112
The meme in question:
I know it's not your meme, but this seems like the place to ask. What exactly is the censoring achieving here?
Another casualty in the great meme war.
What's the actual meme
Allegedly:
We hanged people like Charlie Kirk at Nuremberg. It's a tragedy he was shot, but the world is a better place with him 6 feet under ground.
You don't have to use the word tragedy to be a good person
It was a tragedy. Vigilante justice always is. Charlie Kirk didn't deserve to be shot by a vigilante. He deserved to be tried, convicted, and hanged for crimes against humanity and incitement to genocide.
But that was taking too long
Thank you confirming a nothing burger...
And just like that US is now like UK where online comments lead to charges.
They are doing this for a specific purpose.
I love how the article specifies the one he was arrested for was "by far" not the most offensive one
Well, I'm sure the RSS bot doesn't want to get arrested so...
The rss bot is a member of antifa
His first hearing isn't until December! Imagine being stuck in jail for at least 2 months for a meme...
American Meme.
Individuals cannot be arrested simply for expressing dissenting opinions or sharing memes that criticize the government, as long as those expressions do not constitute true threats. Fuck that NSPM-7 order.
We don't know what evidence was presented to the judge. That's all that can be said, but I'll add this, stay the fuck off FaceBook. Preaching to the choir around here, I know.
Those comms are in the clear and monitored not only by FB, but by the sort of people that initiated this complaint. And guess where the government is aiming their new, high-power AI tools? Funny that people are worried about our discussions here when the administration has their hands full monitoring the big dogs.
Can he appeal that bond? I can't imagine what probable cause would lead to this unless it's 100% not the meme posting.
F
At first glance it doesn't seem like much but there are factors that might cause him some real trouble.
He posted the meme(s) in the Perry county (Tennessee) community FB group. The meme references the Perry high school mass shooting. The Perry high school shooting happened in Iowa but this knucklehead posted it in a group where it could easily be taken to mean the local Perry high school as a threat. Further, the meme has the added tag of "This seems relevant today" so it was taken as a threat to shoot up the local school. The judge seems to think it was a legit threat too since the bond was set at $2,000,000 dollars.
Personally, unless there is more too it, I think he'll get off in the end. His posts don't sound much worse than many things I've seen posted and it doesn't seem to me like a direct threat. But then, I don't live by a Perry High School
Still, sucks to be him since he's stuck in jail until at least December. Then again, he's a former cop, so I have to wonder how many other people lives he ruined by getting them locked up for months on some bullshit charge. Maybe this is just karma.
Okay but
This man should be put in front of a judge who should realize that it is not that
We don't know that for certain. I mean, the guy actually did go before a judge who decided that he was enough of a threat to warrant a $2 million dollar bail. My assumption is that the judge saw more evidence than was included in this article.
Bold of you to assume the best of a fascist government.
Do you think Trump has somehow gotten hold of ever tiny aspect of government, down to the county level?
Look, there's no doubt in my mind America is now a fascist country at the highest levels, but most parts are still functioning, especially at local levels. Yes, they're working their way down, I get that, studied 20th century history in depth.
There's no more evidence ATM, but this sounds like a MAGA judge going off the rails.
The lower courts have been blocking the administration a lot. Ignorant of you to lump every part of government together. And kind of infuriating when the lower courts are about the only thing restraining the executive in Trump's second term.
You'll often find that headlines don't match what later comes out in court, but no one follows the case past the initial headline. What comes out is months down the road and everyone has forgotten.
Still, this is pretty smelly. Good to see people are digging:
https://www.muckrock.com/foi/perry-county-30235/perry-county-tennessee-bushart-arrest-193462/
Unfortunately, the inmate portal gives no further info or evidence:
https://isoms.perrycountysheriff.net/portal/Jail?hours=0&lname=B
Oh right
How does posting a quote from the aftermath of a school shooting constitute a real threat of a new shooting? It's relevant because it was in the aftermath of Kirk's shooting, it wouldn't be relevant to post a quote of "we have to get over it" if you were trying to make a threat about a future shooting.
Sure they might have taken him in on the bogus, unfounded claim that he was somehow making a threat, but the real message they're trying to send is that being outspoken against the rise of fascism will get you thrown in jail.
There's no point in trying to explain the bullshit excuse, because it never mattered in the first place. The judge "thought" it was a legit threat because they're just another part of the corrupt system trying to quash this kind of discourse. If anything they went after the former cop because they want to keep any others from switching sides.
Thanks for actually adding context and an assessment. Sorry you're getting downvoted by people that don't like it
Uh huh.
Did they post their source for their claims and unfounded assumptions of due process?
I'm not, and the poster doesn't seem to be, saying this isn't some sort of retaliation for saying Charlie Kirk did some bad things. The Trump admin does do plenty of that. But a lot of posts are saying it's definitive when it's not. At the very least, based on how the law seems to be still enforced, they need some sort of pretext. The poster at least takes some time to address that instead of screaming loudly with certainty about an uncertain situation where we have pretty partial information.
Slightly off topic, I went looking for court documents instead of news articles but failed to find anything.
I actually find it kind of fascinating. There are loads of people in this thread defending this guy and saying that he's being victimized by a corrupt system, all the while not noticing that he is a retired cop who spent his career as part of that corrupt system and who almost certainly sent more than a few people to jail for a couple of months on charges as bogus as these seem to be. That sounds like it might be karmic payback to me.
Personally, I'm just keeping an open mind and suspecting that there is more to the story based on the rather large bail.
Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if the loud mob is right but it seems like we're all guessing with not much info. Agreed that it's a bit fascinating. I'm definitely not upset with my decision to leave the US
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2025
112 points (100.0% liked)
Hacker News
2738 readers
498 users here now
Posts from the RSS Feed of HackerNews.
The feed sometimes contains ads and posts that have been removed by the mod team at HN.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS