Global Politics - General Chat

[Departed]

I understand having no sympathy for Charlie Kirk, but let me ask this:

Do any of you think what Tyler Robinson did is admirable and worth celebrating? Do you feel we need more of this around the world, specifically where people are assassinated because we don’t like or agree with another person’s POV?

Most people aren't celebrating it though.  Some are, sure, but the rest of us are saying quite clearly that while we don't condone his murder, we won't lose sleep over his death either.

I would also again add that no one on the left is saying that this is how people like Kirk should be dealt it.  So I don't personally see why so many are clutching their pearls over something the overwhelming majority of people on the left aren't saying.  Certainly no one of prominence.

Whereas everyone of prominence on the right is calling for violence to settle disputes.

If there’s someone out there actively hurting, murdering, or seriously impacting other people’s lives with their behavior I’m not always gonna be against getting rid of people like that, but if we’re claiming that what Charlie Kirk was doing falls in that category I guess I can’t see how anyone has come to that conclusion, unless your stance is that “well his opinions hurt my feelings” in which case I’d argue that you need to grow thicker skin.

I personally come to the conclusion that Kirk harmed people because he has amplified violent transphobia and helped get extremists elected who helped pass really regressive and restrictive anti-abortion policies that have a literal bodycount.  You can't grow thicker skin when you bleed out to death in a hospital parking lot in Texas because something went wrong with your pregnancy and doctors refuse to do the one thing that can save your life or save your uterus in the case of a few survivors.

I’m just saying it’s crazy he was assassinated for the reasons he was assassinated for, and actively celebrating it because you feel he’s a shit person is just weird behavior that also puts you in that shit person category.

Saying he was a bad person who harmed people and popping the champagne are two different things though, and you're not going to be able to conceivably claim that the overwhelming majority of leftists are doing the latter.  Even leftists I can't stand like Hasan Piker have been saying from the getgo "this is horrible."

See, I look at this, and I see people saying "murder is not okay, even if Kirk was horrible, but Kirk was horrible, so he shouldn't be dead, but that doesn't make him not a horrible person."  And I ask, "where's the lie and where is the moral reprehension?"  The vast majority of leftists are all saying the same thing:

"Political violence, regardless of the reason, is always wrong, but that doesn't whitewash all the horrible things that Charlie Kirk did in his adult life or change the fact that he was a horrible person who made life in this country objectively worse for the most marginalized among us.  Doesn't mean he should be killed for it, but his death doesn't undo the damage he did."

I'm asking what part of that, which by all accounts, does appear to be the genuine consensus, is so morally dubious?  No one's saying, "I'm glad he's dead," but is that not enough?  Should we pretend to mourn a bad person?

Two things can be true:

You can condemn political violence but let someone being a victim of political violence absolve them of their sins, or the fact that the victim in question played a pretty big role in spurring so many violent people into acting on their worst tendencies.