I had a couple of drinks earlier (to toast the unaliving of this disgusting piece of human garbage) and wrote a long, rambling piece wherein I tried to be reasonable about the incident and its implications. That ended up in a blind alley of incoherence, because there is no “being reasonable” in the state the world is in now, so I’ll give it another go, and try to stay on point.
Charlie Kirk was a fraud, a semi-bright loser with no talent or accomplishments to give him even a shred of self-esteem, who just happened to discover that one could make a pretty good living telling the shockingly large part of the American population that somehow manages to maintain both supreme arrogance and a victim complex – people just like him, in other words – exactly what they wanted to hear. Every word that dribbled out of his misshapen piehole was the worst sort of racist and misogynist vitriol, intended to inflame his audience to violence against their “enemies.” He didn’t deserve to be shot; he deserved to be stomped to death by an angry mob.
Miss me with your lamentations about “freedom of speech” and the First Amendment. Civics education has obviously taken a downturn since the years (long ago) when I was in school. The First Amendment guarantees free speech in that it protects us against having that freedom restrained in any way by the government. Charlie Kirk’s right to free speech was not violated in any way and never has been. The First Amendment, and the principle of free speech generally, does not protect one against disagreement, ridicule, or other consequences of the exercise of the right to free speech.
“But he was murdered for what he said,” you protest. We don’t actually know that’s the case, as no suspect has been caught or motive uncovered as of this writing (just after 1300 UTC on September 11), but it’s a reasonable assumption, and one I’d like to be true. That is still not a “freedom of speech” issue, but rather a “murder is prohibited in general” issue. Should the shooter be caught and proven guilty, he (or she; I don’t want to be Charlie and make assumptions that women have diminished capabilities, I’ve known some gals who were excellent shots) must face the appropriate penalty. I would also assume that the person who did this understands that, and decided that offing that poisonous little toad was worth the price that would have to be paid.
“Political violence has no place in society” is a phrase I’ve seen with nauseating frequency today. I agree wholeheartedly; in fact, violence of any kind has no place in society. But I’ve got bad news for you, America, political violence has been sleeping on your couch and leaving the toilet seat up for close to 10 years already, ever since the Talking Bag of Diarrhea came rolling down his gold escalator and into politics. As I saw a few posters in Bluesky comment today, go up to the ICE Gestapo when they’re busting someone’s car window to pull him out and beat him up in front of his kids because he looks Hispanic and the Supreme Court just made racial profiling legal, and tell them “political violence has no place in society.” See how that works out.
You can bemoan “political violence” all you want, and in fact you should never stop condemning it, but that’s not actually dealing with it when it’s already here. As far as I’m concerned, the unknown shooter did his or her part in removing some of that political violence from society. The exchange is a bargain: One monstrous, hate-filled provocateur for the countless number of people who have been hurt or would be in the future by those spurred to act by his poisonous words. In the coming days and weeks, unfortunately, that same exchange is probably going to have to be made many more times, one way or another. The world didn’t beat the old Nazis with votes, or by filing lawsuits against them in the courts they rigged in their favor, and it sure as hell didn’t beat them by reminding them “political violence has no place in society.” It’s not going to beat the new Nazis that way, either.
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