| Jaicee said: Charlie Kirk was an asshole who loathed and despised people like me for simply existing with every fiber of his being and spent his adult life actively trying to reduce my legal rights and silence survivors of sexual violence. But now I am expected to offer condolences and heartfelt empathy for someone who had none for the likes of me whatsoever. It's not coming easily. It's hard to love motherfuckers who hate you and dedicate their whole lives to actively causing other people to hate you too (successfully at that). He was shot while denouncing gun control and I'm not supposed to see the obvious irony or mention it if I do because that would be insensitive, as if sensitivity to the feelings, or even deaths, of others was characteristic of Mr. Kirk's life or something. I would be honoring his legacy to respond with as much contempt and disrespect as possible. I want to add that there has been a lot of political violence here in America in recent years -- more than usual -- and no one's side can claim a monopoly on it or exclusion from participation. We could have a whole discussion about the role of culture-changing events like the 2020 George Floyd murder and protests or the January 6th coup attempt the following year or the October 7th terrorist attacks in Israel and subsequent destruction of the Gaza Strip that has resonated worldwide with just about everyone in that connection, but for our purposes here, I think it suffices to say that elevated levels of political violence, as in the worst wave thereof we've seen since the 1970s, have become a self-reinforcing thing in our culture in recent years. While I don't have stats handy, it feels like the more recent stuff here at home has emanated disproportionately from the Free Palestine crowd specifically, though hardly exclusively. The single most common trait of perpetrators though is just that they are male. It's almost always men who do these things. Not always, but nearly always. I feel like for it scale back, some of the sources of inspiration have to go away. The Gaza War needs to end, for example. Trump needs to go away. Something like that has to happen before there's any real chance of things calming down, IMO. I fear in reality the response to this killing will be retributive violence and more political censorship that will in turn just anger more people. We're in a self-reinforcing feedback loop here that can't lead anywhere good. |
There's an old saying: If you've got nothing nice to say, don't say anything.
You don't like the guy; that's fine. But just leave it until the dust has settled.
If you don't want to offer condolences, then why do you feel the need to say anything at all? Is your ego that big that you think everyone needs to hear you?
You have the rest of your life to criticise him, so why not show the humanity you claim to have and leave it a week.
