I have a confession. Before yesterday, I barely knew who Charlie Kirk was. I knew he was a young conservative activist who founded an organization called Turning Points and had a presence on social media. I gather he was very well known to people who even have a casual interest in politics. I knew very little else about him.
In my defense, I will say that I get most of my news and information by reading rather than watching videos. The podcasts I listen to are all history podcasts, such as “The History of England” or Mike Duncan’s “Revolutions“. To be honest, in recent years I have become more interested in the past than in the present. Still, I should have known who Charlie Kirk was. He seemed a decent sort of man, who preferred to debate his opponents with facts and logic rather than putdowns and insults. That’s rare enough in these times when social media encourages the pithy zinger more than reasoned debate.
For his efforts at trying to debate leftists, Charlie Kirk was rewarded with murder. As I write this, the assassin has not been caught, and we can only speculate about his motive. Considering the circumstances, it is not unreasonable to presume that the motive is political. Someone didn’t like what Charlie Kirk was saying. He couldn’t out-argue Kirk, so he murdered him. This is the ultimate in cancel culture.
The reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death from both the right and the left has been interesting. On the right, there has been a feeling that this assassination of a prominent conservative spokesman has the same sort of significance as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or Martin Luther King. There is a lot of anger, especially since people on the left have been openly supporting violence against conservatives for some time.
I do not believe the murder of Charlie Kirk has quite that level of importance. I understand the anger and frustration, though. We conservatives have been the target of abuse from progressives our whole lives. We have been called racist, sexist, homophobic, islamophobic, transphobic, bigoted, Fascist, Nazi, and some other names I’ve forgotten. We have been canceled, shut down, ostracized, and made to feel as if we have no rights in our own country. They tried to murder our president. They have succeeded in murdering Charlie Kirk. There is a feeling that they have finally gone too far.
As for the left, reaction has been divided two ways: the lunatics and the hypocrites. The lunatics have been celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder with an unholy glee. The best I can say about them is that at least they are honest. They are saying openly what many leftists are thinking. I do have to wonder at the mentality that permits people to post videos of themselves openly celebrating murder. We all have dark thoughts. I do not deny that I have occasionally had musings as bad as those being shared by these people. Unlike them, I do not share these thoughts with the whole world because I have enough self-awareness to realize that such ideas are indecent. Besides, I would rather not have people believe I am a lunatic.
The hypocrites have been shedding crocodile tears, bewailing the increase in political violence, while blaming the right. They do not go quite so far as the lunatics in openly suggesting that Charlie Kirk deserved his fate. There is, however, the suggestion that a speaker as controversial as to defend the positions held by at least half the country’s population should expect violence. Things would be better if conservatives learned to shut up.
The hypocrites profess to be offended by the idea that decades of calling their opponents Hitler, Nazis, and threats to democracy might possibly cause an unhinged person to commit violent acts. They pretend to want to lower the temperature after years of raising the temperature until the pot is boiling over. They said the same thing after the attempted assassination of Donald Trump. Twenty-four hours later, he was back to being Hitler again. They obviously didn’t mean it.
I do not know what is going to happen next. People are angry, for good reason. I am gratified to learn that some of the worst lunatics have been losing their jobs. I am as much against cancel culture as anyone, but I think there is an important distinction to be made between canceling someone for a thing said years agoi that hardly anyone might consider offensive and saying something truly ugly right now. We ought not to tolerate advocating political violence. I believe the lunatics are so free with their abomanable celebration of murder because there have been no consequences, up to now. That has to change.
Some people on the right are beginning to advocate violence, even civil war. Let us pray it never comes to that. I do not know how to handle the millions of people on the left who want us dead. it may well be that violence will become necessary to defend ourselves. In the meanwhile, it might be wise for everybody to tone down the rhetoric. At the very least, can we all agree that there is no one in America who is even remotely like Adolf Hitler. If we cannot agree on that, then God help us.
David's Commonplace Book 