Batya Ungar-Sargon: The Political Left Intentionally Cultivate Real Life Violence

Batya Ungar-Sargon makes a strong case that the violent killing of Charlie Kirk is not a "both sides" issue:

I'm finding myself very caught between, on the one hand, wanting to honor his legacy of unity through debate and coming together to take down the temperature, and then wanting to honor his legacy of telling the truth. And the truth is this is not a both sides issue. The killer killed him, according to police reports, because he found Charlie Kirk to be spreading hate. This is a view shared by every single prominent Democrat.

Yes, there are people on blue sky advocating for violence, but what actually caused this was the utterly quotidian, utterly ubiquitous demonization of the political opposition from the left, and it has just led to violence because they said the other side were Hitler and Nazis. They said that speech is violence. To combine those two things together is to sign the death warrant of prominent conservatives, and that is what we are seeing again and again and again.

And it is utterly facetious to suggest that there is any comparison between political violence on both sides. Every example they bring is not actually showing that, whether it's Governor Shapiro whose attempted assassination was from a free, Palestine leftist, or whether it was the Minnesota assassinations, which were from somebody who said he was operating at the behest of Democrat Governor Tim Walz. There is a culture among Democrats at the highest level to suggest that their political opposition are a danger, and that suggests that their lives are forfeit.

And I want to come together. I do. I love what Shanks said. It brought tears to my eyes. I reached for a tissue while you were playing Charlie's words. But at the same time, we cannot unite with people who are lying to our faces about who we are, who will not take responsibility for the fact that they suggested that we are Nazis because of totally legitimate views that reflect the majority of Americans.

So what I say is, let the left say we were wrong. It is legitimate to vote for Donald Trump. It is legitimate to be pro life. It is legitimate to believe that there are only two genders, and we were wrong to suggest that that was not the case. We were wrong to say that that is hateful. When they say that, I am waiting with open arms to take down the temperature.

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Nellie Bowles Exposes that Left Wing Media is Always About Agenda, not Curiosity

Nellie Bowles, at TGIF:

Here’s MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd shortly after Charlie was shot: “I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” And: “You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place.” And also: “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration, we have no idea.” That makes more sense, right? A right-wing gun nut pointing a gun directly at the guy talking and pulling the trigger to celebrate him—that is definitely the most likely scenario. Later, facing outrage for its coverage, MSNBC apologized for these comments and ended Dowd’s contract.

Well, that’s MSNBC. But CNN? Within a few hours of Charlie’s slaughter, CNN anchor Abby Phillip was calling for the video to be censored, and did her best to do so from her pulpit. “The degree to which the algorithm on this platform is pushing video of the shooting is incredibly disturbing. There has to be some human that can turn the dial down in a situation like this.” Odd how reporters want much, much less reporting. Funny how she didn’t say that about a situation like, I don’t know, George Floyd’s killing. It’s almost like it’s political. ...

And then came the New York Times obituary. A classic. The headline: “Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Provocateur and Close Ally of Trump, Dies at 31.” Right-wing provocateur. A person trying to provoke, if you think about it. As though there’s no belief system behind it. Just a provocateur. For the sake of it. In the mainstream media worldview, there are two kinds of people: those fighting for left-wing causes, who are described as people of conviction, activists for justice, deep believers in equality. And then there are those fighting for right-wing causes, who are described as provocateurs, cynics, racists, and shills. Archconservatives. They eventually changed the headline. But here’s the New York Times’ obituary: “He was so vocal in his willingness to spread unsupported claims and outright lies—he said that the drug hydroxychloroquine was ‘100 percent effective’ in treating the virus, which it is not—that Twitter temporarily barred him in early March 2020. But that move only added to his notoriety and seemed to support his claim that he was being muzzled by a liberal elite.” Fascinating. A man is murdered in public, in the middle of the day, while practicing his First Amendment rights, and the paper of record decides this must be the perfect moment to do fact-checking about hydroxychloroquine.

What you need to know from this: If your politics are that of a standard normie conservative man, your New York Times obituary will find the various things you said that weren’t exactly right (he got into hydroxychloroquine in 2020! Can you believe that?) and they’ll paint them in the sky. My politics are lib centrist, and these people would certainly celebrate my death, highlight my many errors, and refer to my defense of the SAT as my “repeated advocacy for a return to slavery” or something. What I’m saying is: Just try to stay alive because when you die, a New York Times reporter gets to juice your corpse for likes on Bluesky. MSNBC will invite talking heads on the air to suggest that the shooter could have been your mom who forgot to turn the safety on, we simply don’t know."

Nellie's TGIF column at The Free Press is one of my favorite parts of every week. I highly recommend it.

Continue ReadingNellie Bowles Exposes that Left Wing Media is Always About Agenda, not Curiosity

Eric Weinstein’s Proposal for Recreating a Moderate Left

Eric Weinstein's proposal for a moderate left:

Make markets somewhat fairer for working families."

"Protect nature! Up to a point!"

"Welcome, to a managable number of actual refugees."

"Make Trans accepted and EXCEEDINGLY rare."

"Manage M1 but do not print your way out of debt."

"Accept Gays and Lesbians...but don't promote kink. Also...after LG the whole alphabet thing can change into something else entirely if you go out far enough."

"A little Spanish can be useful! But learn English."

"Vaccines are a great idea, but need to be watched like a hawk."

"Let's be more empathic without sticking it to men, the rich, Christians or people of European descent."

"Let's acknowledge our problematic history and also take pride in how awesome we became in so many ways."

"Let's be tolerant as a rule of thumb, but not of the intolerant."

"Let's house the homeless, and not confuse them for the drug-addicted and souls suffering from mental illness"

"Love who you want! But for god sakes, have kids and raise them to be normalish."

"Racism *remains* a problem...but much much less than it used to be!! Let's take our wins people. Great job!"

"White Christian European men did a lot of bad things...just like everyone else. The problem was that they were so good at doing things that they did bad things at scale. And MAN did they pull off miracle after miracle. Hats off to our founding fathers. Warts and all!!"

"Let's acknowledge that markets do not work perfectly people as their zealous supporters claim!! But damn...what an amazing idea for lifting people out of squalor!!"

"Worship almost however you wish to worship. But don't be a murderous or intolerant lunatic about it. Just chill bro."

"Don't use mean language when you can avoid it. But don't be a pussy or go around being a killjoy-nanny-policeman either when you can avoid it. Use judgement."

"Your identity deserves to be celebrated! Briefly. Because it is interesting...but not that interesting. Everyone has one."

https://x.com/EricRWeinstein/status/1940000994500518350

Continue ReadingEric Weinstein’s Proposal for Recreating a Moderate Left