Additionally, I’ve seen a troubling amount of online sentiment positively in favor of the Trump assassination attempts, the murder of Brian Thompson. The sentiment in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder looks like it might be similarly troubling.
The rhetoric on Paul Pelosi's hammer attack was unhinged - it also was political violence.
I don't doubt the same figures who made lurid comments, mocked or ridiculed the attack will now act more measured and asking for decorum due to the victims "team".
January 6 was mass political violence, and I my unprofessional opinion is that the pardons marked a turning point in how engaging in political violence is viewed; all is forgiven if/when your team wins.
Hyper-partisanship, and choosing not playing by the rules when it benefits you will be America's downfall. At some point, people on the other side of the political fence stopped being seen as opponents,but became "enemies", I think cable news/entertainment shoulders much blame on this, but the politicians themselves know outrage turns out the vote. I wonder if they'll attempt to lower the temperature or raise it further.
I agree that the Pelosi attack was political violence and the rhetoric was unhinged, and I agree that January 6 was mass political violence. I didn’t include them (or some others that came to mind) since I was keeping it to the parent post’s “past year-or-so.” But they serve just as well at making the point, that louder and louder subsets of society are claiming these attacks are actually good, which is a disturbing societal shift. I remember when Gifford was shot; the discourse was all about assigning blame for the bad thing, as opposed to saying it was a good thing. Feels like we’re moving in a bad direction, as your examples and my examples both illustrate.
> But they serve just as well at making the point, that louder and louder subsets of society are claiming these attacks are actually good, which is a disturbing societal shift.
There has been widespread discontent for a while now - it's the vein Obama and Trump tapped to win their respective first terms. AFAICT, it is an evolving class war[1], with American characteristics.
1. One could argue which side tore up the social contract first, and quibble with the definition of what counts as "violence"
Because in 2023 Saudi Arabia, one of Iran’s most powerful enemies in the region, was expressing willingness to normalize relations with Israel. So Iran orchestrated attacks via its proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, in order to torpedo the normalization process. (People forget that Hamas wasn’t the only one attacking Israel in October 2023—beginning October 8th Hezbollah began firing rockets and artillery into northern Israel, forcing over 90,000 Israelis to flee for safety.)
Israeli and american intelligence agree that Iran was not aware of the October 7th attack. Hamas did that by themselves. In hindsight we also know that Israel thoroughly infiltrated the Iranian forces, so if they had known, Israel would have known in advance as well.
Makes perfect sense to justify killing people on the sidewalk in real life by quoting philosophy from the Joker. That’s the sign of a strong and correct moral foundation.
> What anthem wanted to do was put a cap on the number of billable hours per procedure, and have anesthesiologists accept payment based on that cap as "payment in full", meaning they would not expect additional payment for the extra time they spent after a procedure went long, either from the patient or the insurerer.
The policy even had a path for the anesthesiologist to justify the overrun so that portion could be covered too. No doubt Anthem would scrutinize the justification closely and reject cases where they detect abuse, and the incentives are for Anthem to be too strict, but there was nothing wrong with the policy on its face. These sorts of things are absolutely necessary in order to drive healthcare costs, which are absolutely obscene, down.
Well, I know the one person will die if I pull the lever. But I don’t have any reason to think that pulling it will save the other ten thousand. In fact, it probably won’t—it’s a big train that will find its way to that track eventually, and the only way people have been saved in other countries is legislation to move everybody off the tracks, but that’s too much work for me. What pulling the lever will do is make me feel important. I can convince everybody to read my manifesto that’s equal parts Unabomber and the Joker; if I don’t pull the lever nobody will care what I have to say. What’s a human life in comparison to that?
That much was obvious. The trolley problem is so famous because it really is an ambiguous moral problem. The OP brought it up to imply murdering Brian Thompson was justified, in that now some other people will live who would otherwise die. This idea is a fantasy, however, which besides having no evidence to back it, doesn’t even make sense once examined with a modicum of criticality. Once the remnants of the dream of vigilantism are brushed away, this wannabe trolley problem becomes plain: it’s nothing but an unjustifiable murder by a mentally disturbed egotist who thinks he has the right to play executioner.
This is real life, not a Punisher comic. Democracy ain’t easy, and as soon as a hurdle appears people itch to find an easy workaround, but there’s no way around doing the hard work of fixing the system.
> This variation is similar to The Fat Man, with the additional assertion that the fat man who may be pushed is a villain who is responsible for the whole situation: the fat man was the one who tied five people to the track, and sent a trolley in their direction with the intention of killing them. In this variation, a majority of people are willing to push the fat man.[38]
Unlike in the previous scenario, pushing the fat villain to stop the trolley may be seen as a form of retributive justice or self-defense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Capital_Jewish_Museum_sho...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2025_Boulder_fire_attack
Additionally, I’ve seen a troubling amount of online sentiment positively in favor of the Trump assassination attempts, the murder of Brian Thompson. The sentiment in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder looks like it might be similarly troubling.