Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
nbcnews.com1048 points by david927 3 days ago
1048 points by david927 3 days ago
All: if you can't respond in a non-violent way, please don't post until you can.
By non-violent I mean not celebrating violence nor excusing it, but also more than that: I mean metabolizing the violence you feel in yourself, until you no longer have a need to express it aggressively.
The feelings we all have about violence are strong and fully human and I'm not judging them. I believe it's our responsibility to each carry our own share of these feelings, rather than firing them at others, including in the petty forms that aggression takes on an internet forum.
If you don't share that belief, that's fine, but we do need you to follow the site guidelines when commenting here, and they certainly cover the above request. So if you're going to comment, please make sure you're familiar with and following them: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
But we have to make an effort in the United States. We have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond, or go beyond these rather difficult times.
My favorite poem, my -- my favorite poet was Aeschylus. And he once wrote:
"Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."
What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country ...
We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past -- and we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.
But the vast majority of [people] in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.
And let's dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.
Bobby Kennedy, 1968
Speech made in April, 1968, assassinated on June 5, 1968. Wild.
>> Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I'm not concerned about that now. I just want to do God's will. And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I've looked over. And I've seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! [April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee]
Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.
So perhaps a better excerpt in light of recent events would be
>> And another reason that I'm happy to live in [the second half of the 20th century] is that we have been forced to a point where we are going to have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men, for years now, have been talking about war and peace. But now, no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.
this is the complete transcript of that excerpted speech, often titled "I've Been to the Mountaintop"
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkivebeentothemou...
It turns out, at least so far, we can still choose violence.
His point was that once the physical power individuals/governments hold exceeds a threshold, a pluralistic society cannot coexist with violence being an acceptable option.
In the context of the 1960s, governments and nuclear weapons. But more broadly the same holds true for individuals.
Either we learn to live together despite our differences, or we use our newfound great power to annihilate each other.
Society can be shockingly resilient to personal violence especially if it’s primarily people at the top in terms of status, wealth, or political power are regularly getting assassinated. Recently gangs have been shockingly stable despite relentless violence but historically duals between gentlemen etc where quite common.
By historical standards we’re living is a near paradise of non violence and that’s worth persevering at significant cost.
It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/douglasmacarthurra...
ethbr1 says "...or we use our newfound great power to annihilate each other."
That isn't possible without bio-warfare. I sometimes hear people foolishly speak of a shooting "race war" in the USA but always remind them that the active phase of such an event would last about 15 minutes.
Distributed mass hunting rifle shots on high voltage transformers.
Unguarded. Scattered around the country. Any oil leaks potentially destroy them. Manufacturing backlogs of multiple years.
https://www.energy.gov/oe/addressing-security-and-reliabilit...
The only thing that's kept domestic terrorism to a minimum is that anyone smart enough to do it well has better economic opportunities.
I think when it becomes normal for 10% or more of the citizens of a country to say they wouldn’t be upset if some member of the opposing political party were to die or when it becomes normal for that portion of the people to make fun or celebrate the death of someone from an opposing party or their murderer, everyone needs to take a step back regardless of which side you’re on and say “Why?” Because these people are not murderers or accomplices, and they are generally good people. These aren’t people that would lynch anyone or burn a cross in someone’s yard.
It’s awful that anyone dies.
Let’s not escalate this on either side. We don’t need another Hitler, and we don’t need a French Revolution either. We just need people that stop trying to outdo each other.
> everyone needs to take a step back regardless of which side you’re on and say “Why?”
It's easy to get sucked into a learned helplessness doing this, though. We know exactly why it happens - Charlie Kirk explained it himself:
"You will never live in a society when you have an armed citizenry and you won’t have a single gun death. That is nonsense, [...] But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational."
When people push for firearms control in America, this is the polemic they argue along. You can say they're justified or completely bonkers, but denying that these scenarios exist is the blueprint for erasing causality.
"Muh democracy" when the majority are completely retarded and/or give no fuck. :D I love it.
No it's not because of the guns. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Shinzo_Abe
Just because you can cite an example of a killing without a gun says nothing about the reality about gun violence and gun culture in the USA.
Shinzo Abe's killer was captured immediately, he had to walk right in front of him to get a shot off.
Charlie Kirk's assassin is still at-large and fired from a standoff distance, with a conventional long-barrel firearm.
Make of that what you will.
You added the term "conventional", except nothing about this is conventional.
You said it yourself that the shooter is still at large... despite the involvement of the FBI and other agencies.