Groovy.

this seems more like projection to me.

My goodness, I think you’re right!

You’re not making this determination based on the evidence, you’re belief is that because you’re a leftist and wouldn’t use violence and you don’t feel the other leftists with whom you interact would assassinate someone, it would take some crazy radicalization to do so. Goypers on the other hand, you feel are hate filled, already extreme and thus ready to kill people.

To each their own I guess. This sounds like really motivated reasoning, in that you started with the end you want and then worked backwards. Right now, your hope is that the shooter is actually a fan of Fuentes despite being in a transgender relationship, despite being on the more extreme side is saying he’s doing it because some hate can’t be negotiated out (implying that he’s actually calling for more hatred and naming it as such, which most folks on these sides don’t do) while ignoring his parents claims that he’s getting more into Left wing politics.

Or, y’know, a kid who intended to get away with it, wrote some memes from a semi plausible group on bullets in an attempt to blame the Far Right.

I’m not saying your version is impossible but it does beggar belief. It’s like when my uncle defends trump and invokes all manner of wild conspiracies to do so, what he’s saying isn’t impossible it just requires a bunch of wild coincidences etc.

I’m not saying the shooter definitely isn’t a groyper or whatnot, I’m saying that meme forensics seem a bit of an odd way to definitively decalre someone in one group or another.

Especially when that group is really transphobic and your romantic partner is trans.

I dunno but it strikes me like anyone declaring they know this guy’s motivations one way or the other is probably just seeing what they want to see.

Edit: Okay, and now they’ve released the text exchanges and stuff. Seems pretty darned clear he’s Left wing, not Right. (Can you really imagine a far Right killing Kirk would be doing so because they “had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out” ?)

https://atty.utahcounty.gov/cms/uploads/TJR_Information_49872215e3.pdf

I’ve been wondering about this too, thought I was just out of the loop but nothing I can find from a reputable source has really made me think he’s a right winger.

Like, maybe we can’t say for sure but to insist he’s actually extremely far right seems like a wild leap.

Ahahaha, love it.

Yeah, that’s my favourite too.

I kind of hope those note break social media, who wants to interact in a sea of boys?

But then I wonder if people would actually care if most of their interactions were with bots as long as they got to feel they were finally winning an argument.

It breaks my heart as I’d guess most of the left leaning folks fighting share 90% of the same beliefs/values, find the alternative repellant but as you say, we miss the bigger picture.

On the other hand we do get a lot of internet points for being snarky at others so that’s cool. /s

The older I get, the more I think the propaganda machine was to get people really riled up about very niche issues so as to stop the progressive left from being able to enact real, meaningful change.

If I’m an oil exec, a sweatshop owner or anyone exploiting the third world, I’d be thanking jesus for modern first world social justice. Instead of implementing broadly popular policies to save millions of lives, we’re screaming online about whether a tiny fraction of some of the richest people who have ever lived should play sports in high school or not.

Removed by mod

I don’t know if I’d call it formal (to me, formal means using sir, more conditionals and more emphasis on manners) so much as I enjoy speaking grammatically, the same way I like to use idiosyncratic words, all fun stuff that makes language more interesting. Yes, plain English, unencumbered by whom or unnecessarily large words is more simple but it is also less joyful. (In my cynical way, I wonder if I’ll see textbooks with “k” instead of okay in my lifetime.)

Fully agree on literally (in part, Dave Cross broke me on that one years ago. “When you misuse that word, you are using it exactly incorrectly.”) The other one that bugs me is nonplussed, which is becoming to mean its opposite to the point where if it’s used it pretty much has no meaning because you have no way of knowing whether the speaker knows it actually means bewildered/startled or if they’re using it incorrectly to mean the exact opposite.

“Of which you thought.” - I also enjoy not ending sentences with prepositions.

Again, I just think it makes everyday language better. Similar to having art on one’s walls, doesn’t improve anything other than aesthetics but that’s enough to make it worthwhile to some.

I also would never use “k” instead of okay in a text but to each their own!

To each their own!

I personally think English sounds better when spoken well and enjoy doing so. “For Who the Bell Tolls” sounds silly and I think people missing whom tend to sound similarly silly.

It’s the same idea, we understand exactly what he’s saying, 0 impairment of understanding etc.

There’s no reason for a lot of stuff; why do verbs like have and be require different conjugations when the subject is in the sentence? Why bother pluralizing words when we can usually figure it out from context etc.

Absolutely deliberate. Monty Python was mostly Oxford and Cambridge grads who darn well knew how to use whom.

I know but the original quote is who killed who, so figured accuracy beats grammar.

How’d not burning cars work out when Biden was prez?

??? Pretty okay? We got some significant climate change legislation etc… If you’re saying we should have been rioting against the Biden presidency, I don’t think you’re particularly helpful for our current crisis.

Martin wouldn’t have won without Malcolm. Peaceful protests only work when there’s a third option besides listening to them or stays quo.

Strongly disagree, look at Gandhi.

I think there’s a dangerous tend for kids in the West to romanticize political violence after having grown up in privilege and safety that would be unimaginable to much of humanity even nowadays, let alone across history. And more dangerously, to only look at narrow slices of history they like rather than the full sweep.

That’s not to say seriously violent riots and protests can’t work, it’s just that they cost a huge amount of innocent blood and lives, and of course more often than not, they don’t work. (But those same spoiled kids don’t like reading about those parts of history/current events.)

That being said, I’m not sure we’re strong enough to actually do a peaceful protest properly. The power of MLK wasn’t the willingness to protest, it was the willingness or even eagerness for supporters to be beaten black and blue over and over and over again in a desperate and eventually successful attempt to shock the conscience of a nation. I’ve seen nothing that indicates we’d have the resolve for that.

I’m nowhere near LA but at least on BlueSky there’s been a lot of snide “oh, now they’re telling us to fight fascism by being nice!” Under any comment or post about not getting violent and not burning shit. I’m sure there’s some right wing provocatuers but I imagine there are also a bunch of kids who think lighting cars on fire is in fact fighting fascism etc.