violence is a tool, not the whole toolbox
when the state labels you an extremist for existing, when they criminalize your identity, then self-defense becomes mandatory. Trump is using Charlie Kirk’s death to enact genocidal measures against queer Americans. if the FBI labels us as Nihilistic Violent Extremists the response will be bloodshed, and it will be deserved. The Stonewall riots weren’t polite. John Brown didn’t ask nicely. there is no debating with fascists. arguing with them is a waste of energy. make them afraid to show their faces instead.
Charlie Kirk was a white supremacist fascist who supported the creation of a Christian nationalist theocracy. the threat he posed to humanity was incalculable. he spent the later part of his career supporting state-sanctioned murder in part through denying healthcare, police brutality, and keeping Americans trapped in poverty. Charlie Kirk was a passive serial killer like every other fascist. instead of doing the dirty work themselves, they outsource the killing to cops, laws, and death by a thousand cuts.
there is nothing to condemn in relation to Kirk’s assassination. lone wolf resistance is inevitable when people are pushed to the brink. the left’s instinct to distance itself from these acts is naive and disempowering. it ignores history and human nature. revolution is messy. it’s not just marches and speeches, it’s desperate people doing desperate things because they’ve been left no other choice. the killing of fascists isn’t some aberration—it’s a predictable response to state-sanctioned terror.
stop condemning the acts of the oppressed or allies of the oppressed as “counterproductive” or “immoral.” they are the logical outcome of oppression. it may not be pretty, and it may even hurt the cause due to the response received, but the fault is of those who made war inevitable. the left needs to grow up. violence is a tool, not a sin. the real sin is the conditions that create it.
the thing is, lone wolf violence is never going to end. it is human nature. there are always going to be assassinations and one-off killings of prominent figures. avoid praise if you must but reframe the issue as an unfortunate yet necessary part of revolution that has been forced upon us. let the people know assassinations are the actions of a caged animal with no power remaining. tell the world that gunmen are responding to an immediate threat to human lives, and that this is the fault of the fascists; this is the psychological damage they cause. embrace what happens when revolution is needed, not because it’s righteous, but because it’s a testament to the strength of the human spirit. face what is happening as a matter of reality when it comes to disposing of fascists.
it’s a good thing that charlie kirk is gone. it doesn’t matter how it happened. words have power and he used his to make the country unsafe for minorities. he directly contributed to the climate that led to every single murder in the name of bigotry the last 10 years. blood was on his hands. it’s always a net positive when a monster is stopped.
i don’t care that Charlie Kirk is dead. i care that there are thousands more who need the same treatment.
Not sure this is unpopular on Lemmy but certainly in the larger culture.
I don’t think it’s self-defense to kill someone you’ve never interacted with and isn’t a direct threat to you. The only reason lethal self defense is sometimes acceptable is because in some circumstances, a direct and imminent threat means there is no time or space to seek alternative routes to safety. Regardless of whether Kirk’s rhetoric was a threat to the shooter, the threat was neither direct nor imminent and seeking alternative solutions was clearly an option.
It gets even more dubious when you recognize that Kirk was not a unique threat to queer people. He was merely a mouthpiece for a powerful network of people. People whose power is not fundamentally challenged or altered by his death. So there’s no reason to believe the act was even effective at making anyone safer anyway. I would argue it has put people in more danger than before.
Absolutely this.
Once you establish violence as a legitimate political tool, things turn nasty in a hurry. The citizenry is not benefitting from political violence.
I would push back on this slightly. Political violence is already fairly normalized when it comes to the state. But I agree that an escalation of this violence will not be helpful.
What’s needed is the delegitimization of this kind of violence by the powerful against the people. That’s a bit of a distinct topic but I think these lone wolf attacks tend to lend more, not less legitimacy to the real violence that is going on.
This post brought to you by the tankie-groyper accelerationist alliance
gross
You do realize that tankies are authoritarian, right?
Yeah I do, this is some variant of horseshoe theory
as a nordic european citizen: the entire american continent is beyond reform. perhaps Uruguay is a place for peaceful reform, if any.
viva luigi
I don’t think its an upopupar opinion, at least it wouldn’t be if that was the situation.
The alleged shooter is a groyper who killed Kirk because he wasn’t fascist enough.
This narrative that he was a leftist or a minority (such as a trans person) is a lie being spread by the Trump regime to justify trans-genocide and general violence against the whole left.
Israel killed him… Do you still refuse to condemn it?
Probably should refuse to condemn him because he’s only allegedly the shooter and hasn’t been convicted of anything yet.
Kirk is a replaceable grifter. He is not a billionaire at the top running the game.
you are truly unaware, aren’t you? Charlie Kirk was not merely a grifter, but an organizer and political activist with close ties to the Trump administration. TPUSA has over 800 local chapters all over the country and mostly in colleges. please look into where Kirk got his fingers in and understand how horrifyingly evil he was.
Bankrolled by Robert Shillman.
just like Tommy Robinson. gotta make sure his reach is worldwide.
And Geert Wilders and many more international grifters.
Kirk is not the figure in power. Not even close to it. He was a generic rank and file member.
while true on a larger scale, he was extremely important and influential to MAGA. it’s clear to me that the average person is unaware that Charlie Kirk became much more than a debate-me bro.
Why not just work on fixing both sides of the problem?
Because the public facing side has no power and is replaceable.
In fact Trump is now pushing the billionaire policies using Kirks death as an excuse. As are the billionaires bankrolling Kirk. Even the literal Israeli government threw Kirk under the bus for their own agenda before his body was cold.
The assassin turned him into a martyr. Murdering an innocent man in the name of the left only hurts their cause.
I don’t agree with a lot of the conservative policies that he supported but violence and murder was wrong and must be condemned.
referring to Charlie Kirk as innocent is all i need to know about you.
There absolutely is a place for political violence, but right now I’m definitely not convinced that shooting Kirk was a good thing
The only good Nazi…
it’s a good thing that charlie kirk is gone.
I disagree with this point. Charlie Kirk is gone, but his movement isn’t. Now the movement got more fuel in form of martyr. They got someone to fight against. They’re going to use his martyrdom to further escalate their hateful rhetoric into actions.
There are probably thousands of young men who grew up with Charlie Kirk who are ready to take on his mantle. Finding a replacement won’t be difficult. Soon there will be a Charlie Kirk 2.0 with even worse rhetoric.
No, his death isn’t a good thing. He was bad alive, but he’s worse dead.
we should never support killing ; violence just creates more violence.
However, the power of compassion for criminals is very underrated.
We need more for everyone.
you’re right. violence does create more violence and that’s exactly why leftist revolutionaries are in the right when they respond to fascism, an inherently violent ideology, with physical action.
you don’t want a violent response? don’t engage in violent rhetoric.
what if I don’t want violence?
it’s too late? lol
like hey, the fascists are currently winning and kidnapping people and trying to genocide LGBT Americans and are labeling anti-Christian and anti-capitalist beliefs as indicative of extremism and terrorism.
i don’t know how you think this ends without violence
and none of that actually resulted in a change in the economic system of a country or dismantling of elite power and control. fascism has never been defeated non-violently.
I thought ghandi did both
…no. India went from an invaded colony to its own corrupt mixed capitalist shithole. how is that revolutionary?
I agree with the first half of your title, but the second half goes way too far.
Are you not aware that the shooter was a “groyper” (i.e. a fan of Nick Fuentes, a literal neo-nazi rival influencer even more extreme than Kirk himself)?
The last thing we need to be doing is “empathiz[ing]” with fascists, even when they kill other fascists.
Are you not aware that the shooter was a “groyper”
The basis of this claim is shaky. There’s no good evidence he engaged with the Groyper movement. It’s just speculation.
I just spent 20 minutes looking for an article reporting on this that is properly sourced and I found nothing. Nothing material or people close to him connecting him to Fuentes and the groypers. This seems like speculation and wishful thinking from internet sleuths and we should stop repeating it. So far we don’t know much and the reporting in the media has been abysmal. I won’t even qualify the statements made by officials.
I believe if he had any clear political affiliation we would already know it by now. It’s such an obvious slam dunk from either side. No one would let that opportunity to trash the other side just slide away.
Closest are weak statements like ”he’s from a MAGA family” or ”he got a trans room mate”, but that’s about it.
Just like how we don’t lionize the guy who killed Hitler.
it doesn’t matter how it happened.
it’s always a net positive when a monster is stopped.The use of violence made Charlie Kirk into a martyr. Killing one man didn’t stop the hate he spread, it may have even emboldened it. They may have cut one head off the hydra, but the monster has not been stopped.
I believe that if we just continue with the method, it would work. You can’t make martyrs of everyone.
The gop would like you to hold their beer…
We don’t know the shooter’s motive. We do know that the official story from law enforcement includes a lot of things that are inconsistent with reality and rationality. (A .30-06 round from 150 yds didn’t blow Kirk’s neck completely off, the round didn’t exit his body, and there was no spatter on the mostly white backdrop behind him; the accused was seen “limping” towards the event, presumably having a rifle barrel in his pants, while at the same time being able to jump from the roof and run across the grass without such a rifle barrel; the accused disassembled the rifle in order to escape (while somehow still hiding the barrel, of course) then left it in the woods after reassembling it … instead of just continuing to successfully conceal it and escape without leaving it close to the scene.)
But I digress.
You’re assuming that the shooter is “the oppressed or [an ally] of the oppressed”. We don’t know that, and there’s plenty to suggest that the shooter isn’t the kind of person you think.
Of course, everyone wants to know the truth of the matter, but we just don’t have it. There is nothing wrong with waiting for more information, but even then, we may never know. We don’t always get what we want.
