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The way you're feeling is indicative of how I think a lot of conservatives feel. So many are being told that there isn't a problem, or that the statistics say "well right wingers are more badder," or that my side aggrieved them so I have no standing.
None of it is any assurance against this extremely palpable feeling that their neighbors would cheer if they died. I now know for a fact that if I were murdered - and my identity wasn't reported, only my politics, somehow - many people I consider "friends" would cheer. The feeling is not mutual! Even Charlie Kirk himself wouldn't have cheered if it happened to them.
I do not know how to reconcile this, and I understand even less why so many think they help their case when they try to deflect from this conversation. None of the ones I know seem to understand how this comes off to me, and it feels like it should be pretty obvious. Instead, we need to reframe the conversation. What about a mass shooting? What about FBI statistics? What about something a nazi did ten years ago that we both agreed was terrible the day of?
Okay, can we talk about that after we acknowledge that a bunch of people I trust are implicitly saying that they want me dead and even more are trying to minimize this issue by? I'm not alone in this, and it's not just my problem. What good they expect to come of this is beyond me.
Eh, I think it's easy to carry this too far.
If the Lefty version of Kirk was killed in similar fashion, a lot of rightwingers would also be gleefully dancing on the grave. (Especially right now, when the risk of leftwing cancellation is the lowest it has been in a very long time.)
It's very hard to estimate which "side" is "worse" on an issue like this (whereas on some issues, there is a clear asymmetry, like publicly expressed racism against whites and sexism against men).
Though I must say that, right now, as an "antiwoke" atheist classical liberal, many on the Left would certainly celebrate my death as a racist/sexist/fascist/transphobe and probably the Right wouldn't as a godless heathen, though I have only voted for Democrats for president and have harshly criticized the Progressive Left and the MAGA Right while holding social views roughly consistent with a typical 2012 Obama voter.
Presumably a leftist similar in some way to Charlie Kirk has been killed at some point in the last ten years (and if not, is that an interesting datapoint in its own right?). Can you point to an example of "a lot of rightwingers" who were "gleefully dancing on the grave"? For the left, I can point to four examples of this phenomenon happening with murders and attempted murders within the last year and change: the attempted assassination of trump (with some of his supporters killed/wounded in the attempt), Luigi's assassination of the healthcare exec,
Anthony Karmelo's murder of a fellow student at a track meet[EDIT - Bad example, see discussion below], and now Kirk's assassination. I think you should point to an actual example if you are going to make this comparison.You might be right that if this happens in the future, right-wingers might respond in kind. But this pattern occurring
fourthree times in the last year-and-change one way, and zero times the other way since the invention of social media, is the sort of data from which it seems to me we ought to be able to begin drawing conclusions.The best counterexample I can think of is the death of Osama Bin Laden. A lot of right-wingers very publicly celebrated that death on social media. If your argument is that leftists view Charlie Kirk roughly the way rightists view Osama Bin Laden, you wouldn't get disagreement from me, but I'm not sure it would help your argument.
How a Young Activist’s Murder Has Been Gleefully Distorted Online
To this day right wingers on Twitter still bring up the image of him trying to run and tripping on the bench right before he was stabbed as a sort of Always Sunny meme. A lot of them took a similar line that leftists took with Kirk - "I don't agree with this but he did".
It seemed like the Left as a whole just avoided this like the plague. It seemed to be a specifically black tribal thing.
Archive link to above article
Sharing emotionally manipulative and outright deceptive writing is not an ideal way to service your point. The criticism of Carson was because of his activity on X. I could link any one of his posts, I'll link this one. At the NYPD, to which he replied "Your cops are subhuman." He was such a kind man, he only cared about garbage.
As someone who keeps a close eye on those righty circles and who doesn't shy from graphic content, I couldn't tell you the last time I saw his murder shared, but this could be selection bias. What I have seen are plentiful criticisms of his girlfriend for her behavior continuing from that night.
But really, this is accepting framing, and I don't do that. The righties criticize Carson for his belief that socioeconomic conditions precipitate the willingness of an 18 year old to wander a city and murder a stranger by repeatedly stabbing him. His beliefs directly related with and contributed to the circumstances of his murder. That's not why lefties are criticizing Kirk. Had Kirk agitated for and supported violence against his opposition -- actual violence, not the child's "you said mean words" -- he would have lived and died by the sword. He didn't. He hurt their feelings, and they say that's a reason to say he deserved it as they dance on his grave. These are not comparable.
I don't really understand why we need to tear down Carson some more. He's not a saint but neither was Charlie Kirk. Kirk also has a mountain of quotes that the left can mine to justify celebrating his death, and I believe they are wrong to do so too.
Joe Biden is a bumbling dementia filled Alzheimer's corrupt tyrant who should honestly be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.
Granted, not extra-judicial violence, so maybe not exactly "living and dying by the sword," but the following is not exactly that either:
That's like arguing Charlie Kirk argued for escalation and turning up the temperature, which produced a political environment that precipitated his assassination. The cause and effect between Carson's beliefs and his murder are just as far removed.
This is like the Monty Python sketch about non-illegal robbery. Granted, they're not actually doing the thing people are complaining about, but....
It's still advocating for violence.
Sure, "my political opposition should be tried for treason and then shot" may have a thin veneer of plausible deniability to chronic overthinkers like you or I, but most people from both sides are just going to hear "my political opposition should be shot".
Are there many cases of someone being tried for treason and exonerated? Treason does sound like the "TPTCurrentlyB want you dead" charge.
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