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Peak Fascism

Entry 2411, on 2025-09-15 at 20:40:57 (Rating 4, Politics)

George Orwell said, "The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it", and maybe that explains the recent murder of conservative commentator and activist, Charlie Kirk.

Many people might not have heard of him before this, but I have watched many of his debates and other material and was quite familiar with him already. Before I go further, I do have to say that there were plenty of places where I disagreed with Kirk. Primarily this was because he was a Christian conservative and I am an atheist libertarian (at least that's the closest approximation to my political preferences) so naturally I don't believe any arguments which rely on anything being ordained by God, which some of his did.

But whatever my points of disagreement, I always admired his debating skill, recall of facts, and generally calm and reasonable style, even when debating people who are shouting, swearing, and making very little sense.

Kirk created an organisation which attempted to "convert" young people, especially in universities, to conservatism. Obviously this was a big task, and one with a lot of challenges, but many people think he was quite successful, and might have even done enough to swing people to his side and help with the Trump victory.

A common comment I have seen about the shooting on social media is that Kirk sort of deserved it, because of his hateful, misogynistic, fascist, Islamophobic, etc comments. In other words, he has labelled with the same old insults which the left use to criticise anyone they disagree with. As I said above, I have watched a lot of his material and I would not classify his beliefs that way at all.

His fundamentalist Christian views meant he could not agree with same-sex marriage, abortion, and various other things which are politically volatile right now, but that was just his view which he debated fairly well, and the correct response to this is to show how he was wrong, not to assassinate him to shut him down. As he said: "When people stop talking, that's when you get violence."

In most cases I have found people criticising him for a very simplistic, cartoonish version of what he really believed. I suspect the majority of people making these criticisms had not actually heard many (or any) of his debates and were relying on biased or inaccurate versions of them.

He also said that "how you behave when someone dies reveals who you really are", so let's look at some comments about his death on-line...

Here's one: "This is karma. He said awful things about trans people, encouraged violence, and wanted black people to be slaves. Those who oppress us deserve to die." I've heard dozens of his debates and I don't recall any of that. He was critical of trans activists, but when talking to actual trans people he was quite understanding and positive, although he (quite rightly) refused to accept that trans people are really the sex they have transitioned to. And he was respectful and helpful to black people, and never indicated he wanted them to be slaves.

Here's another one: "Whether it was his genocide denial, his transphobic tirades, his pushing for mass deportations, or his normalizing Trumpism for years, the man stood for nothing but hate. I extend absolutely no empathy for people like that." I'm guessing the "genocide denial" refers to the situation in Gaza, which I also say is not a genocide, and that is a fair position to defend. Don't agree? Then let's debate it. And normalising Trumpism is bad how, exactly? Trump did win the election quite convincingly, so Trumpism seems to be what the people want.

Here are a few other short comments: "He deserved it" and "he shouldn't have a platform" and "I'm glad he's not with us any more" and "Probably a little deserved". What does that reveal about those people commenting?

So you can see that there is a lot of hate and inflexibility on the left. Many people would say the right is just as bad, and maybe that is true, but let's compare how the left reacted to the killing of George Floyd to how the right reacted to the murder of Charlie Kirk. First, let me remind you that Floyd was a violent criminal who was killed after a legitimate restraint technique was used on him, and Kirk was a peaceful activist who was murdered just for his ideas.

After Floyd's death there were extensive riots, murders, arson, theft, looting, and general unrest. After Kirk's death there was a lot of respectful commentary, prayer, and mostly peaceful exhibitions of support. I have a cartoon showing this contrast: the top panel shows the result of Floyd's death, that is burning buildings; the bottom panel shows the reaction to Kirk's murder, which was a bunch of people in peaceful prayer.

Of course, as an atheist, I don't think prayer has any real effect, although it undoubtedly acts as a symbol of unity, but I certainly prefer it to mobs looting stores, murdering innocent people, and burning buildings.

What will be the end result of this? Well, it could go one of three ways: first, it could trigger a backlash and make the right even stronger; second, it could result in fear on the right and weaken their position; or third, it might have no effect, because just one activist can't have that great an effect. I suspect the most likely is the first option, because all around the world we are seeing a surprising amount of support for him, and disgust regarding the direction the left are taking.

So maybe something good will come of this. Maybe people will realise there are consequences to labelling your opponents as Nazis. Maybe the people who have been saying words are violence might suddenly realise it is usually their own words which have lead to violence. Or maybe things will just stay the same, but I doubt it. I don't say we need to censor speech, but I would like the media and our leaders to stop repeating these false claims and to push back against the extremes of the woke left. To use one of their own favourite catchphrases: they are not on the right side of history.

Finally, here is a tweet I saw which I think is quite relevant: "for those who like to refer to Charlie Kirk as a fascist... Just so you know: assassinating people who think differently than you is peak fascism!"

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