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Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize. I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs o

Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize. I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.

shadowgovt 1y ago
The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced. Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics. It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.
- bilvar 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
    - melling 1y ago
      Here’s exactly what was said. “”” “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday “””
      - yepitwas 1y ago
        Nb this was said when this was breaking, and they didn’t even know anyone had been shot yet. It wasn’t her hearing he got shot in the neck and going “lol maybe it was celebratory gunfire and bad luck?”
  - melling 1y ago
    Who’s the media? I don’t follow a lot of news and I didn’t know Mr Kirk until last week. People are in these media bubbles where they’re amped up all the time. Each side does a lot of name calling. Each group boils it down to us vs them.
- zahlman 1y ago
  > Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) > the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime These are not even remotely the same thing. > He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics. Killing someone with a gunshot to the neck is absolutely not "bloodless".
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. 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’s a prudent deal." In other words, some people are expendable (for a greater good). I also agree that killing someone with a gunshot isn't "bloodless." But the statistics are, and that's the thing about the kind of rhetoric Kirk engaged in. It's easy to birds-eye-view the problem and say things like there is a reasonable weighing of right to own a firearm vs. the inevitable result of increased firearm homicide when it is not one's own neck catching the bullet. In that sense, the statistics (and rhetoric around them) are "bloodless." Indeed, I suspect that one of the things that has made the discussion around firearm ownership in the United States increasingly charged year upon year is that as an increasing number of our friends, loved ones, and selves become the statistic of the day, the conversation cannot stay clinical and detached. Because for too many Americans, it's no longer some abstract someone somewhere who got shot that day; it's their neighbor. Or their mom. Or their kid.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > In other words No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care. FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.
- jfghkjhgkjghkjh 1y ago
  But....mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States despite the intense media coverage on it over other forms of homicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
  - shadowgovt 1y ago
    True, and this is the point Charlie Kirk (it seems from the transcript of the comments) was about to make before he was killed. I doubt he would have taken much comfort in knowing his death is a fascinating statistical anomaly.
- phendrenad2 1y ago
  > Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced This is the key part that people are the MOST upset about. From the right's perspective, they are getting called "nazis", "fascists" for things that are self-evident to them. But to the far-left, those beliefs are equivalent to Nazism. I don't think people on the right fully understand and internalize that their opponents believe that they are literal nazis. They think it's just a rhetorical device. So they think that the left is being grossly negligent by bandying these words around. I think now, though, the right has finally realized that being called a "nazi" isn't cute or a rhetorical device, and the far-left really intends to kill people. Therefore, a little cancel culture is the very least you should expect from them.
zahlman 1y ago
> I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting Just for the record, his Youtube channel has about 4.5M subscribers. But the lack of a dot after "Mr" suggests to me that you might be from the UK, so... > At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree. Ah, never mind.
immibis 1y ago
[flagged]
- johnthewise 1y ago
  would you kill murderers before they murdered anyone?
- roarcher 1y ago
  I'm sure Hitler used similar logic to justify gassing children.
  - immibis 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - roarcher 1y ago
      The lesson you seem to have taken from it is "it's different when I do it". The motto of every blood-soaked despot and every useful idiot who put him in power throughout history. > I can see that if your mother tongue doesn't use subject-verb-object word order (e.g. if it's German), it might be confusing. I'm sure you thought this was a witty repartee, but it's just dumb.
    - tomhow 1y ago
      Please just stop.
    - zahlman 1y ago
      > An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. Hatred, violence and cruelty by an outgroup against your ancestors, or your ingroup, or your ingroup's ancestors, never justifies you own hatred, violence or cruelty towards that outgroup. The Nazis believed that the Jews had sincerely harmed them. That of course did not justify them. What made them "the Nazis" is not that they adopted that name for themselves. We know that "the Nazis" were the Nazis because they gassed the Jews, and because of everything else in their rhetoric and policies leading up to that point. In "a situation where the Jews gas the Nazis", the Jews would be the ones in the wrong. > I can see that if your mother tongue doesn't use subject-verb-object word order (e.g. if it's German), it might be confusing. Rhetoric like this is completely uncalled for.
mvdtnz 1y ago
King apologised because he made a claim that was absolutely false and in fact the opposite of Kirk's position on a matter. Not for "chiming in". Not for "disagreeing". For lying.
phendrenad2 1y ago
> Stephen King made the mistake He was a victim here. Far-left news outlets like Vanity Fair and The Nation twisted the facts and made-up others. I don't really expect a 77-year-old celebrity to have the media literacy to separate fact from fiction, especially when these outlets have tailored their reporting to appeal to exactly his demographic.

shadowgovt 1y ago

The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced. Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics. It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.

bilvar 1y ago
[flagged]
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
  - melling 1y ago
    Here’s exactly what was said. “”” “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday “””
    - yepitwas 1y ago
      Nb this was said when this was breaking, and they didn’t even know anyone had been shot yet. It wasn’t her hearing he got shot in the neck and going “lol maybe it was celebratory gunfire and bad luck?”
- melling 1y ago
  Who’s the media? I don’t follow a lot of news and I didn’t know Mr Kirk until last week. People are in these media bubbles where they’re amped up all the time. Each side does a lot of name calling. Each group boils it down to us vs them.
zahlman 1y ago
> Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) > the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime These are not even remotely the same thing. > He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics. Killing someone with a gunshot to the neck is absolutely not "bloodless".
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. 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’s a prudent deal." In other words, some people are expendable (for a greater good). I also agree that killing someone with a gunshot isn't "bloodless." But the statistics are, and that's the thing about the kind of rhetoric Kirk engaged in. It's easy to birds-eye-view the problem and say things like there is a reasonable weighing of right to own a firearm vs. the inevitable result of increased firearm homicide when it is not one's own neck catching the bullet. In that sense, the statistics (and rhetoric around them) are "bloodless." Indeed, I suspect that one of the things that has made the discussion around firearm ownership in the United States increasingly charged year upon year is that as an increasing number of our friends, loved ones, and selves become the statistic of the day, the conversation cannot stay clinical and detached. Because for too many Americans, it's no longer some abstract someone somewhere who got shot that day; it's their neighbor. Or their mom. Or their kid.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > In other words No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care. FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.
jfghkjhgkjghkjh 1y ago
But....mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States despite the intense media coverage on it over other forms of homicide. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
- shadowgovt 1y ago
  True, and this is the point Charlie Kirk (it seems from the transcript of the comments) was about to make before he was killed. I doubt he would have taken much comfort in knowing his death is a fascinating statistical anomaly.
phendrenad2 1y ago
> Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced This is the key part that people are the MOST upset about. From the right's perspective, they are getting called "nazis", "fascists" for things that are self-evident to them. But to the far-left, those beliefs are equivalent to Nazism. I don't think people on the right fully understand and internalize that their opponents believe that they are literal nazis. They think it's just a rhetorical device. So they think that the left is being grossly negligent by bandying these words around. I think now, though, the right has finally realized that being called a "nazi" isn't cute or a rhetorical device, and the far-left really intends to kill people. Therefore, a little cancel culture is the very least you should expect from them.

zahlman 1y ago

> I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting Just for the record, his Youtube channel has about 4.5M subscribers. But the lack of a dot after "Mr" suggests to me that you might be from the UK, so... > At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree. Ah, never mind.

immibis 1y ago

[flagged]

johnthewise 1y ago
would you kill murderers before they murdered anyone?
roarcher 1y ago
I'm sure Hitler used similar logic to justify gassing children.
- immibis 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - roarcher 1y ago
    The lesson you seem to have taken from it is "it's different when I do it". The motto of every blood-soaked despot and every useful idiot who put him in power throughout history. > I can see that if your mother tongue doesn't use subject-verb-object word order (e.g. if it's German), it might be confusing. I'm sure you thought this was a witty repartee, but it's just dumb.
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please just stop.
  - zahlman 1y ago
    > An eye for an eye and the whole world is blind. Hatred, violence and cruelty by an outgroup against your ancestors, or your ingroup, or your ingroup's ancestors, never justifies you own hatred, violence or cruelty towards that outgroup. The Nazis believed that the Jews had sincerely harmed them. That of course did not justify them. What made them "the Nazis" is not that they adopted that name for themselves. We know that "the Nazis" were the Nazis because they gassed the Jews, and because of everything else in their rhetoric and policies leading up to that point. In "a situation where the Jews gas the Nazis", the Jews would be the ones in the wrong. > I can see that if your mother tongue doesn't use subject-verb-object word order (e.g. if it's German), it might be confusing. Rhetoric like this is completely uncalled for.

mvdtnz 1y ago

King apologised because he made a claim that was absolutely false and in fact the opposite of Kirk's position on a matter. Not for "chiming in". Not for "disagreeing". For lying.

phendrenad2 1y ago

> Stephen King made the mistake He was a victim here. Far-left news outlets like Vanity Fair and The Nation twisted the facts and made-up others. I don't really expect a 77-year-old celebrity to have the media literacy to separate fact from fiction, especially when these outlets have tailored their reporting to appeal to exactly his demographic.