Charlie Kirk's Opinions Didn't Deserve Him Being Murdered

Michie said:

I watched a documentary showing these things he supposedly said in context complete with videos of the conversation. It’s outright deception how people are quoting the things he said out of context. But there is no shame in partisan politics.

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Unfortunately, it is a very common practice in politics. But I have noticed the exact same thing with regard to the left's claims about Charlie. I'm sure Kirk has had some imperfect moments, somewhere along the line. But every claim I have seen has been a partial quote, or a statement out of context, or a deliberate attempt to malign him. One wonders what is the motivation for doing so?

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered.

And surely you concur that the children in Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Uvalde, the Catholic school in Minnesota, and 117 other schools did not deserve to be murdered either, and that their deaths were not a reasonable price to pay for the Second Amendment.

That was one of Kirk's opinions. For those of us who believe there are too many gun deaths and too little sensible gun regulations, we mourn every gun death--whether drive by shootings in inner cities or little children shot in schools.

Let us all stop, breathe and ask ourselves, "Is the Second Amendment in its current greatly unrestricted form, which took the life of Charlie Kirk, considered a hero and even a saint by perhaps 50% of the country, reasonable? Is it time to protect American conservative heroes by setting reasonable limits on guns?"

Fantine said:

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered.

And surely you concur that the children in Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Uvalde, the Catholic school in Minnesota, and 117 other schools did not deserve to be murdered either, and that their deaths were not a reasonable price to pay for the Second Amendment.

That was one of Kirk's opinions. For those of us who believe there are too many gun deaths and too little sensible gun regulations, we mourn every gun death--whether drive by shootings in inner cities or little children shot in schools.

Let us all stop, breathe and ask ourselves, "Is the Second Amendment in its current greatly unrestricted form, which took the life of Charlie Kirk, considered a hero and even a saint by perhaps 50% of the country, reasonable? Is it time to protect American conservative heroes by setting reasonable limits on guns?"

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There are a couple of problems with this. The first one is the philosophical one: it is trying to stop the leak at the wrong end. The fundamental cause is the national turning away from the Christian God. That is the reason why there has been such an explosion of violence in general. The proposal to repeal the second amendment does nothing at all to address the fundamental cause. Guns do not pull their own triggers, and pens and pencils do not fail exams. Everything depends on the people wielding them.

The next is what should be an obvious one: if guns are outlawed, then only outlaws will have guns. It is a fact that a number of shootings have actually been stopped by good guys with guns, not only Police, but private citizens who happen to be on the scene with a gun. furthermore, since the outlaws will still have guns, you are basically disarming the people who could otherwise defend themselves. In a home invasion, now the homeowner will be charged, even though he was the one that was violently attacked.

Finally, an extension of the last point, people who propose such a repeal, have an implicit trust that the government will always be their friend. They have no conception of the tyranny conducted in countries that did in fact disarm their own citizens, ranging from Nazi Germany to the Soviet Union to communist China. One thing many people here have failed to realize is that our government has been especially slow to direct tyranny because of the possibility of armed opposition by its own citizens. The second amendment was not written and agreed upon out of safety concerns, but out of the overriding concern that a government can tyrannize its own people.

Tthese are all concerns that are always going to stand in the way of your idea of simply taking away the guns. Again, you can only take the guns away from law-abiding citizens, the very peopleho, on the whole, you should be least afraid of.

You ignore how successfully and peacefully most other advanced countries deal with the gun issue.

As far as the Christian God goes, the most peaceful groups on earth are Buddhists and Hindus.

This is partly due to many Christians who completely misrepresent who Jesus was and what he preached on earth.

Buddhism courts no misrepresentation.

As far as guns go, Ghandi, MLK, and other leaders have proven that peaceful resistance, while not fast acting, is lasting.

And certainly resistance is warranted today.

I am a little disappointed you failed to acknowledge that 121 school shootings' innocent victims deserves as much outrage and resolve as the tragic death of a media personality.

Fantine said:

You ignore how successfully and peacefully most other advanced countries deal with the gun issue.

As far as the Christian God goes, the most peaceful groups on earth are Buddhists and Hindus.

This is partly due to many Christians who completely misrepresent who Jesus was and what he preached on earth.

Buddhism courts no misrepresentation.

As far as guns go, Ghandi, MLK, and other leaders have proven that peaceful resistance, while not fast acting, is lasting.

And certainly resistance is warranted today.

I am a little disappointed you failed to acknowledge that 121 school shootings' innocent victims deserves as much outrage and resolve as the tragic death of a media personality.

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You can put your own interpretations on things. All of the deaths are tragic. The essence of tragedy is that it need not have happened.
But there is a fundamental differences between the school shootings and Kirk’s shooting, and it is that the school shootings were mad dogs attacking the helpless, and Kirk’s shooting was the deliberate silencing of the voice of truth that threatens the whole house of cards the Left is standing on. The school shootings struck randomly, like natural disasters. Kirk’s shooting, because it was not only committed by another mad dog who rejected his parents’ upbringing, but was enthusiastically cheered by a large minority on the Left, is a declaration that they mean to target not just some of us, randomly, but all of us who think like Kirk, including me.
And that’s setting aside the fact that in all cases, it is not people who love God and country that are doing the shooting, but nihilists produced by our schools and secular society that love neither.
Ending our insane flirtation with secularism, national repentance, is the only way you’re really going to stop these tragedies. My earlier points stand, and while you may disagree with them, you can't refute them, either.

Christian nationalism is not Christianity. It has everything to.do with politics and little to do with Jesus' Gospel message.

Kirk was killed by one sick individual molded and shaped by radical conservatism. He represented nothing but a violence progressives descry and have been condemning for years.

Progressives were rightfully concerned about the right's attempt to capitalize on this tragedy, as demonstrated by the hate-filled rallying cries of Miller and the president at Kirk's funeral.

We must not cheapen his life by using it to trample on human rights and democracy.

Fantine said:

Christian nationalism is not Christianity. It has everything to.do with politics and little to do with Jesus' Gospel message.

Kirk was killed by one sick individual molded and shaped by radical conservatism. He represented nothing but a violence progressives descry and have been condemning for years.

Progressives were rightfully concerned about the right's attempt to capitalize on this tragedy, as demonstrated by the hate-filled rallying cries of Miller and the president at Kirk's funeral.

We must not cheapen his life by using it to trample on human rights and democracy.

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Well, first of all, human rights come from God. No one is suggesting trampling on actual rights, those guaranteed by the Constitution. However many people today claim as rights what are not rights at all, but wrongs. No one has a right to wrongs. There is no Constitutional “right” that says men can “marry” men, for example.

Next, you speak of “Christian nationalism”. I imagine we don’t agree on what that is, but if I think about the words, then a) Am I a Christian? Yes. b) Do I love my nation(country)? Yes. In that sense we might agree that I am a “Christian nationalist”. But if you deplore those things, either Christianity or love for your country, then you are an enemy that we are commanded to love. Did you even see Erika forgiving Charlie’s killer? When you talk of hate, you do make me doubt it.

Do I think love for my country supercedes that of the Kingdom of Heaven? Absolutely not. Am I a pacifist? No. Do I believe in turning the cheeks of those I am responsible for? No. For those reasons, I believe in the right of Christians to defend their homes, families, and in (hopefully very rare instances) country.

To say that Charlie Kirk represented violence is silly and ignorant. It means you watch video clips carefully edited on CNN and NBC, and have not taken the trouble to watch him extendedly and unedited.

“Hate-filled cries”? Would you care to bring the receipts on that one? Original, unedited clips that we could examine the context of? I think that might not be so easy to do.

None of that means that we defend and support every last word of Kirk or Trump. But they have been so demonized that your challenge, to convince the unconvinced, is to show that you are fair and even-handed. Being partisan is easy. Being fair to your enemies is not.

rusmeister said:

Next, you speak of “Christian nationalism”. I imagine we don’t agree on what that is, but if I think about the words, then a) Am I a Christian? Yes. b) Do I love my nation(country)? Yes. In that sense we might agree that I am a “Christian nationalist”.

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Christian nationalism has been defined, it is not an abstract (and wiki) . It is a concept that is controversial even among the heterodox. Marrying of an evangelical protestant faith construct with right wing politics is not something someone unknowing (as you admitted) should endorse lightly.

rusmeister said:

Being partisan is easy. Being fair to your enemies is not.

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Your series of three posts have shown you are partisan.

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rusmeister said:

My earlier points.. ..you may disagree with them, you can't refute them, either.

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I disagree with some of your points and see more than one point to quibble.
One of which is the notion that, "the second amendment was not written and agreed upon out of safety concerns, but out of the overriding concern that a government can tyrannize its own people."
The very text of the 2nd Amendment refutes that notion. The 2nd Amendment was written an adpoted as " being necessary to the security of a free State, " not opposition to it. It was the opposition to a standing army, and the absence of a standing army when the 2nd Amendment was written and adopted that was the overriding concern that a government can tyrannize its own people. Having an armed citizenry was the compromise. The armed citizenry militia were there to protect the government in the absence of a state military.

Another point I would quibble is your notion that placing limits on unfettered gun ownership is an all or nothing proposal.
There are plenty of us in the middle of the extremes of today's "do nothing" conservatism to that of the left which would make all guns illegal.
I would not favor outlawing gun-ownership, but I would favor stricter background checks, red-flag laws, registration, licensing and insurance of weapons. None of which would result in the trite platitude of only outlaws having guns.

FireDragon76 said:

I've known about Charlie Kirk longer than many people here defending him have, and listened to more of his sophistry than I should have.

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Then you should know that what your saying isn't true.

Pepperdoodle said:

I'm finding that out!!
But his stuff is in news feeds more now.
I didn't follow the guy, but what I've seen from them is out of context, cherry picking.
They can't go by the in context versions, it seems it proves them wrong, yet again!

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Kida resides me of how they cherry picked Trump's statements to suggest that he called neo-nazis "good people" and how he supposedly encouraged people to inject themselves with bleach to cure COVID. Same strategy, same game, same nonsense.

Fantine said:

And surely you concur that the children in Sandy Hook, Parkland, Columbine, Uvalde, the Catholic school in Minnesota, and 117 other schools did not deserve to be murdered either, and that their deaths were not a reasonable price to pay for the Second Amendment.

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Whataboutism. Who on the right celebrated the deaths of children and called for more?

If someone accused you of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

I am not a Charlie Kirk follower, though, from what little I have heard of him, it's not exactly the stuff Jesus taught. But maybe he DID preach the same things Jesus taught and said. If so, people should be able to provide plenty of sound bites of that, right?

joechristianwarrior said:

I am not a Charlie Kirk follower, though, from what little I have heard of him, it's not exactly the stuff Jesus taught.

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Such as? I am already predicting the examples you are going to provide are debunked, cherry picked out of context examples a liberal propaganda source was trying to proliferate.

joechristianwarrior said:

If someone accused you of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

I am not a Charlie Kirk follower, though, from what little I have heard of him, it's not exactly the stuff Jesus taught. But maybe he DID preach the same things Jesus taught and said. If so, people should be able to provide plenty of sound bites of that, right?

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I appreciate that you have heard little. Certainly he didn’t say word for a word everything that Jesus said that we have recorded in Scripture. Yes he did preach many of the same things Jesus taught, and said. There are plenty of sound bites, too many in fact. we could flood this thread with them, it would just be a slightly time-consuming task to find each video, and posting the link. but we don’t want the sound bites really, what we want is what was said in context. The people who have decided to treat him as an enemy have shown again and again that that they truly did not listen to him. At most, he said a couple of things that they strongly disagree with.

FenderTL5 said:

Christian nationalism has been defined, it is not an abstract (and wiki) . It is a concept that is controversial even among the heterodox. Marrying of an evangelical protestant faith construct with right wing politics is not something someone unknowing (as you admitted) should endorse lightly.

Your series of three posts have shown you are partisan.

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I disagree with some of your points and see more than one point to quibble.
One of which is the notion that, "the second amendment was not written and agreed upon out of safety concerns, but out of the overriding concern that a government can tyrannize its own people."
The very text of the 2nd Amendment refutes that notion. The 2nd Amendment was written an adpoted as " being necessary to the security of a free State, " not opposition to it. It was the opposition to a standing army, and the absence of a standing army when the 2nd Amendment was written and adopted that was the overriding concern that a government can tyrannize its own people. Having an armed citizenry was the compromise. The armed citizenry militia were there to protect the government in the absence of a state military.

Another point I would quibble is your notion that placing limits on unfettered gun ownership is an all or nothing proposal.
There are plenty of us in the middle of the extremes of today's "do nothing" conservatism to that of the left which would make all guns illegal.
I would not favor outlawing gun-ownership, but I would favor stricter background checks, red-flag laws, registration, licensing and insurance of weapons. None of which would result in the trite platitude of only outlaws having guns.

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Hi, Fender,
You ought to know by now that I don’t generally say empty words.

First, I think we agree that using the religion as a means of political power is bad. I had to flee Russia because of it. I am living in a very unwilling exile in the Balkans because of it. But the term “Christian nationalism” is a weapon aimed against us.

Wikipedia is a hostile site. It is hostile to our faith, and only coincidentally supports some views you happen to like and agree with. You used the passive voice, which avoids saying who did the action. “Has been defined”. Yes. By our enemies, yours as well as mine. I reject and do not recognize the term, because it is meant to smear far more than people who use religion for political purposes. It is meant to silence Christian voices ALTOGETHER in the political arena, and would ultimately even silence you, the first time you cross them. It is a fake term. I am a language professional, and say that with the same authority as that of a doctor declaring cancer.

Next, yes, I am partisan, on some things and to some extent. I am not neutral on the general question of Charlie Kirk, because I have listened to him for years, and see the vast net of lies thrown by our enemies to paint him as something he never was. But I AM fair, even to my enemies, and that means admitting good in them and their views and actions, when I see it.

I think you are partially right regarding the 2a and militias, you are not wrong in quoting what they did say, and yes, the founding fathers were suspicious of standing armies, having recently fought one. But when you try to say that the purpose of the 2a was and remains specifically to protect the government, you lose the context of the fathers, that they were in fact turned on by their own government, the British government, and found it necessary to use arms against that (their own) government, and so trying to claim that the 2a was absolutely not about that is disingenuous, to say the least. The ultimate conception was to protect, not the government as such, but the people, as the Declaration makes clear.

Finally, if you ask any gun owner (my brother, for example), he will tell you that the background checks, red flags, etc, already exist. I don’t think we disagree on that, and might even agree on tightening controls and stiffening penalties for people who get around those laws.

The overarching thing, though, is that regarding Charlie Kirk, all you can do is say that you don’t like and disagree with a few of the things thatbhe said, none of which add up to justification of villainizing him. You may very well have people in your own parish who believe in the 2a as so many of us do. Would you deny them Communion? Surely you would condemn their brutal murder in spite of your disagreement.

Thanks, Fender, for your post on Christian nationalism. I was out of town and out of pocket.

Rusmeister, i do not look at the opponents of christian nationalism as my enemies. They just want to get back to real Christianity, not a politicized hybrid that distorts or omits some of Jesus' message.
None of us should manipulate Jesus' message to promote violent purges of immigrants, some refugees, without due process, for example. Jesus would never endorse this, as too numerous to count religious leaders have said.