— Feature, Musings —09.13.2025 11:29 AM
To kill ideas
At the precise moment Charlie Kirk was being murdered, I was watching the end of the documentary The Road Between Us at Roy Thomson Hall.
It was sad, but somehow apt. The Road Between Us is about two Israeli parents, Noam and Gali Tibon, rushing to a kibbutz in Israel’s South in October 7 – to see if their son Amir and daughter-in-law Miri and granddaughters were dead, or to save them. Amir is a writer, a great one, and he has opinions. He survived that day.
Charlie Kirk, meanwhile, was a young man who was a writer, too, and he had opinions. He was killed for them.
The Road Between Us had been banned, for a while, by the Toronto International Film Festival – which was completely outrageous. After you see the documentary, it is even more outrageous: it is a film that promotes peace, not war. It is a film that is highly critical of Israel’s government and military.
Moreover, I could count on one hand the number of times the word “Israel” was uttered. TIFF’s decision to censor it, therefore, was deeply stupid. If it was an attempt to censor an idea, it failed.
TIFF’s CEO came on stage before the documentary started to apologize personally for the pain he and his organization caused. There were a few boos – but, mostly, the many Jewish Canadians in attendance applauded him. It was a wonderful moment, because it showed that there is a way to disagree, without resorting to hate. Without using violence.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a hate crime, obviously. It was a terrible act of violence. Someone who hated Kirk’s writings, someone who hated his words, decided to express their disagreement with a bullet. So they stole life from a young man with a young family, simply because they didn’t like his ideas.
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Warren,
His wife is going out of her way to burn bridges that normally accompany mourning after a senseless death, which was an unacceptable murder.
She keeps talking about THEY when the Utah governor and police say there was no they. The alleged killer acted alone. So the right would do well to stop spreading lies about this horrible and despicable crime.
Sorry Ronald, I’ll have to disagree strongly on this one. There’s a reel circulating out there of many, including elected officials and media, on the political left calling in no uncertain terms for violence (not lethal violence, but violence nonetheless) against supporters of Donald Trump and other Republicans/conservatives, etc.
This is othering, and it always leads to this kind of escalation.
Erica Kirk has a right to be upset at the political left these days after all that has happened. Their silence has been deafening since the near fatal shot against Trump himself. The Democrats just became the party of violence.
My prediction is that if there isn’t swift action, and fast, by the party and its affiliates, we’re going to see such a policy and culture blowback in the US, people will begin to wonder how someone like Barack Obama was ever electable.
Baloney. All prominent Democrats immediately condemned both of those shootings
St-Hubert,
No question a minority of Democrats have called for violence in the past, but so have a minority of Republicans.
But not people like Biden, Obama, Clinton, Harris, Newsom, Giffords, Pelosi, Raskin, Jeffries, Schumer, Vindman, Khanna and Mamdani who all condemned the killing.
Care to show me where a Republican has called for violence against Democrats? Video or audio clips will do.
St-Hubert,
You seem to have missed video of Trump using coded language at the Ellipse on January 6th 2021…
https://www.npr.org/2021/02/10/966396848/read-trumps-jan-6-speech-a-key-part-of-impeachment-trial
Let each reader be the judge.
Loomer: “More people will be murdered if the Left isn’t crushed with the power of the state,” Loomer added.
“Sean Davis, the CEO and co-founder of the Federalist, an influential conservative publication, posted on X: “I hope that Trump also orders the extermination of the entire anarcho-terrorist network that has been terrorizing Christians in this nation unabated for more than a decade.”
“Wednesday’s fatal shooting of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was greeted with widespread grief, horror, and shock by many MAGA and right-wing figures, some of whom counted Kirk as a friend or cited him as an inspiration for their own work. But while many simply expressed their grief for Kirk and his family, and politicians on both sides of the aisle condemned the killing, some public figures used the moment to make incendiary claims.”
“This did not stop some figures from stoking outrage, particularly against “the left,” whom—despite lacking any evidence as to the shooter’s identity and motive—they blamed for the killing. Former DOGE head and Tesla CEO Elon Musk posted to his 225 million followers, “The Left is the party of murder.”
“The goal for Republicans in the next ten years shouldn’t just be to win elections, but to destroy the Democrat Party entirely and salt the earth underneath it.”
“Former White House staffer and current podcast host Katie Miller, wife of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, wrote on X that liberals “have blood on your hands.” And Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) went so far as to blame the killing on the Democrats.”
In a separate post, Davis wrote, “When Democrats lose elections they couldn’t steal, they murder the people they were unable to defeat.”
The knee-jerk arguments that the killing was somehow orchestrated by the left called to mind the baseless blaming of Democrats following the attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump last summer. As our colleague Mark Follman noted at the time, allies of Trump, including his sons, repeatedly and falsely blamed Democrats for the attempts—claims that threat assessment and law enforcement experts warned could give rise to more political violence.”
“Others blamed Kirk’s killing on an unnamed group of opponents. On Fox News, host Jesse Watters claimed: “Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate?” Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) wrote, “They just shot Charlie Kirk.” (It was unclear whom Watters and Greene were referring to.)
“Andrew Tate, the British American masculinity influencer turned far-right culture warrior, kept his message simple: “Civil war,” he wrote. Anti-abortion activist and president of Students for Life Kristan Hawkins also invoked civil war and seemed to imply that Kirk’s killing was a result of his opposition to abortion. “We all know the work we do to protect Life comes at a cost,” Hawkins said. In another X post, she wrote: “This is a new civil war. One that we must fight with love to restore a Culture of Life.”
From USA Today:
“1 in 4 Republicans supports political violence if election is ‘compromised,’ study says”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2024/09/10/1-in-4-republicans-pro-political-violence/75142467007/
The second comment is from Mother Jones.
As for the current president and two assassination attempts against him:
From Politico:
“Moments after Trump was rushed off stage after gunshots rang out at his campaign rally in Pennsylvania, the former speaker [Pelosi] joined dozens of Democrats issuing statements of sympathy and prayers — holding back any criticism of their biggest political foil for the last eight years.”
“Top Democrats, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, both denounced political violence in statements moments after the attack.”
“And former President Barack Obama spoke out as well: “There is absolutely no place for political violence in our democracy. Although we don’t yet know exactly what happened, we should all be relieved that former President Trump wasn’t seriously hurt, and use this moment to recommit ourselves to civility and respect in our politics.”
Biden also denounced the assassination attempts.
From CNN:
Democratic congressman says staffer who posted inflammatory post about Trump shooting “no longer” employed
“Democratic Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi said Sunday that a staffer who made an inflammatory post about the assassination attempt of Donald Trump is “no longer in (his) employment.”
From MSNBC:
“Democrats across the board were quick to denounce political violence, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and former President Barack Obama.”
A bunch of isolated clips strung together on a video is evidence of fuck all, except that someone can string a bunch of isolated clips on a video showing certain selected people saying stuff.
Anyone and their dog could just as easily string together a video of a bunch of right-wing people advocating violence.
Fer Crissakes, the single largest domestic terrorist attack in US history was the Oklahoma City bombing, which was carried out by . . . a right wing extremist.
There’s plenty of blame to go around for political violence. But the shooter was a nut who had gone of the deep end immersed in toxic political social media. That happens to both right and left wing people. He doesn’t tell us anything about the views of most left of centre people.
Somehow I doubt if I AI’ed Trump and his band saying the exact same thing, you’d be labelling it “far right extremism” and coded language with a dark and sinister motive.
You can’t have it both ways, and now that a husband, son and father is dead because of militant left, we’re entering an era where you won’t be getting away with the double standard any longer.
Wrong. He comes from a Republican family and was photographed previously in a Trump t-shirt, a red one, in fact.
Charlie Kirk’s ideas are abhorrent. They were abhorrent but he shouldn’t have died for them. He should have been ashamed of himself for spewing such complete bullshit, but he didn’t deserve to die.
A combination of social media, and governments out of touch with the needs of citizens leads to people gravitating towards garbage. But they don’t deserve to die for spewing said garbage –
Far too many today do not know how to disagree
Exactly.
2 thoughts:
1. In the social media age, the idea of censorship is as meaningless as climbing a ladder upside down and backwards. Trying to silence voices only draws more attention and amplifies those voices.
2. My favorite comment by far re. Charlie Kirk over the last week or so was “love him, or hate him the fact is his shows were non violent.” Very good point.
I personally thought Charlie Kirk was a silly buffoon who turned an easy parlor trick into a social media sensation…. and his success was mostly due to naïve democrats playing into his rigged game on his terms. However, the man got young people interested in politics and social issues who otherwise probably would not have been so interested. I for one will always think that is a good thing.
Warren,
And those who haven’t ejaculated since the last century are far too stupid to know that defamation, libel and slander are something quite different in Canadian law than in the Wild West south of the border. Most tough guys will learn that lesson the hard way, right in the pocketbook. GOOD. That’s what a dick deserves.
Charlie Kirk was an intelligent young man who defended conservative ideas well. It’s ironic that many who say Charlie Kirk spread hatred seem to have a lot of hatred for him.
There’s nothing ironic about that at all. He didn’t deserve to be shot let alone assassinated, but for someone who spewed so much hateful vitriol it makes absolute sense he was in return hated.
Derek,
Absolutely. In life, we all get what we put out there. I consider my political conduct justifiable. Maybe God agrees and maybe not but either way, I will definitely find out sooner or later likely in spades. Call it the iron law of the universe for those who are not religiously inclined.
And the suspect looked so nice previously in that Trump T-shirt. So, go figure.
Hate? Groyper army action? Love triangle? When this was posted, no one had an inkling of the why and we still don’t. Yet here we are.
Warren,
Avi is in! If he wins, he’ll shake things up but good.