All over the place, I am seeing despair and confusion from both adults and young adults about the murder of Charlie Kirk. Unfortunately, I am also seeing celebration. The celebrants are screwed up people. I agree with their right to say whatever they want to say, but one unsaid part of our Bill of Rights is that there are consequences to exercising those rights.
The left wants despair and confusion. It’s in their playbook. They bring totalitarian centralized planning to the rescue to give the illusion of order. The only way for them to instill and act out on their ideas is through violence. That’s because being free is hard-wired into human DNA.
As people celebrate the murder of Charlie, I am happy to see them receive consequences. It’s necessary, and in a few cases, I have sent messages to people to encourage it to happen. Firing, stepping down from boards, and being asked to resign from jobs or positions gives me some comfort that there is still an element of humanity in the world. I’d love to see students at colleges be asked to leave, too.
The nice thing is that there are sane Democrats whom I have contacted who agree with me. There is no place for violence in politics, and there is no place for the celebration of that violence. This isn’t an athletic contest where you cheer your team’s victory.
However, when one side is categorized as Hitler, Nazi, Fascist, White Supremacist, forcing people to become Christian, the second coming of the Devil, or seen as subhuman, the other side can easily find ways to do subhuman acts of violence towards them.
I am not smart enough to know what will happen next. I do think a line was crossed. A person who politely engaged with people in the lively art of conversation on tough issues was deliberately murdered. As Matt Walsh said, “Now the left wants to have a conversation. Well, we just tried that.”
I read Mark Hemingway’s piece yesterday and was nodding my head.
But I was doing my best to Kubler-Ross my way through this — I’ve met Kirk and generally thought highly of him — but I didn’t really snap until I saw Obama put out a statement:
We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children.
“We don’t yet know what motivated…” Yeah, I’m sorry, but we certainly know what the results of left-wing rhetoric are. And Barack Obama is living proof of that.
Obama is one of the most divisive figures ever to be President. He was trained to be that way. It was intentional. What a scandalous person he is. He engineered the Russian Dossier falsehoods to try to encourage a soft coup of Trump. Sure, he had plenty of co-conspirators, but what he did was far, far worse than Watergate and at a far larger scale with bigger consequences.
I don’t appreciate a lot of Trump’s language toward the opposite side either. It’s not helpful. It’s one of the things I dislike about Trump and will not defend him on. But, Trump isn’t using the power of the government to instill an unelected totalitarian bureaucracy.
Another thing to remember. The right has never tried to assassinate Obama, Sanders, Warren, Schiff, AOC, Soros, Schumer, Pelosi, Jeffries, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or any of the leaders of the left, elected or unelected. Contrast that with what the left has done to the leaders of the right. Two assassination attempts on Trump. Rand Paul was attacked and beaten. Steve Scalise was shot. Many, many more.
When a right-leaning person speaks on a college campus they need security. Often, they are shouted down. It’s a big controversy. You don’t get that treatment with a left-leaning speaker.
We always knew there were double standards. But, no longer will the Right accept them.
Maybe the right should start organizing and shout down lefty speakers. Is that what we want? Maybe when leftists march in the street, they should be met head-on by organized groups from the right. Maybe when ANTIFA wants to take over the streets in a city, a right-winger should drive a truck through them. That last thing happened in Boise, Idaho, the other night, except it was a BLM leader. Maybe billionaires on the right should start paying protestors to show up and astroturf the infield. Is that what we want?
Or, maybe those on the left that are reasonable and sensible (after all, that’s what they call some of us on the right) should clean up their own act. Is that preferable or possible? Look within instead of casting about.
Hey Google ($GOOG) and Apple ($AAPL), what about the shit that is going on over at Bluesky? The stuff on Parler back in the day was tame compared to what is going on there. The real reason they shut Parler down was because it was taking business away from Twitter, and Parler was beyond the sphere of control the FBI/CIA Obama/Biden Administration was bringing to social media. Twitter was actively censoring the Right, Parker didn’t. For what it’s worth, Zuckerberg and the rest of them willingly acquiesced. Reddit is also full of celebrations of the assassination. Maybe Google and Apple should pull both of them off platforms until they get their acts together.
Screw Wikipedia. That’s as nice as I can put it.
Some people are excited about Bari Weiss getting control of CBS News. I wouldn’t get too hopeful. Weiss is not a conservative. The conservatives that she gives a megaphone to are more establishment conservatives, not like Charlie Kirk. The Republican Establishment didn’t like Charlie.
One thing the Republican Establishment always tries to do is control everything. Not a lot different than Democrats or Marxists there. Remember the Tea Party? It was an organic movement. It got momentum, and then the Establishment stuck its fingers into it. The movement died.
Charlie resisted all of that at Turning Point. He stood on his own two feet. I was not the target market for Turning Point. Young people were. He was growing and gaining traction. The people who are left behind are going to try to continue the mission of Turning Point. I would encourage them to stay far, far away from the Republican Establishment.
The other thing I would also do is encourage those people who read out-of-context statements attributed to Charlie Kirk to listen to entire discussions or interviews. Most people are just told what to think and don’t seek out the knowledge for themselves. It’s efficient to surf on their bias and stay in their bubble. You might be very surprised by what you learn. Not only about Charlie, but about yourself.
Added Fri Sep 12 at 3:30PM CT
A friend sent me this. I will share it with you. Take 17 minutes out of your day and listen.
Leftist need to learn that if they dish it out they better be able to take it and you reap what you sow. If you utilize inflammatory rhetoric to incite violence you deserve to get violence in return. Years ago many told me that I should start a podcast because I was able to get along with people on the left and the right due to my background having worked in both parties, but over the past half decade or so I have lost nearly all my patience and tolerance for the crack pots whose hatred for one man's personality and conservatives in general has them rationalizing and justifying inappropriate speech and conduct. Their failure to recognize that no matter how deep their feelings may be about something, they are not justified in violence, has led to an incitement of violence and that is irrefutable. Therefore I've made it clear and put in writing on my social media accounts that if you ever refer to me as a fascist or a Nazi that I will consider it an act of self-defense to beat the living crap out of you. It is about survival now. If you think that's a bit of an extreme viewpoint, you are rapidly becoming part of a minority who is refusing to face reality. All you have to do is look at some of the insane rantings and ravings and ramblings of emotionally unhinged liberals over the past few months and you'll see my words have merit.
Jeff, words and civil discourse have not worked ever since the Obama era, because the old adage: "You cannot reason with an unreasonable person" has never been more evident.
Just like the only effective deterrent to terrorism is overwhelming Force, so too the only effective deterrent to inflammatory rhetoric leading to incitement of violence is to punish the offender in such a painful way that they never try that crap again. They're entitled to think and feel whatever the hell they want, but they cannot speak and act without consequence and thus far, the consequences have not been effective enough. I have been responsible for, either individually or as a part of a group, more than 30 people losing their jobs since October 7th of 2023 and I will continue to bust my ass to make sure that continues.
Likewise, conservatives need to see to it that liberal journalists, politicians, teachers and social media trolls are held accountable for unacceptable behavior, including speech, in ways that are painful. Yes you have free speech without legal recourse (unless of course, you are advocating nondefensive violence) but there's a difference between legal recriminations and professional and personal ones and where we need to get better as conservatives is in dishing out personal and professional consequences to these tin foil hat wearing, violence advocating lunatics.
-->"I don’t appreciate a lot of Trump’s language toward the opposite side either. It’s not helpful. It’s one of the things I dislike about Trump and will not defend him on"
I'm seriously curious as to what you would recommend be Trump's messaging style? He's confronted with a hostile and opposition media, and Democrat opponents who bewail him with epithets. The go-along to get-along approach used by Republicans in the past resulted in getting steam-rolled by media and Democrats. He seems to have learned from his first term, and is intent to set his agenda, letting others respond to it--rather than responding to the agenda others' set.