You said it yourself. “I truly don’t care how anyone chooses to live, worship, or love — as long as they are not actively harming others or using their beliefs to justify/celebrate the harm done to others.” That’s exactly what Charlie Kirk did. He actively positioned himself and influenced young people to dehumanize and as a result, harm entire groups of people - women, POC, LGBT+, etc. I’ve disagreed with you plenty over the years but your hypocrisy in light of this event is astounding. It is not lost on me as to why and I want to be clear that I don’t believe his death was justified. That said, conflating a difference of opinion/perspective and the harm he caused when he was alive is irresponsible. I’m saddened you relate so closely to him, even so, I do hope at some point in your life you can see why I and so many people feel so strongly about his work.
I wish you would go and listen to everything that he says and not just what the Internet wants you to see. He was coming from a place of educating. He was trying to enlightenThose that have been indoctrinated. I don't agree with Everything that Charlie Kirk believed. But he was kind. He was just trying to shed light and open peoples minds. I feel sad for our young people. They have been brainwashed and indoctrinated In these horrible school Systems.
I’m not interested in an internet comment fight with you so I will not say anything beyond this but I will say as just one example of not “what the internet tells me” but what I have sought out to learn the full scope of the political climate of the country I live in as a South Asian woman, with many Muslim friends there is nothing kind about a man who says things like “stupid Muslims” in this clip https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOpNTMOjVQc/?igsh=OHI2dms2OWllNGlu.
I don’t celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death but I hold no sympathy for someone that peddled hateful dialogue as can be seen in the link I’ve provided.
There are opinions and there are words that cause violence. Charlie used the latter for his own personal benefit.
His death truly effected me. I have followed Charlie and he really did give people a chance to speak their points. He was yelled at , called names, harrassed and he kept his dignity and spoke to people with respect yet firm. Those were his beliefs. I really wish our politicians on BOTH sides would stop acting like infants also and model more responsible behavior. I think he was a good human and we have to learn it's ok to be different and not agree with each other. That's what makes us humans, to be different. If we were all the same, what a boring world we would live in. It's a sad time and I deactivated Social Media for now. thank you for your words again.
I've been struggling since last week, because my daughter felt the need to call both her father (my ex-husband) and me and gleefully proclaim that Charlie had been shot. I can't even begin to think about how to trust her with anything important ever again. I will though. She's my daughter and while she's made many mistakes, she's learned from them. Even my husband (who yells at strangers who disagree with him on the internet) was able to suppress his anger when she called him. We both told her basically the same thing: You don't kill someone for disagreeing with you, for saying words you disagree with. Charlie Kirk didn't make you do anything different in your life, he just disagrees with you and is willing to talk to anyone who disagrees with him. So sad.
Yesterday before I had to return to a project that has taken me longer than it should, or used to, I don't move or have the energy levels I had 30 some odd years ago. things I could have accomplished in a couple days, now require a couple weeks, or more. As a friend of mine tells me, the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Hell, ability and drive abandoned the flesh years ago and the mind is still trying to figure out where the hell it went.
I'd made few, but short and plain statements regarding what occurred at UVU on September 10th. I'd planned and had been sorting and editing in my head a recollection on the 24th anniversary of a day that drove a wedge into the heart of this nation. That intention was displaced around 1:30 that afternoon as reports that a man who actually buoyed my hopes for his generation had been shot. As disturbing as that act is, I was bothered maybe even more by the response it evoked in others.
Admittedly, I've behaved and responded to what others would considered tragedy, in ways I understand now that would cause others to question my sanity, morality, and conscience. I've never really been a halfway kind of guy and a filter on what I thought and said rarely functioned. But the displays in regard to CK's assassination gave me pause. I didn't want to blurt out what many who know me would have been an unsurprising response.
About six paragraphs in, an examination of the what-about-isms, the demonstrably false assertions and repetitions of the narratives regarding George Floyd, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the Annunciation Catholic School shooting, along with several other events and incidents that have been offered up by "one side", my entire piece disappeared. There was no input from me. not, oops, i hit the wrong button. No failure of the laptop. No operator error. I was just proof reading and thinking about how to frame my next observation and the tab just vanished. Nothing to recover. there was no, "Didn't you 'save'?"
I may be able to reconstruct in part, even something approaching the whole, but the true drive, the flow, is gone. There is much in this life that must exist in duality. Yin/Yang. Left/Right. Up/Down. Heads/Tails. But where we are now seems an awful lot like Reality/Delusion.
A corner has been turned. A line crossed. Cucumbers have been made into pickles and the process cannot be reversed. How we proceed from here is fraught with peril. given human nature, I don't like the odds that things will get worse. much worse.
A dog knows the difference between getting kicked and getting tripped over. the dog is up and he's showing his teeth. God help us.
Personally, I wonder about when "do unto others as you would have done to you" stopped being the golden rule for human decency? Why did we throw that one out the window?
Missed your social media postings (fuck the algorithms) and I have to say: why are people so fired up by them? I full heartedly agree. We are all entitled to our incorrect opinions, we will never 100 percent agree on things, but we should be civil to each other. But history has shown us that this has not been the case and probably never will be. Le sigh. I shall continue on with my life enjoying the things that make me happy.
I’m definitely a slow learner as I’ve never clearly as now from your words, grasped the problem of the two party system in democracy. And also, like I am, what it means to be apolitical. I only fully appreciate this coming from a principally Left family. The Vietnam war and the rally actions of our folks, being the primary reason for that. Also, I live in Australia so the left/right differences are nowhere near as acute as they are in the USA. I can see though even from power dynamics within my own family how vulnerable democracy is to the basic us/them brutality of the two party system from thinking on it at at population scale. Will it end democracy as it seems to be ripping the USA apart? It is certainly better than autocracy. There are still choices. But greed is a big problem. And identity. And of course, “power corrupts.” Possibly it’s all ok as we have a sliding scale within a choice, a dialectic and while it does seem at the moment it is at the poles/ extremes of the continuum the continuum still exists, it’s just been lengthened. If it’s rigid it will break. Let everyone speak and do not make people voiceless. That’s the only way flexibility on our democratic continuum survives. Precarious stuff!
You said it yourself. “I truly don’t care how anyone chooses to live, worship, or love — as long as they are not actively harming others or using their beliefs to justify/celebrate the harm done to others.” That’s exactly what Charlie Kirk did. He actively positioned himself and influenced young people to dehumanize and as a result, harm entire groups of people - women, POC, LGBT+, etc. I’ve disagreed with you plenty over the years but your hypocrisy in light of this event is astounding. It is not lost on me as to why and I want to be clear that I don’t believe his death was justified. That said, conflating a difference of opinion/perspective and the harm he caused when he was alive is irresponsible. I’m saddened you relate so closely to him, even so, I do hope at some point in your life you can see why I and so many people feel so strongly about his work.
I wish you would go and listen to everything that he says and not just what the Internet wants you to see. He was coming from a place of educating. He was trying to enlightenThose that have been indoctrinated. I don't agree with Everything that Charlie Kirk believed. But he was kind. He was just trying to shed light and open peoples minds. I feel sad for our young people. They have been brainwashed and indoctrinated In these horrible school Systems.
I’m not interested in an internet comment fight with you so I will not say anything beyond this but I will say as just one example of not “what the internet tells me” but what I have sought out to learn the full scope of the political climate of the country I live in as a South Asian woman, with many Muslim friends there is nothing kind about a man who says things like “stupid Muslims” in this clip https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOpNTMOjVQc/?igsh=OHI2dms2OWllNGlu.
I don’t celebrate Charlie Kirk’s death but I hold no sympathy for someone that peddled hateful dialogue as can be seen in the link I’ve provided.
There are opinions and there are words that cause violence. Charlie used the latter for his own personal benefit.
This! I have tried to teach my kids that it is OK to disagree...although I see the world pretty much the same as you, disagreements can be healthy
His death truly effected me. I have followed Charlie and he really did give people a chance to speak their points. He was yelled at , called names, harrassed and he kept his dignity and spoke to people with respect yet firm. Those were his beliefs. I really wish our politicians on BOTH sides would stop acting like infants also and model more responsible behavior. I think he was a good human and we have to learn it's ok to be different and not agree with each other. That's what makes us humans, to be different. If we were all the same, what a boring world we would live in. It's a sad time and I deactivated Social Media for now. thank you for your words again.
Beautifully and authentically written. Thanks for this.
I've been struggling since last week, because my daughter felt the need to call both her father (my ex-husband) and me and gleefully proclaim that Charlie had been shot. I can't even begin to think about how to trust her with anything important ever again. I will though. She's my daughter and while she's made many mistakes, she's learned from them. Even my husband (who yells at strangers who disagree with him on the internet) was able to suppress his anger when she called him. We both told her basically the same thing: You don't kill someone for disagreeing with you, for saying words you disagree with. Charlie Kirk didn't make you do anything different in your life, he just disagrees with you and is willing to talk to anyone who disagrees with him. So sad.
Yesterday before I had to return to a project that has taken me longer than it should, or used to, I don't move or have the energy levels I had 30 some odd years ago. things I could have accomplished in a couple days, now require a couple weeks, or more. As a friend of mine tells me, the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak. Hell, ability and drive abandoned the flesh years ago and the mind is still trying to figure out where the hell it went.
I'd made few, but short and plain statements regarding what occurred at UVU on September 10th. I'd planned and had been sorting and editing in my head a recollection on the 24th anniversary of a day that drove a wedge into the heart of this nation. That intention was displaced around 1:30 that afternoon as reports that a man who actually buoyed my hopes for his generation had been shot. As disturbing as that act is, I was bothered maybe even more by the response it evoked in others.
Admittedly, I've behaved and responded to what others would considered tragedy, in ways I understand now that would cause others to question my sanity, morality, and conscience. I've never really been a halfway kind of guy and a filter on what I thought and said rarely functioned. But the displays in regard to CK's assassination gave me pause. I didn't want to blurt out what many who know me would have been an unsurprising response.
About six paragraphs in, an examination of the what-about-isms, the demonstrably false assertions and repetitions of the narratives regarding George Floyd, Kyle Rittenhouse, and the Annunciation Catholic School shooting, along with several other events and incidents that have been offered up by "one side", my entire piece disappeared. There was no input from me. not, oops, i hit the wrong button. No failure of the laptop. No operator error. I was just proof reading and thinking about how to frame my next observation and the tab just vanished. Nothing to recover. there was no, "Didn't you 'save'?"
I may be able to reconstruct in part, even something approaching the whole, but the true drive, the flow, is gone. There is much in this life that must exist in duality. Yin/Yang. Left/Right. Up/Down. Heads/Tails. But where we are now seems an awful lot like Reality/Delusion.
A corner has been turned. A line crossed. Cucumbers have been made into pickles and the process cannot be reversed. How we proceed from here is fraught with peril. given human nature, I don't like the odds that things will get worse. much worse.
A dog knows the difference between getting kicked and getting tripped over. the dog is up and he's showing his teeth. God help us.
Personally, I wonder about when "do unto others as you would have done to you" stopped being the golden rule for human decency? Why did we throw that one out the window?
Missed your social media postings (fuck the algorithms) and I have to say: why are people so fired up by them? I full heartedly agree. We are all entitled to our incorrect opinions, we will never 100 percent agree on things, but we should be civil to each other. But history has shown us that this has not been the case and probably never will be. Le sigh. I shall continue on with my life enjoying the things that make me happy.
We think alot alike I appreciate your thoughts and reading what you have to say
Well written… thank you for being you. And, for sharing with all of us. We are all in this together.
I’m definitely a slow learner as I’ve never clearly as now from your words, grasped the problem of the two party system in democracy. And also, like I am, what it means to be apolitical. I only fully appreciate this coming from a principally Left family. The Vietnam war and the rally actions of our folks, being the primary reason for that. Also, I live in Australia so the left/right differences are nowhere near as acute as they are in the USA. I can see though even from power dynamics within my own family how vulnerable democracy is to the basic us/them brutality of the two party system from thinking on it at at population scale. Will it end democracy as it seems to be ripping the USA apart? It is certainly better than autocracy. There are still choices. But greed is a big problem. And identity. And of course, “power corrupts.” Possibly it’s all ok as we have a sliding scale within a choice, a dialectic and while it does seem at the moment it is at the poles/ extremes of the continuum the continuum still exists, it’s just been lengthened. If it’s rigid it will break. Let everyone speak and do not make people voiceless. That’s the only way flexibility on our democratic continuum survives. Precarious stuff!