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RussBLib

(9,490 posts)
Mon Sep 16, 2024, 10:35 AM Monday

Words from Seth Andrews re 2nd assassination attempt

Statement from Kamala Harris re this second "assassination attempt" on Trump:

I have been briefed on reports of gunshots fired near former President Trump and his property in Florida, and I am glad he is safe. Violence has no place in America.

From Seth Andrews (on Facebook):

This is the correct response.

I'm a proud liberal, but if you think we lefties can't be guilty of double standards, reductive thinking, or charged rationalizations, watch those who cheer the potential assassination of a political rival.

Donald Trump is - to my mind - a man without any redeeming qualities. I simply cannot find a single piece of laudable humanity. Yet cheerleading his execution via AR-15 is the absolute worst "solution" to this serious problem.

It's here that the rationalizations begin....riffs on "They started it." So those condeming January 6th, threats against scientists and journalists, and dog-whistles about bloodbaths glibly switch the script when they approve of the target. ("Oh, man. If the bullet had only been a few inches closer.&quot

This isn't even a case of "They're going low, so we should go low." This is the gleeful support of disturbed men wielding lethal weapons in a nation on the razor's edge of Civil War. It's us becoming them. It's a rejection of law and ethics and democracy and sanity when it suits us. It's hypocrisy of the highest order.

Many seem not to have considered the implications of normalizing and even endorsing political assassinations, a rabbit hole of "response violence" where both/all sides claim justification for bloodshed: "They made us do it."

For all our bellowing about the need for law and order, for adults in the room, for a restoration of humanity, it's important that we hold to those convictions even as we oppose genuinely despicable people. Our attitude and responses should say more about us than they do about anyone else.

On the day when DJT finally leaves this world, I'll definitely (ala Mark Twain) read that obituary with satisfaction, but I'll do so with my own humanity intact, and with the support of a lawful, moral, just society where we defeat the worst people without surrendering the best within ourselves.

https://russblib.blogspot.com/?m=1

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ramen

(841 posts)
1. Strongly agree. We gain nothing by making light of any assassination attempt.
Mon Sep 16, 2024, 10:42 AM
Monday

This is bad stuff. It is deserving of being treated as the serious sign of American insanity that it is. I don't have a whole lot of positive things to say about the other side but I don't think anyone should be assassinated for being an ass, no matter how dangerous. Our side is far from immune to this issue.

frogstar0

(93 posts)
3. Not how we should be.
Mon Sep 16, 2024, 10:55 AM
Monday

It is both wrong and counter productive to encourage any violence. If you can't keep your self from saying stuff because it is wrong,keep yourself from saying anything because it will hurt your causes.

Silent Type

(5,564 posts)
4. "Yet cheerleading his execution via AR-15 is the absolute worst 'solution' to this serious problem." Amen.
Mon Sep 16, 2024, 10:56 AM
Monday

It was an AK47, but about same thing as AR-15.

"Pooh-poohing" is probably a better term than "cheerleading."

PSPS

(14,016 posts)
5. "gunshots fired near former President Trump" - the only gunshots were from the secret service
Mon Sep 16, 2024, 11:17 AM
Monday

The AK47 was never fired.

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