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Because it is incredibly apt. He and his campaigns and influence have worked very hard over the years to stop progress on gun reform, aimed at preventing the very kind of violent actions that he was unfortunately subject to today.

This doesn't condone violence but offers context as to how he would've assessed a similar situation if he weren't the target.

> Political violence cannot be deterred with strict gun laws.

If a simplistic definition of political violence is targeted killings of political leaders, then this is trivially false. Look at Europe, Australia and other countries with comparable statistics to US and look at the number of events you'd classify as political violence. It is likely zero. The only person I can think of from recent memory is Shinzo Abe.

In the US alone, thanks to no gun control, we have attempts at Presidential candidates, and successful killings of state-level law makers, CEOs, and now, political influencers.

> One example: many skeptics ask the question “if vaccines are so safe then why are they immune to lawsuits?”. This is a very reasonable question for people to ask!

I hear this point cited and I googled it and it took me like 3 seconds to get this answer: https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/science-histor...

Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Childhood_Vaccine_Inj...

Seems like a reasonable answer to me! The question is, why don't vaccine skeptics just look things up and try to educate themselves?

===

Why are vaccine manufacturers shielded from liability? A 1982 TV news report entitled Vaccine Roulette suggested that the whole-cell pertussis vaccine was the cause of permanent brain injury. Subsequent studies indicated that while the whole-cell vaccine was associated with febrile seizures, it was not associated with long-term brain damage. However, those studies took at least 10 years to exonerate the vaccine.

In the meantime, as vaccine manufacturers were flooded with lawsuits, some decided to stop making vaccines rather than face continued legal pressures. Consequently, production dropped, leading to concerns about vaccine supply and subsequent vaccination rates.

By shielding vaccine manufacturers from liability, Congress assured that future generations would be protected from devastating diseases. A common misconception is that this process completely shields vaccine makers. However, a plaintiff may file a civil court claim against vaccine companies after filing a claim in the VICP if they reject the vaccine court's decision.

How are others processing this horrific backsliding in scientific trust, literacy, and straight up lack of compassion for the most vulnerable in the US?

Folks can surely see the connection between dropping vaccination rates and the rise of measles in Texas for example. Why aren't more people outraged and how are they allowing unprincipled politicians to impact their lives so drastically in pursuit of power?

Horrifying how illiberal vast swathes of the US and also parts of HN have become in a very short few years.

I wonder what Peter Thiel and Matt Danzeisen think about this?

> Just absurd.

What's worse - Kim Davis's personal life doesn't read like someone who "respects traditional marriage". From wikipedia:

> Davis has been married four times to three husbands. The first three marriages ended in divorce in 1994, 2006, and 2008. Davis has two daughters from her first marriage and twins, a son and another daughter, who were born five months after her divorce from her first husband. Her third husband is the biological father of the twins, the children being conceived while Davis was still married to her first husband.

This is a concerted effort to test what the new SCOTUS is going to grant the new "in group" in this country in terms of laws that bind the "out group" which in this case is the gay community.

Wow, the xenophobia is getting pretty blatant.

Ah, you mean some people actually want small as in "L'état, c'est moi!" - the smallest government there is?

I'm trying to "steel man" the points of view of someone who is a big Kennedy supporter and also a small government conservative. Is there any coherent world view where something like this is NOT condemned as excessive government interference? Can anyone help me here or is the only way to understand these events and their ardent supporters is through the lens of authoritarianism?

I think it matters a great deal! If that result comes at the expense of - let's say - progress fighting climate change because Elon also ended up defunding and destabilizing a lot of science with the same instincts that got him to proclaim his mission of going to Mars, it is not obvious that we only ought to focus on the end result, and even if we do, that only one set of end results need focus.

We may be closer to going to Mars, an extremely inhospitable place, at far greater expense than simply making the world we were evolved to survive in a little better.

> There's always something to learn from everyone. Elon reiterated one thing frequently - "We have to get to Mars soon because I don't want to be dead before it happens"

I understand the idea of learning from everyone, even those whose values I strongly disagree with.

But after learning about everything Elon has done in the public sphere, would this statement be more likely just narcissism rather than a deep and inspiring virtue?

Hey, you didn't answer my question about whether you read the indictment or not

Wait, all your links are from opindia

From wikipedia -

OpIndia is an Indian far-right[2] news website known for frequently publishing misinformation.[11][12][28] Founded in December 2014,[18] the website has published fake news and Islamophobic commentary on numerous occasions.[37][43] OpIndia is dedicated to criticism of what it considers liberal media,[14] and to support of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)[47] and Hindutva ideology.[3] According to University of Maryland researchers, OpIndia has shamed journalists it deems to be in opposition to the BJP and has alleged media bias against Hindus and the BJP.[13]

Did you get a chance to read the US attorney's indictment and alleged connections to the Indian govt?

> Despite extradition treaty Canada has become a safe harbor of terrorists and refused to extradite terrorists even after repeated requests by India.

This seems troubling. Can you share some examples of this?

> Canada has not provided even a single proof for Indias involvement in extrajudicial killings

I don't know about Canada, but did you read this about the case in the US?

https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdny/pr/us-attorney-announces-c...

It's pretty comprehensive that the person hired was connected to the Indian govt.

It is reasonable that things got bad on Dec 12 2000, but I contend that things have gotten worse (at least from a liberal PoV). I don't know understand the goal of projecting it as always being bad. I think that hides nuances or details that matter.

You raise fair points but I think the guardrails of US democracy are coming off in a way we haven't seen before (such as how Nixon resigned under threat of impeachment but the SCOTUS ruled that the President is mostly sort of a king as long as it is an official act).

Au contraire, I'm trying to find persuasive literature from the right that helps me understand things better.

My understanding of the abortion debate was that it was wholesale manufactured by Southern Baptists to generate a cultural rallying point when they lost the segregation debate. I would argue that a party that chooses to punish abortion so harshly while refusing to support child tax credits, free preschool and daycare, and increase maternity leave and support us not a party intending to help babies. They are interested in controlling pregnant women.

What is your persuasive argument that they claim to support babies yet do so little to help them after they are born?

> Do you remember the Iran-Contra scandal?

I know of the scandal. I don't think it compares to the pardon of 1500+ people - that feels unprecedented. Or maybe it isn't. That's what I'm trying to understand.

George W Bush was flawed and caused a lot of damage, but he publicly supported Muslims and wouldn't say a fraction of the puerile statements (that are more often than not just rants) coming from the current POTUS. Maybe that demand for decency and decorum from the highest office of the land never existed (I think it did .. until 2016). These are the shifts I am trying to understand.

If you refer to Trump, when people say idiot, I don't think they refer to his intelligence in the sense of appealing to people's base instincts - he clearly has good political intelligence. It refers to his understanding of subjects, his clarity of thought and expression, and often a judgment of his morals, principles, and ethics.

If you don't - there was no need to be coy. And you act as if failing up never happens in real life.

To compare US elections to Russian or Syrian elections is both incredibly naive and dangerous. In one country, you have a leading political opponent having stolen classified docs treated with kid gloves; in the other, you have political opponents poisoned and literally blown out of the sky.

I'm not sure I see the connection between Google search integrity and Youtube choosing to or not choosing to host a video from a conspiracy theorist who thinks that "Wi-Fi opens your blood brain barrier" and whose candidacy is propped up by far-right Bannon types. Why bring him up (surprising?) if you don't particularly like him (not surprising).

This might be a great article, but it is important to note that this comes from a company founded by Deepak Chopra, who is a famous figure and undoubtedly has done some good work but is a deeply flawed person, perhaps a charlatan really.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deepak_Chopra

> Chopra has metaphorically described the AIDS virus as emitting "a sound that lures the DNA to its destruction". The condition can be treated, according to Chopra, with "Ayurveda's primordial sound".[18] Taking issue with this view, medical professor Lawrence Schneiderman has said that ethical issues are raised when alternative medicine is not based on empirical evidence and that, "to put it mildly, Dr. Chopra proposes a treatment and prevention program for AIDS that has no supporting empirical data".

> Chopra has been criticized for his frequent references to the relationship of quantum mechanics to healing processes, a connection that has drawn skepticism from physicists who say it can be considered as contributing to the general confusion in the popular press regarding quantum measurement, decoherence and the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.[136] In 1998, Chopra was awarded the satirical Ig Nobel Prize in physics for "his unique interpretation of quantum physics as it applies to life, liberty, and the pursuit of economic happiness"

> In May 1991, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article by Chopra and two others on Ayurvedic medicine and TM.[144] JAMA subsequently published an erratum stating that the lead author, Hari M. Sharma, had undisclosed financial interests, followed by an article by JAMA associate editor Andrew A. Skolnick which was highly critical of Chopra and the other authors for failing to disclose their financial connections to the article subject.[145] Several experts on meditation and traditional Indian medicine criticized JAMA for accepting the "shoddy science" of the original article.[146] Chopra and two TM groups sued Skolnick and JAMA for defamation, asking for $194 million in damages, but the case was dismissed in March 1993.

Not someone with a great track record.

Forget about Mars, what about spending that $44B to lobby the government to end poverty for children in the US, feels like a noble cause. Senators and Congressmen/women are bribed, excuse me, lobbied, for peanuts (< millions).

Funny how that works. How is Apple's ad platform doing these days? Does anyone know?

I think you're conflating two things - positive signaling (i.e., I want a Tesla because I want to be cool) and consumer choice (i.e., I would've bought a Tesla but I don't want to anymore because of how Elon Musk has behaved).

> As if these fans really know who Elon is as a person anyways. ProTip: if you haven't actually met and interacted with a person, then you really know nothing about a person beyond hearsay. What's on the screen ain't real folks.

You don't think Elon tweeting: "My pronouns are Prosecute/Fauci" doesn't reveal something about his personality or his values?

No, sadly there is a decidedly right-wing mind virus around how SBF is treated with kid gloves because he heavily donated to democrats.

Ignoring that he also donated to Republicans. This is all part of that narrative - substantiated or otherwise.

> To be eligible for forgiveness, you must have federal student loans and earn less than $125,000 annually (or $250,000 per household). Borrowers who meet that criteria can get up to $10,000 in debt cancellation.

Do lawyers or doctors typically earn less than $125,000 or $250,000/household? If not, loan forgiveness does not impact them the way you think.

> It's the old "I'm from the government and I am here to help" joke.

What else is the government for? I understand it's a popular Reagan talking point but I don't really grok it.

If you assume the govt doesn't work for us, particularly if you're in politics, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.