Van Jones working overtime to miss the point as usual.
He fought with words not weapons
thats the crux of the issue. Words can be weapons. And kirk wielded them as such.
Did Hitler ever kill anyone directly, with his own hands? Or was it his words?
edit. Im not comparing kirk to hitler; i am not suggesting kirk was becoming hitler or anything like that. It is solely an example of when “you use nothing but words”, and many people die. WORDS ARE WEAPONS. Rhetoric kills people
“I was only giving orders!”
Pol Pot killed 30% of the nation using words.
This is why they’re so desperate to destroy the school system. These “I’m not touching you” types of defenses don’t work against anyone with a HS diploma or a basic understanding of history
Exactly. Its standard bully behavior and way too many people fall for it.
“I am not violent. I simply said that all those people should be exterminated.”
Exactly. Hitler never killed anyone himself, but his rhetoric is directly responsible for the murder of tens of millions.
If you take a gas tanker and spray down the lawn and outside of the white house, and something else causes a spark that turns the entire place into an inferno, you didn’t start the fire. That doesn’t mean the fire would have still happened without your actions.
Yes. Himself.
So you’re saying he wasn’t all bad
ooof
To my knowledge Manson never murdered anyone with his own hands either. (Though I’m prepared to be corrected.) Same thing 100%.
Edit - arguing against myself a little - maybe not, I’m sure Manson coerced his followers with more than words at times.
A righty will just say it was action, directives, legislative action.
But the point is that modern right-wing mouthpieces can effectively toe the line of hate speech versus incitement. Dog-whistles and stochastic rhetoric that indirectly radicalizes others.
When this is all said and done, we’re going to need to overhaul our education for critical-thinking to spot this and perhaps broaden the definition of inciting violence or clamp down on hate speech. Though I look at Germany that has stricter laws and we see AfD neo-nazis rising there too albeit to a lesser extent?
We’re gonna need to overhaul a lot of stuff including education.
To the point where I don’t think repairing this piece of shit country is worth it.
Agreed. Kirk balanced along a very fine line of “just debating” or “expressing opinions” but anyone with half a brain engaged could hear the dog whistles all through his arguments and neither side is as dumb as the media and memes make them out to be. Those whistles are heard loud and clear, it’s why some loved him, and others hated him.
Likewise and with much less nuance, a Fox presenter comments that the mentally ill and/or homeless should euthanized. Then days later a homeless camp is attacked. Wow, what an unlucky coincident?
I wouldn’t want to lose the right to free speech but when it appears to incite violence, I struggle to see how - particularly the Fox presenter scenario - is any different to “shouting fire in a crowded theatre”? Words causing others to take action that lead to the death of innocent people.
HOWEVER, one person’s violence-inspiring words are another person’s Rage Against the Machine or genuine call to action against oppression. Innocent people can and do get caught up in these struggles too.
I don’t have a solution. I have no idea how we fix this without trampling existing freedoms and ruining everything good. All I know is that it’s not an easy solution that some halfwit media personality or politician is going to solve with one easy action.
Hitler ordered killings under his authority, absolutely. That healthcare CEO is a much better comparison to when people immediately die as a result of your direct actions and authority to order people to follow through.
It’s not the same. Claiming every racist, bigot, homophobe that opens their mouth is akin to Hitler and therefore can be summarily executed is not an argument that is going to win anyone over outside of lemmy and by the time Stephen Miller is ACTUALLY ordering killings and the public might actually support violent push back you’ll all already be in jail for terrorism and mass murdering YouTubers and even then nobody will feel bad about it.
I was ready to upvote this but you kinda went off the rails at the end lol
How else to respond to justifying murdering someone based on “words can be weapons” and the genuine support for that sentiment here? I’m only addressing the inevitable outcome of those who’d actually take that line of thinking to its inevitable conclusion, and if it seems absurd then put a bit more thought into who you think deserves to die because that’s where this path leads.
At no point did I ever justify murder.
We can discuss how words can be used to inflict violence. And draw upon historical figures as examples of when that has literally happened.
I never said he deserved to die. I am arguing with the articles wording of “he only ever used words”, which glosses over what those words were
test cause cant edit
At no point did I ever justify murder.
We can discuss how words can be used to inflict violence. And draw upon historical figures as examples of when that has literally happened. Without literally calling someone a nazi, or calling for their death.
We should be able to have a conversation about how his “free speech” (which I support), literally condoned violence. Here is a highlight of his comments. Please mark the ones which condone violence, and those that dont.
I never said he deserved to die. I am arguing with the articles wording of “he only ever used words”, which glosses over what those words were
That’s good, but most here feel the murder was justified and their rationale is the same. I hope they’ll also consider your clarification with due regard.
I don’t necessarily disagree, I just think it needs to be explained in a more grounded way.
I threw up a little bit in my mouth.
Now can we please stop writing about this fascist fuck? The amount of ass licking people are doing is disgusting.
“He was such a sweet man that just wanted to have a civil debate on… peoples rights… and gather support for a pedophile fascist in the white house.”
Cunt got shot. Shit happens. Kids in america get shot daily and no one gives a fuck. But one small faced fascist gets shot and everyone is in tears. Begging the right for forgiveness and ass kissing them to hell. It is disgusting and embarrassing.
Cunt got shot. Shit happens. Kids in america get shot daily and no one gives a fuck.
Right wing nutjobs don’t give a fuck when kids get shot because it’s not their kid. Just some anonymous nobody(s) that are probably forgotten before they’re done typing “Thoughts and prayers.” Charlie Kirk was a person. He was approved of. He had ideas. They knew his name, if not any of his actual ideas. You can’t just go around insulting, much less shooting, actual people.
Empathy. The missing ingredient is empathy.
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy.”
I think the full context is even more damning. He would have rather pitied a person that try to understand their pain.
they just care about unborn kids not leaving people
I’m not completely convinced that they actually care about the unborn kids as much as they care about controlling and subjugating women
It is totally about putting women in their place. The whole unborn human being with rights angle is just effective propaganda.
Every single time I see the right wing and the compliant “moderates” fawning all over Kirk, as contrasted with all the people shot nearly daily in this country that don’t get all these memorials and apologies and days of remembrance, I think of Chomsky’s discussion of “worthy victims” vs. “unworthy victims”.
He pushed for more civility, not more stridency or venom.
We’re sanewashing Kirk now? The guy who said that killing The Gays was “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters”, who said black women don’t have “the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously”, and that “Jewish dollars” are funding “cultural Marxism” (which is literally an OG Nazi invention) in US schools?
That guy pushed for more civility, not more stridency or venom?
Give me a fucking break.
Kirk’s pushback sparked an online torrent of racist death threats against me, the likes of which I have rarely seen.
Forgot about this part pretty quickly, did we?
Was Van Jones the one who said “Today trump became a president” after his staged meaningless bombing of a Syrian airbase?
We need better than this. But I guess it’s right-wing CNN “allowing” a contrary position.
Chomsky is one that just keeps on coming back when it comes to various things he has said/written. When it comes to the shout shows on places like CNN, the notion of “concision” ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concision_(media_studies) ) is one I think about all the time.
The beauty of concision, you know, saying a couple of sentences between two commercials, the beauty of that is you can only repeat conventional thoughts. Suppose I go on Nightline, whatever it is, two minutes, and I say Gaddafi is a terrorist, Khomeini is a murderer etcetera etcetera… I don’t need any evidence, everyone just nods. On the other hand, suppose you’re saying something that isn’t just regurgitating conventional pieties, suppose you say something that’s the least bit unexpected or controversial, people will quite reasonably expect to know what you mean. If you said that you’d better have a reason, better have some evidence. You can’t give evidence if you’re stuck with concision. That’s the genius of this structural constraint.[2]
The other thing he said was something that I’ve been thinking a lot about when it comes to any discussions done on “liberal media” regarding Kirk:
The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum…
It’s interesting because what Kimmel said was in no way outside of that limited spectrum.
I get it’s trying to be timely clickbait but why the FUCK would i want to read anything he else he’s said? I heard enough thanks. Tons of people are glad he’s dead just for the very fact we don’t have to hear his constant bullshit anymode; why would I click to read more?
Unless he texted “ugh this sucks, I wish someone would shoot me rn” I really don’t care.
What a dumb article. “He was spouting racist BS as always, I called him out, he attacked me personally. Then, out of the blue, he invited me to his show, in a DM, in very civilized words, to have a civilized discussion.”
Dude, you should be glad he died, sounds like you’re blue-eyed enough to have walked into that trap.
The long rest is just placating and conciliatory logorrhea.
Yeah, Kirk simply viewed the author of the article as more content for his show. Nothing more. Kirk didn’t debate based on some morality or desire to exchange ideas. He used debate as a tool for entertainment and shutting down the exchange of ideas. He turned debate into a grotesque hollow shell of itself and profited from it.
And all that would have been so much easier for him if somebody walked into it expecting a good faith argument.
He’s dead ,so move on with your live, stop posting this shit
Still important to see what the other side of attempting to do with this BS though. That’s why it’s posted.
Live by the hate, die by the hate.
Van Jones is a piece of shit too
Manson never killed anyone for the crimes that put him in prison.
Funny how he said people were using violence to justify more violence. That is exactly what Charlie Kirk said debating that British kid about Israel.
