No. of Recommendations: 8
That was my initial reaction as well. To be perfectly honest, I didn't know a whole lot about Kirk. So I kept silent and have been reading. Now I'm ready to write.
Let's get a couple of things out of the way. I grieve for Kirk's family, especially his wife and children. They didn't deserve this. I grieve for the shooter's family. The family probably didn't have much of anything to do with this, but they will be subject to heavy scrutiny. I grieve for the country. As has already been said multiple times, this event is highly likely to be an excuse to ratchet up the authoritarian rhetoric, with the accompanying risk and pain falling on innocents. Violence doesn't solve anything, it just begets more violence.
It's that last bit that keeps me from grieving for Kirk. In the book he claims to follow, there are some applicable words. Matthew 26:50-52 (The Message)
[editorial insert - my purpose here is not to indoctrinate anyone or convince anyone of the right-ness or wrong-ness of Christian faith, but to simply teach those who might not be familiar with that faith a little piece of what that faith includes. Kirk claimed to be a Christian, so I felt that understanding a little piece of Christian faith is helpful to understanding my thoughts here.]
Then they came on [Jesus]—grabbed him and roughed him up. One of those with Jesus pulled his sword and, taking a swing at the Chief Priest’s servant, cut off his ear.
Jesus said, “Put your sword back where it belongs. All who use swords are destroyed by swords.
That last bit is often said "Those who live by the sword die by the sword."
Kirk was an ardent supporter of the right to bear arms. He even made some statements (already quoted on this board) that indicated he believed the loss of innocent life was a small price to pay for defending the nearly unfettered right to own guns. Yet that right brought him to his demise. He became a victim of gun violence that he espoused. Sort of a poetic ending, in a way.
In other areas of his life, I'll be generous and call Kirk an arrogant jerk. He claimed free speech, yet worked hard to silence liberal voices, particularly in Universities. Some of his earliest advocacy work was the creation of a list of University professors to be silenced for their liberal point of view. As is common among populist evangelists and MAGA leadership, he created an organization with him at the top, then funneled all the money he could into his own pocket. He opposed abortion and civil rights for blacks and the LGBTQ community. He spread lies about Covid and the 2020 election.
So that is why I do not mourn Kirk's passing. He didn't deserve this - no one deserves to be shot in public simply for holding unpopular views. Instead, he deserved to be free to speak his mind, but no one is immune from the consequences of such speech. Here in the US, there should be no consequences as long as the speech doesn't cross a few certain lines. I don't believe his speech did cross those lines. So the only consequences should be having to tolerate those who speak out against him, using that same right to free speech. But for those who believe in a life after death, his ultimate consequences are now in God's hands.
Judging Charlie's eternal soul (again for those who believe in that) is not up to me, nor anyone else here. But we can judge his actions against what he claims to have believed, and I find those actions sorely lacking in love and compassion - two things that Jesus talked about a lot.
--Peter
