• 6 Posts
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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • I agree Texas has many issues and I personally would never live there (primarily as a parent and because the education sucks balls), this article is written so vaguely and broadly you could substitute any state for any of the statements:

    Depending on the location in Texas, the school system could be disappointing. “Families moving to Texas with school-aged children might find themselves disappointed with the public education options available in their chosen communities

    This is literally every state. This feels like a ChatGPT dump.



  • Both are to blame as neither Hamas nor Israel benefits from peace. Before you start shouting “bothsidesing!!!” understand that I am not endorsing Israel. And don’t say “Hamas had no choice! They are oppressed and have to fight back”. That argument doesn’t hold water either as Hamas’s express objective is the elimination of the state of Israel. And before you say “Where does it say that???” I’ll ask that you familiarize yourself with the charter. And before you say “Well they don’t mean elimination of all Jews, just the state” I’ll point you to any Arab nation where Jews live freely and comfortably. And on and on we go.



  • I don’t agree with the conservatives that defend Rittenhouse. There is really no justification for the actions that led to 3 people dying that day. But I can understand how conservatives reached their conclusions about it. In order to counter their positions, I have to first understand how they reached it. Conservatives will always emphasize the legal arguments in the Rittenhouse incident and dismiss the ethical framework that allowed it to happen it the first place. That’s all.

    Going to go walk my dog now.


  • I don’t really remember any more because I had to translate my position through several iterations since it kept getting twisted. I have to figure out how to make my points more direct and succinct. It seems no matter how much preamble and explanation I offer, my position gets twisted one way or another.

    All I’m trying to say is that when we argue with the other side (in this case conservatives that defend Rittenhouse) we should be mindful if we are addressing the ethical argument or the legal argument. Typically, conservatives will overstate the legal argument and dismiss the ethical argument.

    If I had an elevator pitch it would be this:

    >> It’s helpful to steelman the opposition to be able to refute it better. <<

    That’s all. I need to go walk my dog now.


  • You took my position:

    open carry is not uncommon in Wi

    and transformed it into

    people walking around Kenosha with AR’s is a common sight

    These are two completely different statements. Is the opposite of uncommon by default common? Even after I conceded that it would still alarm some people. I don’t get it. Is there a different way I should explain myself? I’m so lost :( What am I doing wrong? Maybe I shouldn’t have used the word uncommon. There has to be a better word. Maybe surprising?




  • Yeah I think you’re saying that --correct me if I’m wrong-- him

    bringing the AR to the protests is an act of provocation

    while the person you’re arguing with said

    open carry is not uncommon and no one felt provoked

    At least that’s how I read it. Maybe I’m wrong. I can see how both statements could be true to some extent. Many protesters were from out of state and possibly not familiar with the open carry laws in WI so it’s possible they felt threatened immediately. I’m no longer living in the US, and I never lived in an open carry state, so the sight of an AR strapped to a kid would make me uncomfortable in that situation. However, I’ve also lived in the middle east were the sight of soldiers walking around not in uniform carrying semi automatic rifles was very common and that did not make me uncomfortable. So context is important.


  • There has to be a way to discuss whether an action is justified regardless of who the perpetrator is. Context matters. If we just go on these endless tirades attacking people nothing of substance is being accomplished except perhaps trying to score feel good points, and if that’s your goal then you do you. I personally find it’s more effective to counter their arguments with stronger counter arguments rather than calling conservatives “pathetic for being victims” or using ad-homs non stop.

    So what if they’re defending Hitler? Were on Lemmy, we have mountains of facts and arguments for why Kyle was in the wrong. Let’s analyze those arguments and show a better way. I’m sorry if I come off as tone policing. I’m just tired of this inability to form strong counter points even though we know Kyle was not justified in being there with an AR-15 on that day.


  • Lemmy in general I’ve noticed has a disregard for facts and really likes the overt sense of virtue signaling. Sure, Kyle is an awful human being, but there has to be a way to analyze the facts of the matter without resorting to using so much emotionally charged language. It comes off as really hollow and meaningless.

    There is plenty of misinformation on the left in general surrounding the actions of that day. I noticed you are exclusively concerned with the ethical analysis of the situation while the person you are arguing with is clearly discussing the legal justification under American law. This type of game leads to a continuous back and forth in which wrong facts keep bubbling to the top. The Kenosha riots themselves were started because of the false assumption that another innocent black man was being targeted by law enforcement just off the tail of massive protests in MPLS a few weeks earlier.



  • If you want to have a discussion on the moral ethics of his actions: that’s fine; Plenty to criticize.

    If you want to have a discussion on the legal merits of the case, that’s fine too, but you need to be at least somewhat aware of the facts beyond verbal statements that preceded the shooting. OJ (although a cherry picked data point does not prove a point) is a fine example of the judicial system working as intended even though the defendent was guilty.

    To summarize: These are two separate conversations (legal vs moral). I’ve noticed that whenever Kyle is brought up, as lefties we tend to hop back and forth between the two (sort of in the way you are doing --I can’t tell if it’s intentional–) to muddy the discussion or get some type of gotcha. It’s not productive.


  • Sigh. This type of epistemic analysis leads to monological thinking and is why the Kenosha riots had no grounding to begin with. More people will die if we just dilute every fact to dismiss narratives we don’t like and it will lead to more violence and hate.

    I don’t like conservatives either but we have to ground discourse in facts not feelings.

    • He’s a murderer
    • Judge was biased
    • It was premeditated

    None of this was proven but we can just handwave it like nothing else matters. After a while we are all going to start living in parallel epistemic bubbles.


  • Yes, I never said that wasn’t true.

    Please follow closely because it’s getting lost in the sauce and I know there’s a lot of charged feelings involved in this conversation.

    He may have said he wanted to genocide all people on earth and stomp on puppies prior to the event. He still has the right to self defense which is the crux of the whole argument.

    In the US bad people have a right to self defence (In America open carry is legal and I’m grateful I moved out of the US).

    I can tell you feel very passionate about the topic. My recommendation is that you go and watch the trial (the whole trial was recorded) or at the least download the transcripts and follow the evidence.

    Just to repeat: I agree Kyle is a bad person. But we have to ground our discourse in facts. It doesn’t help to create false mythos around bad people because it only emboldens the other side.


  • I’m sorry you’re getting downvoted. I wish our side (I’m a full on leftie and I don’t like conservatives) did a better job of countering arguments instead of using emotionally charged language in debates and spreading misinformation. The whole trial is recorded and all the transcripts are available.

    I wish Kyle had not shown up with a rifle to a charged and tense event, especially after what happened in Minneapolis in the prior weeks. There really isn’t an excuse for a 17 year old to show up with an AR-15 to such a situation, even if it was perfectly legal. Yes, he bad better trigger impulse control than 99% of police officers, but a 17 year old should never be allowed in the first place. My argument is not a legal one, but an ethical one.

    To me the fault lies in our society:

    1. We encourage proliferation of gun ownership.
    2. We allow 17 year olds to open carry.

    I could keep going but I’ll stop.

    Just to reiterate for Lemmy user base: I’m not on team Kyle; I’m on team facts and stop gun proliferation.