Since Charlie Kirk was murdered are we supposed to pretend

[Bettie]

that he was a good man?

That he was a net positive influence on society?

That he was kind or decent?

Because that would not be true. He was none of those things.

But, I hear from the people who dictate morality that we're all supposed to wear sad faces and talk about his goodness in hushed tones.

[choie]

1. Agree with you Bettie.

[katmondoo]

78. You are right Bettie, I agree.

I feel sorry for his family but I cannot support a wanabee dictator. I cannot see him as the future of America. I cry almost everyday when I hear the next abomination coming from Trump. A charismatic right wing supporter would never change how I feel. I do not want to hear how wonderful he was.

[malaise]

2. Let me put it this way

He was against empathy

[RockRaven]

3. You will get scolded if you don't...

Wear the scolding like a badge of pride. You are correct that he was none of those things.

[JI7]

4. After seeing the things he said I think it would be

honoring him to grave dance.

[Justice Brandeis]

5. No, no and no

And we can still say that and condemn the assassination.

[Skittles]

6. NO ONE here thinks he was a good man

the real question is: does someone who decides to become judge, jury and executioner get a pass because the victim was a vile person?

[writerJT]

34. It's pretty gross.

I remember a lot of the nasty things said by right-wingers after the shootings in Minnesota in June. The people on this board engaging in that same behavior are no different. Thankfully, they all seem to be in the minority from both extremes. Unfortunately, they’re the ones keeping the cycle of violence going.

[Skittles]

43. it's disgusting

but then, a lot people think Mangione is some sort of fucking hero

[58Sunliner]

80. How about you pull up those quotes and then post the equivalent comments you found here?

[Torchlight]

92. Sounds serious

Good luck

[Cirsium]

36. Is that happening?

Is anyone here giving a pass to the shooter?

[Skittles]

42. the shooter is a gun humping piece of utter fucking SHIT

just like Luigi Mangione - and no, I don't see much of that sentiment here

[Bettie]

45. Unlike right wingers

I don't think violence is the answer to people stoking hatred.

Personally, I lack the ability to give a fig about that particular man being dead.

I also find it ironic that he dismissed empathy as something that wasn't real and spoke of firearm deaths as being a part of having an armed society.

I do not believe that the world will be worse without him in it.

Doesn't give the guy who shot him a pass. We don't know who it was at this point.

[Skittles]

47. but that's not in your OP

you infer the sentiment we are "supposed to pretend" Kirk was a good guy

um, NOPE, that is not true at all

[Bettie]

53. Not everything I think is in every post

my mind goes from thought to thought like a squirrel and I'm constantly interrupted in my household...so, no, not every stray thought goes into a post.

[Skittles]

58. ......

yeah, uh.....OK

[58Sunliner]

76. I don't see anyone who posted on DU supporting his execution.

[Just_Vote_Dem]

79. No one did

Performance art is a thing

[TheProle]

112. Thanks, Skittles

[ProudMNDemocrat]

7. Act III, Scene I of Julius Caesar. Marc Antony's sililoquy.

Marc Antony begins...

"Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears.
I come to bury Caesar, not praise him.
The evil men do lives long after them.
The good is oft interred with their bones."

Any good about Charlie Kirk may be buried with him. The vitriolic and hateful views about women, the LGBTQ+ community, Immigrants, etc, he spewed will indeed be what he is remembered for.

[Bettie]

11. And to be clear, my reaction to this wasn't happiness

it was "oh well, that's sad for people who loved him", though I honestly doubt anyone will sincerely mourn a man like him.

I dread the day that the only person whose death I will celebrate dies, because there will be so many snarking at us not to be happy about it.

[Maru Kitteh]

30. Bettie I will toast a cup of your favorite beverage and dance with you

on that one day, when that one and only person dies. We will dance.

[Bettie]

46. And someone will tell us that it is

unseemly to do so....because, reasons.

[littlemissmartypants]

59. It's not simply snark though...

littlemissmartypants reply to hamsterjill 10:07 PM

47. "Sometimes, the universe just reminds us that it's a powerful thing." This is a very astute point! ...


The finger wagging, from those here who like to claim that we adults, who live in a free society with freedom of speech, need them to belittle some of us for expressing emotions are not only pedantic in their obsessive beliefs but are also being disrespectful.

Each of us, as free thinking adults, are entitled to police ourselves and express our feelings.

To attempt to silence someone that is telling you how they feel is a symptom of a deep psychological disturbance.

It's either a symptom of fear, of the need to exert power over others or the expression of the belief that only the very righteous are entitled to have feelings.

Plus, it expresses that those that express their, judged to be contrarian, emotions are wrong in their beliefs and are not entitled to their unique emotions.

Such judgment is also, whether deliberate or unconscious, sometimes an expression of a form of emotional abuse.

Thank you, hamsterjill. ❤️

https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=20626976

[Du916]

63. I posted elsewhere

That I was at best apathetic when I heard Kirk had been assassinated. My first thought was that there is now one less dumbfuck to wear a silly red hat. I then thought about the Clarence Darrow quote: “I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.” Of course I don’t condone violence, but I sometimes think that Trump and his minions are making violence inevitable, maybe even intentionally.

[Feel Good Inc]

33. Antony's speech actually ended up praising Caesar...

And was used to turn the public against Brutus and in favor of Caesar's legacy and against those, namely Brutus, who killed Caesar.

Let's hope we don't see something similar here.

[sl8]

95. Yes, that choice of speeches struck me as pretty odd, too.

It casts Kirk in Caesar's role, but the whole point of Marc Antony's speech was to praise Caesar and villify Caesar's opponents.

I doubt that anyone on DU wishes to praise Kirk and villify his opponents.

[returnee]

75. Show me the good.

Kirk was off my radar. The only good thing I’ve heard so far was that he was willing to debate. But then so was William F Buckley and he was a vile human being.

[tulipsandroses]

8. I will repeat what I said in other threads. I wish a better world for his kids than he wished for them.

If a woman is raped, her rapist is murdered, is she supposed to have empathy or not speak ill of him?
Kirk inflicted devastating trauma - that will last for generations. I am not an "issue". My gay son is not an "issue." Our humanity is not just a debate or political disagreement.
Don't ask trauma victims to have empathy for the person/s inflicting trauma or police how people should process their trauma.

[BannonsLiver]

18. This is very fair IMO.

[ShazzieB]

109. I agree with this, 100%.

Especially this:

Don't ask trauma victims to have empathy for the person/s inflicting trauma or police how people should process their trauma.

To that, I would add: Don't try to tell anyone how they "should" feel, about anything, ever.

This is something I feel VERY strongly about. Nothing pisses me off more than someone telling me or anyone else that we're not feeling the "right" feels. No one has tried to tell me how I "should" feel about Kirk's death, at least not yet, but the first person who tries will get an earful from me -- or maybe I should say a screenful!

I barely knew who Charlie Kirk was when he was alive. I'd heard the name and read a few vile sounding quotes from him here at DU, but that's the extent of it. I've been learning a little more since the shooting, but none of it makes him any less of a complete stranger to me. There's no way I'm going to "mourn his loss," because his death is not a personal loss to me.

Lastly (and this may be a bit more controversial to some), while I don't approve of murder in principle, i don't necessarily feel exactly the same way about every individual death. Different people have different impacts on those around them and on the world at large, and to me it seems reasonable to react to someone's death in accordance with the kind of impact they had during their lifetime. I will leave it to the reader to draw their own conclusions about Kirk's impact and feel whatever way they feel about things, and ask others to return the favor. That is all.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

9. Wrong site. The people you refer to are Republicons. You can't find a single one here on DU.

But, I hear from the people who dictate morality that we're all supposed to wear sad faces and talk about his goodness in hushed tones.

The Party of Personal Responsibility, the people banning library books, the people mortified by drag queens, the groups who want to deny homosexuals and trans people their rights, they are the moral dictators demanding sad faces and talking about his "goodness" (in their view).

You will be unable to link to any post on DU where someone unsarcastically says we should be sad about him or we should describe his work as "goodness" or "kind" or "decent" or anything remotely close to that.

[Tribetime]

23. Thank you nt

[Paladin]

93. Yeah, but there's a shitload of "We Must Be NICE Democrats" scolding going on, here.

And frankly, I'm tired of it.

[Klarkashton]

10. George Lincoln Rockwell comes to mind. Nobody

Knows the motive of this assassination.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

64. You got me to look it up (not hard). Killed by his own party member angry he was kicked out. . . . . nt

[Klarkashton]

72. Yes it's hard to predict these things.

[ZDU]

12. One should only say good of the dead...

He's dead. Good.

My sympathy for his children. May the find peace

[Ponietz]

13. I saw someone asking not to be gleeful about it

I’m good with that. Otherwise, stir some more shit if you must.

[IzzaNuDay]

14. Oh hell no!

It is regrettable he died so violently. However he cast out the net of hate, intolerance, bigotry, and division, even in his final words.

For Charlie’s parents specifically: are you really proud of your son, and all that he said? Especially about his thoughts on empathy, and his thoughts on acceptable gun violence?

[RobinA]

107. He Reaped

what he sowed. That's about all I have say about it. Although I might have a few more thoughts if he was shot by his own side. But whatever side the shooter is on, Kirk sowed hatred, he reaped it.

[doc03]

15. He has my thoughts and prayers. nt

[EdmondDantes_]

16. I haven't seen that. I've seen people saying grave dancing is crass

He wasn't a good person. One of the reasons he wasn't a good a person is his lack of empathy. I find that lowering my morals doesn't really make me feel like a good person. My standards don't change based on the other person.

As Charlie Chaplin said "My pain may be the reason for somebody's laugh. But my laugh must never be the reason for somebody's pain."

[Aussie105]

17. How a person lives their life and how they die

are two unrelated observations.

You are free to say 'speak no ill of the dead', but don't try to sugarcoat who he was, how he lived his life.

[flvegan]

19. Charlie Kirk was murdered???!!

I figured there would be at least a couple OPs about it here regarding such an event!



/s

[mcar]

20. Even some here are scolding

As I've said in those threads, I have sympathy for his family and the students who witnessed his murder.

Kirk was an evil racist and sexist who encouraged hate and violence. He reaped what he sowed.

[MurrayDelph]

21. Did I want him murdered? No.

But I shall give him and his family all of the sympathy and empathy he had for other murder victims.

In other words, let's get back to the Epstein story.

[LogDog75]

22. Murdering someone over their views is wrong

If we are to truly live up to the ideals of the U.S. Constitution then we need to support people's right to free speech without violent reaction from others. I doubt I'd agree with anything Charlie Kirk said but I would support his right to say it. Yes, we have Freedom of Speech, within limits, and that means we also have to take responsibility for what we say. If you don't like what someone else said then use your Freedom of Speech to respond to what was said.

Once we start using violence as a means to respond to what we disagree with then we diminish or begin to lose our right to Freedom of Speech. This includes those who advocate using their "Second Amendment right" to stifle the voices of others. One of my favorite authors is Issac Asimov. Asimov wrote The Foundation Novels and one quote sums it up succinctly:

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

Regardless of anyone's view of Charlie Kirk, murdering them is not the solution.

[Orrex]

25. "Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent"

And the last resort of the powerless.

I can't think of a single reichwing propagandist whose death I'd morn, not least because they've spent decades mocking our attempts at empathy and understanding and outreach.

I'll save my tears for someone who hasn't used their power and influence to corrupt the nation and cause actual, tangible harm to many millions.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

66. ... and "Patriotism is the first refuge of the scoundrel" -- Ambrose Bierce correcting Johnson or was it Boswell. . . nt

[Bettie]

69. AH yes, empathy...Kirk was not a fan of that

Turning Point USA CEO and co-founder Charlie Kirk once said, "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage."

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-empathy-quote/

[Wiz Imp]

39. It is not known at this time why Kirk was shot.

Saying it was done over his views is pure speculation.

[Orrex]

70. I've said nothing of the kind.

I'm simply rejecting Hardin's simplistic notions of the occasional necessity of violence.

[Wiz Imp]

71. Check again. I wasn't replying to you.

I was responding to post #22 that said "Murdering someone over their views is wrong" which assumes Kirk was killed over his views. That may turn out to be true, but it is in no way known at this point.

[Orrex]

73. Ah yes. My mistake. Sorry about that.

[Orrex]

24. I hope that the pearl-clutchers are ready for the world-shaking celebrations when Trump finally dies

[3rdGenAntifa]

27. Longdog75...We will try to express your concerns when you meet your demise by their hands.

You will be considered a saint in a few hundred years.

[LogDog75]

116. We are all responsible for our actions

and I don't care what you think of me when I'm dead. The point of my post is political violence isn't the solution to our problems. Political violence has never change anything in the U.S.. The assignations of President Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy in the 60s didn't change anything. The assassinations of Harvey Milk and George Moscone in San Fransisco in 1978 didn't change anything. The assignation attempt on Reagan and Trump didn't change anything. The assignation atempt on Gabby Giffods didn't change anything. The assignation of Melissa Hortman and the wounding of fellow state legislator John Hoffman didn't change anything.

Political ideologies are exchanged in the marketplace of ideas where we can argue and question them and their intentions as well as accept or reject them. Injecting political violence doesn't change the ideologies but only serves to enrage those who share the ideas of the person targeted. If you can't compete in the marketplace of political ideologies then you should exit the marketplace.

There are many people on the right-side of the political spectrum whom I don't like or agree with but I'll never wish them harm nor will I take pleasure in their deaths. Rather, I'll take pleasure in defeating their ideas by convincing others to reject the right-wing ideology and vote those holding those views out of office.

[johnnyfins]

26. I mean, he did say how much he loved Jesus

But despised the word empathy. Last I checked THAT is THE word to describe Jesus' teachings.

[iemanja]

28. No

and I seriously doubt anyone said such a thing. I saw one post suggesting that grave dancing made DU look bad, which it does. But nowhere did the OP say you had to lie about his life.

[RainCaster]

29. tots and pairs

That's all I've got for him.

[IronLionZion]

31. There was a school shooting today too that isn't getting much attention

I guarantee those children deserve more sympathy

[3rdGenAntifa]

32. He was a Nazi peice of shit!

Stop apologizing for these fuckers! They would drink wine out of your skulls if allowed. Wake the fuck up fellow DU'ers.

[live love laugh]

44. Hell yeah! ALL of THIS!!!!

[The Grand Illuminist]

98. Exactly

Plus political affiliation, ideology and party are NOT protected classes.

[soldierant]

35. You don't have toshed any tears or say anything nce about him.

Nor refrain fro saying anything true about him..

But you don't have to praise the shooter or ecen excuse the shooter.

Killing people we disagree with is not the way we do thigs.

Don't take if from me, take it from Malcolm Nance - there's a video of him posted here:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/132287946
Malcolm has spent his entire adut life protecting democracy. I only serces ten years myself. When he speaks, I listen.

[3rdGenAntifa]

38. I love Malcolm Nance

And I follow him closely! If you could catch him in a personal space, he would tell you the same fucking thing. I'm not advocating Violence, but at this point they, American Nazis, are forcing this inevitable outcome. Go fucking paint pictures or something if you can't handle the reality of what happens when things gets escalated to this extent. I guess I'll wait another 6 months for you to catch up.

[Bettie]

81. I haven't seen anyone praising the shooter here

or excusing them.

Granted, I have not read each and every post exhaustively, so there may have been one somewhere.

[Bettie]

84. Where has anyone praised or

excused the shooter? I have not seen that at all.

I'm very familiar with Malcolm Nance.

[Iggo]

37. He was a horrible man. Still, that should NEVER happen to ANYONE.

[3rdGenAntifa]

40. Agreed.

However, he was basically the leader of the Maga youth.

[Skittles]

49. isn't it amazing

concern about DUE PROCESS and LAW AND ORDER can just blow away with the wind depending on who the victim is

[ornotna]

41. Spot on Bettie

[EnergizedLib]

48. I can't stop other people from rehabilitating Charlie Kirk

It sure as heck won't be me who does so.

[miyazaki]

51. If this was Trump, would we get the stern finger for our celebrations?

[buzzycrumbhunger]

52. He taunted Karma and Karma slapped back

[dflprincess]

54. Thank you!

I have never bought into the "don't speak ill of the dead" crap.

Charlie Kirk should not have been shot, but dying does not undo any of the evil he spewed into the world.

[kellytore]

55. Agree!

[herding cats]

56. Oh, boy. Are the morality police saying I should be sad?

Should I be wearing sackcloth and covering myself in ashes while I moan and decry my pretty and superior sorrows across the internet?

Whelp. I already failed that test. Whoopsie! I won't lie, I'm not sad he's left the planet, but I do feel sad for his kiddos. For what it's worth I felt a lesser level of sadness for them before his horrific murder today.

What I do feel a deep sadness for is our loss of safety, and decency as a nation. We have a deeply broken system and I most definitely do not at any level endorse what took place today. Murder is always wrong. Period. End stop.

Still, I can't feel like I know some think I should over his death. I'm not happy, but it feels like it fits into our current sad reality far too well.

[canetoad]

57. There's no intrinsic law of the universe

That instructs you to mourn all humans no matter how much you dislike them.

I agree with you Bettie. I'm totally neutral about both his life and his death. I just do not care one way or another.

[samsingh]

61. And when a Democrat is shot the right wing openly

Celebrates and says it was deserved


Republicans are never held accountable for the damage they cause

[Bettie]

65. Yep....apparently, we're still stuck on

"when they go low, we go high"....and look how much good it has done, going high all the time, bringing a casserole to a gun fight.

Did they have sympathy for Paul Pelosi? Nope, they mocked him relentlessly.

Did they have sympathy for the Hortmans? Nope. None at all.

But we're the problem for being....not sad about this guy.

[tonekat]

67. A friend was taking the moral high ground

...with me on the phone tonight. I told him, yeah, I'm glad he got popped, then read him a selection of quotes from the evil bastard.

He said we can't be like them.

I said OK, fair enough. But consider; They have no trouble at all with violating the law. This forces us to realize that if we continue to follow the law at all times, while they don't, without consequences, we on this side of the aisle will go extinct pretty quickly.

[samsingh]

85. We aren't like them We card when children are shot

We don’t want Anyone to be shot

They don’t care when Democrats are shot

[samsingh]

83. That line list votes. While the sentiment is good

In reality we are saying do what you want and we will do nothing to stop you i

[Mosby]

68. I didn't know much about him until today

He was a pretty awful person, look up what he said about empathy, it's sick.

[Emile]

74. He preached hate speech.

[no_hypocrisy]

77. We can bifurcate and compartmentalize

his life and his death.

For example, his daughters don’t have a father this morning.

[Vogon_Glory]

82. I'm not going to pretend that he was a good man

And I fail to see why I should.

[valleyrogue]

86. Nobody here is.

Grave dancing says more about the self-righteous grave dancer than the person who died.

He had a wife and two small children who were witnesses to his murder. That trauma is never going to end for them.

People could simply refrain from reading articles or listening to comments about him, you know.

[maethe]

90. Really?

Argument could be made that his wife is a piece of garbage too, since she stayed with him. It's also arguable that his daughters are better off without having a hate-mongering father control their existence. So all told, can't feel bad, won't feel bad, and I think all of the self-righteous, "You can't say that-ing" is crap. There was an old saying in the west, "he needed killing" can't really argue with that either.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

101. Welcome to DU

[ProfessorGAC]

114. Feeling Bad For The Kids, Sure

I get that.
The wife was clearly complicit in his vile world view.
Empathy for the kids is easy. For the wife, it's a non-starter.

[3Hotdogs]

100. Dunno. He didn't give a shit if you, me or your kids get shot

in behalf of his precious 2nd Amendmeny.

Fuck him

[hadEnuf]

88. And when Democrats, Progressives or kids are murdered in cold blood it gets a muted "meh" from the GOP.

A few days later. Maybe.

A viscous right-wing hate monger gets shot and it's a national tragedy and flags are at half-staff.

WTF?

[Brainfodder]

89. Been on DU a while, I don't recall giving much space to ASSHOLES that die and this turd isn't RUSH reach level?

Recall his?

[pansypoo53219]

91. his ilk usually do not go this way.

thoughts + prayers.

[lark]

94. Tots and pears, that is all I have to say, tots and pears.

He wanted it, he got it. FAFO.

[Blue Ozarks]

96. I condemn both Charlie Kirk and Political Murder

I don’t see a conflict there

[The Grand Illuminist]

99. Which is the greater evil?

[Marthe48]

97. There's a tariff on tots and pears

so I'm sending 'oh nos and anyways'

(seen on fb)

[Historic NY]

102. Gun violence is gun violence.....

there was a school shooting yesterday and a shooting at a school. Kirk is a victim of Republican policies pertaining to guns and gun ownership.

[Bettie]

103. He's a victim of what he

helped to propagate.

He said that deaths were necessary to keep all the guns, so really, he died for his principles...oh, wait, he didn't mean that HE should be a victim of gun culture, he meant kids at school should pay the price.

[Raftergirl]

104. Kirk believed people getting shot and killed is the price we have to pay for 2A. Just collateral damage.

His family has now found out he is also just collateral damage from the belief’s he espoused.

[evilhime]

106. If I am sad

it is because I feel for his children . . . then again I have always had sympathy for his children becuse of the vile bigotry and hatred with which they were being raised. No clue what his wife believes -
I am also sad for the state of this country right now … I love this country but right now I don’t like it very much.

[PatrickforB]

108. Well, that does seem to be the (MAGA) party line.

Here's my take. I do have genuine compassion for Kirk, but not for some maudlin 'thoughts and prayers' reason.

My point is that every human is a spirit being having a material experience. We have these clay vessels called bodies that carry around our soul, mind and immortal spirit, but we are not our bodies. We are more.

I believe when someone passes they rise (or descend) to that level of the astral realm where they vibrated when alive. Because consciousness is energy and energy doesn't die. It merely changes form. The only thing that dies is the physical body. Not the consciousness.

This is why there are two points of compassion:
1. I wish Kirk had had time to 'wake up' (become 'woke') to a basic sense of morality beyond raw greed and being a shill for the billionaires, which is what MAGA is. If he had, and was able to feel some really genuine remorse for his actions and smug statements, it would have been really good for him.

2. Based on the statement above, my reasoning is that the laws - cause and effect, polarity, vibration and the rest - are sometimes tempered by mercy extended by the Source, however you envision the creative force. I usually call it God. All of us are subject to these laws at all times in feeling, thought, word and deed. In other words if you go around saying mean-spirited and ignorant things like Kirk did, you pay for those by bearing the full weight of the negative wishes you expressed toward others. But if I want divine mercy extended to me for those times I don't act in a completely adult and moral way, then I must necessarily want that mercy to be extended to all others.

Now don't get me wrong - all these MAGA people are about to suffer prodigiously because of Trump, but Trump and the rest of his mobbed-up administration need to be held accountable for their acts, tried and imprisoned when found guilty. But spiritually? I hope right up until the end they could feel some remorse. Hope this makes sense.

Because in vulgar terms, Kirk was kind of a dirtbag. He could have been such a better human being.

[Raster]

110. Fuck that noise.

Kirk’s source of income was peddling hate and division.
Good riddance.

[TheDemsshouldhireme]

111. Ive seen a lot of the comments on Kirks Murder

and about half of them are no better than Laura Loomers x post of George Floyd this past summer. I see Oscar Wylde comments about pleasure, a ton about Karma, Betty Davis quotes with "good," sorry Charlie the Tuna gifs, all the while trying to act like some of you are any different than a Loomer. A lot of people have become what they despise. Sorry but Michelle Obama was right. I don't want to be part of any race to the lowest level.

[Bettie]

113. You are certainly welcome to put him on a pedestal and

tell us all how wonderful you think he was.

[TheDemsshouldhireme]

117. Nope, disagreed with about everything he ever said.

I just dont take pleasure at a murder or feel its jokey gif time. Its that simple.

[oldsoldierfadingfast]

115. I do not condone anyone...

shooting another. However, I think that there is a great number of us who will not miss Charlie!

[ChicagoTeamster]

118. The racist shite in this country think so

They want to put up a statue to an obvious racist misogynist hate monger