I’m with you there, he’s a classless buffoon.
Can i also just say, I think if the left were to have been outraged over Charlie Kirk’s death, it would have served you better.
If i was right wing in America, a gun owner and a 5th amendment fan, do you think after seeing people celebrate his death and saying, ‘well its a consequence of what he said’ theyll likely side with you for gun reform?!
Or do you think they will feel theyre under attack and best to absokutely keep their guns?!
Maybe I’m wrong, most of you are american so can educate me… but I think the current atmosphere feels like they’d be more likely to keep their guns and reject any gun controls.
We have a similar issue in the UK but in regards to illegal migration.
Labour got in (i voted for them) on the pledge to tackle the gangs and thus reducing numbers… it hasnt happened and they are ignoring the public outcry and brandishing anyone worried as fascist /far right etc…
The conservatives when last in fucked up so bad, this was the perfect time for labour. Just listen to the people and what they want and youre in for generations… theyve screwed it already and Reform under the absolute muppet show of Nigel Farage will very likely be our next PM.
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…and a bully of course, for anyone in such a position to “punch down” is the ultimate act of cowardice for me.
@Sheldon Donald Trump, in my opinion… is a classic narcissist, with as you rightly say, the school yard bully mentality.
He speaks like an 8yr old and has all the social grace and decorum of a petulant teenager.
I really hope you guys get a sensible leader in at some point.
The US has always historically been the big brother that western countries look up to, now it’s almost embarrassing to witness.
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I take no comfort in it. If Trump has his way there will be no end to his term.
We still have a path to getting him out of office, but it is narrow and fraught at this point. The midterms have to be an historic landslide and the Democratic Party is in many important ways not meeting the moment. IF the Dems flip both houses then Trump will be severely hobbled and subject to impeachment although unless there’s a larger Dem majority than seems likely it will just be another side show.
If we don’t flip both houses by more than razor-thin margins in the midterms then it’s game over in my view. He simply won’t leave and no one will make him.
They have are now better funded than ever before by a wide margin, have been transformed into lawless masked thugs, are being paid per-head bounties, given ridiculous quotas to meet, and given the okay, via extra-judicial kidnapping, to put mostly innocent people in crowded and disease-ridden facilities without basic sanitation and medical care*. ICE and Border Patrol as currently constituted, funded and mandated are no older than a few months. I am sure that the German units who ran the camps were derived from existing units that had been around a long time.
The Korean nationals rounded up from the Hyundai facility in Georgia recently described having to lap water out of a communal sink due to be chained together. The Koreans chartered a plane and negotiated their release and took them home and shut down the planned factory. They are traumatized and vow never to set foot on American soil again. How much of this do you have to see (it’s just one incident) before you take it seriously? I mean in your particular case it doesn’t matter as you’re not a US citizen, but it’s a frightening insight into the kind of complacency and blinkered ignorance that is enabling things to have gotten this far here.
I truly don’t understand your veneration of German concentration camps like some sacred cow that can’t be discussed as if there can never be any parallels. It’s only getting out in FRONT of these camps developing into Auschwitz levels of depravity that will ever honor the memory of those who perished there. An Auschwitz that’s only as tenth as bad as it was, is still unacceptable and ghastly.
- And by the way, while the news is suppressed and it’s hard to tell at this point, there appear to be outbreaks of disease in some of the detention centers already (and deaths due to medical neglect and poor conditions). And just wait until THAT jumps to the general population, as it inevitably will – a population that is finding it increasingly difficult to obtain vaccines even for those who want them out of pocket.
Incorrect.
Whilst Dachau (the first camp) was initially overseen by the SA, the SS under Himler replaced them almost immediately.
These SS were almost entirely young and new recruits ranging from late teens to early 20s.
The SS was also new in general, effectively replacing the SA.
And that should be thoroughly investigated, but taken it at face value and immediately calling them all Nazi’s is way too far.
If even slightly true then those directly responsible ought to be held to account and jailed.
Actual evidence.
Because if I believe you or the claim by the worker at face value, then I may well be falling for an appeal to emotion and I’m sorry, but my critical thinking requires a bit more.
But again, if proven true, then prosecutions must come… on that I think we can agree.
You can if you wish, I’d never could or would want to stop you… ironically, thats your right to freedom of speech, i just have a very different opinions… this feels oddly ironic.
But i equally have the freedom to tell you that the comparison is bollocks.
Now, if it wasn’t illegal immigrants in these centres and actual members of the left wing and they were detained illegally and for no reason… but were being starved, executated, beaten etc… I would agree.
If there were piles of there shoes, wedding rings, ashes in cremation ovens, i would agree with you with drawing comparisons to Nazi Camps.
If a prominent writer today, was jailed and instantly murdered by ICE, i would see the arguement to compare.
Look at Fritz Gerlich at Dachau by the way.
But in closing I do sympathise with those incarcerated by ICE, I’m not some ghoul that is without empathy, far from it.
As I said previously, i just cannot stand how people throw out ‘nazi’ so easily! Especially as someone directly effected by it!
My grandfather suffered with PTSD for years after, I watched the tears in his eyes talking about Dunkirk and his evacuation.
I watched the fear on his face when cars back fired.
Likewise with my nan who was traumatised by the blitz.
I’d much rather the left went back to arguing from logic and reason.
We’re talking about the early stages, not the industrial murder stage.
I completely agree that the nazi death and concentration camps were horrible beyond what is imaginable. But what is being compared here is the pattern in the development, not necessarily the details and intensity in the policies and the execution.
- Authoritative regime: definitely there already, with a leader that behaves increasingly as an authorative strongman, a constantly decreasing tolerance for dissent with beginning censorship of the media, demands obedience
- Strong-man foreign policies: demands that other nations obey, or else
- Defining groups as enemies of society: illegal immigrants, trans-sexuals, “the extreme left”, wokeness
- Concentration camps: people arrested without being given due process and put into designated prison camps. Also, people deported to El Salvador, to a concentration camp prison.
- Civil servants replaced with loyalists
So yes, the pattern is there. No, the concentration camps are not at the nazi level, but do they really have to be at that level to warn about the pattern we see? Do they have to be nazi-style horrific to be called concentration camps?
What happened in Nazi Germany should serve as a reminder to the horrors of authorotative regimes. Although one should not trivialise the horrors that went on, it is imho perfectly legitimate to point out that nazi germany had concentration camps and the US seems to have started building camps. This does not take anything away from the victims of nazi terror. Or from victims of the Stalin terror in gulags. Or from victims of the Khmer Rouge horror camps in Cambodia. Or in short - concentration camps: just don’t do them!
Yeah, I have visited one of the nazi concentration camps, taken a guided tour, seen the gas chamber, the cremation ovens, and what has been preserved of the barracks as a museum. And I brought along my family so they also could see.
The point here is that many of the same types of shit happen in the US now as what happened in Germany around 1933, QUALITATIVELY, not necessarily quantitatively. The parallels are there. Things do not have to be exact the same and at the same level, intensity or cruelty to be comparable AS A PATTERN.
I am not a US subject, so I don’t qualify as “you” here.
Okay…
We can call them concentration camps, gulags, prisons, or bed and breakfasts.
We can call them nazis, fascists, masked marauders, Dr. Evil, or saints.
Calling them something in no way casts a shadow on anything else. Calling them something in no way changes their behavior.
It’s all semantics.
It doesn’t matter.
What matters is that a death knell is sounding for the U.S.A. Its constitution is being ignored, its laws not adhered to, its highest court is bending a knee… it is circling the drain in a white-bronco-speed coup.
Today, this regime’s days are limited to that four-year max. Today. But maybe not tomorrow or the next day.
Today, the Congress supporting this regime is due for changes next fall (the midterms). Today. But maybe not tomorrow or the next day.
I hate to admit that, for once, I’m glad I’m not a young person who will have to live through the decades-long aftermath this shit promises.
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In that case, that is fine.
However, they were still killing at a shocking rate with true numbers under recorded but estimated at 200-500 a year early on, mostly executed (like Fritz Gerlich that I mentioned earlier).
I wouldn’t argue too much with your points in this section, I don’t know enough about American politics to make an educated assessment.
However, from all stated and from the amount I’ve tried to read and learn I would say he’s more a Right wing populist with traits of authoritarianism.
Would I go as far as to say he is a Nazi? No.
Thats where I think the rhetoric could be better and the conversation could be improved.
Just labelling people Nazi’s will not help and not foster the sort of environment we all need for civil discourse.
I salute you, well done to you and your family.
I’ve done it once, never again. Far too heart breaking for me.
May I ask, what patterns do you see happening that compare with Hitlers coming to power?
My apologies, most ive spoken too have been american.
Weridly, I think we in the UK are in a worse position.
Labour took over from the absolute cluster fuck that was conservative, but they’ve done a piss poor job since getting in.
Labour here was meant to be the party of the working class, yet they’ve done nothing to address the concerns of the working class.
Near impossible to buy a home, NHS struggling, Doctor appointments are ridiculously difficult to get, housing crisis, cost of living crisis, energy prices through the roof, economy not improving and obviously the publicised illegal immigration issue.
They had the chance to take proper control, listern to the people and would likely be in power for a ridiculously long time… but they’ve been a disaster.
I hold hope for the US, I genuinely feel whilst Kirk’s death was truly tragic, that was great point for the left/democrats to win hearts and minds by stopping the rhetoric and getting swing voters and those slightly leaning right/republican on side, by being above the name calling and blaming.
Show that right wing lunacy isnt the way and go back to logic, compassion and sensible level headed approach.
Fingers crossed for you all.
I think that the only way Trump or Trumpists could be characterized as literal “Nazis” is if they renamed the GOP accordingly and strove to reproduce German Naziism as closely as possible with only adjustments for the US context and the modern age. I certainly acknowledge that hasn’t happened. In fact I most often refer to them by the more generic term, fascists. I think that is a fair appelation.
I’m interested in preventing this from progressing further, via systematically reducing the amount of daylight that currently exists between, say, German death camps and ICE detention centers. I don’t see any basic difference, only that the detention camps are less-evolved versions of the German concentration camps. They will get there if we don’t stop them.
The definition of “concentration camp” definitely applies, and that definition is broader than just the fully-formed system of German death camps. Heck, it applied quite well in the first Trump administration, and I personally think one of the unforced errors of the Biden administration (much as you describe for Starmer) was in not dismantling those prisons and the system behind them, and holding abusers to account.
If, for the sake of argument, it’s a requirement that ICE detention facilities are in some other category from the German death camps, that they be imprisoning not just Jews and Gypsies (immigrants in our case) but dissidents and opposition party members, that is only just getting underway. An activist known for doing videography of ICE raids was disappeared several weeks ago, in broad daylight, on camera. A couple of days ago, legislators demanding access to an ICE facility for a legal surprise inspection were arrested – probably at this point to be detained for a day or two and released, but it’s a fairly small step from there to being permanently incarcerated in their increasingly opaque system. During the NY city majorial primary, one of the candidates was arrested by ICE for escorting an immigrant to and from a court hearing, and was released quickly largely because the governor herself personally and physically intervened. There are growing reports of various groups trying to escort immigrants to such required appearances being harrassed and threatened by ICE. A few months ago a sitting district court judge in Wisconsin was arrested on the accusation that she had helped someone before her court elude ICE after his hearing (in fact the person left through a side entrance but was apprehended anyway, and judges have wide latitude in how they operate their courts or who gets to interfere with that operation).
These kinds of incidents are only the beginning; I’m not naive enough to think they are one-offs. They are starting with immigrants because they are easy targets and many citizens have a degree of ambivalence and/or indifference to them. They are doing provocative and entirely illegal apprehension of less marginalized persons including opposition party members, to desensitize us and get such events into the Overton Window. In due course, they will fully escalate.
Two of our most nationally popular comedians, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel, have been fired and their entire franchises shut down by the networks under pressure from the regime, including threats involving meritless lawsuits and withheld approval for desired mergers and acquisitions.
So the Kirk assassination is being used now as an all-purpose excuse to accuse everyone in the opposition of being “violent” and “radical”. We are “getting there”, and quickly.
I think it’s pretty smarmy to accuse the left of causing this by not being nice enough. If anything, the left isn’t left or radical enough here. It’s captive to pretty much the same megadonors as the right, which effectively neuters its voice.
At any rate – we obviously aren’t going to agree on these matters but check back in 6 to 12 months and see how many of your distinctions have fallen, I guess.
Those 2 clowns were canceled because they weren’t funny and their ratings sucked.
Interesting how Jimmy Kimmel was suddenly not funny and his ratings suddenly sucked hours after the FCC head threatened the affiliates.
Also interesting how you use the word “cancelled” and not “didn’t have his show renewed”.
You do know that his show wasn’t cancelled or dropped… Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely. That’s not an action you take when you’re ending a show. That’s an action you take when you’re punishing someone.
It’s also interesting how the FCC head had plenty to say about what Jimmy Kimmel had said, and was quick to make his threats, but if there really was a case to answer - if there really was a breach of a rule in any way whatsoever, why would Jimmy Kimmel being suspended change that?
If a rule had possibly been broken, they should still be investigating - and if they determine a rule was broken, they should still be issuing a warning or a fine.
But they’re not, are they? Because a rule wasn’t broken, was it?
He was suspended because threats were made. There’s a direct correlation there. Threats made, hours later, he’s suspended.
@mr.macabre13 Let me ask you this question. Say there was a democratic president in power, and a tv presenter said something negative about the democrats, and the head of the FCC issued a threat and the presenter was subsequently removed from their role. Would you objectively consider that a violation of the 1st amendment?
What would be required for it to be a violation of the first amendment - what line would you draw in the scenario where stepping over that line would be a violation in your eyes?
Consider this objectively. Put aside political views, and think of the long term - doesn’t matter how your rights are eroded - whether it is something you support, whether it is something you oppose, the outcome is the same - if you lose those rights, just consider that a government you oppose may later take advantage of the line being redrawn a further away than it once was. Not only do you have the precedent of lesser rights, but you also have the precedent of your rights being eroded - a line redrawn once can be redrawn again, further away each time. Small steps that enough people agree with - small concessions that you accept because it means fighting the “enemy” opposing party and the “people” (however you view them) that support them.
But when you give up your rights for any reason - in the long term, everyone suffers.
When Trump says that 97% of the media were against him during the election, and as the government controls the licenses, perhaps they might stop handing out those licenses; it’s easy for someone who supports Trump to think “you know, he’s been treated unfairly, it’s only right that he gets to do something in response. I know I would be upset if it happened to me!”
And that’s how rights are lost. The initial reason seems justified, the rights have been abused, therefore they should be curtailed.
Sure Trump can sound convincing to his supporters - but that’s a dangerous trait. It means his supporters are less likely to hold him to account objectively. They’ll accept what he says as gospel and not give it critical thought. They’ll give him much more leeway than they would even another Republican president. Imagine if Richard Nixon was Donald Trump. He wouldn’t resign - he wouldn’t accept he did anything wrong, and his supporters would stand behind him and accept his version of events.
There’s no denying he knows how to work a crowd, but no one should be following with their eyes closed, no matter which side the leader is on.
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The first is subjective, and the second isn’t objectively true. Though Kimmel’s rating have dropped, they have not dropped as far as others during the same time span, and there are a variety of reasons that underline this.
What he was, unequivocally is a long time and unapologetic critic of Trump, with a large viewing audience, if you think Trump is rejoicing for any other reason then it’s hard to know what to say to you.
When MTG chased a teenage boy down the street, screaming abuse at him and calling him a liar, and insisting the mass murder of his friends in a school shooting was a false flag event, restating that lie publicly, I didn’t see this sought of collective angst at impropriety that outraged the public sensibilities.
I don’t think anyone, even someone who expressed the views Kirk did, should be shot, or even censored for them, though like Kimmel if they harm their employers financially they will likely be censured.
I also recall the wailing and outcry from certain quarters when Trump was finally censured by a public social media platform for his repeated public lies about a stolen election, that he’d lost fair and square.
It seems freedom of speech and expression are not being championed here or there.
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A factor in Kimmel’s reinstatement that the article doesn’t mention was that Disney stock lost billions in value after they canned him and they were getting a lot of cancellations in their theme parks and streaming subscriptions, which is something that really gets their attention. There were also huge employee morale issues reported.
Finally, I noticed that a lot of social media influencers were resurrecting Walt Disney’s friendly disposition toward the Nazi regime back in the day, posting things like altered images of Mickey Mouse with swastikas for ears, etc.
In think they realized they were creating a public relations disaster of such epic proportions that it was far more consequential than the implicit and explicit threats from the FCC.
I think you mean that you don’t find them funny.
If Kimmel is not funny, and his ratings sucks, why is his show back?
The ratings are in for the second quarter of 2025, and things remain competitive across late-night, with Stephen Colbert holding onto the top spot in his hour and Greg Gutfeld dominating his slot, and having huge gains year-on-year.
I must admit I don’t know much about US TV shows, but this certainly seems to contradict your assertions (source)
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If I remember correctly this was a standup comic making the point that freedom of expression is a right protected by the first amendment to the constitution while the right to bear arms is protected by the second amendment. He went on to point out that in a country where gun violence is a daily occurrence disagreements often lead to shootings. Charlie was a strong advocate of the second amendment going so far as to say that it was worth innocent lives lost to protect the right to have guns and by implication to use them. Hence the quip: free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. He did not condone Kirks death by gun violence, he spoke out against it.
Not sure what’s baffling. Someone says something you don’t like ya grab your gun and take away their first amendment rights. Welcome to the land of the free and the home of the brave.
I heard that in the UK their will likely be 30 gun deaths annually, whereas in the us there will be 30 gun deaths every 6 minutes. That’s one difference.
It’s is truly a very sad situation.