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Charlie Kirk Assassination

Charlie Kirk made a career of bigotry and encouraging the targeting of people that he didn't like. He had many followers and in that sense he was very successful. He was assassinated this past week in the sense that he was killed (apparently) because the shooter thought that his views weren't extreme enough.

I don't care to add much to the vast amount of reactions to this killing other than two points, one logistical and one deep from my heart.

First: early news about assassinations is almost always wrong. Period. That is how it works. Consumers of information want that information immediately and many people who don't care about the truth are willing to make up stories that they think will satisfy that hunger, for (sick) fun and profit. If you care about the truth it is a right and moral act to refuse to consume inaccurate information about such events but to wait until there has been time for law enforcement and journalists to uncover the truth. Nothing, repeat, nothing that people post in the first 24 hours will be true but by the time that is revealed they will have inflamed the hearts of their readers, and that anger lingers long after the facts are discovered.

Second:  despite its lack of a snowball's chance in hell of happening I would much have preferred that Charlie Kirk's followers rejected his hatred for the evil that it is, forcing him to find another profession to feed himself and his family. That would have been for the greater good than his assassination which makes the next act of political violence that much more likely to happen.

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