Seriously. Fuck Charlie Kirk.

No to unilateral rhetorical disarmament.

It’s only been a few days, and already I am so sick of the palaver around this affair. I have to go off.

Charlie Kirk was racist, antisemitic scum. He got what he urged his millions of fans to go out and do, what his boosters in positions of government responsibility ARE doing, hope to do more of, and openly advocate doing more of. Now somebody else is supposed to feel guilty? What a joke.

Yes, you can be antisemitic and say you love Israel. I’m not opening that can of worms today. Just read the JTA story linked above. I don’t mind admitting that in an earlier draft of this screed, I didn’t foreground Kirk’s racism, thinking the antisemitism was enough of an indictment. On the merits it isn’t, though anti-black racism is less of a social transgression in contemporary culture.

All the political implications of this being voiced by anguished liberals, the fears of violent neo-fascist blowback, are well-founded, if confused. After all, we’re already getting neo-fascist violence. Trump and his minions, with the formidable tools of the national government, are doing a lot and are itching to do more. Where have these people been?

In fact, the violence is also, substantially, red-on-red. There is some indication that the suspect in Kirk’s murder is to the right of the Right. MAGA people, why are so many of you shooting each other?

There are indications that the dude accused of shooting Kirk is what’s known as a “Groyper,” someone to the right of the extreme Right. In any case, what kind of “leftist” is persuaded to turn himself in for attempted murder by his youth pastor? And what kind of youth pastor would put his acolyte on a slow boat to the gas chamber?

We get endless repetitions of “Violence is never the answer.” Of course, there isn’t anything or anyone left of center who remotely deserves this nag. It’s the people sermonizing the most against violence who foment most of it, playing the victim, while blaming it on their targets.

Most political violence in the U.S. has always come from the Right. This was true in the 1970s, even in comparison with a spate of bombings by the dregs of the student left, as Rick Perlstein has documented in his mega-histories of the period. (He reports on FB that he’s selling a lot of books these days. LOL.)

When the Right bemoans violence, it’s because they aim to do more of it. When you minimize the predominant role of the Right in U.S. political violence with language about how “both sides” should cool it down, you are validating the purported innocence of the Right. You are enabling more violence.

What a tragedy that a champion of free speech was struck down . . for speech. Except he was not a champion of free speech, quite the opposite. He was quite industrious in suppressing free speech among academics. We have the equivalent of speech codes now on college campuses, complete with multiple examples of dismissals, formerly limited to reasonable criticism of Israel, now extended to comments noting Kirk’s promotion of violence.

One would hope for some message from the top on behalf of civility, but instead we get this drivel from the president:

“We don’t want people coming in, we don’t want you burning our shopping centers, shooting our people in the street," he added. “Radicals on the left are the problem and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, open borders. Worst thing that happened to this country.”

You couldn’t get a better illustration testifying to the violent aspirations of the Right.

There is no need to rehash the plentiful descriptions available online of Kirk’s reprehensible career, except to note that mentioning it now for many is a firing offense. A situation made worse by Kirk himself before he was shot. I can’t be fired, though I can be denied employment. If I was looking for employment. Ha-ha.

My ex-friend Ezra Klein is a bit more famous for mourning Kirk in The New York Times, a man who, in his words, “did politics right.” Perhaps Ezra thinks this nonsense reduces his own chances of getting shot. I hope so. You can’t blame him for trying. What’s one more garbage commentary in the ocean of sewage that is our commercial media. He isn’t the same Ezra who, before he went into show business, once twittered, “Fuck Tim Russert. Fuck him with a spikey acid-tipped dick.” To be fair, Russert was a huge a-hole contributing majorly to the above-mentioned sewage. His nepo-baby son is even worse.

You know that joke, falsely attributed to Werner Herzog, that one-third of the population would like to kill another third, while the remaining third would just watch it happen. The remaining third are the folks bemoaning nasty rhetoric from “both sides.”

One is obliged to regret the impact on Kirk’s family, but when the situation is reversed, aren’t the legions of MAGA yahoos obliged to do the same ? Because they don’t. They don’t.

They don’t. Instead they gloat. They invoke Jesus, but they don’t follow Jesus. We get utterly illogical, increasingly incendiary nonsense from their leaders. Their lack of rationality should be read as pure aggressive intent.

There is such a thing as unilateral rhetorical disarmament. Don’t do it.