Says a lot that the very first person listed on that 'charliesmurders.com' site isn't condemning or mocking Kirk at all but just expressing anxiety about the likelihood of a political backlash following his death. Even the people on 4chan were expressing confusion about this and saying her remarks seemed wholly innocuous.
The point is anything less than expressions of mourning is considered "violent rhetoric" by the same right-wingers who were radio silent when Melissa Hortman was murdered, and who made jokes when Paul Pelosi was bludgeoned with a hammer.
Just like Kirk was murdered by a left-winger because they made groyper references that most of the world doesn't get, while 4chan laughs because they know what's up >_>
Hortman was murdered by an anti-abortion loonie with a Republican history.
Not the firings, but the effort to pressure employers.
And it's really not in doubt; the coordination is real and public. I have seen many conservative pundits be very open about it (and preemptively engage with the "isn't this the same cancel culture you used to hate" argument).
What is that supposed to mean? That's no further away from "violent rhetoric" as the things many critics of Kirk have said recently, and been vilified for saying
What an appalling comment. You can’t possibly justify what you’re doing so you pretend it’s something “the left” did first. Did the left deport students because they wrote an op-ed article, or went to a protest? Did senior administration officials call for jailing opponents for thought crimes?
You are correct in your assumption that I am a conservative, but I abhor the lunacy of the MAGA right as much as anyone. But the fact remains that the roots of this behavior are in men like Foucault and Marcuse, who were squarely on the left.
So just to be clear - by "abhor the lunacy of the MAGA right" you mean you did not vote for the current crop societal arsonists and otherwise generally denounce them, right? I ask because there is a common disingenuous pattern of people claiming to distance themselves from the methods or other things they find distasteful (eg the profligate deficit spending), but ultimately still falling in line with support.
Not disingenuous, I think. I did vote for Trump, and even if I had a crystal ball in November and knew then what I know now, I would still prefer him to Harris. On the other hand, I have been quite vocal in my criticism of him -- but the circle of friends and acquaintances who have heard my criticisms is pretty small.
It's disingenuous because you're bringing up the lunacy as if its one of your primary concerns while invoking the concept of "integrity". But then you're not actually living out that concern, rather assuaging your own ego by imagining that "the left" is still somehow worse in this measure. You don't get to bemoan societal decay when you're directly contributing to that decay.
A recent report from the Goldwater Institute found that 80% of job postings for Arizona’s public universities required applicants to submit a statement detailing their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. - https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-new-loy...
“If you write: ‘I believe that everyone should be treated equally,’ you will be branded as a right winger,” Vinod Aggarwal, the chair of Asian Studies at the university, said in an interview. - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/ucla-dei-statement.htm...
UC Berkeley’s rubric for evaluating diversity statements penalized candidates for saying that they prefer to “treat everyone the same,” or for objecting to racially segregated affinity groups. As my reporting has shown, by the early 2020s, the Berkeley rubric had become something of a gold standard, used by search committees across the country, including at the University of New Mexico, University of South Carolina, Northwestern University, and Ohio State University. - https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-death-knell-for-diver...
(to debunk the usual counterpoint that these diversity requirements merely test for being able and willing to teach all demographics of students)
> Did the left deport students because they wrote an op-ed article, or went to a protest? Did senior administration officials call for jailing opponents for thought crimes?
Did the right? What incidents are you referring to?
Specifically because they protested and not for any other reason (such as, for example, specific actions taken at the protest; or just opportunistically because appearing at the protest made it possible to catch someone that they'd already been looking for)?
Except there weren't really any mass harassment, rape and death threat, and firing campaigns being coordinated against ordinary people for not sufficiently mourning someone. Most of the "cancel culture" stuff was overblown nonsense, the few real events were against massive public figures credibly accused of heinous things like Weinstein.
Pretending this is in any way equivalent betrays either an intense naivete or a supporter of this pre-pogrom behavior.
Maybe some of them knelt voluntarily. But what would have happened if they hadn't. To me at the time there seemed to be a lot of social pressure to "kneel" and accept the narrative and the will of the mob.
I fear I've been misunderstood, or at least over-interpreted.
> mass harassment, rape and death threat
From what I've seen (and notwithstanding the claims in TFA, which are unsupported by evidence other than allegations), these things aren't happening this time either, and the voices organizing the firing campaigns are against them.
In particular, Ms. Gilmore's story cannot be reconciled with the evidence available to me.
I have in some places seen dehumanizing rhetoric. This is of course still not okay, but it clearly comes from a place of genuine hurt.
Also, my standard objection here: telling people that you hope a terrible thing happens to them is not acceptable, but it is also objectively not a "threat", and it bothers me when it's falsely characterized that way.
> for not sufficiently mourning someone
This is not a reasonable representation of the cause of action. We're talking about people who outright celebrate Kirk's death or insinuate that it was somehow deserved.
> Most of the "cancel culture" stuff was overblown nonsense, the few real events were against massive public figures credibly accused of heinous things like Weinstein.
Strongly disagree. Matt Rose, James Damore, the list goes on and on (but I've left behind the days when I kept track in any serious way).
> Pretending this is in any way equivalent betrays
I feel much the same about people who equate a guy getting killed for his political beliefs with people losing their job for expressing ideology that can reasonably be considered incompatible with doing the job.
(I'm sure there are people outside the professions I mentioned in the other thread getting targeted. As I already said, I oppose that.)
Ah yes, the dangerously effective leftist power-grabbing playbook. This is the playbook with accomplishments like:
- Losing two Supreme Court nominations because the opposing party said so, refusing to pack the court in response (also see: next bullet)
- Failing to make general legislative progress by having two critical senators in their party refuse to caucus with them, with both eventually leaving the party entirely
- Controlling less than half of state legislatures in the whole country, less than half of all state governors
- Running unpopular candidates for president 3 times in a row and losing 2/3 easily winnable campaigns over it
- Allowing their unpopular presidential candidate to decide to drop out at the last minute rather than convincing him to do it with enough time to do a proper primary and grassroots campaigning
- Sitting around for years instead of expediting prosecution of Trump for obvious crimes (e.g., classified documents case, Jan. 9 insurrection case) before he could return to office
- Tossing a bucket of quicksand onto voter enthusiasm by splitting the party over the Israel/Gaza conflict and other wedge issues
I actually hope the Republican Party adopts the left's "power-grabbing playbook" so that we can go back to having Democrats in control. Who knows, we might even get universal healthcare - last time, a public option was blocked by a single independent congressperson, which is too much power for the power-grabbing leftists to handle!
This is terrible, but luckily we have a large and robust network of free speech activists who've spent years organizing against "Cancel Culture" and defending people from getting fired for controversial views. I'm sure they'll spring into action and defend these poor folks. Let's check in on how they're doing...
Musk claimed he'd pay to legally defend anyone who was fired from their job for viewpoints on this. I'm waiting for him to fail to defend anyone who isn't his brand of right-wing
For sure. The doxing and firings and deplatforming over Covid views, Jan 6 and general Trump support etc were awful and people rightfully complained but this is equally as bad. The hypocrisy is astounding.
It's like we have abandoned all principals of fairness and charity in pursuit of our political enemies.
People of all stripes say dumb stuff on social media. Unless it's immediate calls to violent or illegal action, the repercussions should probably stay on social media in my view.
Whatever happened to "be the better man". Stoop to the perceived level of your worst enemy and you're just like you perceive them to be.
Kirk shouldn't have died. But he also didn't say very nice things about people who aren't white males. There's a difference between celebrating his death and merely saying "he wasn't a very nice person unless you were white and male". Unfortunately, those two are being conflated. The very first listing on "charliesmurderers.com" is a woman who states in her tweet "I don't believe violence is ever the answer. It just makes everything worse" and "I hope Charlie survives", in response to those taking issue with her worrying that some further far-right Kirk followers might see this as an opportunity for "revenge". She did not champion his death. She didn't celebrate it. She just raised a point.
Unfortunately, he was killed by someone who didn't think he was as far right as they wanted. Ever heard of a "groyper"?
The thing to remember is that no one cares about hypocrisy. The people in power least of all. It's a classic authoritarian move to condemn something they engage in, because the authoritarian doesn't care about doing the right thing, they care about eradicating people whose will resist them in any way.
You will see capital L Liberals complaining about hypocrisy the whole time the autocrats rise to power, completely missing the point that hypocrisy doesn't matter. There's no scoreboard out there that says, opponent was hypocritical, automatic loss.
Says a lot that the very first person listed on that 'charliesmurders.com' site isn't condemning or mocking Kirk at all but just expressing anxiety about the likelihood of a political backlash following his death. Even the people on 4chan were expressing confusion about this and saying her remarks seemed wholly innocuous.
Building websites which only work on the "www" subdomain should also be a crime.
Are you saying they're just harassing people they don't like?
They were looking for targets to make examples of and didn't vet their targets very carefully.
The point is anything less than expressions of mourning is considered "violent rhetoric" by the same right-wingers who were radio silent when Melissa Hortman was murdered, and who made jokes when Paul Pelosi was bludgeoned with a hammer.
Silence is violence, right? I thought that was the lesson we were supposed to have learned.
[flagged]
Just like Kirk was murdered by a left-winger because they made groyper references that most of the world doesn't get, while 4chan laughs because they know what's up >_>
Hortman was murdered by an anti-abortion loonie with a Republican history.
Not the firings, but the effort to pressure employers.
And it's really not in doubt; the coordination is real and public. I have seen many conservative pundits be very open about it (and preemptively engage with the "isn't this the same cancel culture you used to hate" argument).
My thoughts on the legitimacy of this, from another submission: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234875
Be very glad that's all they are doing.
What is that supposed to mean? That's no further away from "violent rhetoric" as the things many critics of Kirk have said recently, and been vilified for saying
[flagged]
What an appalling comment. You can’t possibly justify what you’re doing so you pretend it’s something “the left” did first. Did the left deport students because they wrote an op-ed article, or went to a protest? Did senior administration officials call for jailing opponents for thought crimes?
You are correct in your assumption that I am a conservative, but I abhor the lunacy of the MAGA right as much as anyone. But the fact remains that the roots of this behavior are in men like Foucault and Marcuse, who were squarely on the left.
So just to be clear - by "abhor the lunacy of the MAGA right" you mean you did not vote for the current crop societal arsonists and otherwise generally denounce them, right? I ask because there is a common disingenuous pattern of people claiming to distance themselves from the methods or other things they find distasteful (eg the profligate deficit spending), but ultimately still falling in line with support.
Not disingenuous, I think. I did vote for Trump, and even if I had a crystal ball in November and knew then what I know now, I would still prefer him to Harris. On the other hand, I have been quite vocal in my criticism of him -- but the circle of friends and acquaintances who have heard my criticisms is pretty small.
It's disingenuous because you're bringing up the lunacy as if its one of your primary concerns while invoking the concept of "integrity". But then you're not actually living out that concern, rather assuaging your own ego by imagining that "the left" is still somehow worse in this measure. You don't get to bemoan societal decay when you're directly contributing to that decay.
No, but they did condition employment based on being left-wing:
Required ‘diversity and inclusion’ statements amount to a political litmus test for hiring - https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-universitys-new-loyalty-oat...
Diversity Statements Required for One-Fifth of Academic Jobs - https://www.schoolinfosystem.org/2021/11/11/study-diversity-...
Berkeley Weeded Out Job Applicants Who Didn't Propose Specific Plans To Advance Diversity - https://reason.com/2020/02/03/university-of-california-diver...
A recent report from the Goldwater Institute found that 80% of job postings for Arizona’s public universities required applicants to submit a statement detailing their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. - https://www.goldwaterinstitute.org/policy-report/the-new-loy...
Mathematicians divided over faculty hiring practices that require proof of efforts to promote diversity - https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/01/mathematicians-divid...
“If you write: ‘I believe that everyone should be treated equally,’ you will be branded as a right winger,” Vinod Aggarwal, the chair of Asian Studies at the university, said in an interview. - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/08/us/ucla-dei-statement.htm...
UC Berkeley’s rubric for evaluating diversity statements penalized candidates for saying that they prefer to “treat everyone the same,” or for objecting to racially segregated affinity groups. As my reporting has shown, by the early 2020s, the Berkeley rubric had become something of a gold standard, used by search committees across the country, including at the University of New Mexico, University of South Carolina, Northwestern University, and Ohio State University. - https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-death-knell-for-diver...
(to debunk the usual counterpoint that these diversity requirements merely test for being able and willing to teach all demographics of students)
> Did the left deport students because they wrote an op-ed article, or went to a protest? Did senior administration officials call for jailing opponents for thought crimes?
Did the right? What incidents are you referring to?
Yes. It was a big news story that the administration yanked visas and green cards for pro Palestine protestors.
Specifically because they protested and not for any other reason (such as, for example, specific actions taken at the protest; or just opportunistically because appearing at the protest made it possible to catch someone that they'd already been looking for)?
And there was evidence for this?
Except there weren't really any mass harassment, rape and death threat, and firing campaigns being coordinated against ordinary people for not sufficiently mourning someone. Most of the "cancel culture" stuff was overblown nonsense, the few real events were against massive public figures credibly accused of heinous things like Weinstein.
Pretending this is in any way equivalent betrays either an intense naivete or a supporter of this pre-pogrom behavior.
What about the stuff around George Floyd. Weren't people accosted and forced to kneel down and repent?
e.g. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8664345/Aggressive-...
https://twitter.com/i/status/1267283980514201610
https://twitter.com/i/status/1269043437275435016
Etc.
Maybe some of them knelt voluntarily. But what would have happened if they hadn't. To me at the time there seemed to be a lot of social pressure to "kneel" and accept the narrative and the will of the mob.
I fear I've been misunderstood, or at least over-interpreted.
> mass harassment, rape and death threat
From what I've seen (and notwithstanding the claims in TFA, which are unsupported by evidence other than allegations), these things aren't happening this time either, and the voices organizing the firing campaigns are against them.
In particular, Ms. Gilmore's story cannot be reconciled with the evidence available to me.
I have in some places seen dehumanizing rhetoric. This is of course still not okay, but it clearly comes from a place of genuine hurt.
Also, my standard objection here: telling people that you hope a terrible thing happens to them is not acceptable, but it is also objectively not a "threat", and it bothers me when it's falsely characterized that way.
> for not sufficiently mourning someone
This is not a reasonable representation of the cause of action. We're talking about people who outright celebrate Kirk's death or insinuate that it was somehow deserved.
> Most of the "cancel culture" stuff was overblown nonsense, the few real events were against massive public figures credibly accused of heinous things like Weinstein.
Strongly disagree. Matt Rose, James Damore, the list goes on and on (but I've left behind the days when I kept track in any serious way).
> Pretending this is in any way equivalent betrays
I feel much the same about people who equate a guy getting killed for his political beliefs with people losing their job for expressing ideology that can reasonably be considered incompatible with doing the job.
(I'm sure there are people outside the professions I mentioned in the other thread getting targeted. As I already said, I oppose that.)
Tf are you referring to
Ah yes, the dangerously effective leftist power-grabbing playbook. This is the playbook with accomplishments like:
- Losing two Supreme Court nominations because the opposing party said so, refusing to pack the court in response (also see: next bullet)
- Failing to make general legislative progress by having two critical senators in their party refuse to caucus with them, with both eventually leaving the party entirely
- Controlling less than half of state legislatures in the whole country, less than half of all state governors
- Running unpopular candidates for president 3 times in a row and losing 2/3 easily winnable campaigns over it
- Allowing their unpopular presidential candidate to decide to drop out at the last minute rather than convincing him to do it with enough time to do a proper primary and grassroots campaigning
- Sitting around for years instead of expediting prosecution of Trump for obvious crimes (e.g., classified documents case, Jan. 9 insurrection case) before he could return to office
- Tossing a bucket of quicksand onto voter enthusiasm by splitting the party over the Israel/Gaza conflict and other wedge issues
I actually hope the Republican Party adopts the left's "power-grabbing playbook" so that we can go back to having Democrats in control. Who knows, we might even get universal healthcare - last time, a public option was blocked by a single independent congressperson, which is too much power for the power-grabbing leftists to handle!
Don't feed the trolls
This is terrible, but luckily we have a large and robust network of free speech activists who've spent years organizing against "Cancel Culture" and defending people from getting fired for controversial views. I'm sure they'll spring into action and defend these poor folks. Let's check in on how they're doing...
Musk claimed he'd pay to legally defend anyone who was fired from their job for viewpoints on this. I'm waiting for him to fail to defend anyone who isn't his brand of right-wing
For sure. The doxing and firings and deplatforming over Covid views, Jan 6 and general Trump support etc were awful and people rightfully complained but this is equally as bad. The hypocrisy is astounding.
It's like we have abandoned all principals of fairness and charity in pursuit of our political enemies.
People of all stripes say dumb stuff on social media. Unless it's immediate calls to violent or illegal action, the repercussions should probably stay on social media in my view.
Turnabout is fair play, it's not hypocrisy, it's actually resentment.
Whatever happened to "be the better man". Stoop to the perceived level of your worst enemy and you're just like you perceive them to be.
Kirk shouldn't have died. But he also didn't say very nice things about people who aren't white males. There's a difference between celebrating his death and merely saying "he wasn't a very nice person unless you were white and male". Unfortunately, those two are being conflated. The very first listing on "charliesmurderers.com" is a woman who states in her tweet "I don't believe violence is ever the answer. It just makes everything worse" and "I hope Charlie survives", in response to those taking issue with her worrying that some further far-right Kirk followers might see this as an opportunity for "revenge". She did not champion his death. She didn't celebrate it. She just raised a point.
Unfortunately, he was killed by someone who didn't think he was as far right as they wanted. Ever heard of a "groyper"?
We don't know the motivation of the killer. Seems best to wait before inventing a motive.
> Seems best to wait before inventing a motive.
Is there any actual reliable source for this other than a statement from someone that amounts to "I don't know, but wouldn't surprise me"?
Seems unlikely that a Christian nationalist would be roommates with a trans person, no?
> Whatever happened to "be the better man"
It didn't work. People are now trying things that work.
An eye for an eye eventually leaves the entire world blind. Better we just act out of principals of liberty and charity in my opinion.
The thing to remember is that no one cares about hypocrisy. The people in power least of all. It's a classic authoritarian move to condemn something they engage in, because the authoritarian doesn't care about doing the right thing, they care about eradicating people whose will resist them in any way.
You will see capital L Liberals complaining about hypocrisy the whole time the autocrats rise to power, completely missing the point that hypocrisy doesn't matter. There's no scoreboard out there that says, opponent was hypocritical, automatic loss.