Tag: Charlie Kirk

By on

For those people, on both sides of the political divide (think Rob Reiner and Charlie Kirk), who feel the need to respond to the murder of someone you personally hated and you passionately disagreed with, try silence. I know this is difficult to understand in a world where we believe that people are waiting for our every word but it is true. You actually can choose to say nothing at all.

I realize that famous people are often asked to respond in situations like this but that doesn’t mean your response is required. This is particularly important when you don’t like the person in question. If you must say something, try: I need to gather my thoughts about this and will be issuing a statement soon. Then, for God’s sake, come up with a polite neutral statement that is vetted by a hundred or so people before releasing it to the public.

Let’s try to avoid: He was a son of a bitch and I am happy he drowned in a pool of blood. Yes, you may feel that way but you can wait a few weeks, or better still months, before actually saying it. But, please, please wait until the wound is a little less fresh. No one looks good gloating over a murdered body.

By on

This equivalence debate surrounding the Charlie Kirk murder bores the shit out of me. You guys said horrible things after Charlie Kirk was murdered. Well, Charlie Kirk said these horrible thing first and that was worse. And, by the way, your mother wears army boots. It is childish and meaningless. This back and forth of who said horrible things about who is impossibly long and never complete. So trying to pinpoint where this all started is a fool’s errand. No one will be happy with the other side’s starting point.

The takeaway from this back and forth is that you are responsible for what you say. This means you might think twice before opening your mouth to say something nasty about someone you don’t like. But, if, instead, you want to determine who started it, by all means, take all the time you want. I am sure some Biblical scholar could take this back to Cain and Able. That will be so very helpful in resolving the present crisis.

By on 1 Comment

Unless someone can provide evidence to support some criminal conspiracy was afoot, the only person who deserves blame for the murder of Charlie Kirk is Tyler Robinson who is accused of shooting him. It is important to emphasize accused because, at this point, we, and by we I mean the public, the press and the pundits, know very little to ascertain anything.

This, of course, doesn’t stop anyone from speculating. There is all this finger pointing. The shooter was Trans. The shooter was left wing. The shooter was a Mormon. The shooter came from a MAGA family. The shooter was a white man. All of these may be true but none of these groups bear any responsibility in the shooting.

Charlie Kirk fans want revenge. Against who exactly? Saying you don’t like someone or his politics and wishing them dead is not a crime. It is akin to someone in a fit of anger saying I could kill him. The important thing is they didn’t. It was a feeling that wasn’t put into action. There is nothing wrong with that and I don’t see the point of pursuing a vendetta against anyone who did. Poor taste isn’t a crime and, by all means, feel free to point out the bad taste but that is about all anyone should do about that.

Jimmy Kimmel eluded to some vague connection of the accused being a white man with a wink wink and nudge nudge, like this is supposed to mean something. I am a white man, Jimmy Kimmel is a white man, is he saying that white men are prone to murder? It is as ridiculous of a statement as the Texas congressman who wants to take Trans people off the street because a few of them have been involved in some highly visible crimes. We no more can take Trans people off the street than we can take White men off the street. These are meaningless bits of information that tell us absolutely nothing about what happened.

Here is a time when speculation is particularly dangerous. Charlie Kirk was a controversial figure. Some people are angry that he was murdered and others blame him for his contributions to a poisonous political environment. Pulling these meaningless facts out as if they mean something is pouring more fuel on an already burning fire. Now is a very good time to keep your mouth shut until you know more and then, and only then, punish the man who actually pulled the trigger instead of a group who might share some identification with the shooter.

By on

A few months back I read an advice columnist on Slate that shook me. I wanted to say something about but what exactly I wanted to say was still coalescing. The shooting of Charlie Kirk reminded of this column and what I wanted to say.

A bride had asked a friend to wear a piece of clothing that would piss off the bride’s MAGA loving in-laws. At the time, I thought why would anyone want to deliberately piss off their new in-laws and his family. On her wedding day no less. The bride said that the new in-laws were constantly disrespecting her and her fiance never supported her.

First, and most importantly, this marriage sounds doomed and not because of politics either. This woman expects support from her man and isn’t getting it. So pissing off his family is going to change this how? If he doesn’t support you now, while he is still in the wooing stage of the relationship, what makes her think he is going to get better at it after a brawl at her wedding. He has shown his character and she is on her own with his relatives.

Then, there is a big difference between people bringing up their politics independently of your prompting and you waving a red cape at them and expecting them to sit quietly while you taunt them. Maybe you would get along better with your MAGA loving in-laws if you didn’t try to piss them off. I know it is a stretch but maybe give it a try.

I have a strategy that works every time I am with people whose politics I disagree with. I avoid politics altogether. We can chat endlessly about the weather, sports, movies, children, and so forth as long as we tip toe around politics. Which is a surprisingly easy strategy and almost always successful. If politics does come up, I have found saying something like “I don’t think we agree on politics so maybe lets not talk about it” works well to defuse the situation. I have found people, on the whole, prefer civil conversations as opposed to knock out drag out quarrels over Donald Trump.

Which brings me to Charlie Kirk. So many people want to both acknowledge the wrongness of his assassination and still make a point about how horrible a person he was. You really don’t have to say he was horrible person. It is irrelevant to the present situation. All you need to say is nobody should be shot for what they say and I am sorry his family has to suffer through this. Then do the easiest thing of all keep your God Damn mouth shut.

There is a time for political quarrels. This isn’t the time. You may have a lot to say about Charlie Kirk’s politics. It will keep and you can raise it again when the time arises.

By on

Jesse Watters, Fox pundit, wants revenge for the murder of Charlie Kirk. From who exactly? We don’t know who murdered Kirk yet. The justice system, given the notoriety of the case, will probably capture a suspect and he will go to trial. That is all the revenge anyone should expect in this case.

So who is Watters angry with? The people who pointed out that Kirk may have had it coming because of the inflammatory things he said. Isn’t that Watters’ point about Kirk? Nobody deserves to be killed for what they say. So while he defends the right of someone like Kirk to say what he pleases, even if it is inflammatory, he is also calling for revenge on all Left Wingers for saying terrible things about Kirk after he was killed.

Revenge is a great but temporary feeling. It feels good right up to the point that the other guy counters with his revenge. This usually turns out bloody for everyone so everyone gets hurt and the revenge becomes endless. Is this what Watters wants? Kirk’s murderer deserves revenge, everyone else is innocent even if they said terrible things about him afterwards.

What about words? Can’t words incite someone to violence? Certainly they can. The Bible can incite some people to violence. But lets be clear, words don’t kill. People do. You can’t exact revenge on everyone who disagrees with you, particularly if they restrict their disagreement to words. Also if Watters is so worried about words inciting violence, he might want to temper the words coming out of his mouth,

By on

I have to remind myself that Conservatives believe that children actually listen to teachers and parents and that teachers and parents have some influence on what children will actually think and believe. Now I don’t mean to totally discount parents and teachers. They do have some influence to the extent that what the authority figure is saying makes sense to the child but once the adult has left the tracks, many children are apt to begin seeing life in their own way and not at all like the parents wanted. This is why I have some different ideas about the world than my Catholic parents and my Catholic school teachers despite their active indoctrination of me to become a Roman Catholic.

I think this is why so many Conservatives are afraid of sex education and Critical Race Theory. They assume that the mere mention of these things in class will influence the thinking of their children. This is why they go after the public school system with particular vigor, they think that indoctrination is possible and they want to be the ones indoctrinating and not those crazy Liberals. I wish I could assure them that children only care about their education to the extent of what is going to get them a good grade for the class. Otherwise their minds are elsewhere.

So I was amused to read Chaya Raichik and Charlie Kirk’s intention of outbreeding the Left. They think they will rid the world of pre-marital sex, gays, transexuals, abortion, birth control and, most importantly, Marxists which is loosely defined as anyone to the left of Marjorie Taylor Greene if only children heard the right things. That this didn’t work in the past should be evidence enough but somehow Raichik and Kirk believe the there were these halcyon days were people actually behaved well and listened to their elders.

Good luck with that. My parents had five children. All having, at least, 12 years of Catholic education and, much to my parent’s chagrin, they got no practicing Catholics out of the deal. Think about that. They paid extra money to the Catholic Church to indoctrinate their children so that when we reached maturity, their children would be Catholic. Well, they struck out. They had 5 children and got no Catholics after all that effort. And, to top it off, we are all to the left of Marjorie Taylor Greene.

And my parents never gave up. When we returned for the summer during college, my father insisted that we attend Mass. Despite the fact that our attendance while away was iffy at best and more accurately described as seldom to never. Arguing with him was pointless. He’d rather us sit dumbly in church, not listening to the priest, day dreaming about sex and parties or anything other than the Roman Catholic Church and Jesus than us doing something constructive like watching TV. He though that some day while we were sitting in church that a bolt of lightening would strike us and we would realize the error of our ways. It never happened to me nor did it happen my brothers and sisters.

Indoctrination doesn’t work. Even if you think it is working, even if the child is nodding their heads and passing their religion classes with A’s, you really don’t know what is going on in the mind of the child. So, using my family history as an example, instead of 5 Christian Conservatives, the Catholic schools turned out 5 people with slightly different ideas, so Raichik and Kirk can breed away but they shouldn’t be surprised if their children decide to go to the Free Palestine Rally after going to a polymorphīs orgy.

By on

In an incredibly weird tirade, Charlie Kirk, conservative political activist, spoke strongly against the Birth Control Pill. The pill is horrible for single women. It makes them unhappy and unmarriageable. The single woman who uses birth control pill will die lonely and childless. Worst of all, she will be ugly too. He skips trying to persuade young women, I guess they are too frivolous to understand the horrors of the Pill, and goes directly to their parents who should stop their daughters from making this terrible mistake.

Aside from a decidedly low opinion of women’s intelligence and their right to manage their own bodies, I am not sure what Kirk is prattling on about. His focus is single women but married women use birth control as well. Does the Pill make married women the ugly unhappy mess that it does to single women? He seems to be talking just about the Pill, are other means of contraception acceptable or do they have the same terrifying results? What is his endgame here? Does he want to make Birth Control illegal? He never says so but it seems to be the subtext here.

This antagonism towards birth control marries well with another increasingly heard concern for conservatives — the declining birth rate among women. Glenn Reynolds worries that the earth is depopulating because women all over the world are no longer giving birth at replacement levels. This is particularly irksome as these same conservatives oppose pro-environment actions that are based on scientific data that suggests environmental doom in the future. They claim that these scientists are often wrong, that human beings will discover some scientific feat that will address these worries and to far into the future to demand sacrifices based on data that may never come into play.

Well, all right then, why should I worry about scientific speculations about a declining population particularly since the world’s population will still continue to grow and an actual decline in population won’t occur until the end of this century. Just like the scientists predicting environmental disaster, could these baby bust scientists be wrong about their interpretation of the data? Could people decide to have more children as the population declines and this problem will solve itself? But, no, this is an urgent matter for Reynolds and needs to be addressed now before it is too late and no human being is left alive.

What is worrisome about these opinions is that this manufactured crisis is giving some religious zealots a reason to make birth control illegal. Which is all rather perplexing. Women make up over half of the voting population. Most of these women want to have some control over how often they get pregnant. Not to mention their husbands and boyfriends who want to continue having sex without the worry of new children to support. Forcing people to have more children now to prevent a crisis in the 22nd Century seems like political suicide. Why anyone would think this is an attractive political is beyond me.

But it will be fun to watch.

By on

Charlie Kirk, conservative commentator, is suggesting cuts in Social Security because those no good seniors are just playing golf and watching television. They should be doing something constructive like helping people.

WTF. I thought that the whole underlying idea of the conservative movement was freedom. Freedom to do what ever the Hell you wanted to do, whenever the Hell you wanted to do it. Now Kirk wants me to give up my retirement fun in order to help people. Help people, no less, what kind of conservative is he. Oh, yes, a cheap one because he both proposes cutting social security payments and then wants these very same seniors to volunteer at schools and hospitals. That’s right less money and more work. What an asshole.

And, how exactly is that going to happen? If I get less money, I won’t have enough to retire comfortably and all of my free time will have to go to my part-time shift as a Wall Mart greeter. Of course, this is just another advantage to proposal. More cheap labor.

More grating and more dangerous is this frequent misconception that conservatives love to throw around about Social Security. They make it sound like a government handout. It isn’t. It is a government sponsored retirement plan. People pay into it until they retire, then they receive a monthly payment from the government. It is owed to you because you worked for it. You never should feel bad about taking this money. You deserve it.

So, in case Kirk has misunderstood me. Fuck you Charlie Kirk. You can pry my social security check from my cold dead hands.