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It is Okay to Think That Charlie Kirk was not Literally Jesus.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to get shot in the jugular for expressing controversial political opinions. I actually agreed with many of Charlie Kirk's controversial political opinions. The thing about controversial political opinions though, is that lots of people don't like them. If you are a person who does not like Charlie Kirk's political opinions, here are some things that would be perfectly understandable for you to think or feel upon hearing the news that Charlie Kirk was shot and killed:
"Charlie Kirk once said gun rights are worth the cost of a few shooting deaths. Kinda funny now huh? I wonder if he's changed his mind."
"Sucks he died like that, but I'm kinda glad I don't have to see his tiny face spouting talking points anymore."
"Charlie Kirk was a massive hack. I think we should care about the kids shot at that school in Colorado more than him."
"Charlie Kirk wanted me kicked out of the country because of my political opinions. It's hard for me to feel bad for him."
To be clear, all of these are tasteless and (in my opinion) poorly thought-out, but they are well within the bounds of civil discourse. None of these are beyond the pale. None of these should get one fired from one's unrelated job. None of these are even close to inciting or advocating for violence.
I was shocked today when I saw a Republican Congressman announce a woke-era pressure campaign againt people who "belittled" the assasination. Apparently I have a much longer memory than many people. I still remember 2020. I still remember George Floyd. It wasn't just the riots, it wasn't just the demonization of physical policing tactics, it was the Orwellian psycholigical tyranny of not being able to express nuanced or contrary feelings about a tragic event. Never again. In a free society, people should be able to express their thoughts and feelings on major events, even if they aren't entirely thought-out or sanitized.
Funny how the political class that think assassinating people with drones should be done regularly are so opposed to assassinations all of a sudden.
I'm regularly dismayed at the low quality of thinking displayed on topics like this. From you, from leftists in my feed, from general discourse. This sort of absurd equivalence is a case in point. You can absolutely believe any combination of "Assassinating people is good/bad" + "Killing people with drones is good/bad" without conflict. It all depends on the premises you start with. And you don't have to agree with any of those premises, but what you are doing is what a lot of the low-reflection normies do, which is pretend that everyone shares their premises, point out that the beliefs of other people do not match those premises, and then scream "Aha! Hypocrite!"
It is not hypocritical to believe something based on premises different from yours. It may be wrong, and you can absolutely make an argument that your position is moral and someone else's position is immoral. But that doesn't mean their beliefs are inconsistent.
So "Assassination versus drone strikes." The pro-drone strike "political class" thinks drone strikes are okay because they believe drone strikes are being used for a legitimate war purpose against military targets. If some civilians die, that is unfortunate collateral damage. Again (I will say this sloooowly): you don't have to agree with that. But that's the defense of drone strikes, and it doesn't make "Therefore they should be okay with public assassinations" some kind of gotcha. If you want to make that argument connect you have to make an argument that there is no moral distinction between drone strikes in a conflict zone (I say "conflict zone" and not "war zone" because a more sophisticated argument could actually present arguments for why some of these conflict zones should not be legitimate zones for military actions) and shooting people on college campuses with a rifle. It is an argument you can make! You could argue it from pacifism, or from the perspective that politics is war by other means, or any number of other angles that actually put a meaningful analysis behind "Why is shooting your enemy on a college campus worse than drone-striking him in a combat zone?" Or "How do we distinguish between combatants and non-combatants?"
But somehow I don't think that is actually your argument.
It is disingenuous to argue "They believe killing in one situation is right, therefore they cannot object to killing in any situation." It's like arguing "You think killing in self-defense is moral, therefore murder should be moral." Or conversely, "If murder is immoral, then capital punishment is immoral." The latter is absolutely something many people believe, but they are disingenuous when they claim pro-death penalty people are pro-murder, because pro-death penalty people do not agree with them about what constitutes murder.
There used to be rules of wars and strict protocol surrounding them. The republicans have firmly rejected this notion even saying that they would militarily attack the Hague if an American was tried for war crimes. The republicans and mainstream democrats have completely rejected the idea of the Geneva convention.
If your concept is "I can kill however I want because I am special and rules don't apply to me" you can't be shocked when someone else follows your line of reasoning. The view of Afghan villagers weren't taken into consideration when their weddings were blown up and this is fine according to Kirk with friends. But he and his world view has to be taken into consideration when he gets wacked.
Either we have rules of engagement that are enforced globally or we have personal preferences. He lived and died by the latter view.
Is your position that the US doesn't follow international rules of war and therefore all US citizens are legitimate targets of violence anywhere?
If so, I think that's a really stupid and immoral position to hold, but it's internally consistent. That said, you still can't argue that your enemies are being inconsistent because they don't agree with you.
I don't think Functor is David French in disguise but that isn't far off from French's analysis of how the admin would justify the Venezuelan boat strike.
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He wasn't a random civilian but a high up political figure. Clearly the US considers those to be valid targets for assassination.
This is exactly the kind of disingenuous argumentation I'm talking about.
Your wording is very precise, yet weaselly: "a high up political figure." It implies much but says nothing. Because "high up political figure" implies a politician, or a government official, or at least someone with major influence over the government. But Charlie Kirk was mostly known for debating college students on YouTube and getting out the vote for Donald Trump. Sure, that makes him a public figure with some political influence, but he wasn't the chair of the Republican Party. He was a commentator. A gadfly. That's not what you meant when you tried to equate him with, say, a Hezballah commander or an Iranian state official.
It is a legitimate moral argument to make that the US or Israel should not target the latter with drone strikes. We can debate that. We can disagree about that. But show me the US assassinating a YouTuber.
So once again, let's be clear here: you are arguing that any US public figure, like, say, Ben Shapiro or Ezra Klein, would be legitimate targets because of US policies in the Middle East?
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