to a conference and spoke to various Palestinians there. I did this because I had a friend from Gaza and he suggested I go. I looked into the history and am basically on the Palestinian side in terms of rights, such as the right of return, though these things are so far off the table due to what Israel has done.

Now if Israel happened to be manufacturing their own weapons on their own soil by their own means it'd be just another genocide -- but it's a genocide the country I live in supports. Not in a small way either.

So the answer to your first question is "yes", but "political scene" denigrates the efforts of people in the United States who have pushed for non-violent change even in the face of genocide. Truly moral giants to my mind. BDS is such a movement, and the US equates it with "Hamas"

Did Nietzsche come to terms with our potential for horror? I'm not sure. If so, that's a shame that that's all we could come up with is an eternal return to the same.

I have a thing for unhonored victims. For instance, in the Atlantic slave trade, about 9 million went to Brazil and the Caribbean where they died young of disease and being worked to death. How often do you hear anyone speak of these millions of people? They aren't honored because most people don't know anything about them. And yet we despair to no end over 100,000 in Gaza? See how that works? — frank

There's a big difference here -- I'm not looking to honor death, since there is nothing to honor there. Remembering death is worthwhile insofar that we can prevent death. There may be other valences, spiritual respect and such.

I figure if we really care about life we'd not give excuses to the killers on the basis of the forgotten tortured -- if anything that there are forgotten tortured should connect you to the now suffering.

Honor the dead in peace, but there are bodies piling.

So, since he wasn't a random target, why did this happen? — Christoffer

And why does it continue to happen?

And, the bigger political question -- what's with the intuition that killing is wrong and our constant habit of making exceptions for ourselves?

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. — Christoffer

There's a sense in which I think of Kirk as an early fascist agitator. To use the time travelling assassin scenario one would not go back in time to kill some random propagandist who is close enough to count. That seems cruel, and probably ineffective.

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.

Both sides of this thing were part of the bad and the way out is not cheering for either of them, but acknowledge the truth of why it happened, the reasons why, and help finding a path that moves away from the bad towards the good of humanity.

I don't think it should be this hard for anyone with a working intellectual mind to function by.

I like this as an ideal.

Partially what the debate is about are "these basic ideas about what is good and what is bad" -- hence @Hanover's point that I don't know good from evil and my admission that this is exactly what I'm saying: I don't know good from evil.

That one person gives themself permission to kill for some political reason vs that a state writes it down a head of time and goes on doing the same seems like a distinction that makes no difference with respect to the sanctity of life, AND with respect to the practical realities of life. The first is easily seen as absurd, and the latter isn't answered.

If being distressed about Palestine leads to bloodlust for conservative assholes, it's probably time for a therapist and some meds. — frank

The feeling of absurdity I have is with respect to the condemnation of such violence.

Biblically we have some planks in our eyes. And to see the amount of emotional fervor this assassination produced vs the lack of response in the face of genocide -- an absurd reflection, an uncomfortable aporia.

Depends on the nature of the support. If one supports, for example, the Gaza Health Foundation's efforts to give meals directly to Palestinians, that's laudable. Fundraising for Hamas and occupying college campuses is not. A student visa is a privilege. — BitconnectCarlos

This strikes me as backwards.

One can only give aid to the suffering, but if you dare try to resist the movement of weapons to actually prevent the genocide we will take away your privilege of being here.

What about the students who are citizens that put up a similar resistance? Ought we to deport them too?

This is, candidly, absurd. Nazis systematically herded 6 million Jews to death camps, gassed them, and set their remains on fire with the aim of bringing about thei extinction of their race. — Hanover

And they did so with the blessing of the law.

The American Revolution broke the law with respect to murder, too.

The law isn't a basis for making this decision -- that's just the way we do things at the moment. Part of the weather. It's not a moral or political code as much as a "If you do such and such and get caught and tried and persecuted then this punishment will follow"


Further, pointing to Hitler after the fact is to sidestep the question: If all we do is look to the past to decide when someone is a hero rather than a criminal then we'll always condemn heroes in the moment and then change our mind later. That's a policy of convenience, but it doesn't tell us about when one is justified in using political violence.

If it's just that there's a law for it it seems to much the same to me as the person who follows their own moral code -- since they wrote it down ahead of time and are consistent they are thereby justified.

But I know you'd see this as patently absurd -- I don't see how appeal to law gets around that absurdity though.


****

The pop question is "If you could go back in time to shoot Hitler, would you do it?" -- generically people unthinkingly say "Yes" -- but here the question isn't about one-off assassins as much as "How do you* live with the violence you are responsible for, and how do you* consistently condemn the violence of others with the blood on your hands?"

When I hear "The law", that sounds to me like the one-off manifesto -- because we gave ourselves permission this time.

EDIT: *You because I'm asking, not because I'm not guilty.

The assassin was not a part of the military.

He fits the profile of white Utah boy who thought it'd be funny if he shot a guy he probably had some itch against.

Basically a school shooter. (EDIT: Else, how to make sense of the fact that his own father turned him in?)

Me neither, but I still believe that Trump will ultimately fail because he’s a completely mediocre individual and not even competent. Amazingly it hasn’t stopped him yet, but I still hold out hope. — Wayfarer

In this circumstance I do too.

No point in being a cynic in a terrible world where everyone sees the same.

This is something I was hoping to express in my comment upthread. The thoughts brewing in the young killer in the school shooting scene are not political in the way people organize to bring about a change in their circumstances. It is a different culture. — Paine

Yeah, it is.

Obviously I've stated that I think these are fascists.

Which makes sense of the "not organizing to bring about change"

-- a big part of why I see the 4chan/etc. channels as fascist propaganda is that it spews not even ironic hate speech as a "joke", similar to what our present assassin did. He did it for the memes because there was nothing for him, because he was more connected to this idea, and -- really the same for any political movement -- somehow the words stirred up and utilized the piss and vinegar a young man feels, a desire to change the world, and an apathy towards what *must* make it happen.

"I'll even tell a little joke on my bullets like that one Luigi guy did, to match the theatre I want to be a part of because -- fuck it. No future anyways. LOL"

I don't know who David Hogg is. — Wayfarer

Demographically he's a young white guy that came out for gun control and is basically an influencer, but for the democrats.

Trump/MAGA is doing everything it can to deepen the division; Trump is 'the great divider'. It is the way that demagogues have to work - anything like a liberal consensus is kryptonite to them.

So all this talk about what the Kirk assassination really means - what I think it really is, is a pretext for Trump and the MAGA cabal to drive their 'second American revolution' ever harder. — Wayfarer

Makes sense to me, and scares me.

Not that I'm placing bets yet -- but I also didn't place bets on Trump blooming into full fascism by being re-elected. I don't know the future at all.

There's a part of me that wonders if it had been Hogg then such a strict condemnation would not have been issued.

Technically, yeah, you're not supposed to do such and such as noted.

It is way out of line.

": But "

I have a strong feeling if it had been David Hogg, whom I hold little respect for, this would not be so loud as to reach our ears, people on an online forum who don't have to follow the UCMJ

Do you think, had it been a liberal influencer, it would have been so far out of line?

Link?

OK I see it's from the live updates.