Global Politics - General Chat

[Dirty Duck]

I understand what you’re saying Webbie but unfortunately it’s not just about political parties. Most of what I’ve seen has been about the irony of him so casually dispatching shootings in general, as well as the fact that a lot of his rhetoric is the kind of thing that people who joke about trans suicide rates daily love to hear. And suddenly making light of death is uncouth? He’s challenged grown men to physically stop trans children from competing in sports. He’s implied that the solution to trans people is lynching them. He’s not physically done anything to anyone sure, but how many people have due to his words? There are many people throughout history who have not actually raised their hands against those they target who are not worth defending.

Comparing political parties and standards is also hard not to do when the murder of democrat reps in their homes didn’t cause anywhere near as much suggested violence or inciting of some sort of war as this has. What has happened is a bad thing-but I don’t feel much sympathy for the man. The political climate won’t get any better from this.

[Webbie2689]

Comparing political parties and standards is also hard not to do when the murder of democrat reps in their homes didn’t cause anywhere near as much suggested violence or inciting of some sort of war as this has.

Both sides are always doing this type of stuff to each other, though, are they not?

Not denying what you're saying at all. It's absolutely the truth. I just see this type of behavior from both parties on the regular and sometimes wonder if anyone else notices. So many people are so quick to pick a side and attack the other even though, from my perspective, both sides consistently exhibit trash behavior.

[black king]

I hear what y'all are saying, but damn. Idk anymore.

I didn't know shit about Charlie Kirk, but from what I understand he just had unpopular opinions; he wasn't out there causing harm to anyone, wasn't being physically violent, wasn't making wives widows or children fatherless. Are y'all really not bothered at all by people celebrating his death? Should we make it the norm to just shoot anyone who says wild shit (also, who determines what exactly should be considered "wild shit"?)? I don't know about any of you but that's definitely not a world I feel great about raising my kids in.

I'm admittedly kinda numb to all the death at this point, but it's the way people react and talk about this stuff that bothers me. Anytime something happens all anyone talks about is which political party looks better/worse (here in America, at least). Why is that always what matters most to people nowadays? Both parties have supplied ample evidence that they're both fucking trash and shouldn't be followed by anyone, certainly not with any amount of pride, yet people are constantly roasting the other side as if their own is worth a damn.

If Kanye gets assassinated tomorrow, are we all celebrating? Don't answer that.

/rant. I didn't wanna do this on Facebook lol.

To my knowledge, no Charlie Kirk never physically harmed anyone himself. He was a political talking head whose words and influence did cause harm though which does need to be noted. He recommended a "patriot" go post bail for that guy who attacked the Pelosi family, and when those lawmakers in Minnesotta were killed he blamed political radicalization and inflammation, which is what killed him too. As of the time of me writing this, we don't know who killed him or for what reason. Could be a person who is a member of the groups he preached against or someone who is/was a believer in his and felt betrayed; perhaps by the Epistein files or some other grevience. 

I'm not happy he was killed and I do feel sad for his immediate family, but I won't read his obitaury with much sadness.

[tr0nic]

I get what you're saying, Webbie, and I don't fully disagree. I'm not celebrating, just have zero sympathy. There was a decent list of various horrible things he believed that's been circulating but I suddenly can't find it. Forgive the boomer ass Facebook meme I'm using instead to give context:

Spoiler:

Obviously this is not a proper source, but I can corroborate that I've seen the videos of him saying like three of the examples on this list alone. He's also said some outlandish shit like everyone gets worried when they see a black person piloting a commercial plane, or that he supports the Biblical punishment for being gay (which is being stoned to death publicly). Like how and why this guy got such a massive platform is baffling to me. And of all the people to assassinate, he's not even a target that makes sense honestly.

Now, context or no context, someone getting assassinated on a college campus while they sell merch and debate newly-former high schoolers is flat out wrong. The killer hit his target, but he could have just as easily missed and hit a random person. What separates this act of political violence from violence as an act of resistance is a certain level of organization and support from the people that would face the most unmitigated risk from it--The civilians in the crowd, in this case. They didn't sign up to dodge rifle rounds. But as for the one whose carotid artery did that all over twitter, I just can't have sympathy, he considered a person like me an abomination (only half white).

But this is where we're at, right or wrong. We can moralize about it all day, but this period of political violence is not going to magically end tomorrow. Realistically, it's only going to get worse. People will stop talking big about shit like this once the violence reaches them, and it's looking like it will. I was a very online teenager in the mid 2010's, the ultra-right wing of this country has been saying for as long as I can remember that this is what they want. What they think they'll get out of this, I don't know. Somehow if they kill all the black people and queer people, they'll achieve utopia. I don't know. They've successfully turned the GOP into their ultranationalist vanguard, and the Democrats are somewhere between useless to fully capitulating, or whining about people not blindly supporting Israel blowing up babies. Soon it won't be media personalities having high profile murders, it'll just be regular people. My only optimism is that, for some reason they really believe it'll be a cakewalk. It won't. There are so many goddamn guns in this country, and the Vietnamese kicked our asses with far less (tbf we were #3 out of 4 major powers they clapped in a century, but that's beside the point). At best it'll be a 20-year Balkanization that ends in nobody "winning".

But yeah. People from both sides love to talk big about this stuff on social media. In reality they have no idea how bad things can get.

[Jassassino]

Likely Trump has had a stroke in the past week, Melania really accentuating how much his face is drooping at the side with her botox-stiff expression. Makes those rumours that Trump was likely made to look and sound better in some recent pre-recorded appearances with AI all that more likely. 

Any other public figure I'd say their days are numbered, but fully expect him to be Weekend at Bernies-ed for the rest of his term.

[Aragorn]

This man actively celebrated the deaths of innocents and kids. I’d piss on his grave of if I could.

[Wayno]

Likely Trump has had a stroke in the past week, Melania really accentuating how much his face is drooping at the side with her botox-stiff expression. Makes those rumours that Trump was likely made to look and sound better in some recent pre-recorded appearances with AI all that more likely. 

Any other public figure I'd say their days are numbered, but fully expect him to be Weekend at Bernies-ed for the rest of his term.

Nah, he's just got his face at half mast for Charlie Kirk.

[Departed]

I hear what y'all are saying, but damn. Idk anymore.

I didn't know shit about Charlie Kirk, but from what I understand he just had unpopular opinions; he wasn't out there causing harm to anyone, wasn't being physically violent, wasn't making wives widows or children fatherless. Are y'all really not bothered at all by people celebrating his death? Should we make it the norm to just shoot anyone who says wild shit (also, who determines what exactly should be considered "wild shit"?)? I don't know about any of you but that's definitely not a world I feel great about raising my kids in.

I'm admittedly kinda numb to all the death at this point, but it's the way people react and talk about this stuff that bothers me. Anytime something happens all anyone talks about is which political party looks better/worse (here in America, at least). Why is that always what matters most to people nowadays? Both parties have supplied ample evidence that they're both fucking trash and shouldn't be followed by anyone, certainly not with any amount of pride, yet people are constantly roasting the other side as if their own is worth a damn.

If Kanye gets assassinated tomorrow, are we all celebrating? Don't answer that.

/rant. I didn't wanna do this on Facebook lol.

I would suggest looking into Turning Point USA.  It's the organization that Charlie Kirk founded which has spent millions upon millions indoctrinating young men into embracing really regressive conservative ideology.  They're funded by the Koch Brothers to help make really bad policies a reality.  So when people say, "Charlie Kirk never hurt anybody, he just had bad opinions," that's not technically true.  Charlie Kirk himself wasn't the sole cause but helped play a very large role in getting far right extremists elected all over the country, and has helped to overturn Roe v Wade and a number of equal opportunity employment initiatives.

Texas, for instance, was caught covering up the number of deaths from women who couldn't receive necessary healthcare because of abortion laws that the right passed after Roe got overturned.  Multiple women literally bled to death in hospital parking lots because the hospitals refused to provide emergency abortions that could've saved these women's lives.  Some women who survived those episodes lost their ability to have kids again.  That was all policy that Charlie Kirk helped make a reality by using his massive microphone to convince enough people to turn and vote for extremists who made it happen.

More recently, Professor Stacey Patton came out and spoke of the harassment she and many professors like her faced daily because of Charlie Kirk.  See, there was something called "Kirk's Watchlist" wherein he would use his massive microphone to have endless targeted harassment and threats lobbied at professors like Patton.  She received countless death threats, threatening voice mails, doxxing, harassment, and had multiple security people on her campus asking if she needed them by her at all times because so many of Kirk's followers were literally threatening to kill or rape her.  

That's not some person who has an "unpopular opinion."  The goal, by Kirk's own non-admission, was to hound these people into submission.  To use fear and intimidation to force people to not be so vocal about stances that Kirk found to be counter to his agenda.  Like reproductive rights, equal opportunities, raising minimum wages, that trans people should have the same rights as everyone else and not be scapegoated, the whole nine yards.  Kirk is one of many propagandists who made our political climate what it is today.

For as much as everyone loves to "both sides" every issue, this is not a "both sides" thing.  Republicans alone were the ones who have actively galvanized the worst people in this country to decide that they can settle disputes with bullets.  It's right wingers who send death threats to pollworkers.  Right wingers who stormed the capital.  A right winger murdered Melissa Hortman, a democratic lawmaker two months ago, and then shot Jonathan Hoffman, another democratic rep in the same state, because he wanted to end democrats majority in the state with bullets.  It was right wingers who sent death threats to judges.  It was a MAGA nut who smashed Paul Pelosi's head in with a hammer, who Kirk called a patriot and wanted pardoned.  That shooter everyone is saying was trans from a few weeks ago was a white nationalist nazi and by accounts was de-transitioned too.  When Trump called CNN the "enemy of the people," one of his supporters drove up in a van full of homemade bombs and countless rounds of ammo because he planned to quite literally kill every single person in the CNN newsroom before he was caught.  When Trump railed against the FBI in Ohio, one of his followers shot up the HQ, and got gunned down for it because he believed they were just targeting Trump during the investigations.  

Even the guy who shot Trump was a far right conservative gun nut.  The media and the right wing kept saying "democrats did it," and the call was coming from inside the proverbial house so to speak.

And for as much as everyone is trying to say "Kirk got killed for his opinions," it's worth pointing out that the shooter hasn't even been identified or caught yet.  Utah is a solid red state, and the last two political assassination attempt was carried out by a far right fanatic.  It's not going to be a surprise if it turns out that Kirk's killer was a far right conservative as well.

So, I don't buy this talking point so many are using right now, that "both sides" are to blame.  The evidence is so overwhelming that it's one side.  Democrats are always expected the cool the temperature, all the while, republicans freely fan the flames and have a much bigger microphone to spread their vitriol since way more billionaires back them and we can't get money out of politics until Citizens United is overturned.

As for people celebrating Kirk's death?  I'm not celebrating, but I'm not mourning either.  Kirk was a horrible person. The world isn't a worse place because he's not in it.  It's certainly more dangerous, but it's only more dangerous because in the wake of his death, the entire right wing is calling for violence against democrats in retaliation.  From Elon Musk, Jesse Waters, Nancy Mace, a whole ton of right wing politicians and influencers.  And we already saw the kinds of people who listen to these right wing provocateurs.  It only takes one person to turn that anger into violence.

That's not something that you see with regularity from the left.  All leftists of prominence aren't celebrating either.  So, from where things stand, the two are simply not comparable.  When Hortman was murdered two months ago and Hoffman was nearly killed, along with both of their spouses, that was right wing terrorism.  Was anyone worried for even a second that democrats were all gonna rise up and start killing republicans in retaliation?  Nope.  In fact, the right was once again cheering their deaths at the hands of one of their own.  Mike Lee pretended that Vance, the shooter, was a socialist democrat, when he was a far right Christian nationalist in charge of a security firm who bankrolled a lot of republicans whenever possible.

Because when all is said and done, it's their fault.  Republicans are 100% to blame for getting us where we are.  Democrats are to blame for sitting on their hands when they had the power to actually do something about this by passing laws to address political violence or packing the Supreme Court to get a ruling that would ensure insurrectionists couldn't hold office.  Their crime is inaction.  The right's crime is bringing us to this point by spending the last few decades tearing down our social safety nets to use the funds to give more money to the billionaires, and staying in power by stoking the flames of hatred and division, by misleading their low information supporters into believing that all of their problems are from whatever scapegoats they name in that week instead of the billionaires.

When people really stop and look at all of the facts; all the policies passed by the right and all of the misdirection they've had people like Kirk spreading, how can people truly keep saying "it's both sides"?  I've been pulling my hair out for years trying to understand that.  And I don't even like the democrats, but I'm not actively dreading any time they're in power either, because stuff like this doesn't happen under them or because of them.  Doesn't make them the good guys because most of them are spineless drones, but they don't seem to get off to actively trying to hurt others the way the right does.

Edit: Domestically, at least. Internationally, there's no daylight between the two parties because they both seem to really love giving Israel bombs.

So it's hard for me to really condemn anyone celebrating Kirk's demise when the unsafe political climate that claimed his life is one he helped make a reality through Turning Point USA and anger politics.

[Aragorn]

Likely Trump has had a stroke in the past week, Melania really accentuating how much his face is drooping at the side with her botox-stiff expression. Makes those rumours that Trump was likely made to look and sound better in some recent pre-recorded appearances with AI all that more likely. 

Any other public figure I'd say their days are numbered, but fully expect him to be Weekend at Bernies-ed for the rest of his term.

deadass what the raikov mask in Delta looks like

[tr0nic]

Likely Trump has had a stroke in the past week, Melania really accentuating how much his face is drooping at the side with her botox-stiff expression. Makes those rumours that Trump was likely made to look and sound better in some recent pre-recorded appearances with AI all that more likely. 

Any other public figure I'd say their days are numbered, but fully expect him to be Weekend at Bernies-ed for the rest of his term.

That shit was 100% AI, he barely moves the entire video