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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   37932 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 8, 2024

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If I had to try to steelman him, I'd say that:

At some point, in my opinion, violence against not just the government doing it and the private people joining the violence but the soft-target think-tank, media, and academic aparatus that empowered it becomes morally and philosophically justified.

has a certain amount of wiggle-room, in that he's not saying shooting up think tanks right now is morally justified, but that it could become morally justified at some future point (presumably when people are actually being rounded up and herded into camps). And, I guess I can follow his reasoning - if you really believe we are on the verge of becoming a Nazi dystopia, and then we really do become a Nazi dystopia, sure, I'd probably agree that all bets are off and anyone who was complicit is fair game.

Of course, I do not believe we are about to become a Nazi dystopia, and I do not have confidence that if someone really did go shoot up a Federalist Society meeting right now, White wouldn't making hemming and hawing noises about reaping what you sow, etc.

I think Ken really lost it about the time that Clark backstabbed him during the whole Vox Day contratemps.

The thing is that once you're being herded onto the trains trucks (do you think we're Europeans or something?!) the think tanks are already superfluous to the ruling power, and the more independent-minded might already be waiting for you at the wall-building camp.
So if it's not ok to shoot them first, and too late to shoot them after, there's never actually a good time to go murdering intellectuals, or advocating for it.

The dedicated violence advocate has to go with either "preemptive mass executions" (hard sell, but I'm doing my best) or "can't wait to shoot down Biden UN super-predator stealth drones with my trusty hunting rifle unless they ban it first" (cope)

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