Charlie Kirk

I finally had time to go check for myself. One can find overclaims about him on both sides, though I have a strong opinion which strays farthest from the truth. His opponents claim he was mean, and abrasive, and provocative. Because he also supported Second Amendment rights they claim that he thus supported allowing people to be shot. This is the same as saying if we didn't have motor vehicles we wouldn't have motor vehicle accidents, but they get unwired whenever guns are mentioned and lose the ability to do arithmetic and engage is basic logic.  Guns equalize the weak against the strong and have done wonders for the rights of the weak, oppressed, and reasonable against the merely powerful. Even today More guns, less crime is not an enormous numerical advantage, but it is measurable and significant. 

This week I read "I am not in support of what happened to Charlie Kirk.  But Charlie Kirk was in support of what happened to Charlie Kirk." I don't recall Kirk being in favor of assassinations, so this can only mean "Well, he was a gun guy, he should expect this."  Horrifying. Try that on the dangers of skiing, or power tools, or walking downtown, or anything else you did today and see how the logic holds up. It'sjust a self-righteous way of saying "He deserved it."

On the other hand, his supporters have taken to saying "He was just going to college campuses and talking to people."  We recently covered in Stuart The Just what it means when someone is "just," or "only," or "merely" doing something.  It usually means they were doing more than that but are trying to back away from it now. Kirk was abrasive and confrontational. It is fair to say that "He didn't suffer fools gladly." 

Well, as Eddie Izzard said "Who does, really?"

 

Sometimes we should be abrasive and confrontational.  I'm not claiming that Christians should never go there. Yet in general, we are asked to suffer fools as gladly as we can, recognising that this is most of humanity and (gulp) sometimes includes ourselves.