You mean the disease that FDR had? That was emphatically not polio?
You mean infantile paralysis, which was only caused by polio in about 25% of the cases. It was just more politically convenient to lie about the cause and make vaccines (and Salk and Sabin) the heroes.
This nails the heart of it. Civilization is supposed to mean we argue with ballots and bad memes, not bullets. Kirk’s death isn’t just a family tragedy, it’s a civic regression. Like someone just yanked us back to the “might makes right” era, when the local warlord settled disputes with a hot poker and a grudge.
The shooter didn’t just silence a man. They hijacked the process by which we get to decide whose terrible ideas win airtime. That’s the real horror show. Once violence becomes the shortcut, the rest of us are back to guarding our sad little peasant pots and shoes from brigands.
Blessed be the ones who can hate a man’s rhetoric and still know democracy collapses when we let violence edit the script.
I have to wonder how long this story will last? It feels like the Trump assassination attempt was eons ago. What about the politicians in Minnesota? It all feels very dust in the digital wind.
The potentially big differences are that 1) Kirk was killed and Trump wasn't, 2) Kirk was quite a bit more well-known than the Minnesota reps, and 3) there is a HORRIFIC video of it.
I have successfully avoided seeing either the Charlotte train stabbing or the Kirk shooting and I'm considering burning my laptop so I quit while I'm ahead.
All true. I just feel everything is put through the digital news grinder and almost nothing can hold our attention anymore. This was a significant event. But I’m curious to see how long it will hold. The next outrage is just a click away.
We'll forget until the next political violence, at which point people will reference their scorecards for all the ones done against their team (the ones against the other team don't count).
There's about 6 or 7 dead AfD Germans, who are totally screwing up the entire "vote by mail" thing (apparently in Germany, if you vote for someone who's dead, your vote is invalid and cancelled).
And did you just forget about the Anthrax?
Maybe I'd be willing to listen, if this was the first time anyone had done politically motivated violence. Perhaps if the President of Tanzania hadn't tested dogsh!t for covid19 (and shown the tests say "it's covid19"), he'd still be alive. The assassination of the Haiti president was American-made violence too.
I do want to say, I appreciate you giving it the ol' college try. Trying to be funny about someone's death, right after, is... difficult.
"Let's ask Charlie... Charlie? Charlie?!"
"Um, Charlie's dead."
"He can't be dead, he was 31. You -don't die- when you're thirty one."
"It was a bullet."
"Bullets kill teenagers, everyone knows that."
Sigh. Poorly written comedy about someone's death (where the focus is not "haha, he died", of course). Presented for mockery and improvement.
The main purpose of this kind of political violence is to impact society with its ruthlessness. To the extent you're not paying attention to it, it's working. To the extent you're on every Substack informing people about it, you're the one filling its sails with wind.
1) I’m only peripherally aware of Kirk’s work but that’s not going to stop me from critiquing it, this is social media after all! I find a lot of the focus has been on Kirk’s political positions, but that feels misguided. Ezra Klein just wrote a pretty decent editorial lauding components of Kirk’s work. I disagree. To my peripherally aware knowledge, Kirk’s legacy is the tactics of his approach not the policies or arguments. He was an agitator and he did it under false pretenses. He “staged debates” but the purpose was to own the opposition and distort their argument, Lincoln or Douglas he was not. And I can’t escape the feeling that these tactics will likely have far more to do with the motive of his killing than the actual political substance of his arguments.
2) I’m not sure that characterizing political progress as movement away from the strong or violent is fully accurate. Certainly, it is true in the early stages of a society or civilization, but I increasingly think that the larger that separation gets the more removed from “reality” and “getting things done” its leaders become. The violent and strong have important perspective, it’s just not good for that to be the only perspective/voice. And even if you don’t think that is true, they are the group least likely to accept not having a place at the table.
3) Regardless of all of this, it’s just a sad, senseless crime.
I firmly believe that engaging opponents in debate is better than preaching to people who already agree. Blaming influencers for debating in bad faith is like complaining politicians do not truly believe what they say in public: yes, it is a shame that politicians tend to say what people want to hear, that debaters are not actually open to changing their mind, or for that matters that voters only do minimal research before selecting a president. Once we've said that, expecting otherwise is to live in a fantasy. Politicians in Lincoln's time were more sophisticated than those of today, and even they typically did not have any interest in good faith when they rebutted an opponent's argument.
Kirk went out of Fox News studios and actually talked people who despised him. We needed more of that, not less. I also happen to think that his opinions were almost uniformly repulsive and the man he campaigned for even more so, but that is neither here nor there.
I agree with your high level point, that there will always be bad actors and to expect otherwise is naive. But I think it’s similarly naive to pretend that the proportion of those bad actors is constant over time, as is the elevation of their message and tactics. We are going through something like what happened when newspapers first originated and publications were almost exclusively partisan. It would have been wrong to say “well that’s just the way it is.” We know this because we emerged into a golden age of impartial journalism that sought to uncover truth and inform instead of to achieve a specific partisan end. We’ve seen those institutions crumble as newer disruptive technologies have replaced the old in the past few decades, but I reject that we have to give in to a fatalistic perspective that bad faith actors necessarily dominate debate and discourse.
Regardless, I appreciate the good faith in your response.
“ To my peripherally aware knowledge, Kirk’s legacy is the tactics of his approach not the policies or arguments. He was an agitator and he did it under false pretenses. He “staged debates” but the purpose was to own the opposition and distort their argument, Lincoln or Douglas he was not. And I can’t escape the feeling that these tactics will likely have far more to do with the motive of his killing than the actual political substance of his arguments.”
WOW. Anyone who has ever made a political argument in public better look out, I guess.
I can’t tell if this is satire, as it’s an exact example of the sorts of tactics I’m talking about, but one of three things clearly happened: I didn’t make my point as cleanly as I thought, you are intentionally misrepresenting my point through reductionism to make it morally indefensible or you just didn’t understand my point.
In the spirit of taking my own medicine, I’ll assume the first in good faith.
Your characterization of my argument or the outcome of my argument is not a position I would defend myself (nor do I imagine any sane person would). Of course I believe that anyone should feel entitled to share their political message in public using any legal and non-violent tactics they decide. However, engaging in certain forms of discourse or propaganda indisputably raises the emotional stakes. Which does not in any way indicate that an individual who engages in that behavior deserved it or “had it coming.” But mature societies, and mature thinkers, are able to transition between assumptions at the individual level and assumptions at the collective level. Right now, our political discourse is littered with bad actors whose entire argument is premised on misrepresenting the beliefs of their opponents. My perception is that Charlie Kirk was one of those people. He was far from the only one (this is a true both sides issue) and it doesn’t justify the actions of the shooter in any context, but if we are serious about reducing the likelihood of political violence, which I am, we have to get serious about the behaviors which create an environment in which it is more likely.
One thing the lefty/anarchistic/violence-is-good types seem to miss is that the left will lose any kinetic war. The righties have all the guns. The left is even working hard to alienate any computer hackers. But we’ll stop them with our brigade of YouTube think-pieces on how this was all foretold by SpongeBob Squarepants
We took lead out of gasoline and paint, is how we mostly got over it. We'll never have zero violence, but the political violence we have today is mostly from disturbed and unbalanced people (which we'll never have zero of.)
Fwiw this did make me laugh. Also that #feminism joke might be ironically relevant (if what was written on the shooters bullets/gun are indicative of anything).
I could write something scathing here. However, you wouldn't listen, and it's not necessary -- your words are an embarrassment to yourself and your country.
I will laugh my ass off when your tyranny-supporting worm-ridden ass dies*. It will be poetic justice, and I hope it happens very, very soon.
*yes, I mean literal parasites. Do the math, the insult's probably over your head otherwise.
Kirk was assassinated because he wouldn't support tyranny (It had nothing to do with domestic politics, whatever the line is by the end of the week). I'm certain you don't have an inventory of the publically available kill list he was on, but I think you really ought to know more (maybe try reading first?) before you open your pie hole again.
Which, apparently, had absolutely nothing to do with his murder.
Again, for those apparently hard of hearing:
Public Kill List.
Dictator.
Dead guy in America.
If you can't read those three statements and know what I'm talking about, your ignorance is impeding your understanding. If you don't understand that you do not understand, then you're just a dimwit waving flags because someone else told you they were the "thing to do."
Maybe living under violence is like polio -- the generation that grows up without it doesn't think it's a big deal and isn't scared of it.
You mean the disease that FDR had? That was emphatically not polio?
You mean infantile paralysis, which was only caused by polio in about 25% of the cases. It was just more politically convenient to lie about the cause and make vaccines (and Salk and Sabin) the heroes.
This nails the heart of it. Civilization is supposed to mean we argue with ballots and bad memes, not bullets. Kirk’s death isn’t just a family tragedy, it’s a civic regression. Like someone just yanked us back to the “might makes right” era, when the local warlord settled disputes with a hot poker and a grudge.
The shooter didn’t just silence a man. They hijacked the process by which we get to decide whose terrible ideas win airtime. That’s the real horror show. Once violence becomes the shortcut, the rest of us are back to guarding our sad little peasant pots and shoes from brigands.
Blessed be the ones who can hate a man’s rhetoric and still know democracy collapses when we let violence edit the script.
“Blessed be the ones who can hate a man’s rhetoric and still know democracy collapses when we let violence edit the script.”
Love this. It’s close to “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called Sons of God.”
I appreciate your rewriting of Leviathan for modern audiences.
I have to wonder how long this story will last? It feels like the Trump assassination attempt was eons ago. What about the politicians in Minnesota? It all feels very dust in the digital wind.
The potentially big differences are that 1) Kirk was killed and Trump wasn't, 2) Kirk was quite a bit more well-known than the Minnesota reps, and 3) there is a HORRIFIC video of it.
I have successfully avoided seeing either the Charlotte train stabbing or the Kirk shooting and I'm considering burning my laptop so I quit while I'm ahead.
Yeah I really wish I had missed this one.
All true. I just feel everything is put through the digital news grinder and almost nothing can hold our attention anymore. This was a significant event. But I’m curious to see how long it will hold. The next outrage is just a click away.
We'll forget until the next political violence, at which point people will reference their scorecards for all the ones done against their team (the ones against the other team don't count).
Who has forsaken us to spin on this rock of meaninglessness? I don’t know. But I have some questions.
Which Trump assassination attempt? Are you counting Attempt 1, Attempt 2, Attempt 3, or Attempt 4?
Thank you for this, Jeff. I almost always love your work, but this to me is especially insightful, well stated, and needed in this moment.
There's about 6 or 7 dead AfD Germans, who are totally screwing up the entire "vote by mail" thing (apparently in Germany, if you vote for someone who's dead, your vote is invalid and cancelled).
And did you just forget about the Anthrax?
Maybe I'd be willing to listen, if this was the first time anyone had done politically motivated violence. Perhaps if the President of Tanzania hadn't tested dogsh!t for covid19 (and shown the tests say "it's covid19"), he'd still be alive. The assassination of the Haiti president was American-made violence too.
I do want to say, I appreciate you giving it the ol' college try. Trying to be funny about someone's death, right after, is... difficult.
"Let's ask Charlie... Charlie? Charlie?!"
"Um, Charlie's dead."
"He can't be dead, he was 31. You -don't die- when you're thirty one."
"It was a bullet."
"Bullets kill teenagers, everyone knows that."
Sigh. Poorly written comedy about someone's death (where the focus is not "haha, he died", of course). Presented for mockery and improvement.
The main purpose of this kind of political violence is to impact society with its ruthlessness. To the extent you're not paying attention to it, it's working. To the extent you're on every Substack informing people about it, you're the one filling its sails with wind.
Um?! Are you talking about the dead aFd guys, or are you talking about Anthrax, or are you talking about Charlie Kirk?
... seriously, I mentioned A Lot of violence, you're going to have to be specific.
Excellent piece, Jeff. A few thoughts:
1) I’m only peripherally aware of Kirk’s work but that’s not going to stop me from critiquing it, this is social media after all! I find a lot of the focus has been on Kirk’s political positions, but that feels misguided. Ezra Klein just wrote a pretty decent editorial lauding components of Kirk’s work. I disagree. To my peripherally aware knowledge, Kirk’s legacy is the tactics of his approach not the policies or arguments. He was an agitator and he did it under false pretenses. He “staged debates” but the purpose was to own the opposition and distort their argument, Lincoln or Douglas he was not. And I can’t escape the feeling that these tactics will likely have far more to do with the motive of his killing than the actual political substance of his arguments.
2) I’m not sure that characterizing political progress as movement away from the strong or violent is fully accurate. Certainly, it is true in the early stages of a society or civilization, but I increasingly think that the larger that separation gets the more removed from “reality” and “getting things done” its leaders become. The violent and strong have important perspective, it’s just not good for that to be the only perspective/voice. And even if you don’t think that is true, they are the group least likely to accept not having a place at the table.
3) Regardless of all of this, it’s just a sad, senseless crime.
I firmly believe that engaging opponents in debate is better than preaching to people who already agree. Blaming influencers for debating in bad faith is like complaining politicians do not truly believe what they say in public: yes, it is a shame that politicians tend to say what people want to hear, that debaters are not actually open to changing their mind, or for that matters that voters only do minimal research before selecting a president. Once we've said that, expecting otherwise is to live in a fantasy. Politicians in Lincoln's time were more sophisticated than those of today, and even they typically did not have any interest in good faith when they rebutted an opponent's argument.
Kirk went out of Fox News studios and actually talked people who despised him. We needed more of that, not less. I also happen to think that his opinions were almost uniformly repulsive and the man he campaigned for even more so, but that is neither here nor there.
I agree with your high level point, that there will always be bad actors and to expect otherwise is naive. But I think it’s similarly naive to pretend that the proportion of those bad actors is constant over time, as is the elevation of their message and tactics. We are going through something like what happened when newspapers first originated and publications were almost exclusively partisan. It would have been wrong to say “well that’s just the way it is.” We know this because we emerged into a golden age of impartial journalism that sought to uncover truth and inform instead of to achieve a specific partisan end. We’ve seen those institutions crumble as newer disruptive technologies have replaced the old in the past few decades, but I reject that we have to give in to a fatalistic perspective that bad faith actors necessarily dominate debate and discourse.
Regardless, I appreciate the good faith in your response.
“ To my peripherally aware knowledge, Kirk’s legacy is the tactics of his approach not the policies or arguments. He was an agitator and he did it under false pretenses. He “staged debates” but the purpose was to own the opposition and distort their argument, Lincoln or Douglas he was not. And I can’t escape the feeling that these tactics will likely have far more to do with the motive of his killing than the actual political substance of his arguments.”
WOW. Anyone who has ever made a political argument in public better look out, I guess.
I can’t tell if this is satire, as it’s an exact example of the sorts of tactics I’m talking about, but one of three things clearly happened: I didn’t make my point as cleanly as I thought, you are intentionally misrepresenting my point through reductionism to make it morally indefensible or you just didn’t understand my point.
In the spirit of taking my own medicine, I’ll assume the first in good faith.
Your characterization of my argument or the outcome of my argument is not a position I would defend myself (nor do I imagine any sane person would). Of course I believe that anyone should feel entitled to share their political message in public using any legal and non-violent tactics they decide. However, engaging in certain forms of discourse or propaganda indisputably raises the emotional stakes. Which does not in any way indicate that an individual who engages in that behavior deserved it or “had it coming.” But mature societies, and mature thinkers, are able to transition between assumptions at the individual level and assumptions at the collective level. Right now, our political discourse is littered with bad actors whose entire argument is premised on misrepresenting the beliefs of their opponents. My perception is that Charlie Kirk was one of those people. He was far from the only one (this is a true both sides issue) and it doesn’t justify the actions of the shooter in any context, but if we are serious about reducing the likelihood of political violence, which I am, we have to get serious about the behaviors which create an environment in which it is more likely.
You don't need to defend your argument from someone named Lasagna, it was perfectly clear the first time around.
One thing the lefty/anarchistic/violence-is-good types seem to miss is that the left will lose any kinetic war. The righties have all the guns. The left is even working hard to alienate any computer hackers. But we’ll stop them with our brigade of YouTube think-pieces on how this was all foretold by SpongeBob Squarepants
There was a truly shocking amount of political violence in the 60s. How did we get over that? Anybody old enough to remember?
Good question. I do think that might be the closest modern(ish) analogue we have to current times.
We took lead out of gasoline and paint, is how we mostly got over it. We'll never have zero violence, but the political violence we have today is mostly from disturbed and unbalanced people (which we'll never have zero of.)
Is there such a thing as a sweatshop scout? Because you are a fucking genius at threading the needle.
Fwiw this did make me laugh. Also that #feminism joke might be ironically relevant (if what was written on the shooters bullets/gun are indicative of anything).
Sadly this is the best take I’ve heard on this tragedy.
Maybe there are better ways than democracy. But if there are, this is indeed not how we get there.
Absolutely love this. Well said. Thank you.
The death of a tyrant is no tragedy and the death of anyone who supports tyranny is no tragedy. Get your head straight.
You realize this definition is trivially applied to you, right?
Funny, I would've said that "anyone who responds to opinions with bullets" is a good start on defining tyranny.
I could write something scathing here. However, you wouldn't listen, and it's not necessary -- your words are an embarrassment to yourself and your country.
I will laugh my ass off when your tyranny-supporting worm-ridden ass dies*. It will be poetic justice, and I hope it happens very, very soon.
*yes, I mean literal parasites. Do the math, the insult's probably over your head otherwise.
I am the exact opposite of tyranny-supporting. Every accusation is a confession.
Kirk was assassinated because he wouldn't support tyranny (It had nothing to do with domestic politics, whatever the line is by the end of the week). I'm certain you don't have an inventory of the publically available kill list he was on, but I think you really ought to know more (maybe try reading first?) before you open your pie hole again.
He was all about religious tyranny.
Which, apparently, had absolutely nothing to do with his murder.
Again, for those apparently hard of hearing:
Public Kill List.
Dictator.
Dead guy in America.
If you can't read those three statements and know what I'm talking about, your ignorance is impeding your understanding. If you don't understand that you do not understand, then you're just a dimwit waving flags because someone else told you they were the "thing to do."
Right. And we just proved him right, not wrong. That’s why it’s sad.
Nice blog post Jeff.
Lots of people get killed (shot or otherwise) in our country everyday.
Many in the right place at the wrong time while not being well known.
I hear them cry out: "hold my beer."