zlacker

>>david9+(OP)
I bang on a lot about not saying things like "this person is a threat to democracy" and other such apocalyptic statements. This right here is a perfect example of why: when you steep people in a culture that tells them someone is (or their ideas are) an existential threat, eventually someone is going to be the right level of scared + unstable that causes them to kill people to try to defend their way of life.

If you find this horrifying (and I hope you do, because there can be no moral justification for celebrating murder), then I encourage you to really think about whether we would not be better off without such extremist language poisoning people's minds. We have to try to stop escalating, or the cycle is going to destroy our society.

>>bigstr+XD
Violence should not be how we settle our disagreements. But if someone is genuinely a threat to democracy we should be able to express that opinion. Fear that someone may act violently should not cause us to suppress our genuine fears about the future of our democracy.

>>breadw+vJ
> But if someone is genuinely a threat to democracy we should be able to express that opinion.

All claims I see of a person being "a threat to democracy" are super exaggerated, and almost always of the "a thread to our democracy" (which makes one wonder: who is "us" in that phrase, and what about everyone else?).

Exaggerating threats is itself an incitement to violence. Maybe tone it down?

>>crypto+Mr1
This may be true for Kirk specifically, but in general I don't think it's an exaggeration at all to say there are threats to "our" (meaning all Americans) democracy when there's frequent attempts to subvert and even overthrow election results.

See: January 6th insurrection, trump's call to the GA secretary of state, increased gerrymandering, and attempts to throw out certain ballots.

Are these not threats to democracy?

>>cman14+ap2
Wild exaggerations don't help. No one at J6 had a weapon -- if they haad, we'd know. Don't mention the pipe bomber, because that's been looking a lot like a false flag. Blah blah blah. Oh, and gerrymandering is rich: the blue states are more gerrymandered than the red states. These are not threats to democracy considering that:

- J6 was not in fact an insurrection (no weapons, no plan, just a crowd acting like a mob)

- all attempts to challenge the 2020 election results were through legal means (even the call to the GA SoS was not a crime)

- gerrymandering is absolutely standard in American politics and has been almost from the start

- "attempts to throw out certain ballots" has "attempts to stuff ballot boxes" on the flip side, which you ignore.

You are not even-handed.

>>crypto+TW2
>all attempts to challenge the 2020 election results were through legal means

And all 70-something accusations across the country, when they had to be held to actual factual basis, were rejected, and the candidate continued to lie and say he won when he did not.

>(even the call to the GA SoS was not a crime)

Wrong.

>J6 was not in fact an insurrection

Wrong.

>gerrymandering is absolutely standard in American politics and has been almost from the start

One political party in the past generation has advocated for eliminating it, while another political party is explicitly and proudly using it to weaken democracy. No pretense, just "We need to keep Republicans in power, and so we will do everything we can to that end, even if it is undemocratic".

One political party wants to make elections more accurate and representative by changing to things like ranked-choice or approval voting, and one political party defends the status quo because anything that gives voters more options would disenfranchise extremists.

You are not even handed.

>>unethi+ng3
approval voting helps but IRV is actually fairly pro-extremist.

https://www.rangevoting.org/IrvExtreme