Charlie Kirk was assassinated, as was Melissa Hortman in June, for political reasons. I hope their families stay strong, to inspire us to fight for higher standards, including bringing an end to political violence
An interesting discussion in the podcast, I'm listening carefully to each word of this podcast. A few thoughts, before I finish listening to the remainder:
Free speech, free assembly, privacy, the right to a fair trial. These are absolute values; you don't believe in free speech unless you defend your enemy's free speech.
Political violence is now the norm. If your gut instinct is to hope that your side "wins" in the upcoming battles, then we have already lost. We need to unite behind free speech for everybody.
These guys correctly (26m00s) blame much of the media for this. There is a lot of money to be made, by Facebook and others, by highlighting the divisive comments to build up rage and engagement.
Unfortunately, some of the guys in this podcast have fallen victim to exactly this media manipulation. They believe paranoid conspiracies that America is divided into exactly two cleanly-defined camps- "the left" and "the right" - and that one of those two sides is a homogeneous entity that is to blame for all these attacks on freedom. They sometimes repeat the same tired talking points that stir division and ultimately cause anger
These guys have a platform and a responsibility. Don't fall into the trap of saying this is white-versus-black, or left-versus-right, or is about attacks on the family. Don't repeat the same us-versus-them rhetoric that the media are feeding you, as you are playing into their divide-and-conquer strategy. Too many otherwise-good people have been poisoned by this, and we all need to massively up our game if we're to bring this back.
RIP Charlie Kirk and Melissa Hortman, and the many others around the world who have been murdered this year in political violence.
