The problem is that if you think assassinations can be good, any individual person starts to decide when it is okay to assassinate someone. Giving out that power is not a good idea.
And we give our car licenses. Doesn’t mean you can run over your political adversaries. I didn’t expect the popularity of this line of reasoning: being pro-2A means license to kill. This is sickening.
> A gun license literally means you are licensed to use this weapon for sport or self defense.
I don't know what that has to do with anything. Plus, the 2A forbids mandatory licensing for firearms users.
> I’m not a public figure but I support the 2A, would you feel sorry for me if I was shot giving a speech?
It's not about whether someone supports the 2A or not. It's what they do with their lives that matters. If a person's life's mission is to deny white privilege and defend the 2A despite its obvious risks, then make a public statement that school shootings are an acceptable price to pay so that we can have it, then no, I'm not going to feel sorry for that person if they are shot. It's poetic justice. Live by the sword, die by the sword.
> Would you feel different if Charlie was murdered by a machete or hand grenade?
A machete, yes. That has a legitimate use; as with a car, its primary purpose is not to hurt people. A hand grenade, no, as its primary purpose is to harm people, and Mr. Kirk's mission was to protect the rights of those who want to possess devices whose sole purpose is to harm people.
> I didn’t expect the popularity of this line of reasoning: being pro-2A means license to kill. This is sickening.
Have you ever heard the phrase "an armed society is a polite society"? It's quite popular among 2A folks, and its rare that someone brings up its implication - that rudeness should be punishable by death.
It is literally impossible to run a modern society without giving out that power in some way. Hell, even if you somehow managed to not give out that power, people would create it themselves.
I do not condone political violence. My country has seen enough of it and still suffers from its consequences. (Spain)
That said, the assassination of Carrero Blanco, who was set to be Franco's successor, was instrumental in Spain's transition to democracy.
The difference between the murder of the planned successor of an actual, literal dictator in an actual, literal dictatorship and what happened today is, I hope, evident to everyone.
The assassination of Shinzo Abe is pretty widely considered massively successful thanks to rooting out the Unification Church corruption. That required the shooter in question to be incredibly sympathetic since their motivation involved links to said church destroying his family.
This isn't to say this has any bearing on this event though.
Rabin and Abe seem to be examples where the assassin more or less got what they wanted (derail the peace process and damage the Unification Church respectively)
There are a few pretty notable assassinations around people that helped or collaborated with the Nazis. Argibly those assassinations prevented further worse outcomes.
But in _recent_ memory, the one that comes to mind immediately is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi not too long after 9/11. His death disrupted Al Qaeda in Iraq which almost certainly was a net benefit.
Bin laden himself also comes to mind but it's unclear how much more potential he had to inflict terror on the world at the time in his life when he was assassinated.
> But in _recent_ memory, the one that comes to mind immediately is Abu Musab al-Zarqawi not too long after 9/11. His death disrupted Al Qaeda in Iraq which almost certainly was a net benefit.
Giving rise to ISIS.
> Bin laden himself also comes to mind but it's unclear how much more potential he had to inflict terror on the world at the time in his life when he was assassinated.
Debatable as to weather it delayed or intensified ISIS but I think you're missing my broader point; his disposal prevented immediate harm and that was a net benefit.
> Political theater at best.
I'd argue there was a very symbolic benefit and even if there is/was a power vacuum.
I floated this question to a friend that likes to nerd out on geopolitics and they suggested that there's a few warlords in africa that tend to end civil wars and make way for successful peace talks after they're dead. I had never heard of the UNITA but as soon as
Jonas Savimbi was assassinated, a decade+ civil war ended and Angola had elections shortly thereafter.
Goodwins law would apply if any of the _many_ attempts had succeeded.
> Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates last week put the number of foreigners now arriving in Iraq to join the AQI-led Sunni insurgency at "perhaps several dozen a month" from neighboring Syria, most of them volunteers for suicide-bombing missions.
> Little more than a year ago, AQI's back was against the wall, its efforts to recruit Iraqi Sunni nationalist and secular groups undermined by its violent tactics against civilians and the fundamentalist doctrine of its founder, Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Its attempt in January 2006 to draw other insurgent groups under the banner of a Shura, or consultative council, was largely unsuccessful.
> "When Zarqawi was killed in June," a senior intelligence official said, "a lot of us thought that was going to be a real milestone in our progress against the group." Instead, he said, "al-Masri has succeeded in establishing his own leadership, keeping the operational tempo up and propelling sectarian violence to higher levels." From the February 2006 bombing of the golden dome of a Shiite shrine in Samarra through the huge bombings in the Shiite stronghold of Sadr City in Baghdad in November, AQI steadily "pushed the sectarian violence into a new era," the official said.
You know, I’m sorry. Can you introduce me to that geopolitics nerd friend you have? I wasn’t even aware of the full context of this thread. I just had the urge to nerd out and share resources and make points and do anything short of trying on only prove you wrong about one specific part of an argument that I don’t even agree with—that assassinations are universally bad.
I think whether it's viable preemptive measure depends on a lot. In the present context (Kirk’s), it’s doubtful.
I’m sorry for putting you through this, baby_souffle.
And did you mean to refer to Godwin or Goodhart’s law.
Any rational person knows that if people are afraid to go into politics because of political violence, you are reducing the subset of possible skills available to improve society.
However if you are a nihilist, none of this matters anyway.
> you are reducing the subset of possible skills available to improve society.
This happened long ago. Politics is exhausting (constant campaigning), poorly paid (unless you can leverage your position to sell bestselling books and speaking engagements later), and you have to check your logic and common sense at the chamber door. You have to have unlimited optimism to not become overwhelmed with cynicism and demotivated by despair from the sausage making process. Overall, politics is a shitty job mainly practiced by hucksters, psychopaths, and well-meaning but naive people who turn into a huckster or psychopath.
