Motherfuckers.

Exactly, and do it in the most humiliating way possible.

Records an pre-deportation interview video asking him the meaning of what he said and clarifications around his understanding of the UK democratic system.

Are the Americans going to strike the Sackler family yachts next? Or is that a violation of their rights?

Foreign oligarch meddling in internal affairs and calling for violence is IMO a good enough reason for a permanent ban.

He is not a citizen of the UK, is he? How would you even apply treason in such a case.

I don’t know about the UK, but in several countries that I’ve lived in the government can most definitely kick out non citizens that call for violence and aim to undermine the democratic order.

Shouldn’t Elmo be banned after from the UK after such actions?

Kirk was a vile, bigoted reactionary. Communists stand against everything he stood for.

Citation needed (not about the Kirk fellow, although an argument can be made that he was a demagogue and believed in nothing).

withholding of empathy

Do you think there are any situations where it is reasonable to withhold empathy?

From my understanding the Kirk fellow was a demagogue who was happy to promote all sorts of vile ideas for personal enrichment.

From my time in the US, I understand that this sort of thinking is haram, but I have enough knowledge of comparable demagogues in other countries to not buy into the “sincere belief” gibberish.

The site is a giant shithole, but as the saying goes even a broken clock is right twice a day.

American politics has sides. There is no use pretending it doesn’t. But both sides are meant to be on the same side of a larger project — we are all, or most of us, anyway, trying to maintain the viability of the American experiment. We can live with losing an election because we believe in the promise of the next election; we can live with losing an argument because we believe that there will be another argument. Political violence imperils that.

And if there is no next election? Keep in mind that both russia and Turkmenistan formally do have elections and the russians even have fake communist parties.

Mind you I am not saying what one should or shouldn’t do. That’s up to every individual. But to assume that the US is immune to basic human dynamics is the height of arrogance.

I generally oppose capital punishment, with possible exceptions for high treason (in times of war) or enabling mass deaths for personal benefits (no playing dumb).

My point is that full asset seizure and real multi-decade challenging community service work is a much better long term option.

Mainly due to his political views.

I am just curious, what exactly were these political views? And why do you think they are legitimate and not demagoguery?

The reason I am asking is that while living in the US, the impression I got is that most polemicists were demagogues. It was a method to get money, grifting so to speak.

This was a while ago, but I vividly remember several nominally anti-abortion politicians getting caught getting their mistresses pregnant and then pressuring the mistresses to get an abortion.

It’s incredible that the fellow got fired over such a truthful and insightful comment.

I was in the US in my late teens, and one thing I realized almost straight away was how shallow American polemics about any socio-political topics were. American “free speech” polemics (among all other polemics) to me seemed like an attempt to act out and engage in theatrics that had nothing to do with the concept of free speech (which is actually an extremely complicated and nuanced topics).

There is a silver lining to this, I think at least some people (on the margin) might stop treating local polemics as undeniable truth.

It sounds like he is afraid for his own life.

I don’t support random killing of oligarchs.

You want an independent court to evaluate their crimes on principles of justice (so not an American court) and if their guilt is proven give them an option of 20 years live-in community service doing de-mining work or 40 years in prison. This is with full asset seizure (every last cent) and a requirement that all family members and business partners sign an affidavit stating that if they collaborated with hiding assets or anything else they get to do 20 years live-in community service (e.g. junior janitor at a refugee camp in Bangladesh) or 40 years prison.

That being said, the world has its own reality outside of American expectations and polemics. One can read history to see how things do actually work out.

Fascinating stuff. Although from the time I was living in the US, Kirk seemed like a relatively low level public demagogue and grifter.

For me personally, I don’t think Trump is the real issue, he is a mere symptom. The cause lies in American society (not all of it or course). And when I say American society, I don’t necessarily mean exclusively Trump supporters.

The shallow polemics about freedom of this and that (used as a signalling device to show how “good” and “independent” one is), broad acceptance of corruption, criminality, oligarchy (especially when marketed in context of freedom and independence etc.), lack of desire to be informed about things outside of the hustle/money and pop culture.

But the real issue that makes the above points so toxic in context of the US (you can of course find these issues anywhere) is that most Americans are simply too well off (on a relative basis) and risk averse to support true reform and powerful anti-crime policies.

And as the US is a defacto two party system, it makes it impossible for any meaningful political movement that opposes criminality and corruption to take hold.

That’s the impression I got from living there for several and visiting somewhat regularly at one point.

And I am willing to bet Kelly doesn’t speak any other languages other than English.

It’s the dilemma of the information age, there is so much content and a democratization of content distribution, but no way make people take responsibility for their actions (all run by mega platforms based in the US that care about nothing being engagement).

There will be a reckoning at some point. There always is. Just look at Europe pre-WW1. The zeitgeist of the time was that they were entering a period of unprecedented modernity; the telegraph, continental rail systems, fast (by the standards of the time) travel. Then WW1 hit and a mere 20 years later WW2.

I see. My bad.

Will Tim Apple be a special guest on the “Ow, my balls!!” premier on the Trump channel?

I am just curious, do you consider the reverse to be a realistic possibility?

The US formally becoming a chauvinistic, fake-Christian, oligarch/mafia state, with no real democracy (the Russians nominally do have elections) for the next 30-50 years.

The only reason I ask is that my centre-right friends from the US have mentioned things like “Well, we had the gilded age, and we made it through.”

While the above is true, there are also other key historical events to consider like the great depression, global rise of fascism and WW2.

Thank you for your support!

Just one small caveat to your post (that I otherwise fully agree with).

Russia think they are strong because they were the political center of the Soviet Union as they are now the political center of the Russian federation.

I would say it goes back even before the USSR.

In essence, Tsarism, USSR, modern russia is all the same thing. A genocidal imperialist culture.

Mind you it doesn’t have to be that. I most definitely do not believe that russians are incapable of breaking this cycle and focusing on improving the lives of their own fellow citizens. It’s just that they don’t want to and they don’t have the incentive to do so.