https://isitchristmas.com/

I don’t think, “she deserved it, just look what she’s wearing, and if you tell me that’s a wrong thing to say it’s because you’re infantilizing women by saying they can’t be wrong,” is quite the defense you seem to think it is.

I don’t think, “you don’t understand, she wasn’t grieving the way women are supposed to grieve, and she was dressed like a slut,” is exactly the defense you seem to think it is…

There’s not a “right” way to grieve. And someone isn’t “wrong” because they process trauma differently than you would. And none of that is an excuse for slut shaming.

Idk man, I feel like I’m taking crazy pills. I think the pants were a 2/10 “scandalous” decision at best.

And I don’t feel like “if she grieved the way I think would be appropriate, then her grieving would be valid, but she’s grieving wrong so I’m gonna judge her for her slutty outfit,” is the defense you seem to think it is…

And I think the fact that the huge rally that his funeral was had things being sold at it to help support the organization he dedicated his life to isn’t quite as tacky as you’re trying to paint it as being.

Look, I’m not defending either one of them as a person, but I just genuinely don’t believe that you’d have any of the same criticisms if Kirk was a huge left wing policy advocate who was killed, and literally everything else played out exact the same way.

Sure, you wouldn’t, but this is someone who was already in the limelight anyway.

And to be clear, a lot of people make public appearances after tragedy. Left and right alike. It doesn’t invalidate their grief just because they don’t react the exact way you would. There’s no right way to grieve.

And genuinely, if Charlie Kirk had been a great champion for the left, and his widow was doing the exact same things to continue his legacy, would you still say she was grifting? Do you really believe in your heart of hearts that would be your reaction?

Let me be clear, I’m not being a devil’s advocate here.

I genuinely believe it’s not okay to tell a widow she’s grieving wrong.

I also genuinely believe that telling women how they should be dressed is some sexist BS.

I also genuinely don’t think those pants were particularly egregious. And I thought her hug with Vance wasn’t particularly scandalous. And I also genuinely believe if it wasn’t someone you were already primed to hate, you’d feel the same way.

And I don’t think the solution to any of the problems were having in this country is more dehumanization. We get plenty of that with this current administration thanks. And just because they suck doesn’t make it okay to abandon your principles.

Idk man. Is this really meaningfully different than when the right was piling on Obama for wearing a brown suit?

And any time the narrative is “look at what this woman decided to wear and judge her harshly for it,” I think it’s worth taking a moment to step back and evaluate if you might be the baddie on this one.

And I feel like “getting to first base with the VP” is overstating it. It’s a weird hug for sure, but it’s not egregious. She moves her hand to his head for, like, half a second. I’ve known parents who kiss their kids on the lips. Is it weird? Hell yes. But I don’t think they were plowing their kids. They were just weird in how they did social affection. And this is way less weird than that.

And look back at that image again. Imagine this was about Michelle Obama. Let’s say that she wore something the right found questionable to her husband’s funeral, and decided to make a “lying grifter bitch” outfit about her? It would be, at best, in bad taste. And while they could always defend themselves with, “well she shouldn’t have decided to dress like that if she didn’t want to get mocked,” I think that I’d rather not associate myself with that kind of rhetoric, personally.

Does it not feel… a bit misogynist, to say that a woman can’t be grieving her husband because of what she’s wearing?

Like, idk guys. I get Charlie Kirk had abhorrent and racist politics, but that doesn’t mean his wife didn’t actually care about him. This hate-circlejerk just feels gross to me.

No worries. I don’t put an immense stock in the karma system or whatever. It all kinda balances out in the end. :)

But I do think saying the only difference is authority, while true, misses the point a bit. If I give a baby a sword and he wants to murder someone but can’t because he’s too weak to swing it, is he less culpable than the man who murders someone with a sword, even though they have the same intent? Absolutely. If Hitler had been a street urchin with no influence and never risen to power, he probably would still have been a loathsome person, but he wouldn’t have been deserving of being out to death, as he would never have taken any actions deserving of that, even if he really wanted to. The fact Kirk didn’t have authority does in fact matter.

I do see your point about soft power and don’t wholly disagree. He did advocate for a lot of extremely harmful policies, and likely pushed a few people over the edge into extremist action. I certainly am not defending that. Again, I can’t say it enough, I did not care for or support Charlie Kirk or anything he stood for.

But I do still believe that the freedom of speech is important if for no other reason than if it wasn’t, this current administration would make talking about LGBT issues or immigration a felony and start throwing people in jail for it. It seems they’re trying anyway, and things like the first amendment are one of the only remaining bulwarks against that.

The correct way to deal with rhetoric like Kirks (imo) is through community driven things like lobbying companies to deplatform him. His rhetoric should be heinous enough that places refuse to amplify him, and the fact it’s not is a black mark on where the nation is at as a whole. But that doesn’t mean that having the government limit his speech or murdering him outright is the correct call.

It may be harder to do things the right way and win things in the public sphere of ideas, but it’s important to do things in the right way, even when they’re hard. Which doesn’t mean “do nothing” to be clear. I’m advocating for an MLKj version of civil disobedience and protest. Change can and will happen without banning speech or murdering people.

I mean, in this exact thread, lol: https://lemmy.world/comment/19339137

Plenty of people are saying it was correct and good to shoot him.

And I’m not whitewashing his history. He was the worst kind of asshole. I’m not sad he’s dead. But there are in fact a lot of people on this site arguing that it was the absolutely correct thing to do to extrajudicially murder him, and that’s where I disagree.

He wasn’t a member of “the state” any more than you or I.

I mean, perhaps you’re right, but I bet if we took a poll here we’d get a majority of people sounding off that it was a good thing he was murdered.

But maybe you’re right and everyone agrees it was bad he was murdered. I wouldn’t bet on it though.

Look, Hitler and Goebbels both directly ordered the deaths of civilians. It’s intellectually dishonest to say Charlie Kirk was doing anything equivalent. There’s a difference between hateful and violent rhetoric generally and actively managing and overseeing death camps.

I agree theres a limit, but I would put it at when you’re rhetoric becomes action. Both Hitler and Goebbels took active actions that lead to peoples deaths. Actions that were more than simple rhetoric in the public sphere.

Look, I fully agree Kirk was trash. You’re preaching to the choir here.

But I shy away from saying “any extrajudicial killing is fine when it’s against someone I think is trash.”

If he’d died a natural death the world would be a better place for it, but that doesn’t make it okay that he was murdered.

It’s a dangerous game when we just start saying it’s okay to murder bad people without due process.

I don’t have a problem with the comic in the sense that I think the author should be shot, in the same way that I can have a problem with Charlie Kirk and not believe he should be shot.

I can disagree with people without wanting them dead, shockingly.

Kirk was trash, but that doesn’t justify an extrajudicial killing.

A general call for someone’s death has never been ruled as fighting words in the history of US Law. But I don’t think that was really your point.

The thing is, I see people calling for the death of Donald Trump all the time. I don’t think that means he’s morally justified in killing those people.

That’s effectively what this comic is arguing, but in reverse.

Look, I hate Charlie Kirk as much as the next guy, but that doesn’t mean we need to say that assassinating him was a good and just call.

He can be a loathsome PoS, and shooting him to death extrajudicially can be a bad thing. Both those can be true at the same time.

I don’t know that I love equating rhetorical violence with physical violence. Seems like a bad road to go down.

“That guy advocated that I should be killed, so I was justified in shooting him in the face,” isn’t my favorite take.

In 1997? From Arkansas? That seems… exceptionally unlikely. Or, at least far far less likely than that he was just cheating.

Combine that with the fact that someone commiting adultery should be disqualifying for them becoming president.

Look, I get that all the social norms have been completely ground to dust, but character does in fact matter. We should want a good person who refuses to cheat on their wife as a leader.

Reducing this to just a fun fling because you like the guy is the same thing the hypocrites who support Trump and all of his scandals do.

If he’s willing to betray his wife for a quicky from an intern, why would I trust him with anything else? For the person who’s leading the entire nation the bar should be higher.

Also not to mention that he was 49 and she was 22. If this was anyone less “likeable” than Bill we’d all be calling him an absolute creep. He was pushing 50, and she could barely drink. And he was her boss.

Holy crap, the only reason I was still using reddit at all was because of this!

I thought about making the community myself, but decided I didn’t have the time to maintain it.

Thanks for doing this!! I’ll definitely be a contributed. :)