When I heard the news of the Trump assassination attempt, and saw him raising his fist with a bloody face under the American flag, have to admit I was a bit dubious. I mean how uncanny to get a photo for the ages just at that moment, and how did the secret service allow him to stand back up?

But it seems like the more likely conspiracy (if there is one) was with respect to the lax job by the secret service. Was it incompetence or something worse?

In any event, I posted my initial take on Twitter basically that even though the democrats have fomented that kind of hate for five years, engaged in banana-republic level law fare and lost their minds with TDS, the iconic photo was too on the nose not to wonder if it were somehow staged.

Got a few former followers outraged by that speculation, assured me I’d be sued by the victims’ family for defamation (a la Alex Jones), etc. (LOL’d at their shockingly poor grasp of defamation law.)

It doesn’t matter to me that my speculation was likely wrong — it’s what earnestly occurred to me at the time, and I owned it as “wondering” if it were staged, never asserted it was.

But it brought me back to the response I got when I questioned 1/6 — how dare you suggest that wasn’t an insurrection! — only from people on the other side.

They wanted me to be used into oblivion, deprived of my property simply for wondering aloud. It just goes to show many people love free speech just up until the point you say something that triggers them. Then, you should be destroyed for it!

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Discussion

Where do you land now? Do you think the shooting was real? I’m not sure if I do.

The comparison to January 6 is quite apt, I think. (One of the same January 6 AP photogs was even on hand at Trump tower taking pictures of the heightened security.)

I think it probably was because it was such a near miss and a person behind him was killed. I don’t have a good explanation for how it could have been faked.

But it was a little jarring how quick people were to demonize any line of questioning. And remember January 6, they said cops had been killed, and that turned out to be a lie. I think it’s real but I’m really repulsed by the push to shut down earnest questions.

Did someone in the crowd really die? That seems like a pretty easy thing to claim without providing evidence. Ashli Babbit’s “death” for example was pretty seriously bogus on inspection, but repeated nonstop as evidence of Jan 6 not being staged

I mean there are the accepted facts but yeah who the fuck really knows for sure these days.

Amen to that

The mark of a successful tyranny is when there are options A and B and no alternatives