At first I also had thr reaction of thinking "he asked for it" , and all that schadenfreude feeling.
However, now I think it was a great loss and hope the killer gets the whole extent of the law.
See, in a society that is tending more and more to the extremes, polarization and radicalism, we NEED people to TALK.
Being from outside of the US, I don't know the ideas this guy was spewing; However, from what I've read, what he did was basically talking and debate. We need that. We need to be open to talk ideas, even if we dont agree. Where are we when someone who speaks his mind gets killed for that?
I am socialist and anti-US-imperialism in general, but I tend to frequent r/conservative and r/ccw and even patriots.win subteddits. Because im interested in a different point of view.
I get sad that most posts in r/conservative block externals, as I would love to interact in some of the posts. But... after this guys assassination... I dont blame them. People should feel safe to talk and discuss their ideas.
I'm to stupid to be able to debate against this guy, or the other guy.that speaks too fast and always looks angry (anti abortion American dude). But ... why isn't someone smarter and with opposing views debating them?. We need it.
That does not mean he deserved to die. He didn’t. But he did not die undergoing some noble endeavor or engaging in free speech in some profoundly brave way.
You can see this with Ben Shapiro when he walked out of an interview with conservative BBC host, Andrew Neil. Shapiro was unprepared for a real challenge and his go-to of speaking fast, gish galloping, and calling out the “radical left views” of his opponent didn’t work because the host was a conservative.
https://youtu.be/6VixqvOcK8E?si=GX9TcG7gOgUQH3Bo
If you want a someone who would be an effective counter, look to Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo.
Even though Kirk made a point to debate students, generally, there were always a few at good schools that pretty thoroughly defeated him.
And in fairness to Kirk, he sometimes posted the in full (albeit always with laughably distorted headlines):