Posted on by rjonakait

Don’t Let Them Shut Your Mouth

Responses to mass shootings have been predictable. Calls for better gun control go out, and conservatives respond: How dare you! You are terrible and callous for trying to make political points in this time of grief.

The conservative reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder has been different: This particular “time of grief” is, apparently, the time to suppress and punish opponents and dissenters. Trump and his allies speak of plans to target liberal groups, monitor speech, and revoke visas. Government officials are considering criminal prosecutions of those who speak out against Kirkian and Trumpian policies. Officials threaten government actions against the media, teachers, school board members, and many others, and in advance of any actions by these people, have begun to shut down critics. Jimmy Kimmel is just the most famous of their targets. Some who want something from the government, such as approval of a merger, preemptively censor. Vigilantes have helped remove people who speak out from private jobs. (Notably, the MAGA folks did not seek the removal of a Fox News host who urged that the mentally ill homeless be given lethal injections. An apology was good enough.)

Not surprisingly, the movement to stifle opponents has been accompanied by misinformation, which in this case means lies or willful ignorance. It has been given as a fact that politically motivated murders primarily come out of leftist ideology. The fact is that study after study has shown that the majority of such killings have been by right-wingers. If we go back to 9/11, Islamic terrorists were responsible for the most political killings, but since then, according to the Cato Institute, the right-wing share of politically motivated terrorist murders have been 63 percent while the left-wing share has been 10 percent. (Cato says that the conservative killers have been “motivated by white supremacy, anti-abortion beliefs, involuntary celibacy [incels], and other right-wing ideologies.” This list should also include anti-LGBTQ ideology.) The Department of Justice had come to a similar conclusion, but you will have trouble finding that study since our government, which proclaims to be “the most transparent ever,” has removed the study from its website.

It does not matter to the President, of course, that we have seen nothing indicating that Kirk’s shooter was influenced by any extreme leftist or even liberal group. Instead, all we know is that Tyler Robinson has said that his motivation was the hate spewed by Kirk.

Until a bullet pierced his neck, Charlie Kirk was not on my radar. I had seen his name and that of his organization, but I knew little besides that. Now I know more, and I am amazed by his sanctification. Charlie Kirk may have been a loving, open-minded person, motivated by a true desire to foster legitimate debate, and he was undoubtedly a charismatic entertainer. Nevertheless, his religious, societal, and political views, which carried undertones, at a minimum of racism, ethnic bias, misogyny, frivolity, and stupidity, furthered hate and closed the minds of others. For example, Kirk said that “Jewish dollars” were funding Marxist ideas in education and policy and contributing to opening the borders.” Kirk said: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.'” Kirk said: “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” Kirk said: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage.” Kirk said about affirmative action and Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson: “Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.” (Snopes.com is the source for these quotations.) This, of course, is only a small sample of Kirk’s tendentious statements.

Charlie Kirk was not a deep thinker, but he did know how to make money. Siri tells me that he was worth $12 million—not bad for a 31-year-old community college dropout. How much did he profit from those rallies and other activities whose stated purpose was merely to advance the political dialog?

Conservatives have said that millions “celebrated” Kirk’s death. I know none of them, and I doubt that number is true. Confirming evidence has not been provided.  An anecdote, even two, is not proof. Many, however, have come forward to criticize Kirk’s “teachings.” I would not be surprised if there have been millions, even tens of millions, of them. I certainly hope so. The attempt to honor Kirk has coincided with efforts to suppress and punish such critics of Kirk–a strange legacy for someone who supposedly stood for free speech and debate. If his ideas were sound, they should be highlighted. If they were sound, they would only benefit from critics. What are the Kirk supporters afraid of?

In these dangerous moments, I am reminded of another time when a supposed political murder was used to justify the suppression and oppression of those designated as enemies. On November 7, 1938, the Polish Jew Herschel Grynszpan shot the Nazi diplomat Ernst vom Rath. Two days later vom Rath died. Almost immediately, a pogrom against Jews was launched as a response to the murder. That event is now known as Kristallnacht. The murder by one person was used to suppress and oppress tens of thousands of others. Sound familiar?

As in 1938, many are seizing upon the murder by one person of Charlie Kirk to lead to oppression and suppression. Truly patriotic Americans should respond.

Don’t let them shut your mouth.

Posted on by rjonakait

Denying Arizona

Here an election denier, there an election denier, everywhere an election denier. It does not scan well, but that’s the way it is. The 2020 election was stolen or unconstitutional, so the claims go. We hear about suitcases in Georgia, ballot dumps in Detroit, the Pennsylvania governor illegally changing the election rules, forbidden ballot harvesting everywhere. Time and again, these cries have been shown to be nonsense, but they keep getting repeated. (Florida Governor Ron DeSantis recently issued an order changing some election rules in counties hit by hurricane Ian, an understandable action but similar to the one taken by the Pennsylvania governor in response to the pandemic and difficulties with mail deliveries. I have yet to see conservatives railing that DeSantis’s order is unconstitutional and will make the upcoming Florida election illegal.)

If election deniers are asked why they believe what they say they do, many repeat the refuted claims. As Kevin Young says in Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News: “Repeating a lie in two different places counts as verification.”

However, the important question to ask election deniers is not why they assert fraud in 2020, but instead to ask them what information would convince them that their belief is false or at least make them hesitant about their assertions. And, as Arizona indicates, there is no such information that would convince them. There were several Arizona election audits. One that chose random ballots confirmed the official outcome. Another audit of all the ballots again confirmed the official outcome. But these did not change minds. They were done by government officials, and so they must have been part of some giant conspiracy. Therefore, a partisan audit of the most Democratic part of the state was done. This canvass, instead of finding that Trump had the election stolen from him, found that Biden got a few more votes than were officially recorded. You might think that would have ended the claims of Arizona election deniers, but you would have been thinking rationally with common sense. Instead, the Republican nominee for governor, Kari Lake, and others running for various Arizona offices, continue as election deniers. I sometimes wonder if election deniers would change their minds even if Jesus descended to state that Biden got the most votes, but I doubt it. (Author Eddy Harris once described a conversation with a white woman in Mississippi whose mother belonged to a whites-only church in the 1960s. The older woman was asked whether Jesus would have allowed African Americans to worship in his church. “Of course he would have,” she said, “but Jesus would have been wrong.”) The head-in-the-sand stance of election deniers is not just simple ignorance. As Eric Hoffer said, “Far more crucial than what we know or do not know is what we do not want to know.” (I don’t think many election deniers are heavily invested in African proverbs, but a Nigerian one said, “Not to know is bad; not to wish to know is worse.”)

Some deniers do try to shift the topic and claim that their concern is that voters don’t have confidence in election outcomes, and it is important for the country to have faith in the balloting. This “concern,” of course, places us in a land of circular reasoning. Present and former government officials, media hotshots, and other notable people promote the lie of a stolen election and then act aghast that people who listen to them distrust our election system. (I have wondered how the MyPillow guy became an important person when he seems by looks and reasoning as if he should only be a minor joke in a Pixar feature. French Proverb: “Ignorance and incuriosity are two very soft pillows.”)

So how do we restore faith in our elections? Of course, the right answer is for all those who have created the problem to admit that the 2020 election was secure, but they have not found that path to such righteousness. Instead, their answer for people to feel better about elections is to make it harder for some people to vote. This, at least, makes a bit of sense. You might believe that the fewer who can vote, the less chance of fraud. If we can rig it so that I am the only voter, I assure all that there will be absolutely no fraud in the elections. Democracy might suffer, but who cares?

When there is no information that will change your mind, you live ignorantly. A philosopher said: “The recipe for perpetual ignorance is to be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.” Ignorance has always been an unfortunate part of America. If you can’t cite examples, you haven’t been paying attention. Maybe America’s greatness has depended on ignorance, or at least that is what election deniers seem to believe. Their unspoken slogan really should be Make America Ignorant (Once) Again. MAIA. That could have a nice ring to it and could become a popular name for this generation of Arizona baby girls, and surely so named, their parents should be completely confident that their children will absolutely, positively never be able to be groomed for anything on the LGBTQ spectrum. On the other hand, I counsel the election-denying parents from naming their sons MAGA, as tempting as that must be, unless they want their children to avoid the military and affront God by breaking that commandment on adultery.