The Murder of Charlie Kirk and Moral Judgment
After the murder of Charlie Kirk yesterday, the internet is quite abuzz, and there are quite a few people justifying and even rejoicing over the murder. The happy and shocking reactions quite shocked me – they actually justified the murder because they said he was a bad person who spread hatred and evil towards LGBT people, trans people, and of course Muslims.
At first it made me feel bad, but a question occurred to me that I couldn’t quite find an answer to – is it possible to come to the murderer (and the people who justify the murder) with allegations?
Because let’s say the person is convinced that the person against him is truly evil, causing the spread of evil from which many people suffer and even die. Is the right thing to do not kill the evil in order to stop its spread? I am speaking under the assumption that from his perspective he is truly convinced that the person against him is bad and wicked – isn’t it logical to want to prevent this evil by any means? Or at the very least not to be upset if this evil ‘goes away’?
In other words: Is our moral judgment (‘How could he do this?’ ‘How could they say he deserved it’) logical and consistent, or would we perhaps also react similarly if we were convinced that we were facing ‘real evil’?
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Have you ever listened to him himself, or have you listened to how the left in the US defines him?
The left has its own definitions, who is allowed to breathe the earth's air, and who is simply “controversial”, which is an expression that says, in leftist parlance, “it would be better if he didn't exist, but we make a concession to him”.
From the left's perspective, anything that is not a full justification of their opinions, their publication and identification with them at every opportunity, means “stirring up a quarrel”, “spreading hatred”, “evil”, and what not.
Andrei
Repeated lies have a very clear definition of what is true and what is false
At least in some cases
Same thing about anti-Semitism
Same thing about toxic discourse and spreading hate
And the rest of the ‘good deeds’ of the murdered man
It's not a matter of right or left
Sometimes facts have something to say too
Factually he supported the State of Israel (maybe because he is full of hatred for Arabs) but his ghetto and his hand come together spreading anti-Semitism to millions of lies and so on and so forth
Your discourse is toxic and hateful. You clearly don't know the man, and are already making up hypotheses that he is pro-Israel because he is against Muslims. You can just check, you know... his love for Jews is based mainly on his Christian faith, why make it up? It's ugly to make up bad things about people and it's ugly to judge people without knowing them at all. But it's even uglier to do it right when they were murdered, it's implied as justifying the murder.
“Repeated lies have a very clear definition”, and your ”other good deeds” do the same.
I try very hard to avoid such language, but please forgive me, your responses disgust me.
To the Rabbi –
So if I understood correctly, you mean that theoretically it is really possible to come to the conclusion that a certain person should die – It's not that it is impossible or illogical to think so. But in practice we won't do it, not because it cannot be justified morally, but for pragmatic reasons? That is, in the end if everyone starts killing those they think are bad and harmful, we will simply end up in complete chaos?
To David –
I have known and heard Charlie Kirk for years, like the rest of the entourage (Ben Shapiro, Michael Knowles, Jordan Peterson, etc.), I have often agreed with him on certain things but not on his arguments, which in my opinion were quite weak. He always seemed like a nice man, but sometimes it seems to me that out of a desire not to let the Frogs win, he preferred to close ranks on everything related to the right than to really deal with allegations that are raised against the right and are not answered (this is probably why he remains on good terms with real anti-Semites like Candace Evans and Tucker Carlson).
Daniel,
Regarding what you directed to Micah, I don't think that's a correct conclusion. He wrote that there needs to be clear persecution that needs to be prevented in order to justify murder. Ideas are fought with ideas, not with violence.
Regarding what you directed to me, I think you're right. He wasn't the brightest of the brightest, and therefore it's unnecessary hysteria to look for him in random statements over the years of a turbulent career, he's not a philosopher and he wasn't always right or spoke wisely. One gets the impression that he was a good and talented guy with a heart in the right place. Regarding the crowding, that was blatantly true, for better or for worse, he said several times that he welcomes with open arms into his movement even those who identify with only some of the values, and even invited trans people to take part. Rachel (😉) The connection with Tucker and Candice is part of it, there wasn't a brave friendship or anything like that, and despite our sensitivity, they're not really anti-Semites (maybe Candice a little more). He also fought anti-Semitism, not just by criticizing Israel.
It amazes me that the discussion today is about how extreme he was or wasn't, it's not at all the discussion when he was murdered because of his opinions, which he expressed in a civilized and relaxed manner and listened to the other side. (For the doubters, his parents said he was a leftist officer and hated Kirk and he engraved on his backpacks, “Hey Fascist, Get Busted” and “Bella Che’o” – which is a popular slogan with Antifa, and so on’) If we're already discussing this unnecessary discussion, “extreme” is not a relative expression, it's measurable. So I ask, what is more central than him in the US and where are the extremes? Draw the distribution and I'm guessing he'll be somewhere in a standard deviation or two to the right, every right-wing figure that comes up will almost certainly be more extreme than him (Walsh, Shapiro, Musk, Trump, Tucker, and so on)
He was very popular, which is what caused the left to categorize him as an extremist. And it's sad to see people in Israel who don't know him asking the wrong questions; “Is there guilt in the murdered” Come on, forget sensitivity, where's the intelligence?? To me, it's disturbing. Even if a figure in politics were actually murdered and people wondered if there was justice in it, it would be disturbing and a wake-up call, especially when it comes to a relaxed influencer who holds very, very popular views in the US. (It's easy to imagine something like this happening in Israel. Unfortunately, I assume there will be some who will try to justify it. Again, although this is not the discussion, Charlie is not Bibi, he wasn't even a politician)
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