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Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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Which is the correct position to take for someone who is pro-democracy and thinks Trump is a threat to democracy? Should they be pro or anti assassination? You seem to be simultaneously mocking both stances.

I think there are a bunch of mockable positions here.

There's the people who actually think Trump is Hitler reincarnated. For one, that's really dumb and worthy of ridicule. Two, it's idiotic to publicly state this since if it turns out you're correct, you get a free trip to a concentration camp.

The people who say Trump is Hitler for their two minutes hate, but then weathervane into pearl clutching when someone almost kills him are huge hypocrites and absolutely should be mocked.

As for cancellation, I don't support or participate in it, I'm a staunch free speech advocate. I think in most cases (especially in cases like the home depot cashier above) nothing you say on a social media platform should cost you your job. That said, the left has been wielding cancellation like a war hammer for the last decade, so it's a lot of fun to watch the leopards eat their faces.

This isn't an answer to my question.

Which is the correct position to take for someone who is pro-democracy and thinks Trump is a threat to democracy? Should they be pro or anti assassination?

Anti.

Trump being a potential or likely future threat to democracy is wrong but it isn’t schizo. If you undertake a policy of just assassinating everyone that codes as a potential Erdogan or Mugabe then you don’t have a democracy, because the false positive rate is too high. Instead it becomes justifiable to assassinate positive current threats to democracy- eg Hitler right after the reichstag fire, not during coalition negotiations.

Yeah this is where I land as well. Which is why it irks me to see people going "haha they says he's literally Hitler but also saying the assassination attempt was bad, they're clearly full of shit." No, it's that crossing the line of embracing political violence and murder is a serious thing and most people won't do that lightly.

What is the correct position for somebody who is pro democracy but doesn’t think that people who disagree with him should be allowed to vote?

It’s just an incoherent question along the lines of “can god microwave a burrito so hot that even he cannot lift it?”

It’s just an incoherent question

It is coherent question with coherent answer.

"What is democracy?"

"Democracy is when we win!"

Two, it's idiotic to publicly state this since if it turns out you're correct, you get a free trip to a concentration camp.

Eh. There are things worth dying for. I don't happen to agree with this particular statement, never mind think it's worth dying to state, but the worldview where this adds up even on a utilitarian level, never mind a deontological or virtue level, is not hard to construct.