I have grown to admire Charlie Kirk immensely since his tragic killing. Based on media characterizations, I thought he was some kind of hateful firebrand. I've watched, and I've learned about the man. He was what we want everyone to be. I don't care how much people disagreed w/ him - I did and do - but he wanted the marketplace of ideas. He used the Socratic method to get people to THINK, and to have calm & open dialogue about the issues.
In the past few days, what I have seen is many on the right USING his death to advance their own agenda, demonize Democrats, and sow further division in this country.
It's disgusting, and dishonors Kirk's life & legacy, imo. The irony as I read some of the comments sections on videos and articles - calling out the left for using "hateful" rhetoric, while also calling them DemonRats, communists, socialists, evil, and the enemy. Talking about Jesus Christ while warning people that their neighbors can be "enemies" (directly contradicting a very famous quote from Jesus about neighbors).
They care more about their agenda. There are so many hypocrites out there, who can't see themselves.
It is crystal clear to anyone who has been awake for years that Democrats are vile, evil, anti-American filth driven by a lust for power and control above all else. I, along with countless others, have not just shouted this from the rooftops but laid out plenty of evidence to prove it.
Democrats wield propaganda like a weapon, preying on young, impressionable minds and intellectually lazy or simple adults who never bother to question the toxic labels their overlords slap on opponents they cannot outwit in the arena of ideas. These drones have no idea what those words even mean. Yet, they are fed just enough to believe it is their sacred duty to silence or destroy anyone branded a “Fascist” or “Nazi,” whether that means showing up with bullhorns to drown out their voices or putting a bullet through their skull.
When I call someone a socialist, communist, or Marxist, it is because they either admit it outright or their policies and actions scream it loud and clear. I know precisely what socialism, communism, Marxism, and progressivism mean, and I never hurl those terms without concrete evidence to back them up in my back pocket. On this site, you learn pretty quickly that evidence is not wanted or debated by most on the left.
Calling out these ideologies accurately is crucial because they are deadly dangerous. Just as if Trump or Kirk were truly Nazi's or Fascists, it would be important to call them out on it as well. I can prove socialism, communism, Marxism are horrible and deadly ideologies quite easily with examples from recent history or trace it back thousands of years. These ideologies are cut from the same rotten cloth, with only slight variations, and they always deliver misery, death, and despair to the masses, every time they are tried.
You mentioned Socrates, but many might not realize his student Plato was the first to peddle ideas that form the rotten core of what we now call Marxism, over 2,000 years ago, the earliest trace of this disastrous ideology I know of. Then Plato’s student Aristotle rejected much of his teacher's theories and just theories they were. Plato drew his conclusions from observing reality, laying the groundwork for Western civilization as we know it, instead of Plato using mostly the abstract. Sound familar?
None of these ideas are new. We have history, blood, and sacrifice to guide us away from these catastrophes, yet we keep ignoring the warnings. Our universities are churning out the dumbest, most hate-filled students in history, steeped in ignorance and burning with contempt for America. We have to stop this, or we are finished.
I agree with your first paragraph, but I think your second is off base, you are not comparing like with like. The Democrat Party must be crushed, exposed, and labeled for what it is. Ideally, we will defeat the democrat party in the arena of ideas and the ballot box, but Democrats have no interest in real debate, much like here on this site. I do not have all the answers but stopping short of calling a spade a spade is not it. We need to double down, armed with evidence, to wake up those robbed of a real education and turned into mindless drones who chant slogans, wave signs, scream over dissenters, and now murder the ones most effective at unmasking their party’s naked hunger for power and control.
That said, we desperately need a functional, sane, opposition party that at least takes the oath of office serious. That means they need to actually love America and the Constitution because they swear to preserve and uphold it. Too many in Congress break the oath they take and should be removed from office for it. I'll go so far as say that if you propose gun control measures you already failed at the oath you took.
We are not a democracy, we don't ever get to vote of taking the freedom of speech from our neighbors for example. We don't get to vote of the Bill of Rights at all. Why, because they are endowed by our creators, not from whoever controls government, period, regardless of what Bernie or that loser Senator Kaine. That includes the right to bear arms. We are way off track, Charlie knew this better than most and tried to educate and debate, peacefully, effectively, without an angry bone in his body and that was not welcomed by the vile democrat party.