The Perils of Martyrdom

Political Violence is never acceptable, no matter who the person being targeted is.

Because the moment we say that it is acceptable to murder one person for their political beliefs, we open a very scary can of worms that cannot be resealed. If one person can be killed for their politics, and it's OK because they were the "wrong" politics, then anyone can be killed for having the "wrong" political beliefs.

It's already happening.

A Democratic Congresswoman, Melissa Hortman, was murdered earlier in the year for the crime of supporting the wrong political party, according to her murderer.

The Republican Party's failure to appropriately condemn or recognise the tragedy implied their consent to Political Assassinations, as long as they targeted the "correct" people.

When Trump was shot at, Democrats condemned the attempted shooting, because they knew the dangers of creating a martyr, and that political violence should never be normalised.

People are already far too comfortable hurling death threats over the internet. In March, I wrote an article about the Madleen Freedom Floatilla, after asking questions about how much aid it could reasonably be carrying, given the cargo capacity and the need for supplies for a 2-week voyage.

My Facebook inbox exploded with people threatening to kill me for being a Nazi Zionist, supporting Genocide, etc. A few attempted to call my workplace and get me fired for Asking Valid Questions on the Internet (My manager hung up and checked that I was ok).

It's a short jump from threatening violence to acting on those threats, and there have been times over the past two years that I have been genuinely afraid of the consequences of speaking truth to mobs.

Which, again, brings us back to the fact that political-based violence is not acceptable and should not be normalised.

I held back from commenting on Charlie Kirk's murder, mostly because I'd genuinely never heard of this guy until his face was all over the news and everyone was disagreeing whether he was a Conservative Podcaster trying to start a dialogue between sides, or a Right Wing bully acting in bad faith.

In the immediate aftermath, I was more concerned with checking on friends who are part of certain minorities, who were being blamed for the shooting before the Media suddenly went silent when it was revealed that the killer was a young, white Republican who didn't consider Charlie Kirk to be 'Right Wing Enough'.

As mentioned earlier in the article, Political Violence is never aceptable and should alway be condemned, so I am not celebrating his death and will never do so.

But neither am I dressing in black, tearing my clothes or cutting my hair, or wailing in the streets about the fact that yet another smug jerk discovered the hard way that he isn't immortal.

And as far as the people who hold Charlie Kirk up as a Martyr of the Right are concerned, no reaction is as bad as celebration.

People have been doxxed and lost jobs, or been harassed by the public for their reaction to Charlie Kirk's assassination.

I'm of two minds about the lost jobs: on the one hand, publically celebrating anyone's death isn't a great look, and companies are justified in not wanting to deal with the backlash being associated with them.

On the other hand, if a Barista asks for a name for the order, and you insist that they shout "Iced mocha latte for I mourn the death of Charlie Kirk and the destruction of America" to an entire cafe, they have every right to roll their eyes and ask for an actual name, not your political drama, without being penalised for it.

I wish that was an exaggeration, but from the sheer number of social media brags about doing exactly that...

And it gets worse.

This is the first murder attributed to Charlie Kirk supporters, but I doubt it will be the last. Too many angry, priveliged people are looking for someone to lash out at, and too many people with dissenting opinions are eager to engage, rather than walking away from the nonsense-fest.

South Park Creators also received death threats and warnings over a South Park episode mocking Charlie Kirk that was aired about a month before the shooting, claiming the show was "guilty" of influencing the shooter and should be held accountable.

That's dangerous thinking, and frankly, if a South Park episode mocking your favourite celebrity was the first time you realised that the entire show is built on Bad Taste mockery of whatever celebrity they think has it too easy at any given time and Low Brow humour catering to the lowest common denominator... I honestly don't know what to say to you. It's been that way since the 90s, and isn't likely to change now, or until they no longer have a steady audience who thrives on their brand of comedy.

The world is a scary place right now, and in refusing to condemn political violence in all it's forms, saintwashing a frankly terrible person as a Martyr to Free Speech, it just got that little bit darker.

I wish I had a solution, a way out of the darkness, but I don't.