Hateful gossip

We, as Canadians, have the ongoing opportunity to watch massive sociological events take place in a country that is almost identical culturally to us. We have far more in common with them than any European nation, much less the rest of the world. And invariably, any major change they go through is usually mirrored here within 2 years. So watching them is a window into what might be coming for us.

You can see that the immigration argument that has been raging in the U.S. for 4+years, an argument that boiled over into a second Trump presidency, is coming to prominence in Canadian political discussion. Will the governing Liberals make the same mistake that Biden’s Democrats did, ignoring the voter’s concerns on a lack of immigration law enforcement, in dogged commitment to the Progressive ideological belief that “no human is illegal”? Will they continue to call anyone who worries about the strain non-citizens put on healthcare, housing, and the job market “racists and bigots”? I’m not optimistic that they can correct their behaviour.

But the most recent U.S. event points to an even darker possible future: the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. He wasn’t an elected official. He had no official power over anyone. He debated and argued with people of opposing beliefs, defending his principles. And someone murdered him for that.

This by itself is not an omen. There will always be evil human beings who commit murder, and their twisted rationale will never be defensible. But the ill omens come from 3 sources:

1. From the TikTok trolls who publicly cheered and celebrated his murder. These young, happy trolls danced and smiled in rapturous joy because a man they hated was shot and killed. A functioning, polite society depends on standards of etiquette, and a foundational standard is not publicly cheering for murder. As an interesting sidenote, most of the people filming themselves celebrating were women. The fairer sex has its own fondness for blood and revenge.
2. From various mainstream media commentators who have insinuated (or outright stated) that Kirk’s words brought his death upon himself. Pundits on CBC and MSNBC worked to shift blame away from the madman who committed the murder, to the victim and to the U.S. president. This reenforces the dangerous belief that some words are so dangerous that they justify actual violence in response.
3. The accusations of the beliefs that Kirk advocated are built on intentional misinterpretations and guilt by association attacks. The majority of people are simply parroting what Kirk’s enemies have said.

I’m going to expand on point 3, with examples. First is a correction from the New York Times:

One of America’s most important news sources, the New York Times, spread the false accusation that Kirk made antisemitic statements. They did this on the day he was killed. Issuing the correction a day later does nothing to undo the damage of reenforcing the initial accusation.

And literary icon Stephen King spread a similar dishonesty:

I will give Stephen credit for realizing his horrendous mistake and issuing a correction, but once again, the damage was already done.

And there are too many examples within Canadian media to simply pick one. Almost all news outlets parrot the labels of “White Nationalist”, “bigot” or “fascist” without any concern for the evidence behind these labels, or the motivations of the people who described his so. And if they are misrepresenting Kirk with second hand accusations, who else are they misrepresenting to the Canadian public?

And the frustrating element of this is, with some basic journalism, you could make a more accurate representation of the beliefs that Kirk held that were contentious and hated by some. He did believe homosexuality was a sin, but did not support any hostile actions towards the gay community (in fact he welcomed a gay conservative into the movement during one of his campus debates). He was a fervent Christian who believed his religion was foundational to the U.S. and should play a bigger role in shaping policy, but strongly spoke against theocracy. He was bluntly critical of Islam in a way that would be found offensive to most muslims. He was firmly opposed to abortion, on the grounds that human life is sacred. He believed that absent fathers played a significant role in the crime and dysfunction of poor Black American communities. And for each of his beliefs, he was willing to sit in front of a crowd, explain why he held these positions, and calmly debate with anyone who came to the microphone to question him. You may disagree with his beliefs. You are free to hate his beliefs, and say so publicly. But no one, not me, not you, has the right to murder him for holding these beliefs.

I will end with a practical warning for anyone who wants to argue in favour of murder as a response to “hateful” words. You are proposing violence as an appropriate rebuttal to speech you dislike, and your enemies will be more than happy to accept these terms. As writers Jonathan Haidt and Greg Lukianoff said in this Atlantic article: “Free Speech, properly understood, is not violence. It is a cure for violence.”