9 ms·

Tennessee man arrested, accused of threatening a shooting, after posting meme

349 points by zzzeek 1y ago

iancmceachern 1y ago
No one is safe in this environment
- nerdponx 1y ago
  Conservatives mostly can get away with anything right now.
  - mindslight 1y ago
    There's nothing "conservative" about the fascist movement. It's regressive / reactionary (to use Yarvin's own label).
    - baobabKoodaa 1y ago
      Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy. You're not helping anyone with those rhetoric tricks.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy Are they? MAGA has made it a point to purge the former GOP of conservatives.
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        I'm gonna need a source for that with specificity to the "conservative" self-identification.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        You’re the one who made the claim that “self-identified ‘conservatives’ are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy.” Isn’t the burden of proof on you? In any case, we have polling around non-MAGA Republicans [1]. And contrasting Trump 1 and 2 seems to show how having non-MAGA Republicans, many of whom identified as conservative and didn’t endorse the 2020 coup attempt, makes a difference. [1] https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines_Cv0m59u.pdf#page=14 https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines...
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        Here's one example of the MAGA crowd self-identifying as conservative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_...
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Here's one example of the MAGA crowd self-identifying as conservative Sorry, I didn't mean to imply no conservatives are MAGA. Just that I would be surprised if a majority of self-identifying conservatives identify with MAGA. (I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of former conservatives were now MAGA.) The difference is meaningful, because by unifying MAGA and conservatives one loses resolution on a powerful breakaway faction. (The main reason we had a free and fair election in 2020 is because some Republicans upheld their oaths to the Constitution.)
        boston_clone 1y ago
        This just in, the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 1930s is not actually Socialist !
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 1930s is not actually Socialist Good comparison. One of the victims of the Night of the Long Knives were the Strasserists [1][2]. It’s absolutely legitimate to point out when the German Socialist movement was coöpted by Hitler. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        No true socialist could do such a thing.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > No true socialist could do such a thing You’re really going to reduce a historical event to platitudes? What people call themselves matters. It may not be strictly correct. But it’s an identity, and that predicts how they’ll align in a crisis or movement.
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        It was a reference to "no true scottsman"
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > It was a reference to "no true scottsman" I know. A platitude is a trite and obvious remark. Whether the Nazis are true socialists is a red herring. The point is the people who called themselves socialist before the Nazis were systematically purged by the Nazis once they coöpted their party. It would be incorrect to say self-identified socialists were responsible for everything the Nazis did; it would be correct to say they enabled them to rise to power. Most importantly, however, would be observing that right before the Nazis consolidated power, it was the former socialists who could have been peeled away, potentially to huge consequence.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        > Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy Yes, exactly! They are lying to themselves, and as a group. They're not conserving our society, but rather throwing it away. I'm not doing a rhetorical trick - they are doing a rhetorical trick, and I am calling it out.
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        When a group calling themselves 'X', who are also broadly called 'X' by outsiders, decides to do something, that group 'has something to do with X'.
        mindslight 1y ago
        > who are also broadly called 'X' by outsiders Yes. I keep saying - we need to stop doing this. "Conservative" makes it sound like what they are doing is gradual, measured, and familiar. Maybe not in narrow progressive circles where "conservative" has gathered strong negative connotations, but still in the wider general world. Using "conservative" as a synonym for Republicans/reactionaries/fascists is helping to support their movement.
    - Bratmon 1y ago
      This is a distinction without a difference. "Regressive", "reactionary", and "conservative" are three words that refer to the exact same people and mean the exact same thing.
      - mindslight 1y ago
        No, the words mean different things. When used to refer to a group, those meanings confer connotations. The point is that we need to stop referring to people destroying our society as "conservative".
        zzzeek 1y ago
        why do we need to do that? Which of the two political parties in the US is known as "conservative"? What does that party look like now? What policies are being pursued by that party's elected officials, and how much do they differ in concept from what that same party was doing ten years ago, twenty years ago, fifty years ago? The Southern Strategy, Reagan's speech at Neshoba county fair, "Starve the Beast", "Brownie you're doing a heckuva job", you can draw a straight line all the way through to today. we're living in the utter pinnacle of unfettered conservatism today.
        mindslight 1y ago
        Try painting with a less broad brush. I agree that we're experiencing the endgame of the Republican political operatives scorched-earth divisive tactics, but to insist on tying all their latent supporters to that is a grave mistake. Imagine for a minute, if you will, that there are reasonable people who believe in some conservative values, but don't examine the rest of the party platform (or its results) all too hard. Now imagine that by pointing out where Trump falls short or is even directly opposed to those values (eg 2nd amendment), you might actually make them come around to seeing that we need to oust this autocratic child-raping anti-American scumbag. That would be a good thing, right? I do get that Trump is just the tip of the Party's spear, and the whole pantheon of corrupt congresscritters / supreme council members / corporate backers really needs to go down with the ship. But that didn't work for 2024, and I'd say at this point we're losing our society and our country faster at a faster rate that those enablers' reputations are being damaged, so that seems like a terrible strategy. First and foremost, we need to stop the hemorrhaging.
  - lawn 1y ago
    Keyword "right now". Many who initially supported Hitler found themselves dearly regretting their actions.
hyperhello 1y ago
> Bushart did not elaborate, but the context seems clear: Why should I care about this shooting, when the sitting president said I should "get over" this other shooting? From one perspective, this is clearly bad governance. He's using his free speech rights that generations of us died for, to point out hypocrisy. I'm going to say it, and we'll see if I get arrested for it. Charlie Kirk was one of the useful idiots groomed from high school to push conservative propaganda. One of his assignments was to minimize the cultural impact of school shootings. He died in front of thousands in a school shooting. Maybe that irony is something and maybe it is nothing. But the essence of conservative propaganda, that will survive any individual propaganda and any individual regime, is the central idea that some of us have rights and freedoms and some of us don't. So any deviation from that idea must be punished very severely.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- metwo1234 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - steveBK123 1y ago
    Don’t think anyone said he deserved to die. Just don’t think anyone needs to be arrested for a meme. Especially since these crackdowns are being done by all the free speech enjoyers who are currently in power.
  - JoshTriplett 1y ago
    1) Nobody should ever die for what they say. 2) Nobody should ever get arrested for saying it was good that someone died, or that they're not sad about it, or that the world is better off without them, or that they were a hateful person, or any number of other things someone might say.
    - vkou 1y ago
      3) Nobody should ever get arrested for saying that everyone should get over the death of someone, but it seems that we've already passed this point. Are people going to need to protest with blank signs next year?
vkou 1y ago
The excuse for why he was arrested (some school in the area shares the same name as the one that Trump was downplaying a shooting at) is, of course utter bullshit. Its amazing how far people are willing to bend over backwards to explain how the speech of these public figures is harmless and non-threatening and none of us have anything to worry about (despite their actions putting the lie to it), but apply an entirely different set of standards to people criticising them. Much of Kirk's public life and the life of his political allies was devoted to minimizing the impact of and the empathy we should feel for school shootings (because the ends justify the means of furthering his political agenda). He went on to die in one.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  What school shooting did he die in?
  - vkou 1y ago
    He was at a school, he got shot by a man who got a gun and took it to a school with intent to kill. This happens every day to other people, and the advice of him and his political allies has always been to get over it and to stop politicizing it. It would be great if they could collectively take it and stop politicizing it.
  - HDThoreaun 1y ago
    The utah valley university shooting
  - card_zero 1y ago
    #497 by my count, excluding non-fatal ones.
nailer 1y ago
The Kirk assassination was awful, as well as the plainly false things said about his life by some parts of the media. But nobody is obligated to have a particular political opinion and Kirk himself would have pointed out that civil disagreement is this man's right as an American.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- watwut 1y ago
  Kirks career literally started with organised harasment of what they perceived as leftists professors. Kirk himself was pretty atrocious verbally to people he looked down at. And he wink wink condoned violence against husband of democrat. His murder was wrong. It is not true that he would be some kind of universal "civil disagreement" advocate.
  - nerdponx 1y ago
    Murdering bad people is probably wrong, up to certain limits. Arresting someone for saying that the victim was also a bad person is definitely unequivocally wrong.
    - nailer 1y ago
      I'm pretty sure murder is wrong.
  - nailer 1y ago
    Do you want to post an example? Kirk would defend students being harassed for unrelated political matters - eg the most recent case on his channel was an Agriculture major who had to take some kind of 'equity in agriculture' class and was being bothered by her professor for not being left leaning.
    - watwut 1y ago
      Kirk on the attack against Pelosi husband: “Why has he not been bailed out? [] By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,..." That was about attacker by the way. Like common, the start if Kirks career was making a list of "leftists professors" and promoting their harassment. Kirk literally intentionally created and promoted toxic culture we have now. That is who he was. Yeah, he would defend right winger or bigot. He would attack anyone not right wing. The rights of people who were not white conservatives did not concerned kirk. He was literally against civil rights, openly. Blacks are all stupid and trans are all groomers. They all should be fired. I have no idea about what happened between that "left leaning professor" and student. But there is about zero reason to believe what right wing activist like Kirk says about the issue. As far as he was concerned, left need not exist and need to be punished for existing.
tuckwat 1y ago
[flagged]
- postflopclarity 1y ago
  why, confronted with reality?
  - tuckwat 1y ago
    uh, bc /r/politics is all about politics and this post is all about politics. Edit - I'm fine with the article, it's abhorrent and relevant. My tongue in cheek comment was about the comments. These comments give me the same feeling of Reddit - angry people arguing over whether someones death was justified or not.
    - selectodude 1y ago
      Man getting jailed and having bail set at $2 million for a Facebook post isn’t “politics”.
      - bigstrat2003 1y ago
        Yes it is, by definition.
      - childintime 1y ago
        Then what was it? Standard procedure?
        selectodude 1y ago
        It’s a serious eighth amendment violation.
- bwb 1y ago
  Seems like a pretty important story, man jailed for a meme post. Seems less like politics, and more like a story about government overreach/abuse.
whatshisface 1y ago
I think this is an example of using slow trials as a nonjudicial weapon. The defendant did not break the law and isn't likely to be convicted (at least not on appeal), but they can hold him in jail for months because they got mad at his Facebook post.
- _heimdall 1y ago
  That should be where the right to a speedy trial comes into play. If he is held in jail because he isn't released on bail, the best thing to do is repeatedly file motions for the speedy trial.
  - everforward 1y ago
    A speedy trial is much slower than you’d probably think. I can’t find specific guidelines for Tennessee beyond having the right to one. The federal guidelines are generally 30 days to make a specific charge, and 70 days from then to appear before a judge. That also doesn’t ensure the case goes to trial, just that you’ve had a hearing. Ie you can spend over 3 months in jail before an hearing and still be considered to have had a speedy trial. He’d have to wait til after that period to even file a motion for dismissal on speedy trial grounds, and then wait for the hearing on that to happen. This is part of why plea deals are so common. Even if he were somehow to be convicted, his sentence would probably be less than the speedy trial window. At a certain point, the prosecution will offer to bump it down to some kind of misdemeanor with jail time less than he’s already done so it’s time served. He may as well plead guilty to that because otherwise he’ll keep sitting in jail waiting on a trial and do more time for no reason. There’s no realistic route where he gets compensated for being wrongly prosecuted, even if he goes to trial and is found not guilty. The justice system is deeply, deeply flawed and unjust.
    - gamblor956 1y ago
      At the state level, if a defendant does not waive their right to a speedy trial, the time from being charged (arraignment) to trial is limited by law. It ranges from 30 days for misdemeanors to 6 months for felonies. . In California, the clock for a misdemeanor is 30 days if a defendant is taken into custody, or 45 days if not in custody. For a felony, it's 60 days from arraignment. If the defendant remains in custody after arrest, arraignment must occur within 48 hours of arrest, or on the first business day after the 48-hour period expires if it ends on a weekend or court holiday. If the defendant is freed from custody prior to arraignment, then arraignment can occur at a later date. In NY and most red states, the clock is approximately 6 months for felonies. Due to the longer clock, in many of these states the clock begins when the defendant is taken into custody (or the state has a shorter timeframe for trial for defendants in custody). Florida just changed its laws to make the clock start on arraignment, lengthened the time required for arraignment to 30 days for defendants in custody, and made the speedy trial right an affirmative right that the defendant must specifically assert. Unlike pretty much every other state, the clock also restarts if the prosecutor withdraws and re-files the same charges (in almost every other state, the clock is only started anew for new charges.) FL also made the consequences for violation of these rights a mere dismissal without prejudice. (TLDR: don't get arrested in Florida.) Most defense lawyers will advise clients to waive their speedy trial rights. This is for the lawyer's benefit, not the client's. It allows the lawyer to preserve their negotiating relationship with the prosecutor for future clients. In California, due to the shortened time frames, 99% of the time it is advisable to assert speedy trial rights (especially in felonies, but even in misdemeanors) because the prosecution usually can't get its act together in time. Some forensics can't even be completed in the 60 day window. The defense win rate in proceedings where the defendant asserts their speedy trial rights is so high that prosecutors will always offer a sweetheart plea deal to avoid going to trial. (Of course the obvious solution is for the prosecutors to just wait until they have an actual complete case before filing charges. But if they did that we wouldn't need speedy trial laws in the first place.)
ta12653421 1y ago
Funfact: Icon backgroundcolor of targetsite reason.com seems to be the same as HN icon backgroundcolor :-D
- oncallthrow 1y ago
  rgb(244, 108, 52) vs rgb(255, 102, 0)
  - ta12653421 1y ago
    Well, very quite in the (optical) range, I'd say? (-:
Aloisius 1y ago
The comments on this article are horrifying. It's clear people have lost their damn minds.
- squigz 1y ago
  Don't make the mistake of thinking comments on a random article are indicative of the way the population actually thinks. They may not even be real.
  - vkou 1y ago
    Oh, they are real, they aren't just bots, and they've all been emboldened. Go on these people's facebooks, or invite them to Thanksgiving, you'll see the same firehose of shit.
    - culll_kuprey 1y ago
      > Go on these people's facebooks, or invite them to Thanksgiving, you'll see the same firehose of shit. A fun game is to look at Facebook profiles selected from random comment sections. By doing this, I have come away with even less understanding of people’s believes, motivations, etc.
    - squigz 1y ago
      Profiles can be faked too
      - EasyMark 1y ago
        exactly, clicking on most bluecheck accounts on any politically active post on twitter and you will likely find a bot posting 24/7 about politics, usually as a right wing troll, been quite a while since I spotted a leftist one, but I have seen a few.
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    I used to think that, then the last decade happened. The conspiracy theorists are in the halls of power now and their followers are frothing at the mouth for revenge against perceived enemies. The uncomfortable uncle at Thanksgiving is now driving national health policy and funding.
estebarb 1y ago
"Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community" Someone tell the LHC at CERN folks to avoid Tennessee...
TrackerFF 1y ago
I looked at the pictures, and even with no context, it was obvious that he was pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump with that meme. Ain't no way people looked at the picture, and genuinely thought "Is he threatening to shoot up the school?". But then again, there are some incredibly stupid people out there. To me, it mostly seems like manufactured outrage. Someone saw him posting edgy memes, got offended, and called to the cops that the guy was posting about doing a school shooting.
- baobabKoodaa 1y ago
  > Someone saw him posting edgy memes, got offended, and called to the cops that the guy was posting about doing a school shooting. I don't think even that happened. Most likely some law enforcement officials sat down at a table for a brainstorming session trying to figure out a pretext to jail this guy.
- overfeed 1y ago
  He is being punished for his speech. His persecutors aren't bold enough yet to publicly proclaim their violation of his constitutional rights, hence the verbal gymnastics.
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - overfeed 1y ago
      The article discusses this, and explains why the sheriff is contorting the plain meaning of his 4-words and an image (about Kirk) into a threat of violence (to a nearby school). This won't stand in court, so they are punishing him before then.
      - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
        >The article discusses this, and explains why the sheriff is contorting the plain meaning of his 4-words and an image (about Kirk) into a threat of violence (to a nearby school). This won't stand in court, so they are punishing him before then. "For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law."
nomilk 1y ago
I wish the article would show a screenshot of what was posted, however 'uncivil'. Found this on a linked facebook post - no clue if it's accurate. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=25571453995778528&set=p.25571453995778528&type=3 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=25571453995778528&se...
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- rglover 1y ago
  If this is accurate, this whole thing is beyond hysterical. Irrespective of political beliefs, this is an insane thing to have happen in the U.S. (this example is innocuous speech protected under the 1st amendment). Spooky shit as it sets precedence for anyone to go after anyone for a social media post on any grounds. That's psychotic.
  - idle_zealot 1y ago
    > Irrespective of political beliefs, I wish people would stop pretending that this has nothing to do with politics. Belief that the rules should punish anyone you don't like and protect those you do is incredibly popular, and the dominant ideology of this administration and its supporters. It is a political belief, and nobody is seriously combatting it. Still we act as though there are two sides with a shared goal of creating a better world, and differing ideas of how to accomplish that. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that the goal of this incarnation of the Republican party is an authoritarian police state dedicated to punishing and eradicating whomever they deem an "enemy within". And a lot of voters are ok with this, so long as it doesn't apply to them personally, so long as they're a favored party. The apparent hypocrisy is naked and insulting. They'll cry "cancel culture" and censorship over companies deciding not to platform bigots while cheering when the police kidnap protestors or outspoken political opponents. I say "apparent" because this all makes perfect sense when you realize that they never cared about free speech or anything else they claimed to. It was always about "good guys" getting to do whatever they want, and "bad guys" getting hurt. The friend-enemy distinction. No policy goals, no principled stance on issues, just a convenient facade.
anigbrowl 1y ago
This Sheriff Weems is either a fool or a knave.
yibg 1y ago
Amazingly even this post is a reflection of the discourse around Kirk. There are replies equating any criticism of Kirk to celebrating his death and glossing over his past nasty behavior. All seems to detached from reality.
- mullingitover 1y ago
  There is a group who has never debated anything in good faith, and they are certainly not about to start now.
- krapp 1y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel
- tootie 1y ago
  Kirk, among many other right wing figures, have absolutely made light of past violence against Democrats. The discourse around Paul Pelosi was utterly vile and despicable. Nobody ever threatened his first amendment right to say horrendous things.
  - nailer 1y ago
    FWIW I agree Kirk shouldn't have made fun of Paul Pelosi. I think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there He had years to apologise. It could have meaningfully altered the temperature of our discourse, particularly among young men. He never did. Kirk gets no credit for amends he never made.
      - tastyface 1y ago
        This is how Charlie Kirk got on my radar: "Mere weeks before his death, Kirk reveled in Trump's deployment of federal troops to DC. 'Shock and awe. Force,' he wrote. 'We're taking our country back from these cockroaches.'" Cockroaches! Literally language of the Rwandan genocide. And it's a Christian saying this about other human beings? The man never changed. (Obviously, he should not have been shot. But his sanctification is repulsive.)
DarkmSparks 1y ago
$2m should be the minimum compensation he is entitled to when the dust settles.
bigjobby 1y ago
I want to be living in the 80s again. The world is an absolute shit show at the moment
- Aloisius 1y ago
  The 1980s wasn't great either, depending on where you were you had: AIDS, the Cold War, crack epidemic, war on drugs/mass incarceration, Satanic Panic, Iran-Contra, Tiananmen Square, plane bombings, peak gang violence, MOVE bombings, S&L crisis, sky-high interest rates, a couple deep recessions with high unemployment, Chernobyl, the Iran-Iraq War, widespread homophobia, Ethiopian famine and civil war, etc.
  - throwaway173738 1y ago
    Of course it was called GRID instead of AIDS back then.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
Is there a legal defence fund?
thegrim33 1y ago
The guy made multiple posts, which, taken together, made people supposedly consider him as making threats. The journalist here decides to cover this story, but only mention the content of one of his posts, and completely ignoring and not mentioning the contents of the other posts. Surely the other posts are completely benign and there's nothing of interest in there, right? Surely the journalist had a reason for only reporting on the contents of one of his posts, and not the others, and that choice wasn't intentional in order to present a biased interpretation of reality. Surely.
- baobabKoodaa 1y ago
  The other posts were linked in the story. They were your everyday internet meme stuff. No person genuinely thought that this guy was threatening to do a school shooting.
- wtfwhateven 1y ago
  >Surely the journalist had a reason for only reporting on the contents of one of his posts, and not the others, and that choice wasn't intentional in order to present a biased interpretation of reality. Surely. Yes because the sheriff explicitly stated it was the trump quote picture, and nothing else, that got the man arrested, charged and thrown in a cage. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l... The article even links to the above. Makes me wonder if you even read the article or already knew what I just said and are being dishonest.
onetimeusename 1y ago
There is a little bit more context here in a different article where the sheriff explains how the posts were interpreted as a threat https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l...
- bonsai_spool 1y ago
  > There is a little bit more context here in a different article where the sheriff explains how the posts were interpreted as a threat > https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l... There isn’t anything there that wasn’t in the original article.
  - onetimeusename 1y ago
    The Reason article said there was no reason to interpret this as a threat and that it was entirely just political. The article made it seem like the memes were held completely out of context. It mentioned there happens to be a nearby Perry High School just by chance but the nearby Perry High School is the central reason why this was interpreted as a threat. This was posted in a group that was organizing an event at the high school. I could see how someone might construe this as a threat more clearly from the tennessean article if they were being overly cautious. Also the sheriff mentioned the arrest was not done for legal speech content but more for the coincidental possibility this was a threat. Reason didn't elaborate on this. The Reason article is making this seem like it's entirely political and unreasonable. I don't think an arrest should have been made, that is too far. This seems like an unfortunate coincidence but someone looked at all this and reported it as a threat. The fact Perry High School's name is highly relevant here was not included.
    - EasyMark 1y ago
      As someone who grew up in a small town with a not so moral local law enforcement, I almost guarantee this sheriff has a political agenda against someone who dared post a meme about their favorite podcaster who was just assassinated.
beloch 1y ago
People outside the U.S. should care about this because so much social media is based in the U.S.. i.e. If you post an anti-MAGA meme to Facebook or reddit from an identifiable account you could be charged as this man was. Perhaps the U.S. will try to extradite you. (I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.) However, the U.S. might also choose to wait and then arrest you if you ever travel to or through the U.S.. The U.S.'s slide away from freedom of speech could have a huge global impact on people who might think it doesn't effect them. We are far too reliant on American social media. Canada, the E.U., etc. should be looking at protections to prevent social media companies operating servers in their jurisdictions from sharing information with the U.S. government. It's no longer a hypothetical situation. There is a real threat that is clearly evident now.
- bilegeek 1y ago
  > I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA. EDIT: If you're an emigrant: More than just a PITA, you could still fail; see [1]. Also - I can't find the source right now - I remember hearing about Russian emigrants in Europe being charged with serious crimes in absentia over criticism of the war, and they were slated for deportation because the bureaucracy still considered all such Russian warrants as valid. The US would probably be harder to excise in this regard. [1]https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shelters-russians-persecuted-for-their-political-beliefs/a-63000283 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shelters-russians-persecuted-f...
- canucker2016 1y ago
  People outside the US can be in tons of trouble already for social media postings. UK and Germany come to mind where the police/law will go after people for what they post. That's just for developed countries. Consequences are worse in developing countries.
  - tavavex 1y ago
    Which developing countries? I thought that many of those countries were either tied up with 'real', physical crime or just wouldn't care about internet stuff all that much. Lots of sketchy websites (like lots of piracy-related stuff) are hosted in countries where legal consequences are unlikely, even if it's illegal on paper. I can see how the more authoritarian countries can be going after social media posts based on grudges, but I'm wondering about which ones actively practice it - I don't know much about it.
standardUser 1y ago
Trump's America. Don't forget to wipe your phone before travelling. You don't need to break any laws to have your life ruined, you just have to stumble into the crosshairs of the most vindictive leader we have ever had to endure.
JohnTHaller 1y ago
Due to Tennessee law, he has to come up with $210,000 himself to get bail from a bondsmen. And he loses $10,000 of that permanently. TN law is designed to keep non-rich folks in jail. He likely won't get his trial for months in TN. Also by design.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > he has to come up with $210,000 himself Source?
  - Legend2440 1y ago
    The linked article.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      Nothing in the law [1] requires he come up with that sum himself. (The qualifier implies e.g. a legal defence fund or even family member couldn't help.) [1] https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/SB0464.pdf https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/SB0464.pdf
      - tavavex 1y ago
        That seems kind of pedantic. From what the original commenter said, my immediate interpretation of it was that the obligation to procure the money and pay up is on his side, not that the $200k must be 'his' in some other way. It doesn't matter what source he gets it from, but the bill is on him to pay.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > my immediate interpretation of it was that the obligation to procure the money and pay up is on his side, not that the $200k must be 'his' in some other way I suppose. I honestly read it as suggesting he, personally, had to come up with that money. The law is cruel. But as positioned, it seems like you'd just have an industry of secondary lenders.
mft_ 1y ago
Obviously an interesting test case for the US, especially in light of Vance, Musk, and Farage attacking the UK (especially) and the EU for apparently lacking free speech.
kleton 1y ago
Here are some "I-told-you-so"s regarding Douglass Mackey's original guilty verdict for posting Twitter memes, who, since then, was acquitted on appeal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531283
bitsage 1y ago
This thread is looking at this from a political angle, but he was arrested and charged for threats of mass violence. This seems to be a case of over zealous policing regarding school shootings in a very tense environment rather than a guy arrested over offensive memes.
- overfeed 1y ago
  There's no "tense environment" around school shootings. Like the president said: We have to... on second thoughts, maybe I should not be quoting him either.
whearyou 1y ago
If/when this gets tossed - does the have grounds to sue (and who would he be suing) on wrongful arrest, or something else?
- EasyMark 1y ago
  probably not unless it's against people sending him death threats and he can actually manage to track them down
spacechild1 1y ago
This is just crazy! Just look at the actual post: https://x.com/aaronterr1/status/1970272191884468241 https://x.com/aaronterr1/status/1970272191884468241. There is no way this can be interpreted as "Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities". How should anyone trust law enforcement and the judicial system when they fabricate cases like this? Once more, it demonstrates that MAGA only cares about free speech as long as it serves their own interest. This is almost comical when you think about J.D. Vance' speech in Munich. Thanks to reason.com for strongly calling out the BS!
scoofy 1y ago
How on earth does this get past a grand jury?!?
- OutOfHere 1y ago
  Grand juries have for years been entirely useless. They should be filtering aggressively, not only for this case, but for all such bozo cases. I don't know why it is they act the way they do. Given the data I have seen, certainly I would not have been in favor of indicting him.
- EasyMark 1y ago
  they're basically rubber stamps these days.
RickJWagner 1y ago
I wish we could see all of the offending posts. Without that, it’s hard to tell if the messages are threatening or not.
fennecbutt 1y ago
Ah republicans. No wonder 2025 is the first year that extremist left wing violence has exceeded extremist right wing violence for the first time in 30 years.
api 1y ago
I remember when the far right claimed they were for free speech and against “cancel culture.” I’m curious. Have any of the people who actually bought into that been falling away? Has the 180 degree flip away from free speech actually popped the bubble for anyone?
- hypeatei 1y ago
  > Has the 180 degree flip away from free speech actually popped the bubble for anyone Absolutely not. Right here on HN, you see the "moderates" and "center right" people: completely ignore what's going on, never call him out by name, blame both sides, or pretend it's just lefties being hyperbolic again.
renewiltord 1y ago
Tennessee just seems like not a First Amendment state. Here's another from 2021 https://apnews.com/article/meme-arrest-officer-killed-lawsuit-b842977881f95bd30186271b32a414e3 https://apnews.com/article/meme-arrest-officer-killed-lawsui... Douglas Mackey was also convicted of posting fake election stuff like "avoid the line. Vote at home" with a phone number. But it looks like he was later cleared. So the memeing can get you in trouble and people will either say you were "just memeing" or "posting dangerous misinformation/threats" depending on their political stance.
welzel 1y ago
What did people expect to happen? Nobody seems to ask the question why military is being deployed to US cities. What would be your assumption if the same happens in Africa or South America? Seriously, how stupid can people be ... I have many friends who already left the US or prepared to leave at a moments notice. None of them are actually political, but they are aware that 1984 is already fully implemented and at any point in time it could get very, very ugly very quickly.
trod1234 1y ago
[dead]

349 points by zzzeek 1y ago

iancmceachern 1y ago

No one is safe in this environment

nerdponx 1y ago
Conservatives mostly can get away with anything right now.
- mindslight 1y ago
  There's nothing "conservative" about the fascist movement. It's regressive / reactionary (to use Yarvin's own label).
  - baobabKoodaa 1y ago
    Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy. You're not helping anyone with those rhetoric tricks.
    - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
      > Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy Are they? MAGA has made it a point to purge the former GOP of conservatives.
      - baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        I'm gonna need a source for that with specificity to the "conservative" self-identification.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        You’re the one who made the claim that “self-identified ‘conservatives’ are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy.” Isn’t the burden of proof on you? In any case, we have polling around non-MAGA Republicans [1]. And contrasting Trump 1 and 2 seems to show how having non-MAGA Republicans, many of whom identified as conservative and didn’t endorse the 2020 coup attempt, makes a difference. [1] https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines_Cv0m59u.pdf#page=14 https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/econtoplines...
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        Here's one example of the MAGA crowd self-identifying as conservative: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservative_Political_Action_...
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > Here's one example of the MAGA crowd self-identifying as conservative Sorry, I didn't mean to imply no conservatives are MAGA. Just that I would be surprised if a majority of self-identifying conservatives identify with MAGA. (I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of former conservatives were now MAGA.) The difference is meaningful, because by unifying MAGA and conservatives one loses resolution on a powerful breakaway faction. (The main reason we had a free and fair election in 2020 is because some Republicans upheld their oaths to the Constitution.)
      - boston_clone 1y ago
        This just in, the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 1930s is not actually Socialist !
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > the National Socialist Party of Germany in the 1930s is not actually Socialist Good comparison. One of the victims of the Night of the Long Knives were the Strasserists [1][2]. It’s absolutely legitimate to point out when the German Socialist movement was coöpted by Hitler. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_of_the_Long_Knives [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strasserism
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        No true socialist could do such a thing.
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > No true socialist could do such a thing You’re really going to reduce a historical event to platitudes? What people call themselves matters. It may not be strictly correct. But it’s an identity, and that predicts how they’ll align in a crisis or movement.
        baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        It was a reference to "no true scottsman"
        JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > It was a reference to "no true scottsman" I know. A platitude is a trite and obvious remark. Whether the Nazis are true socialists is a red herring. The point is the people who called themselves socialist before the Nazis were systematically purged by the Nazis once they coöpted their party. It would be incorrect to say self-identified socialists were responsible for everything the Nazis did; it would be correct to say they enabled them to rise to power. Most importantly, however, would be observing that right before the Nazis consolidated power, it was the former socialists who could have been peeled away, potentially to huge consequence.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      > Self-identified "conservatives" are pushing this wave of censorship and autocracy Yes, exactly! They are lying to themselves, and as a group. They're not conserving our society, but rather throwing it away. I'm not doing a rhetorical trick - they are doing a rhetorical trick, and I am calling it out.
      - baobabKoodaa 1y ago
        When a group calling themselves 'X', who are also broadly called 'X' by outsiders, decides to do something, that group 'has something to do with X'.
        mindslight 1y ago
        > who are also broadly called 'X' by outsiders Yes. I keep saying - we need to stop doing this. "Conservative" makes it sound like what they are doing is gradual, measured, and familiar. Maybe not in narrow progressive circles where "conservative" has gathered strong negative connotations, but still in the wider general world. Using "conservative" as a synonym for Republicans/reactionaries/fascists is helping to support their movement.
  - Bratmon 1y ago
    This is a distinction without a difference. "Regressive", "reactionary", and "conservative" are three words that refer to the exact same people and mean the exact same thing.
    - mindslight 1y ago
      No, the words mean different things. When used to refer to a group, those meanings confer connotations. The point is that we need to stop referring to people destroying our society as "conservative".
      - zzzeek 1y ago
        why do we need to do that? Which of the two political parties in the US is known as "conservative"? What does that party look like now? What policies are being pursued by that party's elected officials, and how much do they differ in concept from what that same party was doing ten years ago, twenty years ago, fifty years ago? The Southern Strategy, Reagan's speech at Neshoba county fair, "Starve the Beast", "Brownie you're doing a heckuva job", you can draw a straight line all the way through to today. we're living in the utter pinnacle of unfettered conservatism today.
        mindslight 1y ago
        Try painting with a less broad brush. I agree that we're experiencing the endgame of the Republican political operatives scorched-earth divisive tactics, but to insist on tying all their latent supporters to that is a grave mistake. Imagine for a minute, if you will, that there are reasonable people who believe in some conservative values, but don't examine the rest of the party platform (or its results) all too hard. Now imagine that by pointing out where Trump falls short or is even directly opposed to those values (eg 2nd amendment), you might actually make them come around to seeing that we need to oust this autocratic child-raping anti-American scumbag. That would be a good thing, right? I do get that Trump is just the tip of the Party's spear, and the whole pantheon of corrupt congresscritters / supreme council members / corporate backers really needs to go down with the ship. But that didn't work for 2024, and I'd say at this point we're losing our society and our country faster at a faster rate that those enablers' reputations are being damaged, so that seems like a terrible strategy. First and foremost, we need to stop the hemorrhaging.
- lawn 1y ago
  Keyword "right now". Many who initially supported Hitler found themselves dearly regretting their actions.

hyperhello 1y ago

> Bushart did not elaborate, but the context seems clear: Why should I care about this shooting, when the sitting president said I should "get over" this other shooting? From one perspective, this is clearly bad governance. He's using his free speech rights that generations of us died for, to point out hypocrisy. I'm going to say it, and we'll see if I get arrested for it. Charlie Kirk was one of the useful idiots groomed from high school to push conservative propaganda. One of his assignments was to minimize the cultural impact of school shootings. He died in front of thousands in a school shooting. Maybe that irony is something and maybe it is nothing. But the essence of conservative propaganda, that will survive any individual propaganda and any individual regime, is the central idea that some of us have rights and freedoms and some of us don't. So any deviation from that idea must be punished very severely.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
metwo1234 1y ago
[flagged]
- steveBK123 1y ago
  Don’t think anyone said he deserved to die. Just don’t think anyone needs to be arrested for a meme. Especially since these crackdowns are being done by all the free speech enjoyers who are currently in power.
- JoshTriplett 1y ago
  1) Nobody should ever die for what they say. 2) Nobody should ever get arrested for saying it was good that someone died, or that they're not sad about it, or that the world is better off without them, or that they were a hateful person, or any number of other things someone might say.
  - vkou 1y ago
    3) Nobody should ever get arrested for saying that everyone should get over the death of someone, but it seems that we've already passed this point. Are people going to need to protest with blank signs next year?

vkou 1y ago

The excuse for why he was arrested (some school in the area shares the same name as the one that Trump was downplaying a shooting at) is, of course utter bullshit. Its amazing how far people are willing to bend over backwards to explain how the speech of these public figures is harmless and non-threatening and none of us have anything to worry about (despite their actions putting the lie to it), but apply an entirely different set of standards to people criticising them. Much of Kirk's public life and the life of his political allies was devoted to minimizing the impact of and the empathy we should feel for school shootings (because the ends justify the means of furthering his political agenda). He went on to die in one.

NetMageSCW 1y ago
What school shooting did he die in?
- vkou 1y ago
  He was at a school, he got shot by a man who got a gun and took it to a school with intent to kill. This happens every day to other people, and the advice of him and his political allies has always been to get over it and to stop politicizing it. It would be great if they could collectively take it and stop politicizing it.
- HDThoreaun 1y ago
  The utah valley university shooting
- card_zero 1y ago
  #497 by my count, excluding non-fatal ones.

nailer 1y ago

The Kirk assassination was awful, as well as the plainly false things said about his life by some parts of the media. But nobody is obligated to have a particular political opinion and Kirk himself would have pointed out that civil disagreement is this man's right as an American.

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
watwut 1y ago
Kirks career literally started with organised harasment of what they perceived as leftists professors. Kirk himself was pretty atrocious verbally to people he looked down at. And he wink wink condoned violence against husband of democrat. His murder was wrong. It is not true that he would be some kind of universal "civil disagreement" advocate.
- nerdponx 1y ago
  Murdering bad people is probably wrong, up to certain limits. Arresting someone for saying that the victim was also a bad person is definitely unequivocally wrong.
  - nailer 1y ago
    I'm pretty sure murder is wrong.
- nailer 1y ago
  Do you want to post an example? Kirk would defend students being harassed for unrelated political matters - eg the most recent case on his channel was an Agriculture major who had to take some kind of 'equity in agriculture' class and was being bothered by her professor for not being left leaning.
  - watwut 1y ago
    Kirk on the attack against Pelosi husband: “Why has he not been bailed out? [] By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,..." That was about attacker by the way. Like common, the start if Kirks career was making a list of "leftists professors" and promoting their harassment. Kirk literally intentionally created and promoted toxic culture we have now. That is who he was. Yeah, he would defend right winger or bigot. He would attack anyone not right wing. The rights of people who were not white conservatives did not concerned kirk. He was literally against civil rights, openly. Blacks are all stupid and trans are all groomers. They all should be fired. I have no idea about what happened between that "left leaning professor" and student. But there is about zero reason to believe what right wing activist like Kirk says about the issue. As far as he was concerned, left need not exist and need to be punished for existing.

tuckwat 1y ago

[flagged]

postflopclarity 1y ago
why, confronted with reality?
- tuckwat 1y ago
  uh, bc /r/politics is all about politics and this post is all about politics. Edit - I'm fine with the article, it's abhorrent and relevant. My tongue in cheek comment was about the comments. These comments give me the same feeling of Reddit - angry people arguing over whether someones death was justified or not.
  - selectodude 1y ago
    Man getting jailed and having bail set at $2 million for a Facebook post isn’t “politics”.
    - bigstrat2003 1y ago
      Yes it is, by definition.
    - childintime 1y ago
      Then what was it? Standard procedure?
      - selectodude 1y ago
        It’s a serious eighth amendment violation.
bwb 1y ago
Seems like a pretty important story, man jailed for a meme post. Seems less like politics, and more like a story about government overreach/abuse.

whatshisface 1y ago

I think this is an example of using slow trials as a nonjudicial weapon. The defendant did not break the law and isn't likely to be convicted (at least not on appeal), but they can hold him in jail for months because they got mad at his Facebook post.

_heimdall 1y ago
That should be where the right to a speedy trial comes into play. If he is held in jail because he isn't released on bail, the best thing to do is repeatedly file motions for the speedy trial.
- everforward 1y ago
  A speedy trial is much slower than you’d probably think. I can’t find specific guidelines for Tennessee beyond having the right to one. The federal guidelines are generally 30 days to make a specific charge, and 70 days from then to appear before a judge. That also doesn’t ensure the case goes to trial, just that you’ve had a hearing. Ie you can spend over 3 months in jail before an hearing and still be considered to have had a speedy trial. He’d have to wait til after that period to even file a motion for dismissal on speedy trial grounds, and then wait for the hearing on that to happen. This is part of why plea deals are so common. Even if he were somehow to be convicted, his sentence would probably be less than the speedy trial window. At a certain point, the prosecution will offer to bump it down to some kind of misdemeanor with jail time less than he’s already done so it’s time served. He may as well plead guilty to that because otherwise he’ll keep sitting in jail waiting on a trial and do more time for no reason. There’s no realistic route where he gets compensated for being wrongly prosecuted, even if he goes to trial and is found not guilty. The justice system is deeply, deeply flawed and unjust.
  - gamblor956 1y ago
    At the state level, if a defendant does not waive their right to a speedy trial, the time from being charged (arraignment) to trial is limited by law. It ranges from 30 days for misdemeanors to 6 months for felonies. . In California, the clock for a misdemeanor is 30 days if a defendant is taken into custody, or 45 days if not in custody. For a felony, it's 60 days from arraignment. If the defendant remains in custody after arrest, arraignment must occur within 48 hours of arrest, or on the first business day after the 48-hour period expires if it ends on a weekend or court holiday. If the defendant is freed from custody prior to arraignment, then arraignment can occur at a later date. In NY and most red states, the clock is approximately 6 months for felonies. Due to the longer clock, in many of these states the clock begins when the defendant is taken into custody (or the state has a shorter timeframe for trial for defendants in custody). Florida just changed its laws to make the clock start on arraignment, lengthened the time required for arraignment to 30 days for defendants in custody, and made the speedy trial right an affirmative right that the defendant must specifically assert. Unlike pretty much every other state, the clock also restarts if the prosecutor withdraws and re-files the same charges (in almost every other state, the clock is only started anew for new charges.) FL also made the consequences for violation of these rights a mere dismissal without prejudice. (TLDR: don't get arrested in Florida.) Most defense lawyers will advise clients to waive their speedy trial rights. This is for the lawyer's benefit, not the client's. It allows the lawyer to preserve their negotiating relationship with the prosecutor for future clients. In California, due to the shortened time frames, 99% of the time it is advisable to assert speedy trial rights (especially in felonies, but even in misdemeanors) because the prosecution usually can't get its act together in time. Some forensics can't even be completed in the 60 day window. The defense win rate in proceedings where the defendant asserts their speedy trial rights is so high that prosecutors will always offer a sweetheart plea deal to avoid going to trial. (Of course the obvious solution is for the prosecutors to just wait until they have an actual complete case before filing charges. But if they did that we wouldn't need speedy trial laws in the first place.)

ta12653421 1y ago

Funfact: Icon backgroundcolor of targetsite reason.com seems to be the same as HN icon backgroundcolor :-D

oncallthrow 1y ago
rgb(244, 108, 52) vs rgb(255, 102, 0)
- ta12653421 1y ago
  Well, very quite in the (optical) range, I'd say? (-:

Aloisius 1y ago

The comments on this article are horrifying. It's clear people have lost their damn minds.

squigz 1y ago
Don't make the mistake of thinking comments on a random article are indicative of the way the population actually thinks. They may not even be real.
- vkou 1y ago
  Oh, they are real, they aren't just bots, and they've all been emboldened. Go on these people's facebooks, or invite them to Thanksgiving, you'll see the same firehose of shit.
  - culll_kuprey 1y ago
    > Go on these people's facebooks, or invite them to Thanksgiving, you'll see the same firehose of shit. A fun game is to look at Facebook profiles selected from random comment sections. By doing this, I have come away with even less understanding of people’s believes, motivations, etc.
  - squigz 1y ago
    Profiles can be faked too
    - EasyMark 1y ago
      exactly, clicking on most bluecheck accounts on any politically active post on twitter and you will likely find a bot posting 24/7 about politics, usually as a right wing troll, been quite a while since I spotted a leftist one, but I have seen a few.
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  I used to think that, then the last decade happened. The conspiracy theorists are in the halls of power now and their followers are frothing at the mouth for revenge against perceived enemies. The uncomfortable uncle at Thanksgiving is now driving national health policy and funding.

estebarb 1y ago

"Investigators believe Bushart was fully aware of the fear his post would cause and intentionally sought to create hysteria within the community" Someone tell the LHC at CERN folks to avoid Tennessee...

TrackerFF 1y ago

I looked at the pictures, and even with no context, it was obvious that he was pointing out the hypocrisy of Trump with that meme. Ain't no way people looked at the picture, and genuinely thought "Is he threatening to shoot up the school?". But then again, there are some incredibly stupid people out there. To me, it mostly seems like manufactured outrage. Someone saw him posting edgy memes, got offended, and called to the cops that the guy was posting about doing a school shooting.

baobabKoodaa 1y ago
> Someone saw him posting edgy memes, got offended, and called to the cops that the guy was posting about doing a school shooting. I don't think even that happened. Most likely some law enforcement officials sat down at a table for a brainstorming session trying to figure out a pretext to jail this guy.
overfeed 1y ago
He is being punished for his speech. His persecutors aren't bold enough yet to publicly proclaim their violation of his constitutional rights, hence the verbal gymnastics.
- somenameforme 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - overfeed 1y ago
    The article discusses this, and explains why the sheriff is contorting the plain meaning of his 4-words and an image (about Kirk) into a threat of violence (to a nearby school). This won't stand in court, so they are punishing him before then.
    - ThrowMeAway1618 1y ago
      >The article discusses this, and explains why the sheriff is contorting the plain meaning of his 4-words and an image (about Kirk) into a threat of violence (to a nearby school). This won't stand in court, so they are punishing him before then. "For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law."

nomilk 1y ago

I wish the article would show a screenshot of what was posted, however 'uncivil'. Found this on a linked facebook post - no clue if it's accurate. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=25571453995778528&set=p.25571453995778528&type=3 https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=25571453995778528&se...

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
rglover 1y ago
If this is accurate, this whole thing is beyond hysterical. Irrespective of political beliefs, this is an insane thing to have happen in the U.S. (this example is innocuous speech protected under the 1st amendment). Spooky shit as it sets precedence for anyone to go after anyone for a social media post on any grounds. That's psychotic.
- idle_zealot 1y ago
  > Irrespective of political beliefs, I wish people would stop pretending that this has nothing to do with politics. Belief that the rules should punish anyone you don't like and protect those you do is incredibly popular, and the dominant ideology of this administration and its supporters. It is a political belief, and nobody is seriously combatting it. Still we act as though there are two sides with a shared goal of creating a better world, and differing ideas of how to accomplish that. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that the goal of this incarnation of the Republican party is an authoritarian police state dedicated to punishing and eradicating whomever they deem an "enemy within". And a lot of voters are ok with this, so long as it doesn't apply to them personally, so long as they're a favored party. The apparent hypocrisy is naked and insulting. They'll cry "cancel culture" and censorship over companies deciding not to platform bigots while cheering when the police kidnap protestors or outspoken political opponents. I say "apparent" because this all makes perfect sense when you realize that they never cared about free speech or anything else they claimed to. It was always about "good guys" getting to do whatever they want, and "bad guys" getting hurt. The friend-enemy distinction. No policy goals, no principled stance on issues, just a convenient facade.

anigbrowl 1y ago

This Sheriff Weems is either a fool or a knave.

yibg 1y ago

Amazingly even this post is a reflection of the discourse around Kirk. There are replies equating any criticism of Kirk to celebrating his death and glossing over his past nasty behavior. All seems to detached from reality.

mullingitover 1y ago
There is a group who has never debated anything in good faith, and they are certainly not about to start now.
krapp 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel
tootie 1y ago
Kirk, among many other right wing figures, have absolutely made light of past violence against Democrats. The discourse around Paul Pelosi was utterly vile and despicable. Nobody ever threatened his first amendment right to say horrendous things.
- nailer 1y ago
  FWIW I agree Kirk shouldn't have made fun of Paul Pelosi. I think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there He had years to apologise. It could have meaningfully altered the temperature of our discourse, particularly among young men. He never did. Kirk gets no credit for amends he never made.
    - tastyface 1y ago
      This is how Charlie Kirk got on my radar: "Mere weeks before his death, Kirk reveled in Trump's deployment of federal troops to DC. 'Shock and awe. Force,' he wrote. 'We're taking our country back from these cockroaches.'" Cockroaches! Literally language of the Rwandan genocide. And it's a Christian saying this about other human beings? The man never changed. (Obviously, he should not have been shot. But his sanctification is repulsive.)

DarkmSparks 1y ago

$2m should be the minimum compensation he is entitled to when the dust settles.

bigjobby 1y ago

I want to be living in the 80s again. The world is an absolute shit show at the moment

Aloisius 1y ago
The 1980s wasn't great either, depending on where you were you had: AIDS, the Cold War, crack epidemic, war on drugs/mass incarceration, Satanic Panic, Iran-Contra, Tiananmen Square, plane bombings, peak gang violence, MOVE bombings, S&L crisis, sky-high interest rates, a couple deep recessions with high unemployment, Chernobyl, the Iran-Iraq War, widespread homophobia, Ethiopian famine and civil war, etc.
- throwaway173738 1y ago
  Of course it was called GRID instead of AIDS back then.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago

Is there a legal defence fund?

thegrim33 1y ago

The guy made multiple posts, which, taken together, made people supposedly consider him as making threats. The journalist here decides to cover this story, but only mention the content of one of his posts, and completely ignoring and not mentioning the contents of the other posts. Surely the other posts are completely benign and there's nothing of interest in there, right? Surely the journalist had a reason for only reporting on the contents of one of his posts, and not the others, and that choice wasn't intentional in order to present a biased interpretation of reality. Surely.

baobabKoodaa 1y ago
The other posts were linked in the story. They were your everyday internet meme stuff. No person genuinely thought that this guy was threatening to do a school shooting.
wtfwhateven 1y ago
>Surely the journalist had a reason for only reporting on the contents of one of his posts, and not the others, and that choice wasn't intentional in order to present a biased interpretation of reality. Surely. Yes because the sheriff explicitly stated it was the trump quote picture, and nothing else, that got the man arrested, charged and thrown in a cage. https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l... The article even links to the above. Makes me wonder if you even read the article or already knew what I just said and are being dishonest.

onetimeusename 1y ago

There is a little bit more context here in a different article where the sheriff explains how the posts were interpreted as a threat https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l...

bonsai_spool 1y ago
> There is a little bit more context here in a different article where the sheriff explains how the posts were interpreted as a threat > https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-larry-bushart-arrest-charlie-kirk/86313013007/ https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/2025/09/23/tennessee-l... There isn’t anything there that wasn’t in the original article.
- onetimeusename 1y ago
  The Reason article said there was no reason to interpret this as a threat and that it was entirely just political. The article made it seem like the memes were held completely out of context. It mentioned there happens to be a nearby Perry High School just by chance but the nearby Perry High School is the central reason why this was interpreted as a threat. This was posted in a group that was organizing an event at the high school. I could see how someone might construe this as a threat more clearly from the tennessean article if they were being overly cautious. Also the sheriff mentioned the arrest was not done for legal speech content but more for the coincidental possibility this was a threat. Reason didn't elaborate on this. The Reason article is making this seem like it's entirely political and unreasonable. I don't think an arrest should have been made, that is too far. This seems like an unfortunate coincidence but someone looked at all this and reported it as a threat. The fact Perry High School's name is highly relevant here was not included.
  - EasyMark 1y ago
    As someone who grew up in a small town with a not so moral local law enforcement, I almost guarantee this sheriff has a political agenda against someone who dared post a meme about their favorite podcaster who was just assassinated.

beloch 1y ago

People outside the U.S. should care about this because so much social media is based in the U.S.. i.e. If you post an anti-MAGA meme to Facebook or reddit from an identifiable account you could be charged as this man was. Perhaps the U.S. will try to extradite you. (I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA.) However, the U.S. might also choose to wait and then arrest you if you ever travel to or through the U.S.. The U.S.'s slide away from freedom of speech could have a huge global impact on people who might think it doesn't effect them. We are far too reliant on American social media. Canada, the E.U., etc. should be looking at protections to prevent social media companies operating servers in their jurisdictions from sharing information with the U.S. government. It's no longer a hypothetical situation. There is a real threat that is clearly evident now.

bilegeek 1y ago
> I would hope most nations have sensible checks and balances to prevent extradition over this sort of thing, but it would still be a PITA. EDIT: If you're an emigrant: More than just a PITA, you could still fail; see [1]. Also - I can't find the source right now - I remember hearing about Russian emigrants in Europe being charged with serious crimes in absentia over criticism of the war, and they were slated for deportation because the bureaucracy still considered all such Russian warrants as valid. The US would probably be harder to excise in this regard. [1]https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shelters-russians-persecuted-for-their-political-beliefs/a-63000283 https://www.dw.com/en/germany-shelters-russians-persecuted-f...
canucker2016 1y ago
People outside the US can be in tons of trouble already for social media postings. UK and Germany come to mind where the police/law will go after people for what they post. That's just for developed countries. Consequences are worse in developing countries.
- tavavex 1y ago
  Which developing countries? I thought that many of those countries were either tied up with 'real', physical crime or just wouldn't care about internet stuff all that much. Lots of sketchy websites (like lots of piracy-related stuff) are hosted in countries where legal consequences are unlikely, even if it's illegal on paper. I can see how the more authoritarian countries can be going after social media posts based on grudges, but I'm wondering about which ones actively practice it - I don't know much about it.

standardUser 1y ago

Trump's America. Don't forget to wipe your phone before travelling. You don't need to break any laws to have your life ruined, you just have to stumble into the crosshairs of the most vindictive leader we have ever had to endure.

JohnTHaller 1y ago

Due to Tennessee law, he has to come up with $210,000 himself to get bail from a bondsmen. And he loses $10,000 of that permanently. TN law is designed to keep non-rich folks in jail. He likely won't get his trial for months in TN. Also by design.

JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> he has to come up with $210,000 himself Source?
- Legend2440 1y ago
  The linked article.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    Nothing in the law [1] requires he come up with that sum himself. (The qualifier implies e.g. a legal defence fund or even family member couldn't help.) [1] https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/SB0464.pdf https://www.capitol.tn.gov/Bills/114/Bill/SB0464.pdf
    - tavavex 1y ago
      That seems kind of pedantic. From what the original commenter said, my immediate interpretation of it was that the obligation to procure the money and pay up is on his side, not that the $200k must be 'his' in some other way. It doesn't matter what source he gets it from, but the bill is on him to pay.
      - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
        > my immediate interpretation of it was that the obligation to procure the money and pay up is on his side, not that the $200k must be 'his' in some other way I suppose. I honestly read it as suggesting he, personally, had to come up with that money. The law is cruel. But as positioned, it seems like you'd just have an industry of secondary lenders.

mft_ 1y ago

Obviously an interesting test case for the US, especially in light of Vance, Musk, and Farage attacking the UK (especially) and the EU for apparently lacking free speech.

kleton 1y ago

Here are some "I-told-you-so"s regarding Douglass Mackey's original guilty verdict for posting Twitter memes, who, since then, was acquitted on appeal. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531283 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43531283

bitsage 1y ago

This thread is looking at this from a political angle, but he was arrested and charged for threats of mass violence. This seems to be a case of over zealous policing regarding school shootings in a very tense environment rather than a guy arrested over offensive memes.

overfeed 1y ago
There's no "tense environment" around school shootings. Like the president said: We have to... on second thoughts, maybe I should not be quoting him either.

whearyou 1y ago

If/when this gets tossed - does the have grounds to sue (and who would he be suing) on wrongful arrest, or something else?

EasyMark 1y ago
probably not unless it's against people sending him death threats and he can actually manage to track them down

spacechild1 1y ago

This is just crazy! Just look at the actual post: https://x.com/aaronterr1/status/1970272191884468241 https://x.com/aaronterr1/status/1970272191884468241. There is no way this can be interpreted as "Threats of Mass Violence on School Property and Activities". How should anyone trust law enforcement and the judicial system when they fabricate cases like this? Once more, it demonstrates that MAGA only cares about free speech as long as it serves their own interest. This is almost comical when you think about J.D. Vance' speech in Munich. Thanks to reason.com for strongly calling out the BS!

scoofy 1y ago

How on earth does this get past a grand jury?!?

OutOfHere 1y ago
Grand juries have for years been entirely useless. They should be filtering aggressively, not only for this case, but for all such bozo cases. I don't know why it is they act the way they do. Given the data I have seen, certainly I would not have been in favor of indicting him.
EasyMark 1y ago
they're basically rubber stamps these days.

RickJWagner 1y ago

I wish we could see all of the offending posts. Without that, it’s hard to tell if the messages are threatening or not.

fennecbutt 1y ago

Ah republicans. No wonder 2025 is the first year that extremist left wing violence has exceeded extremist right wing violence for the first time in 30 years.

api 1y ago

I remember when the far right claimed they were for free speech and against “cancel culture.” I’m curious. Have any of the people who actually bought into that been falling away? Has the 180 degree flip away from free speech actually popped the bubble for anyone?

hypeatei 1y ago
> Has the 180 degree flip away from free speech actually popped the bubble for anyone Absolutely not. Right here on HN, you see the "moderates" and "center right" people: completely ignore what's going on, never call him out by name, blame both sides, or pretend it's just lefties being hyperbolic again.

renewiltord 1y ago

Tennessee just seems like not a First Amendment state. Here's another from 2021 https://apnews.com/article/meme-arrest-officer-killed-lawsuit-b842977881f95bd30186271b32a414e3 https://apnews.com/article/meme-arrest-officer-killed-lawsui... Douglas Mackey was also convicted of posting fake election stuff like "avoid the line. Vote at home" with a phone number. But it looks like he was later cleared. So the memeing can get you in trouble and people will either say you were "just memeing" or "posting dangerous misinformation/threats" depending on their political stance.

welzel 1y ago

What did people expect to happen? Nobody seems to ask the question why military is being deployed to US cities. What would be your assumption if the same happens in Africa or South America? Seriously, how stupid can people be ... I have many friends who already left the US or prepared to leave at a moments notice. None of them are actually political, but they are aware that 1984 is already fully implemented and at any point in time it could get very, very ugly very quickly.

trod1234 1y ago

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