RIP Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA

[GoBroncos95]

https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/charli...university

Charlie Kirk of TurningPointUSA was shot and killed today at Utah Valley University. Rest in Peace Charilie Kirk. Though many did oppose his views, I do not think killing him for not sharing the same ideaology is right. :/.

[LevelUP]

In times as tragic as these, it’s important for all of us to choose the light rather than drift into darkness.

[NotJoeBiden]

Thoughts and prayers

[freeloader]

“I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
—Charlie Kirk

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In times as tragic as these, it’s important for all of us to choose the light rather than drift into darkness.

The death and suffering of victims of school shootings, church shootings, mall shootings, synagogue shootings, concert shootings, park shootings, bus station shootings, and street side shootings are tragic.

Charlie Kirk was perfectly happy to let other people, nay, to make other people die for his fetish. I find little tragedy in his death.

[knaves]

What he argued is that every single activity has both cost and benefit, the fundamental ideal of the classical liberal view of economics.  People who want to reduce rational discourse to their emotional responses find it more convenient to disparage this concept rather than debating the idea itself.  Anyone with intelligence recognizes that that there will be a cost of harmful usage for any societal liberty- the question is whether that cost is greater than the benefit.  Whether you agree or disagree with his perspective, it is disingenuous to argue that his beliefs on firearms were some sort of fetish- he believed that the societal benefit of civilian access to weapons were far greater than the individual tragedies that would inevitably accompany that sort of liberty.

While you may find no tragedy here, I find it heartbreaking that someone who believed so passionately that recognizing the humanity of those who disagreed with him was best served by talking about those disagreements ultimately died at the hands of someone who instead appears to have believed that someone who disagreed with him had so little humanity that the best response was murder rather than conversation.

[NotJoeBiden]

At least he died doing what he loved: downplaying mass shooting and blaming minorities.

[freeloader]

What he argued is that every single activity has both cost and benefit, the fundamental ideal of the classical liberal view of economics.  People who want to reduce rational discourse to their emotional responses find it more convenient to disparage this concept rather than debating the idea itself.  Anyone with intelligence recognizes that that there will be a cost of harmful usage for any societal liberty- the question is whether that cost is greater than the benefit.  Whether you agree or disagree with his perspective, it is disingenuous to argue that his beliefs on firearms were some sort of fetish- he believed that the societal benefit of civilian access to weapons were far greater than the individual tragedies that would inevitably accompany that sort of liberty.

While you may find no tragedy here, I find it heartbreaking that someone who believed so passionately that recognizing the humanity of those who disagreed with him was best served by talking about those disagreements ultimately died at the hands of someone who instead appears to have believed that someone who disagreed with him had so little humanity that the best response was murder rather than conversation.

Fetish (noun): fixation.  Kirk was absolutely fixated on guns.  He spoke frequently about guns being absolutely essential to liberty, as he understood it.  He said there could be no freedom and no liberty without guns being widely held and people having unfettered access to guns.  Guns, for Kirk, seem to have been imbued with a unique and special power to preserve liberty.  Without guns, there could be no other rights since guns were the mechanism by which the government was prevented from taking those rights.  Given that half of the country disagrees with that and that 2/3 of Americans don't own guns, his obsession with and reverence for guns sounds a lot like a fetish to me.

Charlie Kirk believed in the humanity of white, Anglo-Saxon, protestant, male, heterosexual, conservatives who were natural born citizens of the United States.  Everyone else was fair game for dehumanization.  

And, actually, there is tragedy in this.  One way or the other, this will be blamed on the Left.  Even if Kirk's killer was the most dyed-in-the-wool MAGA supporter. it will be used to further erode our civil liberties.  Kirk will die a martyr to the forces of right-wing extremism and the active and ongoing purge of democracy.  THAT is a tragedy!

[knaves]

At least he died doing what he loved: downplaying mass shooting and blaming minorities.

This is the part that I find the most depressing.  People making jokes about murder because they dislike words.

People disagreeing so strongly that the dehumanize those who say things they dislike rather than engaging them. If your only response to the beliefs of those that comprise at least one third of the country is that they are unworthy of engagement then you lose the ability to recognize their mutual humanity.  I have no doubt that everyone has blind spots and foibles, but Kirk was willing to engage those who felt differently in respectful dialogue.  I grieve for a country that has so confused with words with violence that they believe the offense they feel at disagreement justifies dehumanization.

[freeloader]

At least he died doing what he loved: downplaying mass shooting and blaming minorities.

This is the part that I find the most depressing.  People making jokes about murder because they dislike words.

People disagreeing so strongly that the dehumanize those who say things they dislike rather than engaging them. If your only response to the beliefs of those that comprise at least one third of the country is that they are unworthy of engagement then you lose the ability to recognize their mutual humanity.  I have no doubt that everyone has blind spots and foibles, but Kirk was willing to engage those who felt differently in respectful dialogue.  I grieve for a country that has so confused with words with violence that they believe the offense they feel at disagreement justifies dehumanization.

It seems that you are willing to give Charlie Kirk a pass because he was a polemicist and not, say, a politician.  Kirk was very closely tied to the Trump administration and advocated for many policies, including the systematic starvation or civilians in Palestine, that are causing pain and death to people around the globe.  It's true, Charlie Kirk (so far as I know) never killed anyone, never starved anyone, never voted in the halls of Congress or rendered a court decision which stripped people of their rights, which led to their imprisonment, or caused their deaths.  But he advocated for policies that did just that and his works inspired many people to give money and to cast ballots at the election box for politicians who did those things.  You seem to be willing to give Charlie Kirk a pass for advocating for the torture of LGBTQ people because he didn't actually do the torturing.  The fact that he is a step or two removed from the actual rendering of harm does not absolve him of responsibility.  I am not willing to give him a pass.  I did not like Charlie Kirk before he was killed and I do not like him today.  The fact that he was killed does not rehabilitate him for me.  He was a dreadful person who wanted to do actual harm to millions of people in the United States and many millions more abroad.  Being the victim of a crime does not absolve him of his sins, at least not in my eyes.

[knaves]

If you truly believe that he argued for the things you say, then do you believe this killing was justified? You ascribe meaning and consequences to the policies he articulated that are far different from the perspective he used. Do you truly believe those are the conservative goals-Torture and starvation?

I find those ideas hyperbolic, but I think it is a fair question. If you truly believe that words are violence and that supporting conservative ideas publicly cause those things, then it would seem to follow that society would benefit from murdering the segment of the population that supports similar policies.