This surprises me. After all the negative publicity about various teachers, academics and entertainers making “I’m glad he’s dead, he deserved it” comments after the Turning Point USA founder was shot dead and their being cancelled, fired or otherwise shunned in the public square, I thought these vile people had at least the sense to keep their sick sentiments to themselves. But there were many outbreaks of vocal Kirk hate during the dumb No Kings protests over the weekend. Charlie Kirk was a “piece of garbage,” and “evil people” like Charlie Kirk have “no place in my world” one especially vocal demonstrator in D.C. said on video, as lawyer friends of mine I respect joined with her and others like her in n infantile primal scream against the results of an election. In Chicago, an elementary school abruptly took down its website after a teacher erupted in an anti-Kirk rant.
I’m still trying to figure out what it was the Kirk did or said to justify this venom. The anti-Trump hysteria is irrational and un-American, but at least I can understand it because the President goes out of his way to enrage those who are already unbalanced.
And the aftermath of the earlier Kirk hate-fests hasn’t run its course. Judge Ted Berry, a municipal judge for Hamilton County, may be removed from the bench for his social media posts celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk.
Among his posts Judge Berry declared “Rest in Hatred & Division!” He wrote that Kirk “spewed hate & division” and “How’s he feel about gun violence and gun control in Hell, now?” State Rep. Adam Mathews introduced the resolution to remove Berry with Rep. D.J. Swearingen, a fellow Republican. “We have given the judge more than a month,” Mathews has told the media, having called for Berry to resign in September. “And now to defend the courts and the trust that the people must have in them with an unbiased judiciary, we are moving forward with the process to remove the judge as outlined by the Ohio constitution.”
Article IV, Section 17 of the state constitution states that “Judges may be removed from office, by concurrent resolution of both houses of the general assembly, if two-thirds of the members, elected to each house, concur therein; but, no such removal shall be made, except upon complaint, the substance of which shall be entered on the journal, nor, until the party charged shall have had notice thereof, and an opportunity to be heard.” Relevant provisions of the Ohio Canons of Judicial Ethics read,
- Canon 1, Rule 1.2: Requires judges to uphold public confidence in the judiciary and avoid impropriety;
- Canon 2, Rule 2.4: Forbids judges from allowing political or personal interests to influence their judicial duties;
- Canon 2, Rule 2.11: Addresses disqualification due to public statements reflecting bias or prejudice.
Again, what did Kirk do or say that could possibly justify these freakouts? Whatever it was, the Charlie Kirk Assassination Ethics Train Wreck rolls on, embarrassing the Mad Left at every turn.
Ethics Alarms 
My wife’s cousin is central casting’s idea of an AWFL.After Kirk’s assassination, she re-posted all manner of things (almost all from women) which accused him of every -ism, -ist, and -phobia under the sun, with a dash of nazi for seasoning.
In every case, without even a hint of exception, they quoted out of context, engaged in Dowdification, and either deliberately, or quite stupidly, failed to engage his argument.
Every one of these people, and my wife’s cousin contributed to his murder.
It is beyond fathoming. The essential element of clear thinking is being able to reiterate your opponent’s argument in a way that is both representative and accurate.
Progressives fail at this every time, to include always and without exception.
I agree that being able to reiterate your opponent’s argument is important, but I think what’s missing is being able to do so in a way your opponent recognizes and agrees is accurate. Otherwise you’re just imposing your own assumptions about their position, and missing the concerns that deserve to be addressed.
True enough, there are few people who work to understand other people’s positions. In my experience, those people include both progressives and conservatives. However, I do usually have to prompt them to make that effort, because they’ve already written off other people’s concerns as unimportant and mutually incompatible with their own, so they forget those concerns are there.
Could you express an opponents position in a way that they would recognize and in a way that you feel any amount of sympathy for?
I agree that being able to reiterate your opponent’s argument is important, but I think what’s missing is being able to do so in a way your opponent recognizes and agrees is accurate.That’s what I meant by “representative”, but you said it better.
Could you express an opponents position in a way that they would recognize and in a way that you feel any amount of sympathy for?
Depends on the issue. Abortion, immigration, affirmative action/DIE, trans, I think so, as I have read the pro arguments enough to reliably repeat them.Socialism/communism? NFW.
I forgot: I‘m still trying to figure out what it was the Kirk did or said to justify this venom.
Simple. He contradicted progressive shibboleths.
Charlie Kirk had the inexcusable audacity to be a straight, white, happy, provocative and inspiring human who liked people and enjoyed his life and work. What was the bumper sticker during Trump’s first term? “Work hard, be successful, annoy a liberal.”
As stated above:
I suspect it was his pure undying inexhaustible happiness that would meet people as they were where they were, but also hold them accountable. The accountability part, I think, because of the strength of his positions was what enrages people. If he had simply been a WASP version of Jeremiah Wright, his controversial qualities would be comical, not threatening.
At a guess, it might be his statement that passing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake that might have been an issue. Or his highly uncomplimentary statements about Martin Luther King Jr and the approval of his assassination.
Freedom of speech and all that.
If you want to interpret the statement as him being an un-Christian like racist you can do that but if you examine his underlying rationale you could see that he believed that the act – not the movement – caused a massive government bureaucracy. There is no doubt that the Act of 64 improved the lives of millions of Americans and perhaps even necessary, but I would challenge anyone to find any other statement in which he disparaged another based on the perception that he believed whites were a superior race.
What the act did was it sped up the process of human development in which the masses had insufficient time to reexamine their core beliefs about race differences. More often that not, trying to speed up processes or do something good, the law of unintended consequences arises and brings with it negatives that last long after the desired effect has occurred. An analogy might be the rabbits of Australia that were brought in for hunting but because there were no predators to keep them in check they proliferated to such a degree the rabbits destroyed the land.
Any uncharitable comments about MLK were probably based on MLK’s known womanizing which was contrary to Christian ideals. MLK’s deification by so many because of his non-violent approach to civil rights coupled with his assassination seems to indict anyone who makes comments about elements of his life that are contradictory to Christian teachings a racist. That is because we have elevated MLK high on the Cognitive Dissonance scale.
All of human existence is plagued by conflicting ideas that are too often fought on the battlefields or streets because one side wants to impose its beliefs on another – right now. One could argue that slavery would have died out on its own as the industrial revolution brought more mechanized processes to the southern states. It was already on a downward trajectory in the new nation from the beginning.
Unfortunately, most people choose not to try to understand how someone can justify his or her ideas they just latch on to the soundbite that reinforces their existing opinion of the person.
I agree with your points about deliberately avoiding learning the context of the point someone’s trying to make.
I actually can’t tell if you think it would have been more ethical to let slavery be out-competed by automation.
It’s one thing to blame people for not having the insight or the will to be significantly more ethical than the environment they’ve lived in all their life. It’s another thing to have that insight and will but decide to allow an ethically corrupt and oppressive system to persist because it might eventually fade away on its own when it’s no longer useful to the people who benefit from it.
Sometimes ethics is contextual, based on established expectations of a society. Other times, the society is objectively unethical and unhealthy, and merits a concerted effort to change it.
Do you think the United States would exist if the American colonists had said, “Eh, eventually Britain will get tired of taxing us without representation. One day they’ll cut us loose and we can govern ourselves.”? If people with no principles eventually wound up creating an ethical society through pure selfishness, why would we need principles at all? (Granted, I would argue that ethical principles arise at least partly from enlightened self-interest, but most people are missing the “enlightened” part, so that’s what we’re working with right now.)
Yes, to change culture effectively requires a transition process. However, that process doesn’t have to take a long time, if you know what you’re doing. People need to see there’s a place in the new world for them, a role they can be proud to play. They need to be able to live with themselves. That way we don’t have to waste time waiting for the old guard to die before anything changes.
“It’s another thing to have that insight and will but decide to allow an ethically corrupt and oppressive system to persist because it might eventually fade away on its own when it’s no longer useful to the people who benefit from it.”
What is that “other thing,” EC? The Founders called it pragmatism and political reality. They knew slavery was wrong, but also knew that Independence wouldn’t proceed unless the accepted it until a later time.
I’m not talking about the Founders. I’m talking about abolitionists. Should they have waited patiently for generations, counting on slaveholding states to one day free their slaves when it suited them?
Except for violent abolitionists like John Brown, all they did was make arguments for why slavery should be abolished. They had to do that: the tide only changed against slavery when public opinion shifted. Same with the civil rights movement and the women’s right movement and the gay rights movement. People won’t make a major social or legal change until they gain sufficient enlightenment to do it. Would it have been preferable if slavery had died out on its own relatively soon rather than to have a horrific civil war? Does anyone doubt it?
Yeah, I agree with all that.
My position is that we should work to shift public opinion quickly and effectively, regardless of what else we do. I don’t have a categorical answer for in which situations I’d favor waiting for public opinion to shift and in which situations I’d advocate putting a stop to oppressive or abusive policies through fiat or force. Then again, those are far from the only options. There’s plenty of room for trickery, like the Underground Railroad. Oppressors tend to rely on fiat and force rather than being particularly clever.
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin” is arguably the most important book in US history because it flipped the apathetic public against slavery on a massive scale. That’s why Lincoln, when meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe, said, “So you are the little lady who caused all this trouble!” And in a sense, she was. A tipping point! Emotion and drama, literature, succeeded where protest and violence failed.
Right, persuasive writing is a vital part of the process. The more of it, the better. The ideal process would consist of nothing but persuasion, and I’m here to help people get more effective at it. Are we saying that we should have counted on all slaveholders manumitting their slaves because of Uncle Tom’s Cabin? I guess I’m not sure what point you’re making, or what point you think I’m making.
I would argue in some situations it’s more important to get people to safety first, and persuade their captors afterward. Otherwise, there’d be no point in having law enforcement.
First off, your fact-checking abilities seem rather lacking. For the rest of you playing along, Charlie Kirk DID have a problem with the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but it had nothing to do with civil rights. His problem with it was the same problem true conservatives have with most government acts – the massive spending and bureaucracy they create. The CRA was no exception to that rule and Charlie was against that, not civil rights. A five-minute internet search would reveal that as the full context of what he said…five minutes.
Second, I’ve made uncomplimentary statements about MLK, Jr. Lots of people have. Black people have. We shouldn’t get bullet rounds through the neck for it.
Lots of people – possibly including yourself – have made uncomplimentary statements about Charlie Kirk…and “uncomplimentary” is very euphemistic for much of what I’ve read from the Left. How many on your side now lie cold and dead in the grave for their words?
Charlie Kirk was an American citizen and as such, he had the full protection of the First Amendment. He had every right to be “uncomplimentary” of MLK, whether you like it or not. He had every right to opine negatively on the Civil Rights Act, whether you like it or not. And no one had any right to shoot and kill him for doing so.
Pity…your counterpoints used to be a lot better.
Every University in this country violated the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Democratic Party spent decades defending violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Every large company celebrated their violation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Almost every progressive group in this country is against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The 1964 Civil Rights Act bars discrimination based on race. Every ‘Affirmative Action’ program, every DEI program in the history of this country violated that law. The Supreme Court knowingly allowed violations of the 1964 Civil Rights Act (for a while). Every ‘minority space’, every program to ’empower women’, and just about every program designated to help ‘underrepresented groups’ violates the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Have YOU ever supported one of those causes or programs? If so, YOU believe the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a mistake.
I challenge you to show me where Charlie Kirk said he was in favor of Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination. You are just spouting liberal talking points.
I watched my first Charlie Kirk video just now. I don’t have enough information about him to determine if I like or dislike his style of conversation. I haven’t seen the one you have referenced.
I will, however, having fully admitted that I’d barely been aware of his existence before his untimely death and not having heard the statements you have mentioned, point out that it is not racist to oppose a policy or a piece of legislation. The trouble is that one side of the political spectrum in this country has argued for a few decades now that any criticism or opposition of a policy, such as Affirmative Action, is motivated by racism. I reject that argument.
It appears that Zoebrain (like pretty much every other person dogging on Charlie Kirk since his violent death at the hands of someone who thought he was “hateful”) logged onto Google or chatgpt, asked it for some of the hateful things that Charlie Kirk has said, and repeated them verbatim. No fact checking, no context, nothing but a hammer looking for a nail to justify his murder.
I’ve seen countless examples now of the “hateful” things he has said, and pretty much every example is either taken out of context, reveals an ugly truth that progressives will never acknowledge, or is a flat out misrepresenting of what he was communicating.
It’s confirmation bias at work, primarily. Always lurking even for the best of us…