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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025

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So the moral truth to this is that a father of two was killed, and regardless of why he was killed shooting people is bad mmmmkay.

How many fathers has Israel killed in its efforts to get the hostages back? If killing fathers of children is always bad, then surely Israel is bad! But of course, Israel is justified in killing those fathers of children, because they hit Israel first. You know what, this is sounding like the morality of a child.

You say not to fall into the leftist trap of "nuance." I say not to fall into the leftist trap of "Something bad happened to [person], therefore [person] must be correct about [ideological question]." That Charlie Kirk got shot doesn't make Charlie any more correct about anything today than he was on Tuesday, just as fag-bashing doesn't make gays correct, lynchings don't change IQ scores, and there's no tranny who could be murdered in such a way that it alters the basic contours of the trans debate.

I don't have to change with every tragedy. Reality certainly won't.

There's this odd tendency to confuse and conflate predictable human overreactions to and political exploitation of tragedies, with some kind of cosmic moral rule of the universe that needs to be followed. Israel was attacked, so Israel "must" respond, Israel has no choice. To ask Israel to consider the consequences of their actions, and how they fit into Israel's long term goals. It was always quite likely that Israel would, of course, make the wrong choices; this doesn't stop a debate club full of contrarians from Noticing the alternatives. Charlie Kirk has been shot tragically and publicly, and as a result we're likely to see a rushed and confused backlash against his perceived killers and in favor of his perceived positions. That this is likely to occur doesn't make it right, doesn't require me to march along in the parade.

Right is right, and wrong is wrong; individual tragedy doesn't change it.