South Park

I agree with you entirely about all of that, but we're not talking about making a statement, we're talking about doing the absolute bare minimum to avoid a controversy in the middle of a chaotic situation. Would there be more violence? Would there be retaliation? Would arsonists decide now is their chance to target the "liberal" media?

Also, to your point about his statements on empathy (and gun control, in the same context) I agree that Kirk is undeserving of our respect or our empathy. But empathy is not a gift given to others. It's a choice you make about your own character. People like Charlie Kirk are the prime examples of how hollow life becomes when you live without empathy.

I won't say he deserved to be killed, but I will say he lived a life deserving of ridicule, and his death doesn't change that. We are all of us defined by our choices. Charlie Kirk made his decisions, and I think they were the wrong way to live. I choose to live with empathy because that's the person I want to be.

I'm not saying that you or anyone else should feel empathy for the man, because I have empathy for you. I understand how Kirk made you feel, and how he made me feel. But I also have empathy for satirists who chose to pull punches yesterday, not because of some performative respect for the dead, but simply because they weren't sure exactly how they wanted to respond yet.

How he lives, and the cruel opinions he so loudly pushed, thats his character.

Now he's dead. How WE deal with the death of a notable person, that's our character.

Most of the time I'm disappointed he was such a hateful personality right up to his death. I want to believe that experience and a cataclysmic event can introduce people to a better way of thinking. He didn't get his chance for this second chapter, like so many people don't.

That's the tragedy here, and most of the time I believe that.

Are his beliefs yours?