Let’s be clear: we’re not asking anyone to mourn Charlie Kirk. We’re not handing him sainthood or rewriting his record. What we are saying is that celebrating assassination corrodes us. It’s not justice, it’s not progress, it’s cruelty wearing a mask.
Empathy here doesn’t mean tears — it means refusing to mirror the sickness we fight against. If Kirk spent his life mocking empathy, then every laugh at his death is his ghost saying he was right. We refuse to prove him right.
Take from this what you will, but that’s where we stand.
I agree with you. But tell me why the president said flags should fly at half mast for Kirk, but the Colorado school shooting was not mentioned. We’ve had 28 school shootings this year alone. The flags should be flown at half mast for our children. How many more children and teachers do we lose to this nonsense before we have common sense gun laws? During the 10 years the Clinton administration enacted a ban on assault rifles, school shootings went down significantly. Bush II administration let that law lapse. Republicans think more of a fetus than a live child. We are really becoming a backward nation.
Marvelous post! You are one of the best out there when it comes to seeing clearly and being able to put feeling into words. Please be safe. I fear the killing of this man could have violent consequences.
Seems to me you support beatification of Kirk? He was a vile man who died by route of the violence he promoted. He thought guns deaths were a cost of doing business, but expected second graders to die, not him. No tears here. He will not be missed.
Thank you so much for the clarity of your thinking. I would say I was 95% of the way there with a little bit of hope that maybe this death would trigger a reckoning on gun laws, etc. etc. Obviously the climate is way too charged for that to happen and no one gains anything by taking pleasure in this tragedy. It’s absolutely awful. I’m going to post your essay far and wide Thanks again.
There’s a huge gulf between calling for violence and being relieved when someone who has made a career doing it is silenced. Sorry, but I am not sorry that I am not sad
I did not get the impression that she was 'happy'. Like I am just not sad and so many reveling in paroxysms of grief and probably misplaced anger over the death of someone like him. What makes me sad is the easy availability of guns and the need to use them on other people - like children in schools.
Question for you. Would you be happy if Trump were assassinated and literally MILLIONS of lives, including children, were saved and infinite pain and suffering for millions were avoided? This is not hyperbole, it is a fairly realistic outcome if that were to happen. Would you be happy if Hitler had been assassinated and 6 million Jews spared? Please answer.
I posted this elsewhere but thought it more applicable here:
No one invested in social equality, in democracy, in working class interests, will mourn the death of the vicious liar, scoundrel, and fascist Charlie Kirk.
But his killing should not be celebrated. His killer should not be praised. Far from solving problems, it exacerbates them.
Our enemies already label all of our peaceful, democratic activities against our class enemy as terrorism. Now they have been given a real cudgel.
"If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organization? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?
"In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission."
That's what the great revolutionary Leon Trotsky had to say in 1911 in his essay "Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism."
The attempted assassination of Trump last year: what did it accomplish? Did it stop the drive towards fascism? Indeed, it may very well have succeeded in putting the fascist into office, on par with the Democrats' own alienation of workers. With Kirk's death, another will step into his place and police repression will grow more savage and brazen.
That's not to say the feeling of revenge doesn't have its rights. But we must direct it into a political form that organizes and unites the working class and activates our power as a whole.
"If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister. To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction."
I don’t know who is laughing. I don’t find it funny at all, but it is difficult to muster up sympathy for someone like him, especially when he denounced empathy and supported gun deaths. It’s ironic - but not funny.
Absolutely not. I will not feel compassion for a dead fascist that thought it was ok to lose a "few children" to protect the second amendment. He was taken out by his own beliefs. I'm not giddy about his death, but I certainly do not care about him being dead. What I'm worried about is that this was trump's doing. To create a martyr, to create a reason to come down on leftists even harder, and an excuse to take guns away from the left. I have never seen anyone crying about the bloody American revolution or fascists being killed. No one with a brain has any empathy for people like Mussolini or Joseph Goebbels. Gun violence is not the answer, but I don't think the left did this either. I think he was sacrificed for the cult.
Thank you so much for this. I wrote a piece this morning that articulated the same sentiment, from a different angle (see below). I am grateful for any of my fellow Americans who speak out against the horrifying trend of celebrating or mocking a man’s death because you disagree (even very, very strongly disagree) with his politics or his rhetoric.
Death is final from our limited perspective, but consider that may not be the case from a higher perspective. I'm not speaking dogmatically of "heaven and hell", but rather of the lessons of personal accountability for how one chooses to live one's life.
Lessons that are painful in this life, but from which even a Charlie Kirk can learn in the hereafter.
Where were these outpourings of grief and outrage when a Democratic lawmaker and her husband were killed at their house?
Am I sorry this antisemite, misogynist, faux Christian is no longer alive to spew his venom? Not at all.
I am sorry, but not surprised that he was shot with a weapon that has no other purpose but to kill another being, his being a big fan of the Sacred 2nd. I would have preferred a heart attack or something perhaps more natural. As someone once said, Karma's a bitch.
Thank you for that beautifully written reminder that celebrating violence is a slippery slope. My first reaction was to be very happy, and now I'm working on empathy.
All of what you said is the truth. Each person in this world has the ability to change how they feel about something and that ability for him to come around to another way of thinking has now been taken away. And that’s something we must never do.
Let’s be clear: we’re not asking anyone to mourn Charlie Kirk. We’re not handing him sainthood or rewriting his record. What we are saying is that celebrating assassination corrodes us. It’s not justice, it’s not progress, it’s cruelty wearing a mask.
Empathy here doesn’t mean tears — it means refusing to mirror the sickness we fight against. If Kirk spent his life mocking empathy, then every laugh at his death is his ghost saying he was right. We refuse to prove him right.
Take from this what you will, but that’s where we stand.
Your post and this comment really helped me sort and understand my feelings about this. Thank you
I agree with you. But tell me why the president said flags should fly at half mast for Kirk, but the Colorado school shooting was not mentioned. We’ve had 28 school shootings this year alone. The flags should be flown at half mast for our children. How many more children and teachers do we lose to this nonsense before we have common sense gun laws? During the 10 years the Clinton administration enacted a ban on assault rifles, school shootings went down significantly. Bush II administration let that law lapse. Republicans think more of a fetus than a live child. We are really becoming a backward nation.
Marvelous post! You are one of the best out there when it comes to seeing clearly and being able to put feeling into words. Please be safe. I fear the killing of this man could have violent consequences.
Yes indeed: "we refuse to prove him right". Thank you once again!
Seems to me you support beatification of Kirk? He was a vile man who died by route of the violence he promoted. He thought guns deaths were a cost of doing business, but expected second graders to die, not him. No tears here. He will not be missed.
Thank you so much for the clarity of your thinking. I would say I was 95% of the way there with a little bit of hope that maybe this death would trigger a reckoning on gun laws, etc. etc. Obviously the climate is way too charged for that to happen and no one gains anything by taking pleasure in this tragedy. It’s absolutely awful. I’m going to post your essay far and wide Thanks again.
There’s a huge gulf between calling for violence and being relieved when someone who has made a career doing it is silenced. Sorry, but I am not sorry that I am not sad
You don't have to be not sad. You just shouldn't be happy about it.
I did not get the impression that she was 'happy'. Like I am just not sad and so many reveling in paroxysms of grief and probably misplaced anger over the death of someone like him. What makes me sad is the easy availability of guns and the need to use them on other people - like children in schools.
I will be whatever I happen to be. No guilt
Question for you. Would you be happy if Trump were assassinated and literally MILLIONS of lives, including children, were saved and infinite pain and suffering for millions were avoided? This is not hyperbole, it is a fairly realistic outcome if that were to happen. Would you be happy if Hitler had been assassinated and 6 million Jews spared? Please answer.
Exactly.
I posted this elsewhere but thought it more applicable here:
No one invested in social equality, in democracy, in working class interests, will mourn the death of the vicious liar, scoundrel, and fascist Charlie Kirk.
But his killing should not be celebrated. His killer should not be praised. Far from solving problems, it exacerbates them.
Our enemies already label all of our peaceful, democratic activities against our class enemy as terrorism. Now they have been given a real cudgel.
"If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organization? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?
"In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission."
That's what the great revolutionary Leon Trotsky had to say in 1911 in his essay "Why Marxists Oppose Individual Terrorism."
The attempted assassination of Trump last year: what did it accomplish? Did it stop the drive towards fascism? Indeed, it may very well have succeeded in putting the fascist into office, on par with the Democrats' own alienation of workers. With Kirk's death, another will step into his place and police repression will grow more savage and brazen.
That's not to say the feeling of revenge doesn't have its rights. But we must direct it into a political form that organizes and unites the working class and activates our power as a whole.
"If we oppose terrorist acts, it is only because individual revenge does not satisfy us. The account we have to settle with the capitalist system is too great to be presented to some functionary called a minister. To learn to see all the crimes against humanity, all the indignities to which the human body and spirit are subjected, as the twisted outgrowths and expressions of the existing social system, in order to direct all our energies into a collective struggle against this system—that is the direction in which the burning desire for revenge can find its highest moral satisfaction."
Thank-you for the work, CTTE.
My fear exactly, as it is about people like Vance: that "another will step into his place".
I don’t know who is laughing. I don’t find it funny at all, but it is difficult to muster up sympathy for someone like him, especially when he denounced empathy and supported gun deaths. It’s ironic - but not funny.
I am not sorry that I am not sorry.
Absolutely not. I will not feel compassion for a dead fascist that thought it was ok to lose a "few children" to protect the second amendment. He was taken out by his own beliefs. I'm not giddy about his death, but I certainly do not care about him being dead. What I'm worried about is that this was trump's doing. To create a martyr, to create a reason to come down on leftists even harder, and an excuse to take guns away from the left. I have never seen anyone crying about the bloody American revolution or fascists being killed. No one with a brain has any empathy for people like Mussolini or Joseph Goebbels. Gun violence is not the answer, but I don't think the left did this either. I think he was sacrificed for the cult.
Thank you so much for this. I wrote a piece this morning that articulated the same sentiment, from a different angle (see below). I am grateful for any of my fellow Americans who speak out against the horrifying trend of celebrating or mocking a man’s death because you disagree (even very, very strongly disagree) with his politics or his rhetoric.
We simply must not debase ourselves like this.
We must respect the sacred finality of death.
For the love of God. We must be better.
https://jeremywingert79.substack.com/p/cling-for-dear-life-to-your-humanity?r=9r1a0
Death is final from our limited perspective, but consider that may not be the case from a higher perspective. I'm not speaking dogmatically of "heaven and hell", but rather of the lessons of personal accountability for how one chooses to live one's life.
Lessons that are painful in this life, but from which even a Charlie Kirk can learn in the hereafter.
No one should be killed for their political beliefs. And no one should be "happy" when some one is killed for their political beliefs.
Exactly.
Not just his beliefs. What about his speech and actions that caused suffering for so many?
I love your writing.
You are perfectly on point.
Thank you for saying the hard parts out loud.
Leigh Clifton
Thank you for shining the light on human decency.
Where were these outpourings of grief and outrage when a Democratic lawmaker and her husband were killed at their house?
Am I sorry this antisemite, misogynist, faux Christian is no longer alive to spew his venom? Not at all.
I am sorry, but not surprised that he was shot with a weapon that has no other purpose but to kill another being, his being a big fan of the Sacred 2nd. I would have preferred a heart attack or something perhaps more natural. As someone once said, Karma's a bitch.
As for flags now at half staff...not at my house.
Exactly. Precisely.
Thank you for that beautifully written reminder that celebrating violence is a slippery slope. My first reaction was to be very happy, and now I'm working on empathy.
All of what you said is the truth. Each person in this world has the ability to change how they feel about something and that ability for him to come around to another way of thinking has now been taken away. And that’s something we must never do.
Yes. Thank you.