Not surprisingly, there are piles of comments about Kirk and the meaning, if there is one, to his assassination, something made difficult by the fact the shooter has not been arrested and its beginning to look as if he might very well never be.
As previously noted, I didn't follow Kirk at all, which is probably a generational thing. He was apparently a very significant figure amongst young Republicans, something that's addressed by this interesting NPR Politics edition:
Not having followed him at all, I'm not prepared to really form an opinion on him. I'm not an adherent of the Latin de mortuis nihil nisi bonum maxum but more of a adherent of Ernie Pyle's soldier quote o such things, but I can't do either here. Kirk said some horrible things, but I've seen him in debates where he was quite gracious to those who opposed his views. I frankly suspect that he was more of a traditionalist than a true populist, or that he would have evolved that way, much like Malcolm X evolved from a Baptist, to a member of the Nation of Islam, to Islam, and I suspect was on his way back to Christianity. It's a bit notable that Malcolm X, who certainly said some outrageous things, was 39 years old when he was assassinated.
Indeed, on this point, I saw, but I'm not endorsing, this interesting image:
I don't know that the label on this is correct, actually. Malcolm X was killed by member of the Nation of Islam, which he'd left, and you'd have to study that to really understand it. As noted, in terms of the truth, I think he was evolving towards it, but hadn't gotten there yet.
The two Kennedy's are example of what I've termed here the Kennedy/Guevara Effect, and was actually going to have called the Kennedy/Guevara/Wessel Effect, but I thought the latter name would be misunderstood. Having said that, George Conway drew that analogy specifically. It is a little different.
Anyhow, the Kennedy's were subject to what Jimmy Akin has called a "canonization", with which he includes Lincoln, by which he means they were instantly regarded as great men and near saints due to being assassinated. That's going on with Kirk right now. The JFK in particular had massive flaws, but his getting assassinated has resulted in an absurd secular hagiography which still benefits the Kennedy family and hurts the nation.
An interesting and thoughtful clip by Douthat on Kirk.
A much different view is posted here, again taking on the secular canonization that's going on:
A miscaptioned item was published in Wyofile. Rather than "Wyoming Megadonor" it should have said "Carpetbagger from Wisconsin":
I don't doubt that the Wyofile article, which is already also in the Cowboy State Daily is correct, but it's an interesting example of The Denver Effect, which is the tendency of Denver Colorado to claim a connection with anything that occurs anywhere.
Also from Wyofile:
I hope that this does become a horrific exception As noted in our article yesterday, murdering the outspoken is a feature of democracies that are descending into autocracy. Which brings me to this:
I asserting this is an example of the Horst Wessel Effect, but I'm not comparing Kirk to Wessel. What I'm noting is the latching on to a murdered figure in order to intentionally make the person into a political martyr. I don't know if Trump is doing that or not. He's not a very smart man anymore and is demented, as we noted again yesterday.
Another interesting item:
The following is worth noting as contrary to what the MAGA right is claiming right now, there have been a lot of weird killings and acts of political violence. I noted to a very right wing friend this and asserted the January 6 riots as the first one, with which he countered with the BLM/Floyd protests prior to that. He has a point. Anyhow, over the last several years we've had right wing wackos attempting to kidnap a Governor, the January 6 Insurrection, the murder of Democrats in Minnesota, and now this. The criticism here is valid.
Indeed, while I saw that some government employee was canned for saying the same thing, I don't think flags should be flown at half staff. I don't think they should be for the deaths of local politicians or school shootings either.
Regarding the government, Kash Patel is now in Utah and at yesterday's press conference he had a deer in the headlights look, but then he often does. Coming into office as political figure who was going to wreak havoc on and with the FBI, now the FBI has a real crime to solve and he better not blow it. In the same agency, Dan Bongino re emerged after retiring to his home over the Epstein scandal and Trump's big change in attitudes on that.
We need to take a look at what Kirk means in the culture and its politics. But this isn't the best place to do so, so we'll follow up on that in a subsequent thread.
Related threads:
