Well, violence was already normalized in every other sphere of American life, I guess it was only a matter of time. Look at the Trump shooter, by American standards, the only weird thing about him is that he went after someone important instead of just shooting up his local school or walmart.
this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
142 points (99.3% liked)
news
23654 readers
562 users here now
Welcome to c/news! Please read the Hexbear Code of Conduct and remember... we're all comrades here.
Rules:
-- PLEASE KEEP POST TITLES INFORMATIVE --
-- Overly editorialized titles, particularly if they link to opinion pieces, may get your post removed. --
-- All posts must include a link to their source. Screenshots are fine IF you include the link in the post body. --
-- If you are citing a twitter post as news please include not just the twitter.com in your links but also nitter.net (or another Nitter instance). There is also a Firefox extension that can redirect Twitter links to a Nitter instance: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/ or archive them as you would any other reactionary source using e.g. https://archive.today/ . Twitter screenshots still need to be sourced or they will be removed --
-- Mass tagging comm moderators across multiple posts like a broken markov chain bot will result in a comm ban--
-- Repeated consecutive posting of reactionary sources, fake news, misleading / outdated news, false alarms over ghoul deaths, and/or shitposts will result in a comm ban.--
-- Neglecting to use content warnings or NSFW when dealing with disturbing content will be removed until in compliance. Users who are consecutively reported due to failing to use content warnings or NSFW tags when commenting on or posting disturbing content will result in the user being banned. --
-- Using April 1st as an excuse to post fake headlines, like the resurrection of Kissinger while he is still fortunately dead, will result in the poster being thrown in the gamer gulag and be sentenced to play and beat trashy mobile games like 'Raid: Shadow Legends' in order to be rehabilitated back into general society. --
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
the only weird thing about him is that he went after someone important
Starting trends? 
School is out 🤷🏻♂️
I hate to be "that kind" of leftist but political violence has always been normalized and accepted. Cops exist to uphold the law, the law is made by politicians, cops use violence to uphold it.
"Oooh but [person being beaten by cops] did something illegal" yeah. We decided it was illegal and we decided violence was fine to use to keep it that way. I'm not saying it's good or bad or I disagree or agree or whatever, it's just how it is.
Saying you're for political violence is just being honest. Everybody is for it, they're just against violence that influences them negatively.
Most people don't seem to understand the fact that the state has monopoly on legal violence.
I agree with all of that, but I think what's relevant here is that more people are becoming willing to aim the violence in the other direction, from the masses and towards the state. You are 100% right that political violence has always been normalized and accepted, but specifically (like in your example) it was the state use of violence against people that was normalized and accepted while people using violence against the state was broadly considered not just taboo but immoral.
The numbers in OP aren't just describing an increase in acceptance of all "political violence," but an acceptance for the masses to wield that political violence against the state, which is a very interesting, maybe even profound shift, a shift that is indicative of the ongoing collapse of the empire.
back on track
Back on track for what 
The 
track
Gotta be honest, that infographic is kinda uninformative wrt the actual rate of increase. You made me read! 💢
-
1 in 10 in the 1990s said violent action against the government can be justified
-
Serious threats against federal judges that trigger an investigation rose from 179 in 2019 to 457 in 2023
-
Threats against members of Congress are up nearly tenfold since 2015
Threats against members of Congress are up nearly tenfold since 2015
Cool and good 
In theory sure but I guarantee the majority of these are chuds threatening the more progressive members of congress (or threatening regular Democrats because chud Media told them they are basically Stalin).
Those "progressive" members of congress are complicit in genocide too.
I don't have much sympathy to spare for them.
OK first of all Tlaib and Bush have been consistent on Palestine so thats not even true.
Second of all right wing political violence is bad! We should not support it regardless of our enjoyment for the victims because when they succeed they are empowered. Supporting fascists killing liberals is fucking stupid. What are you going to be like "based Attomwaffen" lol?
You managed to list two people who don't deserve the wall, congrats.
I don't care if fascists kill other fascists though. And that's what liberals are. "Progressive" isn't really a useful term as it means different things for different people. People here have a general idea of what you mean if you call someone a liberal though, at least that's the case on hexbear.
I don't care if fascists kill other fascists though. And that's what liberals are.
And this is the ideological dead end that "liberals are the exact same thing as fascists" leads us to I guess. Actually believing that if an overtly fascist organization successfully assassinates a liberal public figure it would be a good thing because a "fascist" died. Like no, there is a material difference between liberals and fascists and I'm tired of people here saying otherwise partially because it leads to these absurd conclusions.
People here have a general idea of what you mean if you call someone a liberal though, at least that's the case on hexbear.
Apparently not! Since it means two different things to you and me. If you think there's no material difference between AOC and Attomwaffen, you are extremely lost.
Like would I mourn her as a individual person? No lol. Would I consider it a political loss for all of us? Absolutely. And not because of what I think AOC can accomplish or whatever. But because we don't want the overtly fascist organizations to get a win. When they get a win, they seek more wins. They like winning. If you think that kind of increasing right wing political violence only gets aimed at liberals and not the actual left (or just completely innocent minorities) you got another thing coming lmao.
I wouldn't even have liked it if "Hang Mike Pence" had worked out for them for this reason. Once it was a stated goal of the far far right, I didnt want it to happen, or at least not for them to do it. It would have been cool if we did it (if it was organized and had a stated, specific purpose and wasnt just random adventurism) but that wasn't what was happening.
I'm not going to debate you on this. It's a waste of my time and I have better shit to do. Have a good day.
Edit: you're also grossly mischaracterizing me when you assume I think liberals and fascists are exactly the same. I'm simply not going to engage with you further on this.
load more comments
(4 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
What percent of that violence is right wingers trying to combat imaginary enemies entirely disconnected from reality?
That first statistic is so funny. It reminds me of conversations that are like "He's a felon, but it was for drugs." "Oh, who cares?" It's the same thing except you'd go
"They're a murderer, but they murked a politician"
"Oh shit, which one?"
[My lawyer suggests I don't include this line]
"Oh, that rocks! Can we invite them over for dinner? I'll bring out the fine china"
[My lawyer suggests I don't include this line]
taking violent action against the government can be justified
Lol, this is something nearly everyone believes CAN be justified. It's such an open ended statement, yeah I'm sure most people can imagine a situation where they would feel violent action against the government could be justified. Really the question should have been do you feel it's justified under the current administration
most people would not answer that for fear of being put on a list
Yeah that would've been a much better question to ask.
I'm surprised only 34% of Americans believe taking violent action against the government can be justified, isn't the whole country founded on violent action being taken against the government? Or did the founding fathers just write some lukewarm think pieces, stage a protest in the designated protest zone, and vote for George Washington?
How much of the 20% are leftists?
I'm going to guess vast majority of the 20% are on the right.
I mean the first one is kinda weird, considering how the country started…
load more comments
(1 replies)
we love our lead-poisoned boomers and Xers dont we folks, we love them
Now, some people, they want to say that lead is bad. And maybe it is, okay? Maybe it is. But our Boomers and Xers, they didn't let a little lead slow them down. No way. They got up every morning, went to work, and made this country the powerhouse it is today. And they did it with a smile on their faces. Tremendous.
that age group is the least likely to do anything like this
it's all 
millennials and zoomers
Critical support for comrade BOOB 
Boob number of threats
Sorry in advance for reading way tf too far into this post, but it got me thinking. How are we supposed to interpret these numbers? Is 34% (or I guess 20%) a good or bad thing? Do we want more violence in America?
I always struggle with understanding what actions are good, and what actions are bad. If I am supposed to care about the masses opinions, I would say this statistic still reinforces the idea that any violent action at all in the US is detrimental to our movement (especially if you consider a good portion of these people were probably very right wing). Are we at a period in time then that things like red papers, book clubs, and peaceful protests are enough? That doesn't sound right, but there is likely some theory I'm missing or misunderstanding.
I think it's a good thing that the populace is more accepting of political violence, because my faith in the democratic process is nonexistent. Violence is necessary to enact change at this juncture.
What is bad is that violence is necessary, not the acceptance of violence itself.
load more comments
(1 replies)
8,008 divided by 201 days... That's just about 40 per day. As for the judges, that shakes out to about 2.3 per day. (What constitutes a third of a serious threat is anyone's guess, but that's still too much for me to round down to two.)
load more comments
(1 replies)
Just eating my popcorn waiting for the whole shitshow to collapse. I just hope when their cold civil war re-ignites they don't use nukes on each other this time. Or at least that the fallout doesn't hit Canada.
As I recall, a couple of people from the Pentagon or other military agency wargamed a full-on (likely worst-case) Civil War 2.0, and the upshot was that "[tactical nukes] were used early and often". The outcome would be grim, to say the least.
load more comments
(3 replies)
rookie numbers
view more: next ›