mhaze,

Fascinating how you warn that labelling someone “Hitler” might inspire violence… and then, in the same breath, boast that your side would win a civil war if it came to it. That isn’t a warning. It’s a threat dressed in civility.

Speaking of Hitler, I saw a message on social media the other day that was apt, given how many boxes Trump is checking when comparing his administration's actions to the slides into dictatorship of the past:

"Dear America, whatever you wish more Germans would have done in 1933, do that now."

You claim the right is “more civil than warlike” - yet Kirk’s death has been met not with calls for de-escalation, but with slogans like “beat the hell out of radical-left lunatics,” firings, and mass blame before a motive is even confirmed. The rhetoric hasn’t cooled, it’s been poured like petrol.

You also imply that Trump critics somehow invited assassination attempts by using strong language. But Trump has used far stronger rhetoric - calling journalists and the judiciary “enemies of the people,” saying opponents should be jailed, even joking about shooting migrants. If you believe words lead to violence, shouldn’t you apply that standard to both sides?

As for your “mostly peaceful” jab, yes, some BLM protests turned violent. No one serious denies that. But you’re cherry-picking a minority of cases. Over 7,750 demonstrations were recorded in 2020. Over 93% were non-violent. And unlike January 6 - or actual terrorist attacks by the far right - BLM wasn’t trying to overturn democracy or assassinate political officials.

The real threat to speech isn’t protecting kids from harmful content or moderating disinformation - it’s treating accountability as censorship. When companies drop toxic personalities, that’s not tyranny. It’s consequences in a marketplace of ideas.

Elon’s Twitter moment wasn’t democratic, it was oligarchic. One billionaire buying the public square doesn’t liberate speech. It consolidates power.

You’re right that freedom of speech matters. But if it’s only free when it’s your side talking - and “terrorism” when it’s not - then what you’re defending isn’t speech. It’s supremacy.

"That young man....I forgiving him"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6nfubORZAY

Its the Christian thing to do.

But there are also those like Trump who know that if you turn the other cheek, they'll try to shot that as well. There must be consequences or the ill behaviour will continue. Trump knows that. At our heart, we all know that.

That's where the pendulum is taking us. Christian notions of love and forgiveness coupled with steely eyed determination to return their country, and eventually ours, to is Christian western heritage.

Trumpster,

Did you not support those Trumpsters who stormed the Capitol Building, Jan 6th 2021, egged on by Donald himself? Weren't you the bloke sporting the buffalo horns and red, white and blue face paint? I'm sure you were all in favour of that typical American act of democracy, guns blazing and all!

I hadn't heard of Charlie Kirk before he took one for The Donald's version of democracy". Nor had I heard of that other wiz Jimmy Kimmel, I believe his program is called 'Jimmy KImmel Live', wont out rate 'Charlie Kirk' Dead, what do you think?

mhaze,

Yes, that was a gracious and moving moment in what was otherwise a political spectacle that Trump - unsurprisingly - made all about himself. But what followed in your post seems almost designed to negate her example.

//Its the Christian thing to do.//

Yes, and Christ didn’t add, “unless you think the other side will take advantage of it.” That’s the whole challenge of Christian forgiveness: it costs something. It’s unconditional. It’s not followed by “but…”

//But there are also those like Trump who know that if you turn the other cheek, they'll try to shot that as well.//

That’s not Christian doctrine, that’s retribution dressed up as realism. If we justify retaliation on the basis that mercy will be “taken advantage of,” then we’ve abandoned the Sermon on the Mount entirely.

Also, “turn the other cheek” wasn’t a naïve call to passivity. It was a radical ethical standard. Trump’s worldview is the inverse of it - mocking, vindictive, and transactional.

//There must be consequences or the ill behaviour will continue. Trump knows that. At our heart, we all know that.//

What Trump “knows” is how to channel grievance into power. And “consequences” is doing a lot of work here. What sort of consequences are we talking about? Social accountability, or the kind of threats and calls to violence that have been escalating since Kirk’s death?

And no, not “all of us” know that retaliation is the answer. Some of us still believe restraint is strength.

//That's where the pendulum is taking us. Christian notions of love and forgiveness coupled with steely eyed determination to return their country, and eventually ours, to is Christian western heritage.//

If we’re selectively quoting Christian virtues while ignoring their deeper teachings - especially the command to love our enemies and reject vengeance - then we’re not reclaiming heritage. We’re rebranding it.

The rapid elevation of Charlie Kirk’s death into a political martyrdom narrative resembles Goebbels' "Horst Wessel effect."

The similarities are striking.

The politically charged killing of an unremarkable right-wing activist (in Wessel's case, communists), even with unclear motives, is swiftly mythologised to rally support, vilify opponents, and justify ideological escalation.

A tragic death becomes a symbolic event. Complexity gets stripped away. The person becomes a slogan. And soon, we’re no longer responding to facts - we’re responding to a myth.

Within days of Kirk’s killing, we’ve seen comparisons to JFK, declarations of cultural war, and open calls for vengeance - some of them wrapped in religious language, others in populist outrage. Even Erika Kirk’s moving moment of public forgiveness is already being reframed as a prelude to retaliation.

That’s the danger of the Horst Wessel effect: it transforms grief into political capital and creates momentum not for healing, but for escalation.

And boy has Trump done what he can to escalate!

We don’t yet know why exactly Kirk was killed. But that hasn’t stopped the narrative from hardening. And the more it hardens, the less room there is for restraint, nuance, or truth.

Thanks John,

The use of Kirk's death by Trump and his inner circle to engender outrageous fear in supporters, and then fuel demands for retribution on those cast as the real danger to the ordered society, as envisaged by the great leader himself Donald, its nothing short of Nazism and what Hitler and his lieutenants did in Germany in the 1930's. It all begins rather innocuously with a few minor measures against the undesirables, all cast as necessary for the greater good, but over times those measures are escalated as the regime becomes more dominant and more assertive within society, drawing in a wider base of supporters, from the hard core to the moderates. Particularly as more the moderates in society perceive that things are working for their benefit, and they justify to themselves the regimes excesses as totally necessary.