Kishkumen wrote: ↑Tue Sep 16, 2025 10:05 pm
Whiskey wrote: ↑Tue Sep 16, 2025 7:24 pm
The allowance for the free exchange of ideas, depraved or not, does not include the entitlement of credibility. It is not up to me to try harder here. This is not a test and it is not a contest. The professorial idea that canpakes' comment was anything less than joyous or celebratory is laughable. Neither does canpakes' comment have any factual validity. It is just a glimpse and reflection of the author, the community and the conversation.
Some will thank canpakes and support and excuse (apologize?) the positive "idea" that the assassin made a great shot. Others, free to have their own idea, will scorn the hateful gibe. No amount of hard effort will bring credibility to the author of the filthy comment.
Free speech? Yep. Glorified depravity? Confirmed. Seems that both share the blurred line.
Yeah, no. Saying that it was an amazing shot is not a celebration. You are not reading him correctly. I am not going to model what a celebratory remark would look like because you should be able to use your own imagination. This is not a "professorial idea." It is called basic reading skill. To canpakes, it looks like a remarkably accurate use of a firearm. Maybe to him it is. I am out of practice with firearms, so I don't know. I doubt I am anywhere near as skilled as Tyler Robinson. Does that sound like a celebration? Or an estimation of the shooter's relative skill? I think clearly the latter. I should know because that is what I intended to say. Canpakes was saying much the same in very brief words. If that is too upsetting to you, perhaps you need some time away to calm down. You are welcome to rejoin us when you don't lose it every time someone describes to the best of their ability what they saw in the video.
The OP is exactly right to draw a line between dissent and depravity. That line may not be blurred in this case — it was crossed. To describe an assassination with the phrase “pretty amazing shot” isn’t some sterile remark about ballistics. In common English usage, “amazing shot” is celebratory language. It is the vocabulary of praise — the same words you’d hear courtside at a basketball game, at a shooting range, or in a hunting camp.
A professor’s attempt to reframe this as nothing more than a technical observation of firearm accuracy is disingenuous. If the intent were purely descriptive, neutral language exists: “a long-range hit,” “a 150 yard shot,” “an accurate placement.” None of those terms carry an embedded compliment. “Amazing shot” does. That’s not a matter of interpretation — it’s linguistics, tone, and context all working together.
As the OP notes, the follow-up post sharing a video of someone reveling in the assassin’s precision makes the meaning even clearer: the comment was understood by others as celebratory. The subsequent apology tour is simply an attempt to walk it back after the fact.
Free expression without risk of tenure loss is not the issue here — no one is arguing these words can’t be spoken. The issue is that within a community discussing the assassination of a husband and father, choosing words that amount to applause for the assassin is depravity. To defend those words as mere “observation” is to deny the plain meaning and effect of language.
The OP asked how one could possibly arrive at a different conclusion. You can’t, not honestly. The words, the context, and the reinforcement by others make the intent unmistakable. On-campus or forum defense doesn’t change that — it only deepens the insult by gaslighting the community as if they can’t tell the difference between a neutral description and a compliment.
Ban Whiskey permanently if that's the only way.
— Gadianton
It is the only way.
— Whiskey
