A Public Justification for Kirk's Murder

 

The venerable Guardian has weighed in on Charlie Kirk’s murder, under the odd headline:

The students who debated with Charlie Kirk: ‘His goal was to verbally defeat us’ | Charlie Kirk shooting | The Guardian

Apparently, the fact that Kirk debated with people was at least partial justification for his murder. The left now openly objects to debate itself.

The piece quotes Trent Webb, a professor of writing studies and rhetoric and director of the speech and debate team at Hofstra University, to say “In a good faith debate, the final goal is to reach consensus. If that doesn’t happen, then a lot of academics would consider it to be an exercise in futility.”

The intention of a good faith debate is not to reach consensus. It is to reach truth. Consensus is the opposite of debate. “Consent” is the opposite of “dissent.” “Consensus” generally means that all present are required to agree with whoever is in charge. No dissent is allowed.

Which perhaps indeed describes the typical current university or high school classroom.

“Dr Charles Woods, a professor of rhetoric and composition at East Texas A&M University, and the host of The Big Rhetorical Podcast, said Kirk distilled nuanced topics into stifling, good v bad arguments.”

“Charlie turned myriad opportunities for meaningful dialogic transactions rooted in civility and turned them into confrontational interactions by amplifying binaries in his argumentative structure,” Woods wrote in an email. “What we know is that there is a spectrum of ideologies and worldviews, not just two: Charlie’s and whoever is on the other side of the microphone.”

In other words, Kirk committed the crime of disagreeing with those who stepped up to the microphone. Who, of course, stepped up to the microphone because they disagreed with Kirk. Why is it he, and not they, who are being reductive, binary, and adversarial?

Debate is by it nature adversarial and binary. A proposition is advanced; one side argues pro, the other con. If either side simply agrees with the other, they are not debating. This is an important concept to grasp. Our parliamentary system is founded on it. Bills are debated in parliament.

As someone who teaches rhetoric, it is shocking to me that our educational system has deteriorated to the point that professors of rhetoric are opposed to debate. But then, professors of history are opposed to teaching history, professors of literature are opposed to the concept of literature, and ministers of religion are opposed to the Christian religion, so it is of a piece. 

However, if one side in the debate is refusing to accept the basic rules and premises of debate, they are a danger to civil society. As Kirk’s murder clearly demonstrates.

The Underlying Reality of the Current Moment

The murders of Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska still physically sicken me. But this morning I have a new sense of calm. This was the last lunge of a dying beast. Charlie was killed because he won the debate. There may be further violence, we cannot let down our guard, but we are now in the mopping-up phase..

The trans movement is dead.

Materialism is dead.

Scientism is dead.

Islamism is dead.

Multiculturalism is dead.

Climate change is dead.

The powers and principalities of this world are in panic.

The materialist demons who inspired Iryna's murderer are in panic.

Christianity has won; or Judeo-Christianity.

The culture war is won. 

The evil is exposed, and the majority is repulsed by it. And we know who the ultimate baddies are now. There is moral clarity.

The Narcissists Speak

 

The audio conversation between the killer of Iryna Zarutska and his sister is available online. And it is striking that the killer shows no remorse. If he really did it in a fit of insanity, he should now be deeply remorseful for the poor innocent woman. Instead, he is concerned that the government must figure out what alien material is in his body that made him do this. The death of another human being just does not matter.

The killer of Charlie Kirk too showed no remorse in messages sent after the assassination. He was joking about it with his friends. No concern, even if he really thought Kirk’s views were dangerous, that innocent children had been left without a father. No sense of what the loss of Charlie Kirk might mean to the many who followed him.

And the same is alarmingly true for many people who have been openly celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. Somebody is compiling a growing list of 50,000 who did so online. You have probably seen this yourself.

Can you imagine people celebrating openly when JFK was shot? Did anyone celebrate openly when MLK was shot? When John Lennon was shot? Even when Mussolini died, Churchill condemned the killing.

Something has changed.

What has changed is an epidemic of narcissism. There are a lot of them; now we see this plainly. They see other people as no more than objects. Only their own feelings matter. They have no empathy for anyone else.

The good news is, these events, the killings of Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska, are revealing them to us, and the general public sees what they are. And, even better, in many cases there has been instant pushback: people are losing their jobs and being ostracized for this.

Yes, this is “cancel culture”; but turnabout is fair play. It is reminiscent of the turning against Robespierre and the Jacobins in Revolutionary France.

The Murder of Charlie Kirk

In the face of the death of Charlie Kirk, I am consoled by the ancient saying, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church”; and by the more modern saying, “first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." 

Some fear this will make public discourse impossible; and America will of necessity dissolve into general violence. 

I am hopeful that, instead, this might be the tipping point beyond which no decent person will admit to being on the woke left. The moral high ground counts for everything; and the left has now lost it decisively. 

I see signs of this. MSNBC fired their analyst Matthew Dowd within hours for commenting on air that Kirk deserved to die for his supposed “hate speech.” And they issued a public apology. U of T professor Ruth Marshall posted on social media “Shooting is honestly too good for so many of you fascist c–ts.” And has already been placed on leave.

Whether the left has developed a conscience or not, businesses know how their bread is buttered. They have belatedly gotten the message that the public mood has changed. They have learned the lesson of Bud Light, Disney, Target, and Cracker Barrel. Nobody wants to be next.

And the fact that some leftist has resorted to murder shows that Kirk won the argument. So they had to silence him. But did this work with Martin Luther King? Mahatam Gandhi? Socrates? Jesus Christ?

When they fight you, then you win.

I suspect that, two years from now, nobody will admit to ever having been “woke” or voting for Kamala Harris.