Thoughts on the Murder of Charlie Kirk

To begin with here, I'm hesitant to write anything about this event. That is, in part, because I'm still processing thoughts about it, but also in part because of the uncertain environment around expressing viewpoints around it. There is a lot of crackdown on free speech happening at the national level, as the Trump regime tries to silence any speech which they do not like, and other organizations (such as employers) are firing people for expressing views online as well. There are endemic attacks on political discourse and free expression ongoing in the US, and any speech entails risk (up to and including moral risk, as per the example case here). That's the state of the union.

However, I have thoughts, and I think it's important to express them regardless.

First, I wholeheartedly agree with Bernie Sanders (see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlIvH6ozvv4): political violence is unacceptable in the US. I would go a step further, and say that efforts to suppress free speech via threats or intimidation are also anti-American (see: Trump threatening and suing news organizations for content he doesn't like, GOP representatives threatening to imprison people for speech they don't like, the Trump admin threatening to revoke visa for speech they don't like, Trump's Department of War searching online forums for content they don't like, etc.). All of those instances are terrible, threatening democracy, contrary to American values, deplorable, etc. (and, in case it's not obvious, virtually all such instances in current times are strongly associated with members of the white christian nationalist fascist-leaning regime; that's probably not a coincidence).

That said, there was a valid point made with respect to Charlie Kirk in particular: he was, fairly unequivocally, one of the primary propagandists for the Trump regime. He distorted arguments and positions to promote propaganda for the regime. He delivered a significant amount of what many people considered "hate speech", in his propaganda efforts. He intentionally tried to gain a large audience to spread propaganda, in indirect (but explicitly associated) service of the Trump regime. One could compellingly argue that he was the Joseph Goebbels for Trump.

Joseph Goebbels was undoubtedly responsible for a lot of the acceptance of Nazi ideology within the German people. Without his efforts (and people like him), perhaps Hitler doesn't rise to power, perhaps a world war is avoided, and perhaps we don't see the genocidal campaign against the Jews, which killed millions of innocent people. There's a lot of "maybes" there, but it's a common trope and musing in modern culture to consider whether or not people would have killed Hitler if given the opportunity (before his rise to power), particularly given knowledge of the likely outcomes of that sequence of events, and I feel like a lot of people would. If people would feel comfortable taking his life to save millions of others (and particularly given the perceived moral character of the people), I'd guess the same could be said for Goebbels et all.

That then begs the question: if we accept that there's a strong parallel between Trump and Hitler (which seems so obvious that in addition to almost all the left drawing the strong association, even people in Trump's inner circle and current cabinet, including his VP, have also made that explicit comparison), and Kirk was effectively the head of propaganda for Trump's regime, then at what point does it become morally acceptable to kill him for the greater good? Is that based on how many American people die as a result of Trump's actions (which inclusive of his first term and handling of Covid19, is millions and counting)? Is it based on how many laws and American Constitutional rights Trump ignores in his push for a fascist dictatorship (which is well into the hundreds now, at least)? Is it some combination, or something else? Is it never okay, even if the outcome of inaction is easily foreseeable, and assumed preventable at the cost of only a few lives?

I don't know the answer to the above. But I do think it's a grey area, as much as I also agree with Sander's take that political violence is never acceptable. I acknowledge that these are contradictory positions.

This runs squarely into the "tolerance for the intolerant" conundrum, as well as the "greater good" argument. I don't see how it's possible to argue that one would (or should be morally compelled to) take actions to stop Hitler before his genocide, for example, while also saying that political violence like the murder of Charlie Kirk is never acceptable. Sander's position suggests that he would accept the Holocaust as a necessary price to pay for freedom of political speech without violence (in the same way as Kirk said gun deaths at schools are an acceptable price to pay for the freedom to bear arms). I don't know that there's an acceptable absolute "correct" position here.

Those are my current thoughts, anyway.