I despise what he said, he absolutely was an asshole. But I don’t like that someone was killed because of political speech. Saying abhorrent shit isn’t a good enough reason to kill someone.
I especially don’t like that his murder has made him a martyr.
We can be intolerant of what he said, and we can be relieved that he won’t be saying any more of it. But we really shouldn’t celebrate the stifling of speech. Because most of the people with guns share more opinions with Charlie Kirk than with you or me. And if stifling speech with violence is okay, it isn’t going to end well.
Don’t get me wrong here. Fuck Charlie Kirk. Fuck the bullshit playbook he operated from. But cheering about someone being killed for what he said is not a good look.
Painting what people like Kirk do as “just speech” is naive at best and dangerously disingenuous at worst.
Kirk was a stochastic terrorist. Because of him, people are dead. Children are dead. Because of him millions suffer and fear for their lives the lives of their loved ones.
When there is no due process or justice for murderers and terrorists like Kirk and every other member of the Republican party, then eventually people driven by desperation, who believe that have nothing else to lose, will take matters into their own hands. This is exacerbated by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorists like Kirk who have spend decades normalizing the use vigilante violence against political opponents and out-groups.
I won’t fault you for having the opinion that people shouldn’t be randomly murdered, but we are far past the point where any peaceful way out was possible. The Republican party and its strategists and commanders — including Kirk — have been advocating violence, stoking and nurturing passionate, violent, fear and hate, and directing their acolytes towards any threat to their power. This is what happens when that is allowed to continue unchecked. And because no system will step in to correct this unprecedented and overwhelming evil in the US peacefully, because courts and justice have utterly failed to uphold freedom, justice, or law, because these violent, oppressive, totalitarian murderers have been allowed to run unchecked, violence is guaranteed.
You can lament the violence, but you can not be allowed to lament the aggressors and architects of this terrible reality for reaping precisely what they spent so much effort and money sowing. These horrors were visited on others first, and these wicked men and women will share in those spoils. Unfortunately, so will we all.
Here in Canada freedom of speech ends when it becomes hate speech.
This is MASSIVELY problematic in that I do think this will become a slippery slope in time, but currently it does protect from a lot of hateful shit that people would otherwise build a platform on.
It’s imperfect and I’ll eat my fucking shirt if it isn’t abused one day to oppress people, but it kind of works for now.
Agreed 1000%. If you’re gonna murder someone, make it a politician. Someone who is actively responsible for our collective plight. Imagine a world where Trump was successfully assassinated in Pennsylvania.
His speech was political.
I despise what he said, he absolutely was an asshole. But I don’t like that someone was killed because of political speech. Saying abhorrent shit isn’t a good enough reason to kill someone.
I especially don’t like that his murder has made him a martyr.
We can be intolerant of what he said, and we can be relieved that he won’t be saying any more of it. But we really shouldn’t celebrate the stifling of speech. Because most of the people with guns share more opinions with Charlie Kirk than with you or me. And if stifling speech with violence is okay, it isn’t going to end well.
Don’t get me wrong here. Fuck Charlie Kirk. Fuck the bullshit playbook he operated from. But cheering about someone being killed for what he said is not a good look.
Painting what people like Kirk do as “just speech” is naive at best and dangerously disingenuous at worst.
Kirk was a stochastic terrorist. Because of him, people are dead. Children are dead. Because of him millions suffer and fear for their lives the lives of their loved ones.
When there is no due process or justice for murderers and terrorists like Kirk and every other member of the Republican party, then eventually people driven by desperation, who believe that have nothing else to lose, will take matters into their own hands. This is exacerbated by the rhetoric of stochastic terrorists like Kirk who have spend decades normalizing the use vigilante violence against political opponents and out-groups.
I won’t fault you for having the opinion that people shouldn’t be randomly murdered, but we are far past the point where any peaceful way out was possible. The Republican party and its strategists and commanders — including Kirk — have been advocating violence, stoking and nurturing passionate, violent, fear and hate, and directing their acolytes towards any threat to their power. This is what happens when that is allowed to continue unchecked. And because no system will step in to correct this unprecedented and overwhelming evil in the US peacefully, because courts and justice have utterly failed to uphold freedom, justice, or law, because these violent, oppressive, totalitarian murderers have been allowed to run unchecked, violence is guaranteed.
You can lament the violence, but you can not be allowed to lament the aggressors and architects of this terrible reality for reaping precisely what they spent so much effort and money sowing. These horrors were visited on others first, and these wicked men and women will share in those spoils. Unfortunately, so will we all.
Here in Canada freedom of speech ends when it becomes hate speech.
This is MASSIVELY problematic in that I do think this will become a slippery slope in time, but currently it does protect from a lot of hateful shit that people would otherwise build a platform on.
It’s imperfect and I’ll eat my fucking shirt if it isn’t abused one day to oppress people, but it kind of works for now.
I don’t know if it applies here, but some Nazi propagandists were tried and put to death after WWII. I guess some people’s words are that bad.
Yes. A trial being a significant part of that.
VERY good point
Nazis should be killed for the politics as the core premise of Nazism is to make their speech actions.
Isn’t that the core premise of all speech?
Agreed 1000%. If you’re gonna murder someone, make it a politician. Someone who is actively responsible for our collective plight. Imagine a world where Trump was successfully assassinated in Pennsylvania.