Lies, Damned Lies and an Assassination

R.I.P Charlie Kirk.

Up until two days ago, I’d never heard of him. I can’t even remember when I registered he’d been shot, whether it was via Twitter, BBC online news, or a WhatsApp from a friend. Whenever and wherever the breaking news, the ensuing articles, photographs, videos and comments snowballed into an avalanche very quickly indeed.

My first impressions from these were that Charlie was young, good-looking (in an All-American cheesy kind of way), polished appearance even when donning a T-shirt, polite, eloquent at times, too forthright at others, a pretty wife (in an All-American cheer-leader kind of way) and two cuter-than-cute bairns. He is described variously as charismatic, Christian, patriotic, right wing, extreme right wing, evangelical, xenophobic, fascist, evil, Trumpite, and had-it-coming. He took his politics and religion into the heart, literally, of Young America, not just to spread his religious and political beliefs, but to encourage free speech, informed debate, and encourage everyone, no matter what they might advocate, to speak their mind and engage with him. Some, including The Donald, are crediting Charlie with securing the Presidency for him by attracting young voters to the MAGA cause. No wonder many on the left hate Charlie. And I do mean hate. They’re full of it.

It was easy to cobble together a summary-list of his beliefs and standpoints, including: 
• Free speech advocate
• Libertarian
• Fundamental Christian
• Against abortion
• Pro second-amendment (i.e. against gun control)
• Transgenderism is a mental illness
• Pro nuclear family
• Against affirmative action / ‘positive’ discrimination
• Compared homosexuality to alcoholism
• Against Big Government
• Critical of the 1964 Civil Rights Act
• Against immigration

From this list, without delving into any detail, I can see why some label him xenophobic and homophobic, but the fascist-label is ridiculous. He's a libertarian for goodness sake! In my personal experience, those who scream ‘fascist’ at a libertarian are themselves fascistic (and ignorant). Regardless, given the vitriolic intensity spewing from the woke-left’s various orifices, and the perceived inherent danger of agreeing with even a tiny fraction of what Charlie said, I was surprised at the many moderate voices who eulogised his work and / or mourned his passing, including Badenoch, France's foreign affairs ministry, Biden, Obama, Clinton, and even Keir Starmer FFS (more fitting than KCB).

As would be expected, the ‘right’ grieved en masse. I think the most moving statement came from Mrs T. No, not THAT Mrs T: Melania Trump, who I consider to be the most effortlessly stunning ‘leading lady’ ever – more so than Kate Middleton and Diana Spencer. (I won’t compare Melania to Rayner, Phillips, Abbott and Cooper, because there is no comparison.) Melania wrote:

“Charlie's children will be raised with stories instead of memories, photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father's voice should have echoed. Charlie Kirk's life should serve as a symbolic reminder that compassionate awareness elevates family, love, and country".

My opinion? Well, some statements and positions attributed to Charlie I think are abhorrent. Very very bad (as Mr T would say). In fact, some of these statements are too bad to be true; so, I reasoned, there might be some falsehoods or exaggerations here and there. Here are just a few examples:

1. A chap on X posted: “[Kirk] advocated stoning gays to death”.
I clicked on the Grok icon to check the veracity of this claim. Grok is the supposedly truth-seeking AI companion for unfiltered answers with advanced capabilities in reasoning, coding, and visual processing. It stated that the post was “a statement that has sparked significant controversy and backlash due to its inflammatory nature and lack of context, potentially exacerbating tensions in an already polarized political climate. [The claim] is not supported by direct evidence from Kirk's public statements or writings, as reviewed in sources like the BBC and Al Jazeera, which instead highlight Kirk's opposition to same-sex marriage and gender care for transgender individuals, but do not mention advocacy for stoning, suggesting [the] statement may be a mischaracterization or exaggeration,” which is a polite term for a lie.

2. A woman, also on X, posted: “Charlie Kirk [said] ‘Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot.’”
She stupidly accompanied her post with a video of Charlie speaking, which proved that she, too, lied. What he actually said was: “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot.”

Well, my dear, Charlie was addressing his comments to Michelle Obama and two other black American ladies who (he claims) admitted that they only got to where they are today because of affirmative action. In no way was he inferring that all black women don’t have the brain processing power or that they all steal a white person’s slot. Criticising a policy (affirmative action) because it privileges some people (those of non-white ethnicity) with an unfair advantage, and naming some of these people who have admitted it, is within the bounds of civilised discourse.

3. I did shudder at clips of him saying he didn’t want to take a flight piloted by a Black person, 
even though he was, again, speaking in the context of affirmative action. He was driving home the point that hiring, say, an incompetent academic just to tick a DEI box is nothing compared with a perceived DEI hire to pilot a plane. This context, not often made clear by commentators, makes his argument a valid one, even if it's incomplete, and even if he expressed it insensitively and inflammatorily.

 
4. I hunted down another video where a lady was asking Charlie how could he possibly support the police officer who was convicted of murdering George Floyd. 

Charlie was respectful, calling her Ma’am and giving her time to state her points and ask her questions. He mentioned Floyd’s criminal history (which is true but has been exaggerated by some) and the latest accusation of criminality that had led to the police trying to restrain him. He claimed that Floyd died of a drug overdose, not asphyxiation per the official autopsy. Floyd's toxicology report did reveal levels of fentanyl, methamphetamine and THC (the primary psychoactive compound in cannabis, responsible for the euphoric ‘high’) in his blood at the time of his death, so it’s reasonable to assume that drugs were a contributory factor in his death, but the primary cause was the infamous police-leg-on-neck procedure.

5. Still on the ‘Charlie is a racist’ kick, he’s been accused of claiming that Black Americans were better off in slavery and then segregation, and that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a mistake. 
I followed links to a number of videos featuring Charlie. I obviously haven’t found them all, but the ones I did watch, none of them mentioned slavery at all. Some were cut before he had a chance to explain his position, or showed him being unable to develop his argument because he was being shouted down. Of the videos that were clear and contextualised, Charlie came across as hardnosed and sometimes insensitive, offensive even, but logical and expressing insights that should be debated in order to intelligently conclude that he either has some sort of a point or he’s talking rubbish. Instead, he’s once again been misrepresented. For example, he was chatting with an associate during a webinar about how the proportion of Black children born out of wedlock or raised in one-parent families had rocketed since the 1950s, and he provided empirical data to support this. “Something obviously happened”, he commented. As for saying the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, he argued that the Act “created a beast, and that beast has now turned into an anti-white weapon … If you have unapologetic, ferocious anti-white racism, then young whites are gonna find some very radical political positions”.

6. Finally, abortion – Charlie would only allow it if the mother’s life were in danger should she continue with the pregnancy, even if she were a victim of rape.
I’m assuming this position is derived straight from his fundamentalist Christian beliefs. No need to misrepresent him on this issue; many think it’s evil just the way it is. Personally, I can’t decide where I stand on abortion itself. It’s not that I flip-flop; I’m just unable to develop any position-statement at all. Where I do agree with Charlie – on this and other issues – is that no one should be blocked from peaceably expressing their views, whatever they might be. So, Christians (anyone, really) should be allowed to stand (and pray) silently outside an abortion clinic without being harassed by the Old 'burglary-what-burglary' Bill. A woman’s right to have an abortion should not outweigh the right of a Christian to pray. Some have said women heading into the clinic might feel intimidated by this. Oh well. Suck it up. Victims of rape should, however, be protected and accommodated as much as possible.

If there is one aspect of Charlie that makes me uncomfortable, as alluded to above, it’s his bluntness and insensitivity. Could he couch his arguments more carefully, soften his language, moderate his criticisms? Ideally yes, but I doubt it would make any difference; trust me, I have the T-shirt. On occasions (not all the time, I grant you) I’ve gone out of my way to be über polite, sensitive, over-cautiously reasonable, self-deprecating, the works, only to be the victim of the most rude, insensitive, unreasonable, insulting, bullying, gas-lighting riposte. If I were wrong and they were right, they wouldn’t have to resort to such bullying tactics, would they? If Charlie were wrong, he’d be debated out of earshot, wouldn't he? Instead, the only way to counter Charlie was to murder him. Anyone who wilfully misrepresented his true positions, or perpetuated these myths without fact-checking (step forward David Lammy MP, bile-blusterer extraordinaire), are as culpable in his assassination as the lowlife who pulled the trigger.

Indeed, if Charlie’s views really are truly, madly, deeply outrageous, without a shred of credibility or morality, and his opponents and detractors are the ones on the right side of history, there’d be no need to misrepresent him, would there? Why do they feel the need to lie?

Charlie’s signature slogan was “Prove me wrong.” Has anyone actually succeeded?