| | | This is my last post on Charlie Kirk.
I understand it is fashionable to eulogize and elevate a person who has died, especially when he is shot dead.
But I don't see him as you have portrayed him.
Firstly, there is no question that Kirk's discourse was intentionally provocative. There is nothing wrong with that per se. But while he sometimes maintained civility in face-to-face interactions, his broader rhetoric, especially online and at political events, frequently fanned the flames and demonized opposition. So portraying him as some form outreaching of the opposite minds is plain wrong because he was a major contributor to the polarized climate he operated within.
Secondly, he was an extremist. He formulated gun violence as a mental health issue, but opposed background checks for mental illness, violent background, etc. Nor did he make room for compensating factors such as requiring gun education and so on. So the net effect was advocating for allowing dangerous people to have as much lethal weapons as they can get.
In totality, he advocated for gun industry at a huge human cost. That is how he made his living. As CEO TPUSA, Kirk’s salary grew from around $27,000 in 2016 to over $400,000 by 2021. TPUSA itself raised over $250 million since its inception, largely from conservative megadonors
You don't have to take my word for it. You can go to your Windows Copilot or ChatGPT or Google everything that I said.
All this said, I am not advocating that people should go and shoot whoever they don't like, nor do I believe that this shooting was justified. But I simply don't think he should be whitewashed as something other than the opportunist that he was. |
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