Afatwa, or religious decree, issued by senior Iranian clerics calling for the assassination of U.S. President Donald Trump has attracted online funding worth tens of millions of dollars, reports say.

    • phx@lemmy.ca
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      1 day ago

      Iranian hardline version of Kickstarter shoot be called “HeartStopper”. I’m wondering what their stretch goals are.

  • OhStopYellingAtMe@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    If some Iranians want to hunt down and put an end to some vile child molester’s wretched existence, who am I to stand in their way?

    • blitzen@lemmy.ca
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      I saw a billboard (in California) for a gofundme for Texas disaster relief. That feels peak 2025 to me.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      I seem to recall reading one of the divisive things the cipherpunks on their mailing list discussion was about untraceable digital money (before Bitcoin) and the thought experiment about just this very kind of thing (minus the siren server like GoFundMe, because why would you want that in the mix if you were doing this kind of thing).

      Not that anyone set it up, and the many proposals around digital cash did not really gain traction until 2009 or so…but this was from the 90s.

  • Hikuro-93@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    Oh my. Many would do it for free, but with this much incentive perhaps someone more “skilled” might want to get some skin in the game and expedite results.

    Under other circumstances I’d find this kind of effort deplorable, but oh well. I’ll label it balance/Newton’s 3rd Law and call it a day. When you have these elephants dancing around with billions of lives there tends to be a push back of some kind, sooner or later.

    Even if not now, with this specific effort, someday the bill will have to come due to those involved. Just like Hitler managed to get pretty far in his quest to spread suffering but eventually got his comeuppance. A marathon, not a race, as they say.

    • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
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      Bad idea if you live in a country with extradition treaty with the US.

      You could end up in gitmo for “providing material support to terrorist activity”, because that is technically what you are doing, money is material support.

      I can’t tell you what to do, but like if Iran actually manage to do it, it would be the best excuse to get Iran obliterated from the map, and most NATO countries will probably help with the invasion of Iran under Article 5, since that’s effectively like a 9/11 v2 (not in number of deaths, but in terms of being able to justify a foreign war).

      Iran performing the assassination is 100x worse than, say that nutjob in 2024 doing it. If trump die from that kid’s gunshot, there wouldn’t be much happening, but if Iran did it? In this tense political climate where 1/3 of the US population are in a cult? Can you even imagine all the lynchings against Muslims, Arabs, and anyone who “looks middle eastern”?

      Any soldiers or national guard that was bordering on “hmm, is this actually legal”, will now not even question their orders. Being anti-trump in the aftermath of this hypothetical assassination would be treated as almost as bad as supporting al-qaeda.

      Its not a good idea, IMO.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        2 days ago

        You can get thrown in a concentration camp because your skin’s too dark and you weren’t carrying your ID, even if you’re a US citizen.

        That’s one of the side effects about tossing out the rule of law. If merely protesting or having a certain meme on your phone is dangerous, then might as well go all in.

        • DeathByBigSad@sh.itjust.works
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          But you also have to consider the “court of public opinion”

          Funding a foreign assassination attempt will only unite all of the right-of-center and take away some of support of “centrist”/“conservative” democrats. Bush popularity skyrocketed after 9/11, Patriot Act and all that.

          On the otherhand, some right wing nutjob young adult loser having nothing to lose and start targeting policitians left and right (like that kid in 2024), would be your best bet. There won’t be any “rally 'round the flag” effect.

          As we can all see with all the US interventions overseas, they clearly don’t work that well, that principle also goes if Iran tries to do their intervention in the US.

          And if you aren’t in the US, I’m not sure you wanna risk extradition. Donating money to an Iran sponsored assassination campaign is not an internet meme.

          I mean, sure if Europeans wanna send an the military to liberate the US, go ahead. But that €5 donation to an Iranian asasination campaign isn’t really gonna change the US by much and would only put yourself on an extradition plane to the US, because this isn’t a meme, you’re giving material support, so I doubt any of the western countries would deny an extradition request for material support. And even if that plan goes into fruition, you might make the US even worse and in turn, the US could start fucking up the world even more.

          Again, I’m not arguing against violence as a strategy, but you’re expecting nazis to be defeated simply by killing hitler, its not that simple.

          • merc@sh.itjust.works
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            1 day ago

            Funding a foreign assassination attempt will only unite all of the right-of-center and take away some of support of “centrist”/“conservative” democrats.

            If it’s done in full seriousness, sure. But, the left can play the same game the right does. “Haha, it’s a joke, I just donated $10 to the kill Trump GoFundMe, isn’t that hilarious! What’s wrong, MAGA? Triggered? What snowflakes! Relax, it isn’t real, it’s just a joke. OR IS IT!? Haha, only joking, you thought I was serious. You MAGAs just can’t take a joke!”

  • thatradomguy@lemmy.world
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    I feel like him getting more noble peace prize nominations would only make this bounty go up and would become even more comedic. Jehovah forbid they actually give him one. lmao