The Truth About Charlie Kirk

Unfortunately, the lionization of the late racist Charlie Kirk is not confined to the Benighted States of Amerika. To the Conservatives of Canada, Charlie Kirk is a martyr to free speech, a man who spoke fearlessly his 'truth'. Shamefully, after the disgraceful speech by Rachel Thomas, the Liberals joined in on the ovation:

Thankfully, Pastor Howard John Wesley fearlessly spoke the truth about the deceased. He said, "how you die does not redeem how you live."

Guess who will be labelled an enemy of the state and b the recipient of death threats? Hint: it won't be the white Conservative lass.

But I Thought Amerika Loves Free Speech.

Just a follow up on my previous post, which tried to take to task the arrant hypocrisy of Amerikans who trumpet free speech but become virulently opposed to it when their sensibilities are offended.

Apostles of the deceased right-wing emblem are warning Americans to get in line and mourn Charlie Kirk properly or be prepared for severe consequences.

At least 15 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs after discussing the killing online, according to a Reuters tally based on interviews, public statements and local press reports. The total includes journalists, academic workers and teachers. On Friday, a junior Nasdaq employee was fired over her posts related to Kirk.

Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in right-wing rage that has followed the killing.

Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk's critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.

The hypocrisy of this right-wing pearl-clutching is rather breathtaking, but hardly surprising.

Republicans' anger at those disrespecting Kirk's legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence.

For example, when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul was clubbed over the head by a hammer-wielding conspiracy theorist during a break-in at their San Francisco home shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, Higgins posted a photo making fun of the attack. He later deleted the post.

Trump's whisperer Laura Loomer suggested that

Paul Pelosi and his assailant were lovers, calling the brutal assault on the octogenarian a “booty call gone wrong.” Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.

And, of course, there was the deafening silence when Democrats were murdered. Herr Trump, who has been quite vocal about Kirk's killing, had nothing good or constructive to say when the other team was falling victim to violence last June. In fact, he politicized those deaths for his own advantage.

Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were killed along with their dog, and State Sen. John Hoffman, a Democrat, and his wife, Yvette, were shot and wounded.

 Following the Minnesota shooting, Trump called the incident "absolutely terrible," however, he slammed Gov. Tim Walz, a Democrat, and did not call him.

"I think he's a terrible governor. I think he's a grossly incompetent person. But I may, I may call him, I may call other people too," he told ABC News' Rachel Scott on June 15. 

"Why would I call him? I could call and say, 'Hi, how you doing?' Uh, the guy doesn't have a clue. He's a mess. I could be nice and call, but why waste time?" Trump told reporters on June 17.

Yet those disrespecting Kirk's memory and legacy are being ferreted out, a myriad of punishments awaiting them.

The campaign to fire Kirk’s critics has not slowed. Calls to run people out of jobs have flooded across X. A newly registered site, "Expose Charlie's Murderers," has 41 names of people it alleged were “supporting political violence online” and claims to be working on a backlog of more than 20,000 submissions. 

And Canadians, within Canada, are not exempt from this surge of outrage.

 A University of Toronto professor whose social-media post after the assassination of American political activist Charlie Kirk was criticized by Ontario’s Minister of Colleges and Universities is now on leave, according to the university.

Ruth Marshall, an associate professor in religious studies and politics, has been placed on administrative leave, the University of Toronto’s faculty association confirmed Friday.

An account on X, apparently connected to Prof. Marshall, posted Wednesday afternoon that “shooting is honestly too good for so many of you,” using a profanity and describing the subjects as “fascist.” 

While obviously her remarks were intemperate, it is disturbing to see a Canadian institution devoted to free speech overreacting thus. 

And one wonders what the consequences will be for the European Union, whose members refused to support a minute of silence for the fallen Kirk. 

... the refusal of Katarina Barley, a vice-president of the chamber, to let some MEPs hold a minute of silence for Charlie Kirk has sparked uproar among many conservative MEPs, including inside the European People’s party. 

Surely such disrespect will not go without consequences by the Amerikan arbiters of all that is holy and sacred.

The message is clear. Some lives matter more than others. In the fraught and roiling political landscape of Trump's Amerika, that means Republican lives will always trump Democratic ones. 

What Being A Patriot Now Means In Amerika

Well, in light of the murder of right-wing emblem Charlie Kirk, Trump's Amerika is enjoying a shot in the arm (no pun intended). That free-speech loving country is now being encouraged to report all free speech about Kirk's death if it doesn't accord with the official narrative of the slain right-wing leader as a secular saint.

America will take action against foreigners who “glorify violence” or otherwise “make light” of the shooting death of right-wing media personality Charlie Kirk, a Trump official said on X Thursday, as he encouraged people to report violators to the government in order to “protect the American people.”

U.S. deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau wrote that such people are not welcome in the United States, and that he has instructed consular officials to take “appropriate action” against those who “praise” or “rationalize” the shooter’s actions.

Good Amerikans, never ones to be asleep at the switch, are readily heeding the call:

In the hours after Landau’s post asking for reports about foreigners making light of Kirk’s death, he received almost 4,000 responses, including from users who posted screenshots from the personal social media accounts, including photos, of people that users claimed had “sided with America’s enemies,” as one widely-shared response put it. 

Trump whisperer Laura Loomer is also getting in on the 'patriotic' action, claiming

 on X that she’d gotten a government employee fired after publicly posting screenshots of his social media accounts, one of which included a post of him calling Kirk a “literal racist.” The “Libs of TikTok” X account has posted photos of several dozen people, including teachers, government employees and even a reality TV show contestant, it claims have celebrated Kirk’s death. Self-described political strategist Joey Mannarino posted on X that he’d been “reporting people to their jobs all day.” 

As I predicted in yesterday's post, a new era of repression and terror is beginning, and the Benighted States is becoming an even more dangerous place than it has already been under the second Trump regime.

Calling for action against those who express controversial opinions is “striking and dangerous,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, an associate professor who studies conspiracy theories and online communities at Queen’s University, in an email.  

Landau “is basically crowdsourcing surveillance and turning social media users into informants for state power,” he wrote. “This opens the door for abuse, with people mass-reporting foreigners whose politics they dislike, knowing it might jeopardize their visas.”

One needn't be an ardent student of history to understand that the current Amerikan trajectory mimics that of Nazi Germany.  This small snippet serves as a potent reminder, however:

To make up for a lack of staff, the Gestapo decided the vast majority of the population were loyal to the regime. It ruthlessly targeted its resources against groups within German society defined as political opponents, most notably, communists and socialists, religious dissidents, Jews, and a much broader group of ‘racial’ enemies, including long-term criminals, prostitutes, homosexuals, Gypsies, juvenile gangs and the long-term unemployed. 

'Loyal' Amerikans would likely dismiss such parallels as the hysterical rantings of "the radical left." In their hubris and profound ignorance of the world and history beyond their borders, they would undoubtedly claim that their persecution of unpopular views is entirely different and in defence of God and country. 

Hmm, I do believe that is exactly what the Nazis claimed to be doing as well.

 

They Are Contemptible

As I have written before, there seems to be no bottom to the depths to which Republicans in general, and one in particular, will descend. In the aftermath of the killing of right-wing star Charlie Kirk, this is what Trump, fulminating with righteous hypocrisy, had to say:

You don't need me to discuss the implication of his speech, but it certainly sounds like, in politicizing Kirk's killing (something Republicans always accuse Dems of during after school shootings), Trump intends to bring a new reign of terror and repression upon Amerika, especially with regard to free speech, political and media opposition to his agenda, etc. 

And his fury seems quite partisan. As the NYT observes, 

Mr. Trump made no mention of attacks on Democrats, including Melissa Hortman, the former Democratic speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives, who was killed in June.

The question in my mind is how the Democrats will respond to this. My suspicion, given their spinelessness, is that they will condemn the violence but be very wary of criticizing Trump's speech, their shrinking political fortunes uppermost in their mind. 

In other words, there will likely be no one to oppose what is to come.