to mourn the senseless death of Charlie Kirk and grieve with not only his family, but grieve for the heart of our nation? Can we grieve what America has turned into where so many believe violence is the solution? I've seen so many posts and threads on here but none I have seen where every post was just grieving for Charlie, his family, and the nation as a whole. Can't we all just come together and grieve without attacking the other side? Can't we just come together in the moment for a man whose life was cut short for allowing himself to be put in danger time and time again, even during numerous death threats, in order to have debate and engage with those having different opinions than ourselves? Isn't communicating and listening to the other side the first step in solving our problems, the very same thing that he was trying to do even right up to the moment he was murdered? Can we just do that in this thread instead of saying but but but but but?
I am sensing a little bit crocodile tears on this one.
The "heart of the nation" has seen enough shots to in recent memory to metaphorically appear like swiss cheese, and we are seeing a whole lot of situational ethics and concern based on who is killed and more importantly when we are supposed to apply a national level of grief and when to blame the victim for the outcome.
Any family impacted by violence is forced to grieve, like the person lost or not, agree with that person or not. I can be sad and apply empathy for any family dealing with putting someone in the ground taken from them by violence. And I do not have to like them, or even others that will grieve, to apply that sadness and empathy for what I know, all too well, they are going through.
If I am still grieving anything it is that this nation has a rich and frequent history of turning to violence in order to make a statement and/or take someone else's ability away to make their own statement. I did not agree with Kirk, do not particularly like him, and I do not have to in order to condemn using violence as the answer *regardless* of any position he took.
My real issue is the retrospectives on why he was assassinated end up becoming a reason to in some degree blame the victim.
Freedom of speech and expression was never intended to be kind, or considerate, or non-offensive. It was designed so we could have discourse, debate on the merits of an issue, then apply that to the principle of appealing to a majority that agree. But we don't do that all the time, and "solving our problems" in this case means being honest about when, and who, calls for calm and grief these days entirely based on who was killed.
Besides, our current President is going a long way to ensuring violence is what we will see tomorrow calling the "heart of the nation" something wounded right down political party lines. If we cannot find consensus in being sad about that, we are largely done as a nation.
The rest is just time to play out before violence begets more violence... oh wait... shit... we are already there now aren't we? Let me know when this is a two way street between ideologies, until then it is difficult to take these calls seriously. Comes across as something else, entirely less than honorable.
