In case anyone is wondering, here’s what Charlie Kirk had to say when the state lawmakers were shot in Minneapolis earlier this summer:
“Total shocker that smearing a duly-elected president who won an overwhelming electoral mandate as a fascist or a king leads to violent political radicalization.”
After another shooting in Minneapolis, the one at Annunciation Catholic School, he offered this: “Was the shooter on hormone therapy?” and “Was he on SSRIs? We deserve to know.”
So while it’s obvious violence is terrible when it’s directed anywhere, I think I’m going to try to be better than Charlie Kirk at this moment — it’s about 4 p.m. Wednesday as I write this, and I don’t know Kirk’s condition — I’ll just keep my yap shut for now. I feel nothing anyway, so why embroider on that?
Croaky said something stupid about guns this week, too. “We had lots of guns when we were kids. Kids brought guns to school and were encouraged to do so.” He went on to blame psychiatric drugs for the fact they’re now firing them. I don’t know about you, but psychiatric drugs, while no panacea, have brought relief and normalcy to millions of people who suffer from mental illness. The conservative right is now very hot on “mental health,” which they seem to believe was something we all enjoyed until evil liberals took it away.
I’ve always understood the wholesale emptying and closing of public mental hospitals to be a dovetailing of the worse impulses of both the left and the right, the rare case where both sides bear at least some, and perhaps equal blame. I know many of us are older here, and as I recall we’ve talked about it here, too, but I was there and I remember. Liberals said it was cruel and illegal to warehouse people, that new psychiatric drugs offered hope to people who previously could only be treated with Thorazine and other heavy tranquilizers, the ol’ dozin’-and-droolin’ state on American mental wards. The right said, “Close expensive public institutions? Sounds great!” Unfortunately, community-based mental-health buildings never came to pass — they, too, were expensive — and we didn’t reckon that some people with some mental illnesses didn’t want to be treated with the new drugs. They were imperfect, they had unpleasant side effects, and they cost a lot. Lots of mental patients didn’t have any sort of home support network. And so they ended up on the street, almost literally overnight. You saw it too, I bet. It coincided with the closing of SRO hotels in many cities, as yuppies moved downtown and wanted those icky bums out of sight.
So every time a conservative bleats about mental health, ask them: What’s your plan? How much will it cost? Where will people be treated? Because as anyone with even a surface understanding of the issue knows, there aren’t enough beds available now, much less after we start taking the issue as seriously as they think we should. A man off his meds stabbed 11 people in a Walmart in northern Michigan a few weeks ago. It was a familiar story: Paranoid schizophrenic, in and out of treatment and shelters for years, only intermittently in touch with his family, etc. He desperately needed inpatient treatment and a lot of support, but in northern Michigan? Are you crazy?
You could say the same thing about the man who stabbed and killed the Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte. American prisons are already mental hospitals. You want to build a few hundred more? With what money?
Get ready for a new barrage of this, depending on who is arrested for the assault on Kirk.
It’s now 4:45 p.m. Just checked the Salt Lake Tribune, NYT and other sources; they haven’t pulled the sheet up over his face yet. Time will tell.
Edit at three minutes later: He’s dead.
Heather said on September 10, 2025 at 4:53 pm
I put this at the bottom of the last post, but: Kirk said gun deaths were the price of liberty. Guessing he didn’t think he’d be the one personally paying it.
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Deborah said on September 10, 2025 at 5:08 pm
This is horrible, what will this bring down on us now? What is Wrong with people? Why are we in this now? AGAIN? Who thought this was a good idea? I do not understand any of this. At all. What can you even say?
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FDChief said on September 10, 2025 at 5:41 pm
Looked everywhere but I’ve misplaced my Felony Fats Fascist Flash Cards again so I’m confused. Is Kirk our Horst Wessel2.0? Or is it still Ashli Babbit? Both? How can I tell who’s the True Trumpian Martyr without a program!? All these pasty liars look alike to me!
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Sherri said on September 10, 2025 at 6:00 pm
I don’t wish him dead, and at the same time, Charlie Kirk was an opportunistic fucker who made outrage his brand and was fond of violent rhetoric directed at his enemies while also trying to claim the mantle of Christianity.
As you sow, so shall you reap.
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Jason T. said on September 10, 2025 at 6:01 pm
I can’t feel anything but sadness and trepidation about this, because like Deborah, I fear this is going to open the door to a lot of craziness. The president has already announced he’s lowering the flags to half-staff. Horst Wessel indeed.
Regarding the news, however, I am reminded of Galatians 6:7.
ETA: Sherri beat me to it. Great minds, etc.
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nancy said on September 10, 2025 at 6:03 pm
A counternarrative is emerging with the IQ-challenged right: “All he did was respectfully debate others with a different opinion.” Yeah, right.
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FDChief said on September 10, 2025 at 6:34 pm
The OG Nazis spouted that bullshit about Streicher and Goebbels. We hung the one anyway for the lying Nazi ass he was, and a sane polity would have done the same w Kirk and saved the cost of the bullet.
The wingnuts are at war with us. War, bodyguard of lies, etc etc.
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alex said on September 10, 2025 at 8:51 pm
Live by your disingenuous interpretation of the second amendment and die by it too. My thoughts and prayers are with you.
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susan said on September 10, 2025 at 9:12 pm
To Dead Kirk: “Thank you for your service.”
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Suzanne said on September 10, 2025 at 9:22 pm
I am reminded of the words of Jesus “Then Jesus said to him, “Put your sword back into its place. For all who take the sword will perish by the sword.” Matt 26:52
“…I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Don’t celebrate it, don’t mock it. I’m not asking you to send thoughts and prayers. I’m begging you to not pour gasoline on a fire.”
“But already I can tell you this, from my years of reporting: Fascism’s guns are at the ready. Think before you spout off.”
https://slowcivilwar.substack.com/p/the-struggle-is-long?utm_medium=ios
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Little Bird said on September 10, 2025 at 9:24 pm
Apparently the man hated the idea of empathy, so…..
Meanwhile three children were killed in a school shooting in Evergreen, CO at damn near the same time.
One of my friends is afraid that this means things are going to escalate. Idiots are going to start taking shots at various individuals. On both sides.
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Sherri said on September 10, 2025 at 9:50 pm
Start? How will we distinguish this start from the everyday gun violence?
Or from the political violence that has already been happening, like the Minnesota lawmaker who was shot and killed.
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FDChief said on September 10, 2025 at 11:09 pm
Kyle Rittenhouse is holding on Line 1!
Governor Kotek here in Oregon posted some sort of anodyne screed about how “America is better than this.” (“this” being doing some 9mm headspace and timing belt adjustments to Charlie Kirk’s brain housing group, apparently…) which at least gave me a good horselaugh.
Oh my sweet summer child…”better than this”? The nation of Pulse? Sandy Hook? Gabby Giffords? The J6 Traitors? Rittenhouse and George Zimmerman and Hankinson (the cop who murdered Breonna Taylor)…
This nation loves its guns. It loves its violence. The nitwit Kirk himself would be leaping with delight at dying by gunfire; in 2023 he said: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” and as my old drill sergeant used to say, payback’s a bitch and her stripper name is karma. Guess Chuckles knows now exactly how much that God-given right is worth, eh?
As I keep saying; we’re at war. Now. And have been for damn near forty years. Certainly for thirty, since the Gingrich Era, when the old philandering bastard figured out he could call us “traitors” and “criminals” and his House Democratic colleagues would still work with him.
We’re just moving from the Cold to the shooting phase of the war.
It’s time to accept that the wingnuts already know and long for that.
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