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The House adopts a resolution honoring the life of Charlie Kirk; 95 Democrats voted "yes", 58 voted "no", 38 voted "present".
Were I in a position to do so, would I vote to acquiesce to the left's request to honor one of their slain heroes? A George Floyd or a Joseph Rosenbaum, or perhaps a historical figure like Lenin or Mao? It seems that two distinct answers are in order.
The first answer is: yes, of course, "by default". I would be happy to vote yes "by default", with a taciturn attitude, as an expression of my own amiable and magnanimous nature, and out of a want of avoiding the appearance of pettiness. I can't deny that such a gesture would be a matter of pride, an attempt to introduce my own form of "unruliness" into the proceedings...
But supposing we wanted something more than a "default" course of action, something we could fully assent to in good conscience? Supposing then?
I admit to possessing a certain degree of permeability; there is hardly a passion amongst my enemies that cannot inspire a concomitant passion within me, if it is expressed and held rightly (allowing that "rightly" for me is "wrongly" for a great many others). I want to know that it means something to you. I want to know that anything at all means anything to you. Then we can walk together, if only for a time. It is not the expression of raw untrammeled sentiment, nor is it the expression of a rational program of means and ends, but rather it is something that threads the needle of navigating the Scylla and Charybdis and excavates the unnameable space between them. (Don't take this as an invitation to pen your own panegyrics; I have not the talent to evaluate them, I'm in no state to hear confessions, not me... the most I can do for anyone is to remind them of the proper standards of decorum, to gesture insistently that the question must be treated with an appropriate amount of respect...)
The primary distinction for me is not between good and evil, or purity and corruption, but between the ensouled and the soulless. The indifference with which this concept is often treated is simply more proof to me that the distinction has, in fact, latched onto something real. Undoubtedly, many of my enemies and I walk the same path; and conversely, anyone on my "side" who lacks the requisite sense of aesthetics is an ally of convenience only, and not someone who could be counted on to genuinely relieve me of my loneliness.
The wise philosopher, Shoe0nhead once said, "Personally, I'd rather live in a world full of Charlie Kirks who would sit down and debate than a world full of people who agree with me but would murder people who don't."
I've never seen Shoe look as serious, and as distressed, as in her latest video. Things are getting bad.
For reference, the video is here.
It was very strange. I do think she is overreacting, but the video crystalized for me why the reaction to Kirk's assassination has been so disproportionate. Every media personality and politics influencer to the right of Ezra Klein either knew Charlie personally or is close to someone who knew Charlie personally. That impacts their rhetoric. It impacts their state of mind. People are a lot more willing to throw the constitution in the trash when their friend is murdered than when state politician #586 is killed. I think the liberals are right that this is "unfair" in some abstract sense, but that's just how the world works.
I don't think it's just being 2 degrees of separation away from a murder victim. Some of the online commentators I watch, including Shoe, feel like their life is genuinely at risk now, because it's seemingly within the Overton window to both say "fascists should be shot", and "this person I don't like is a fascist, trust me". She lists a huge number of things that people have accused her of being fascist for.
But I do think you're right that she's overreacting; vivid news like this makes extremely rare events seem much more likely. Rationally, I don't think we're anywhere close to normalizing political murder, even if we're taking some steps in that direction.
But this has been the case for at least ten years, and the so-called "fascists" remained remarkably unshot until about a week ago. There is a sense in which politics has become higher stakes now, but that is a function of the underlying reality, not a function of the words we use to describe that reality. I think it's far more likely that Tyler Robinson was pushed over the edge by the (AFAICT accurate) report that the DOJ was considering a ban on transgenders owning firearms than he was by people on the internet calling Republicans "fascists" or "Nazis" instead of less offensive terms like "stupid" or "insensitive".
Keep in mind that Charlie Kirk might be the most assassinatable conservative in modern history. His whole schtick was going into hostile territory at universities across the country and holding open-air events in locations with great sniper cover and sightlines.
Ehhhhhhhh...
"Opposing Obamacare is Killing People!" -> Congresional Baseball shooting where, but for the grace of God and Hodgkinson's bad aim, a nontrivial part of the GOP congressional caucus could have been killed.
"Opposing BLM/supporting Trump is fascist!" -> Killing of Aaron Danielson, the kidnapping and torture of a white mentally-disabled person (incidentally, I just found out when digging this back up that the animals who did this all got less than 10 years in prison and one only got 4 years' probation and 200 hours of community service, and I'm horrified all over again), and having a philosophy professor bash your head with a bike lock.
"Right-wingers should be killed!" -> Killing of Cayler Ellison
And that's just the obvious cases that actually made the media - there's plenty more attempts and foiled plots, including the two attempt on Trump during the 2020 campaign, the wacko who flew out from California to try and kill Justice Kavanaugh, the "Ruth Sent Us" firebombings, BLM riots, etc.
It's not like it's all been sunshine and roses out there.
You could add the 'ICE is disappearing people like gestapa!' -> 4th of July attack on ICE in Texas.
Gestapo.
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