A History of Violence

I find it more than a little disingenuous of US politicians and commentators to wring their hands and declare that violence should have no place in politics when one bears in mind that this a nation which, in its relatively short history, had no less than four of its presidents assassinated.  Not to mention scores of attempted presidential assassinations and the murder of numerous other political figures, from presidential candidates like Robert F Kennedy to civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King.  this is also a country that opposes gun control and regularly suffers mass shootings, particularly in schools and colleges.  This is a nation defined by violence.  I've said it before and I'll say it again, they're a nation of fucking psychopaths.  How else can we explain the fact that they elected Trump president twice?  The second time despite him, by then, being an adjudicated rapist, convicted felon and having tried to overturn the result of a democratic election by unleashing a violent mob against Congress.  And there we have it again: the political violence they keep saying is unacceptable.  Yet, once again, when one of their own dies by the gun, we're back to the crocodile tears from the right about how US politics is too full of violent rhetoric, (despite the fact that most of it comes from their side, with Trump as the fountainhead), which encourages actual violence, (obviously, the combination of their violent language and the widespread availability of firearms has nothing to do with it).  Somehow, it is all the fault of those damn liberals with their gun control talk and peaceful values (and I see that the shitbag Nigel Farage has already jumped on this particular bandwagon).

With the killing of neo Nazi Trump supporter Charlie Kirk, we once again find ourselves in the position of being expected to publicly mourn him and somehow praise him, despite his despicable record of racism, misogyny and homophobia.  Failure to do so makes you complicit with whoever assassinated him.  But, as I've said before, I'm afraid that I just don't buy that old adage about not speaking ill of the dead.  Quite frankly, it is surely the best time to speak ill of them - they can no longer try to tie you up in spurious legal cases for speaking the truth about them.  Because I don't believe that we should indiscriminately speak ill of any dead - but if they were scumbags in life, spreading noxious extreme right propaganda to the young, then by all means speak the truth about them.  Look, I'm well aware that Kirk had a wife and young children and I do feel empathy for them, whatever I might think about the guy, they've clearly suffered the terrible loss of a loved one.  But please don't ask me to mourn him.  Let's not forget that he was one of those right-wing psychos who liked to bang on about how empathy was a weakness that needed to be eliminated from humanity.  So surely he wouldn't want us to feel empathy for him.  None of which is to say that I think that he deserved to die.  I wouldn't wish that on anyone.  But hey, it isn't as if his buddies on the right are mourning him so much as seizing upon his violent death as an opportunity to further harass and threaten their opponents, trying to whip up the spectre of a widespread (and non-existent) leftist conspiracy to 'take out' leading figures on the right.  Maybe we should humour them and start posting messages (using fake profiles) on social media aimed at them saying stuff like 'We're coming for you all' and 'That was just the start' - you get the picture.  Believe me, if they really thought that there were left-wing hit squads targeting them, the bastards would be shitting themselves and renouncing their Nazi views like there was no tomorrow.

(As ever, for the benefit of any bots from Google, MI5, the CIA or whoever, trawling the web for alleged 'security threats', the above is a satire intended for comical effect and is in no way endorsing political violence or the online harassment of neo Nazis or other undesirables).