Your comment seems critical of him.
So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?
So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?
> Dowd responded by saying about about Kirk: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”
(via https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-...)
To me, that's approximately as bad.
Justify policies enabling gun violence, and you make the world a more dangerous place, including for yourself. Sow hate and violence, and you end up creating people who hate you back. Why is that so hard to understand for some people? Why on earth do some people interpret that as a call for violence? None of it makes any sense.
It is when you say it of someone who was pushed rather than jumping.
There is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms. Hundreds of millions of Americans support the right to bear arms on at least some level.
I come from a New Zealand, and we have fairly strict gun laws.
That having loose laws and lots of guns comes with more deaths doesn’t seem at all surprising.
It is indeed not surprising that a rise in access to guns correlates with a rise in shooting deaths. That was indeed Kirk's exact point.
This does not contradict the quoted point in the slightest. It is worlds apart from what you are trying to dispute. Taking risks is not in the same category as being targeted.
> That was indeed Kirk's exact point.
This is a disingenuous framing of his quotes that are being thrown around.
> I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal.
> Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty.
That's not "of course there will be deaths", it's "the deaths are justified".
No, it isn't. The disingenuous framing is the one supposing that his model of "some gun deaths" included political assassinations. It clearly did not.
> That's not "of course there will be deaths", it's "the deaths are justified".
It is "of course there will be deaths". Just as it would be if the subject were cars, or kitchen knives, or poisonous household cleaners, or pesticides, or any other potentially lethal thing that ordinary Americans have access to.
If your standard for "justifying" is weak enough to include this, then it is too weak to conclude that there is any harm or moral wrong in saying it. To pick on this is to miss the point completely:
> This does not contradict the quoted point in the slightest. It is worlds apart from what you are trying to dispute. Taking risks is not in the same category as being targeted.
I've explained this in many other comments already. And I'm doing this as a Canadian who doesn't share Kirk's view.
This standard is not weak. That is a dishonest attack. His statement is meant to justify the obviously un-needed deaths of children as a necessary evil for Americans to have a "God given right" to own guns.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%27No_Way_to_Prevent_This,%27_...
And this is not a basis for concluding that he was morally wrong to say it.
Unless you feel the same way about everything else that causes preventable deaths.
(Note that the quote says nothing about children. This is a dishonest emotional plea.)
> It is when you say it of someone who was pushed rather than jumping.
That's some blatant attempt at derailing the discussion, but even then you're still wrong. Cause and effect is still not justification.
I have not done these things. I have disputed the first, and still not been shown good evidence. The magnitude of the second is irrelevant to the argument.
> These points also are in no way an encouragement of violence
I did not say they were. "Encouragement" and "justification" do not mean the same thing.
Yes, I proposed that this was approximately as bad as saying that it was a good thing. Saying that something is a good thing is still not the same as encouraging further such actions.
> That's some blatant attempt at derailing the discussion, but even then you're still wrong. Cause and effect is still not justification.
It is not a derailment. It is a characterization of what's wrong with your analogy. The entire point is that you are trying to say that someone (Dowd) pointed out logical cause and effect, but he did not. He saw a deliberate illegal act and attempted to characterize the specific as a natural consequence of increased access to tools. It is nothing of the sort. Kirk's quote, on the other hand, is accepting a statistical consequence and making a statement about risk and moral tradeoff, in defense of what he considered a fundamental right (I disagree, btw).
You can easily look that up. I'm not going to rehash every hateful far right arguments here. In fact, you can read the article to find a clear example of his behavior, where he literally cheers and jokes about political violence directed at those he disagrees with.
> The magnitude of the second is irrelevant to the argument.
It's not about "magnitude." I'm addressing your use of euphemisms when discussing the arming of the population with deadly weapons. You refer to it as "supporting the right to bear arms," as if that's just a matter of opinion and something harmless. No, it has real consequences and costs lives.
> Saying that something is a good thing is still not the same as encouraging further such actions.
That's a straight up lie. Dowd didn't say or even suggest that the shooting was a good thing. And no amount of mental gymnastics about "approximation" is going to make this not a lie.
> He saw a deliberate illegal act and attempted to characterize the specific as a natural consequence of increased access to tools.
Yes, needlessly antagonizing and arming people results in armed people turning against you. Again, this isn't hard to understand. Nor is it unethical to point this out.
The mental gymnastics on display is astounding. You're falsely accusing people of justifying violence, while defending someone who actually did that.
> You can easily look that up. I'm not going to rehash every hateful far right arguments here. In fact, you can read the article to find a clear example of his behavior, where he literally cheers and jokes about political violence directed at those he disagrees with.
I read the article. It does not show Kirk doing anything of the sort. In fact it does not show Kirk doing anything at all; it only gives Dowd's general opinion of Kirk's rhetoric, which doesn't include any such claim. Furthermore, it cites the memo from Dowd's former employer, which directly contradicts the claim.
> Charlie Kirk believed that “when people stop talking, really bad stuff starts.” Regardless of whether you agreed with his political views, his words and actions underscore the urgency to maintain a respectful exchange of ideas – a principle we must champion.
Kirk's views were not "far right", more or less definitionally. A very large percentage of Americans would agree with most of what he had to say — as demonstrated by crowd reactions at his debates, and by recent election results.
I'm not going to rehash every explanation here of why the things he said that are claimed to be hateful are in fact not actually hateful. Regardless, people saying hateful things does not justify a violent response. I firmly believe that Kirk agreed with me on that.
> I'm addressing your use of euphemisms
I am not "using a euphemism". I am simply rejecting your framing of the issue. You have no right to compel me to adopt your framing of the issue. And as a matter of fact, the American population objective is not "being armed". American gun owners by and large acquire guns by choosing to do so, not by having it forced upon them (for example by military conscription). In doing so, they are exercising a right that is, and has been, guaranteed to them and their forebears for nearly two hundred and fifty years, by the highest legal document in the land (and following on from a pre-existing common law tradition). A right which is consistently endorsed by a large majority of the American population, including Democrats (e.g. https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/one-in-five-americ...).
Again, I say this as someone who opposes gun ownership, living in a country with fairly strict gun laws and no similar recognition of a "right to bear arms". I respect law, and I respect national constitutions, and I respect societies.
> That's a straight up lie. Dowd didn't say or even suggest that the shooting was a good thing.
No, it's how words work. When you say that something is a good thing, you are not thereby encouraging similar things to happen.
You are the one who misrepresented me. I said that Dowd appeared to consider the action justified; you falsely claimed that I said he encouraged such actions. I did not say that he further encouraged such actions. I also very explicitly said that he didn't say the shooting was good, so it is entirely off base to accuse me of "lying" and then point out that Dowd didn't say the specific thing that I agreed he didn't say.
But I did have cause to view Dowd as seeing the shooting as justified. This was a subjective personal judgement, not a claim of fact; hence the phrase "did seem to agree".
To "justify" (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/justify) is "to prove or show to be just, right, or reasonable". Therefore, someone who thinks that something "is justified" is someone who believes that this has been shown.
Where Dowd said:
> You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place.
it came across to me that this reflected a belief on Dowd's part that the shooting was reasonable. This is a plain reading of Dowd's words, which use a common idiom to express the idea that the "awful actions" are a natural response to "saying these awful words".
Therefore, Dowd "seemed to agree that it was justified".
> And no amount of mental gymnastics about "approximation" is going to make this not a lie.
I did not engage in any kind of mental gymnastics. I pointed out that different things were different; and I pointed out that you made an objective claim about what I was claiming that was objectively incorrect — what I actually claimed was different.
Again, I gave a personal moral judgment that it's bad to justify political violence, specifically, about as bad as approving of that violence. You don't have to share my morals or values. But you are expected to abide by basic rules of civility.
> Yes, needlessly antagonizing and arming people
Kirk did not "needlessly antagonize" anyone; he spoke his mind. None of his expression of opinion was ever about a desire to make people angry. People did get angry, because they didn't like the fact that he had the opinions that he had. But he was absolutely entitled to have those opinions, and to express them.
He also did not distribute weapons to people, certainly not to the shooter.
> You're falsely accusing people of justifying violence, while defending someone who actually did that.
I did not accuse anyone of justifying violence. I theorized that someone appeared to consider that violence justified — and gave clear reason why I thought so, which is easy to understand and follows from a plain reading of the words.
Kirk did not, at any point I have been shown, claim any kind of extrajudicial violence to be justified. I can understand why other people believe he may have thought it justified, but I have already clearly explained why I think they are incorrect.
Your "evidence" being...
> it came across to me that this reflected a belief on Dowd's part that the shooting was reasonable
Uh, that's not evidence. That's you literally making stuff up and using weasel words like "came across" so that you can then accuse people of "misrepresenting" you when they call you out on it.
> This is a plain reading of Dowd's words
You clearly don't know what "plain reading" means. It's the opposite of projection.
> I am not "using a euphemism". I am simply rejecting your framing of the issue. You have no right to compel me to adopt your framing of the issue.
Whether something is a euphemism doesn't depend on whether you agree with me or not. You stated that "there is no rational line of reasoning in which being shot is a natural consequence of supporting the right to bear arms." Supporting the right to bear arms is a euphemism for making deadly weapons widely available. When such weapons are made widely accessible, it's only logical that they'd end up getting used, contradicting your statement. The euphemism serves to obscure that contradiction.
> American gun owners by and large acquire guns by choosing to do so, not by having it forced upon them
This is a straw man.
> I read the article. It does not show Kirk doing anything of the sort.
No, you didn't. Here's the quote from the article:
> Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.
> “If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,” he said.
We have a serious problem here if we can't even agree on whether something is literally written in the article or not.
> why the things he said that are claimed to be hateful are in fact not actually hateful
It's hateful to have a "debate" about why groups of people should be persecuted out of existence. That's not up for discussion.
> None of his expression of opinion was ever about a desire to make people angry. People did get angry, because they didn't like the fact that he had the opinions that he had. But he was absolutely entitled to have those opinions, and to express them.
Attacking people simply for existing in this world provokes anger, and they have every right to feel that way. Although to be very clear, turning that anger into violence is unacceptable. Returning to the main point, absolutely no one is "entitled" to deny the existence of others.
> Regardless, people saying hateful things does not justify a violent response.
Again, we're in agreement here.
* government officials (as you say), members of federal agencies, civil servants etc.
* journalists
* healthcare workers and emergency services personnel
* educators
There may have been more on my list, but it doesn't come to mind at the moment.
All of these are places where a mindset that glorifies or justifies political violence and death seems like it would be an impediment to actually doing the job properly, which is the only thing that would make me accept "cancel culture". Others may be morally unjustified in "crossing the line", but should not lose their jobs for it.
For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone. The "stochastic terrorism" argument is especially insidious: it attempts to launder "speech" into "violence" (and thus justify "an eye for an eye" etc.) by hand-waving at some vague notion of, basically, extremely non-imminent incitement. The idea is that convincing a wide audience of people to have a more negative impression of a group stochastically increases the number of members of that group that will die to violence. But none of the dots are ever actually connected in this argument; and taken seriously and applied even-handedly, it would make basically any form of political discourse impossible.
Initially, I thought Matthew Dowd's comments (I had very little exposure to them) didn't fall into that category — that they were simply made in incredibly bad taste. But I looked up some more of the transcript and, yeah, I can't excuse that. Certainly he wasn't as aggressive about it as, say, some Bluesky users. But part of it does fundamentally boil down to making the "fuck around and find out" argument, and "finding out" is just not supposed to involve being shot and killed.
This is fundamental for me; see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-o... .
It's really difficult. How do you apply this to government worker? Some are actively involved in killing people, foe example the military, (some) police, the judiciary in some jurisdictions, politicians. In places with a judicial death sentence it's acceptable to decide that someone deserve to die.
I remember now:
* HR personnel, those responsible for enforcing codes of conduct, etc.
We are at a place where the president of the united states gets to mount an insurrection and pardon people who beat cops with the American flag then claim the opposition is "fostering violence"; gets to claim that educators are "grooming and indoctrinating kids", that journalists are the "enemy of the people", that government officials are the "enemy within". While those people on the left are expected to summarily disarm their rhetoric because they are in positions of trust. Sure but what about: gestures toward the president of the united states.
Or what about, I don't know, the world's richest man, Elon Musk? He has so much power and therefore responsibility. Why isn't he expected to speak with prudence and responsibility? He's on Twitter spouting off about how the left is "the party of murder" before anyone even knew anything.
AOC, Bernie, and Zohran are often labeled "radical left socialists", but they offered nothing but calls for peace and calm from them. Meanwhile Musk was calling them murderers! No one is going to fire him for that rhetoric!
So if you're going to demand accountability for words from people in positions of trust -- which to be clear I agree with -- let's be honest about the fact that some people are put in higher positions of trust, and some people should be, but for some reason (money/power) are not ever, never, not once held to account for what they say. So maybe if we want to actually change something as a society, we should stop doing the same thing, and instead hold people at the highest echelons of power responsible for the things they say and do.