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1. Embed this notice
   Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:07:04 JST Paul Cantrell

   I have complicated feelings that are not entirely dissimilar to Popehat’s thread here, but are…well…more complicated.

   1/ https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:s6j27rxb3ic2rxw73ixgqv2p/post/3lyiwvin3g22n

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:09:32 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     Charlie Kirk is/was a vile person whose presence in this world made it worse. A world without him is a better world. If he dies, just as with, say, Osama Bin Laden, my feeling will be “good riddance.” I’d celebrate his death, but…not so much his assassination.

     2/

   • Embed this notice
     Moto :rainbowinfinity: (cmdrmoto@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:10:48 JST Moto :rainbowinfinity:

     in reply to

     @inthehands Assassin? Murder? But I thought Kirk was just “struck by a bullet”

     Or do we only phrase it that way when it’s a brown person?

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:13:11 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The assassination of a vile person indicates a failure of all the more just, more humane sorts of systems that should have stopped such a person from ever being in a position of power in the first place. Popehat compares celebrating political violence to celebrating war, and I think he has a point: both war and political violence are an indication of failure.

     3/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:13:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • fabriek

     @fabriek

   • Embed this notice
     fabriek (fabriek@todon.eu)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:13:34 JST fabriek

     in reply to

     @inthehands I think this is also a very good point: https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:jtadzjgpup2tforvzliq74tp/post/3lyiz5vf4wk2r

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:13:54 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The first tragedy here is that we’ve all even heard of Charlie Kirk in the first place.

     That dude should have spent his long useless life holed up in his basement ostracized by his neighbors, shunned, shamed, legally constrained, and anonymous to almost everyone.

     4/

     Mr. Bill repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:15:41 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • fabriek

     @fabriek Oh, yes, that is clearly so.

   • Embed this notice
     fabriek (fabriek@todon.eu)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:15:42 JST fabriek

     in reply to

     @inthehands Ah, sorry

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:18:22 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     The pearl-clutching centrist crowd likes to imagine that shaming and shunning are the slippery slope that leads to political violence.

     They have it backwards.

     Shaming and shunning are the •alternative• to political violence. So is meaningful democracy. So is a judiciary that applies the law, however flawed, with actual judgement and justice.

     5/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:18:40 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Moto :rainbowinfinity:

     @cmdrmoto
     Was a brown person involved here? I have not heard anything about the shooter yet.

   • Embed this notice
     Rich Felker (dalias@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:19:37 JST Rich Felker

     in reply to

     @inthehands The war analogy is really good, in that you don't celebrate the war, but you do celebrate winning battles, even though you'd rather not have to be.

   • Embed this notice
     Moto :rainbowinfinity: (cmdrmoto@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:21:03 JST Moto :rainbowinfinity:

     in reply to

     @inthehands Oh, not in this case, no brown people involved AFAIK.

     Recently reading about wholesale slaughter in other parts of the world, and the phrasing is decidedly different between [CEOs / Charlie Kirk] vs [family in automobile]

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:21:52 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • jstatepost

     @jstatepost “Critical condition” was the last update I heard.

   • Embed this notice
     jstatepost (jstatepost@mstdn.social)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:21:53 JST jstatepost

     in reply to

     @inthehands
     Shit, Paul, you're saying he's still alive?

   • Embed this notice
     jonny (good kind) (jonny@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:39:49 JST jonny (good kind)

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • Lina

     @lina
     @dalias @inthehands
     Yeah, I don't think you need to mourn the death of someone who wants you dead and makes their living taking society-scale actions to enable others to do so.

   • Embed this notice
     Lina (lina@neuromatch.social)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 05:39:50 JST Lina

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker

     @dalias
     @inthehands

     yeah, that's how i see it. also, i think it's possible to celebrate his death while still generally condemning gun violence and systems that enable and perpetuate political violence.

     Rich Felker repeated this.
   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 06:06:20 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     • Rich Felker
     • jonny (good kind)
     • Lina

     @jonny @lina @dalias
     Definitely not arguing that anyone should mourn his death.

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Thursday, 11-Sep-2025 10:45:33 JST Paul Cantrell

     in reply to

     When social opprobrium fails to stuff a turd like Charlie Kirk into some powerless far corner of society where he can’t hurt people, that’s when a turd like Kirk gets shot.

     When democracy and the law fail to reign in corporate greed and harm and cruelty, that’s when you get a Luigi.

     When the press and civil society fail to stop a rising authoritarian, that’s when you get WWII.

     6/

   • Embed this notice
     Paul Cantrell (inthehands@hachyderm.io)'s status on Friday, 12-Sep-2025 21:10:14 JST Paul Cantrell

     • datarama

     @datarama I really wish I could say the same.