Yes. Yes, it is a tragic event. Apart from it being simply morally utterly reprehensible, it is an extremely primitive and counter-productive way to fight against ideas and the messengers of those ideas.
Again, morally reprehensible and it doesn't fucking work. It only shows 'the other side is just as bad/worse', turns the messenger into a martyr, and galvanizes support.
> What is actually tragic is that spreading lies, as he did
Unlike many others, he invited anyone to the mic to prove him wrong. Hardly qualifies as lying. Anyone could have gotten to the mic and debate him. Sure, you may don't like his beliefs, but there is a huge difference between lying, and defending (even incorrect and unfounded) claims in public.
Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
Let me document five very serious lies from him:
1. On Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble, Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose.
2. Ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Kirk spread falsehoods about voter fraud, and immediately after Trump lost the 2020 election, Kirk promoted false and disproven claims of fraud in the election.
3. Kirk called the public health measure of social distancing prohibitions in churches a "Democratic plot against Christianity".
4. In the 2020s, Kirk was a Christian nationalist who called the separation of Church and state in the United States a "fabrication".
5. Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in 2024, he said: "This is a Christian state. I'd like to see it stay that way."
There are innumerable more. For the record, the February 2023 Brookings Institution study found Kirk's podcast contained the second-highest proportion of false, misleading, and unsubstantiated statements among 36,603 episodes produced by 79 prominent political podcasters. [1]
Contrast it with the way in which truth is actually spread; it is by citing good-quality references.
> Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
This is far fetched. People who have sent the death threats are lunatics. If the number of people who are sending death threats is our new standard for the quality and importance of debates, then we should simply stop the debates. There are always unhinged people around. Where does it leave us?
> Let me document five very serious lies from him:
Sure. Some are maybe lies, some are his opinions, some are misleading claims, and the rest are his own beliefs. Still, anyone could have went in front of the mic and debated him for it. In my opinion, someone is a liar when they have a platform to lie, and no way for the public to engage, debate, and correct them. While Kirk's beliefs are very far from my own (e.g., I do not believe that election was stolen), I still think that what he did is needed today: speaking your mind, and being open to be challenged in public.
It is bewildering how the Republican voters don't realize that the party cares exclusively about those who fund the party, not about those who vote for it. The votes are gained exactly on the basis of lies. If the party actually cared for its voters, it would send all the non-immigrant work-visa employees back home immediately if they don't have a PhD degree in their field of work.
The footage I have seen universally depicts a cheering, entertained crowd that expresses nothing I could interpret as hateful towards anyone.
> Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose.
Two autopsies were performed, and both involved at least one medical examiner. One of them found that fentanyl and/or methamphetamine may have been a complicating factor. But this is understating the case. Floyd is known to have taken a very high dose of fentanyl (https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/george-floyd/evide...), which is commonly understood to be a very dangerous drug. The other autopsy, commissioned by Floyd's legal team, did not include a toxicology report.
> ... voter fraud ...
This is, of course, hotly contested. People on the other side of the aisle, from what I can tell, sincerely believe that the people "disproving" these claims are fabricating their evidence and/or ignoring supporting evidence.
Regardless, believing a falsehood to be true is not the same thing as lying.
> Kirk called the public health measure of social distancing prohibitions in churches a "Democratic plot against Christianity". In the 2020s, Kirk was a Christian nationalist who called the separation of Church and state in the United States a "fabrication". Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in 2024, he said: "This is a Christian state. I'd like to see it stay that way."
This is the same thing repeated three times, and it is an opinion, not a claim. He was not saying anything about what the law or Constitution provides. He was describing what he considers to be the general order of the society around him.
Many political thinkers across the spectrum have disputed that the US implements real separation of church and state, irrespective of what the laws and Constitution say. There are many simple ways to make this argument.
For example, giving preferential tax treatment or legal recognition to married couples is a clear mingling of church and state; government didn't come up with the concept, existing religious traditions (including paganism; I am not agreeing with Kirk's opinion on Christianity here) did.
For another example, from the Constitution:
> We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...
It's hard to fathom, given the identities of the people involved, that "Creator" here refers to something other than the Christian God.
> There are innumerable more.
Again, the reliability of "fact-checking" institutions is in question. I have personally encountered examples of sites like Snopes and Politifact giving significantly different truth ratings to the same claim when it was made by different politicians. There are other sites out there dedicated to cataloguing such examples.
