A right-wing activist, Charlie Kirk, 31, was killed today by a gun shot from afar, while speaking at a campus event in Utah. I had never heard of the guy before today. I assume that this was a politically motivated killing, which is sad and frankly another low point in our recent history. He has said some pretty vile things, but I don't think that anyone should have to die because of what they believe.
I think it's reasonable that there is a lot of concern about this killing, but in context, there's an awful lot that's troubling about the response as well. To start with, there was yet another school shooting today in Colorado, though for the moment it does not appear that anyone died because of it. But there have been seven mass shootings just in the last week, with four dead, two of them in Texas. (I bring that up because, incorrectly, this is often attributed as a "blue state" problem.) It's not like gun violence is new to our country. Why are those events not something we culturally show widespread concern about, but jump at this other senseless death of one person?
And if we want to be specific about political violence, isn't unleashing militarized forces on cities political? What about the insurrection at the Capitol? The killing of George Floyd? White supremacists driving cars through crowds?
One of the things that I struggle to teach as a parent is the concept of cause and effect, that actions can have consequences. Trump had two assassination attempts on his life last year, but do you think that anything he's ever said might have something to do with that? Has he said hateful things toward people, or tried to oppress people? (The answer is yes to both.) I'm not saying that he or Kirk should be hurt for what they say. Quite the opposite, actually. I think they should be held accountable for being hateful. In a polite society, which of the following would be OK to say without consequence? These are Kirk quotes.
- "I think empathy is a made up New Age term that does a lot of damage."
- "Going high when they go low is what got us in this mess. It's time to start hitting back."
- "Jewish communities have been pushing the exact kind of hatred against whites that they claim to want people to stop using against them."
- "We tried to reconfigure society to accommodate and pander to a hypervocal minority that itself will never actually be happy regardless of how many changes we make for the alphabet mafia [a reference to the LGBTQ community], it’s never going to be enough."
- "Just because you’re a white person does not mean you have to begin apologizing simply for how God made you."
The head of his org's University of Missouri chapter said, "If They Would Have Killed 4 More Niggers We Would Have Had the Whole Week Off [sic]." Kirk didn't say it, but he didn't dispute it either. There are countless examples of campus subsidiaries of his organization saying things like that, never disavowed by Kirk. He's also a guy who has repeatedly asserted that the 2020 election was "stolen" without evidence. He was one of the voices saying that hydroxychloroquine was a cure for Covid, too. To suggest that his hands are not clean of violence is naive, to say the least.
Violence begets violence. That's not a theory, it's a historical fact. When you attempt to oppress people, it doesn't end well for the oppressors. This too is historically backed. But in just a few short hours, there are people raising this guy almost to martyr status. Why?
Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King, Jr. were killed for their beliefs as well. What's important to look at though is what they stood for. Those great men believed deeply in the idea that all men are created equal. Nothing that Kirk said upheld those beliefs, and generally advocated for the very opposite. It is not appropriate to draw a moral equivalence here. Again, I don't think he should have been killed, but to raise him to that same level of human being is not logical. History will not recall him as a patriot or defender of humankind.
Do I need to even point out that political violence, sedition, insurrection and massive protests were not a thing from 2008 to 2016?
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