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PaperclipPerfector  2mo ago (text post)   38655 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 15, 2024

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What did this random Home Depot employee do to anyone?

Is Donald J. Trump not a member of "anyone"? Why is it fair game to celebrate his near demise? Does he not have feelings, instinct of self-preservation? Is he not human? How would you feel if someone felt sad you were a victim of attempted murder, and not murder full stop?

What did she actually do except say some distasteful things online?

Injustices happen every second, and the alleged injustice she suffered, is lesser than the one she wished upon a man much greater than herself.

It is certainly a shame for people to wish suffering upon others, but it is no crime, and in any case it is beyond your reach. You are not, ever, going to force everyone else to love Trump as much as you do, or to have a heart as free of sin as yours.

It is certainly a shame for people to wish suffering upon others, but it is no crime

Is the implicit argument here that there shouldn't be negative social consequences for things that aren't crimes?

Because then we have to re-do a lot of the last 50 years.

In what sense could negative social consequences be reliably enforced, if not codified into written rules, litigated by experts on those rules and then enforced? How could those rules be enforced if they didn't establish legitimacy among the general population through some kind of democratic input?

I am not forcing you to stay in this timeline.

So, let's say Bob cheats on Alice. Alice divorces Bob. That's a fairly significant social consequence, and quite the negative one.

However, adultery isn't a crime in basically any modern society. No crime occurred. So is this illegitimate?

Donald J. Trump is a celebrity and a politician. While I think it is ugly behavior to celebrate anyone's death or near death, I would expect anyone above a certain level of fame to have to deal with a whole spectrum of ugly behavior and have thick skin about it at this point. I don't know why people feel the need to deputize themselves to avenge Trump for this slight against him.

I also cannot emphasize enough that I haven't seen this woman's actual tweets. I don't rule out that she didn't post a bit of dark humor, which I think would be more defensible than literally and sincerely saying she wished Trump was dead.

Injustices happen every second, and the alleged injustice she suffered, is lesser than the one she wished upon a man much greater than herself.

Whatever she supposedly wished upon him, she had no power to enact it, and there is almost 0 chance that Trump saw what she wrote, or thought about it for more than a second.

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