To believe the right and left have more in common than we think

[TheKhakiQuail]

I am saddened by Charlie Kirk's murder, not because I share his political or religious views, but because he was a young father who had ideas and was willing to talk and debate with anyone. It makes me even more sad to see how many people online are celebrating, laughing and mocking his death because they think he is a 'hateful' person. Most of us share the same basic values - we want our loved ones safe, healthy and happy, we value freedom and autonomy, we have compassion. People just do the math differently. One person who values bodily autonomy and human life will support abortion and oppose mandatory vaccination, another will come to the opposite conclusion. CK was willing to be intellectually honest about the fact that all such decisions come with trade-offs - he supported the 2nd amendment because he saw gun ownership as a tool to maintain the other freedoms in the constitution, and acknowledged that the cost of that is some gun deaths every year. I am incredibly grateful to live in a country with tight gun control, I think he was wrong, but he didn't want gun deaths. I am sick of people acting like he supported gun deaths or would be happy if his daughter was raped and pregnant at 9 and forced to have the baby - he is just willing to accept that that is the potential cost of his strongly pro-life stance. Just as I am not happy about 'babies being murdered' but am willing to acknowledge that my stance on abortion accepts the ending of human lives (at a very early stage) to give women bodily autonomy. I am of the left, but the thing that is driving me nuts about 'my side' at the moment is the unwillingness to hear what the right actually believe, and recognise that it is underpinned by many of the same values and humanity, even if they do the math differently on political solutions.

I was gobsmacked when IAnd Paisley and Martin McGuinness became bosom buddies. I read and heard a lot about this, and apparently it wasn’t just a political rapprochement - they really hit it off on a personal level.

In that case, good things came out of it, so no complaints from me, but talk about extremists having things in common.

I don't think the message there is that extremists can get along, rather that when you bring people together to both really try to talk and find common ground and understand each other, you create space for shared humanity which opens a door to friendship.

CK was trying to bring people together to talk and discuss their different viewpoints . And look how that turned out. Which is the worrying thing. Because now there are prominent voices of the right who are saying that they have taken the message from CK's murder and the frankly revolting reaction of many, many on the left to it, including the mainstream left, that there is no point any more trying to talk.

That is a terrible place for society to be in.

For the avoidance of doubt I have not by a single word suggested this man deserved to be murdered. I am making a point about what I see as this disingenuous advocacy of free speech while working to make some people freer to speak and be listened to than others. Which I understand you disagree with. However to round off your argument by telling me he didn't deserve to die is emotionally manipulative as it implies that unless I'm singing the man's praises I'm indifferent to his murder.
In this way you create the false teaming of people who do not actively support him with those who think his views deserve death, thus discrediting all opposition to him as callous and inhumane, when one position is chasms apart from the other.

Large numbers of people holding a viewpoint doesn’t make it reasonable or not extreme. History and the situation in many countries around the world still demonstrates this to be the case with all of the associated negative outcomes.

What makes someone not an extremist is temperance, balance, rational and logical coherence, an ability to accept trade-offs and nuance rather than engaging in futile and childish absolutism, an ability to balance different objectives and understand how they interact, and crucially a willingness to change their view when new information or data becomes available rather than confusing preferences/ beliefs with facts; effectively a worldview driven by objective data and outcomes and pragmatic compromise rather than ideological extremism about things is what makes people reasonable, objective and capable of engaging in sensible public debate even with those who disagree with them i.e. the opposite of the “I’m entitled to my belief and it’s just as valid as objective reality” brigade which has been growing exponentially over recent years at both extremes and seems more interested in inflaming disagreements than settling them and finding reasonable compromises.

Well done for not reading the OP at all.

The OP has the usual AI generated 3 names, one plop post.

Firstly, I was making a general point, rather than talking about you in particular. Plenty of people are citing his opinions as evidence of why they are glad he is dead.

In this way you create the false teaming of people who do not actively support him with those who think his views deserve death, thus discrediting all opposition to him as callous and inhumane

You have made this up. I have not done this at all.

You (general you, not you in particular) don't have to actively support anyone to think they should not be murdered. I think that was clear in my post.

Large numbers of people holding a viewpoint doesn’t make it reasonable or not extreme. History and the situation in many countries around the world still demonstrates this to be the case with all of the associated negative outcomes

This is true.

I think I would disagree with your definition of extremism. Most people have many view that are fairly fixed and not open to being changed. I don't think that makes them extremists, though it may make them ideological, I guess. For example, people may have firm and fixed ideas on the truth of astrology or the benefits of reiki, which are immune to any evidence to the contrary. But I don't think they could sensibly be called extremist views. I would see extremist ideas as ones which are both fixed ideas and which the extremist wants to force compliance with onto society or individuals.. So someone may have a fixed an ideological idea that men can be women. That is, I think, an extreme and ideological idea, but I would not call it extremist. It would become extremist if they thought that anyone who thought men could not be women were evil Terfs who deserved to be hounded until they lost their jobs and friends. Or if they deserved to be killed.

Having sat through lots of Prevent training this week, the uk actually has its own definition of extremism.

Something around it being ideologies that promote violence, intolerance or hatred, seek to destroy the rights or freedoms of others, overthrowing or underming democracy or creating an environment where thats more likely to happen.

All political murders should be condemned in a democracy, so I object to Kirk's murder on that basis.

That said:

• Kirk was heavily involved in attempts to overthrow democracy in 2020 (e.g. Jan 6). I find it repulsive that somebody who helped try to extinguish the democratic process is held up as being some sort of defender of free speech.

• As between the left and right, almost all political killings in the US in recent years have been by the right. Between 2013 and 2022, 75% of killings were motivated by right wing extremism, 20% Islamic extremism, 4% left, 1% other. For 2022-2024, it was a 100% right wing (although these numbers dont include unsuccessful attempts, like those against Trump).

I don't think you can equivocate between the left and the right in the US.

I think is absolutely possible to think that he should not have been murdered and also that he is a heinous individual whose object is, make NO mistake, to undermine women’s rights and independence. He thought that women should not have control over family finances at all, he believed that women should submit and obey their husbands (just IMAGINE how that is in practice), that they should only homeschool, that they should not use contraception and also not have abortions.

I grew up in Ireland both north and south and am an avid reader of women’s history and the reason that men like CK are all over evangelical Christianity is that it gives them an ‘unarguable’ right to tell women to give up their rights, their careers, their autonomy and do whatever the fuck they’re told. Recent decades have shown that women are incredible doctors, lawyers, architects, business owners - what is the only thing that can override the data? ‘Uh, God told me you had to give it all up and do what I tell you and doubting this means Satan is tempting you’.

Here is a link to a blog with Erika, where clearly at one point she suppressed her inclination to argue with him over whether women can even write the checks (he says no)

https://www.mrserikakirk.com/listen/episode/3e7b4474/s04-06-submission-is-not-a-dirty-word-feat-charlie-kirk

Almost everything the left accuse the right of could be said of them.

The left accuse the right of intolerance when they are so intolerant it's laughable. Anyone who disagrees with them in any way is a right-wing bigot. I have seen people who want rapists deported described as 'faaaaar-right,' and you'll see people who fly England flags described as 'Nazis'. In my experience, moderate, one nation conservatives are FAR more tolerant of the opposition, and far more willing to listen and change their minds. The left never pause to ask WHY people are flying England flags. They never stop to consider WHY mass, uncontrolled immigration and the constant sneering at British history and culture is upsetting people. It has destroyed their sense of identity and belonging!! And they are told not only to accept this but the CELEBRATE it! Mass immigration and multiculturalism have been IMPOSED on people. IMPOSED. No one voted for it and no one asked for it. There was no referendum. How's that for tolerance?

The left accuse the right of being hate-filled. Christ, no one on earth is crueller, nastier or more hate-filled than the left. Take the acronym 'nimby'. What the hell do people expect? Do they think someone who has worked hard and saved and bought themselves a little house in the country should be HAPPY to see the green belt disappear? Should they celebrate seeing the countryside disappear around their ears in order to house people from the developing world? My local woods have been hacked down to make way for two new estates. I should think half the people who've moved there were born in Africa and the Middle East, judging by the languages I have heard spoken. But I know many left-wing people enjoy seeing the Brexit-voting, Daily Mail-reading nimbys have their lives ruined. It makes them happy to see people have their identity taken from them and their neighbourhoods turned upside down. Listen to someone like Frankie Boyle (a self-described communist). He oozes hatred out of every pore. I shudder to think what people like him would do to people like me if they had a chance. 100 million people died in the 20th-century because various left-wing lunatics tried to impose Marxism on them. And they'd do it again in a heartbeat. All the talk about compassion and justice is a smokescreen. A lot of left-wing people are motivated by the exact opposite – by hatred and bitterness and spite and sadism.

The point I was trying to make is that the women of Ireland rose up from the oppression of the church and society, from the insistence that they have dozens of children and stay in the home, and said that yes, they could work in the civil service when they were married (not becoming mums - just getting married in itself used to disbar you from
NICS). That yes, you had the right to escape a husband who beat you and raped you. That yes, you could be educated and independent.

This era of Ireland was NOT a time of cosy corners and warm bread and flounced aprons and apple cheeked babies for women. It was a time of jobs for the boys, domestic violence being acceptable, women not allowed on juries, to get mortgages, to use contraception freely. Read about President Mary Robinson’s fight to get rights for women. Read Angela’s Ashes, Light a Penny Candle, Don’t Wake Me At Doyle’s, or any of the accounts of mother and baby homes and Magdalene laundries for ‘sinning’ women. Look how Ireland has gone on to thrive economically, socially, diplomatically since it freed itself from the shackles of church-controlled society.

These are autocratic, dictatorial men who want women to be at home ‘homeschooling’ their children so that neither can be exposed to ‘sin’ aka the world. What is a third or fourth generation of homeschooled, badly educated, children going to look like? Do you think those uneducated, financially illiterate young mums with five kids are going to be able to escape their fate?

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die as he did - because no one does. But Charlie Kirk was a college dropout who wanted to make sure that women were dependent, docile and broke, brainwashed into thinking their fella’s word was law. Do you think you would like to have a man making those kind of laws that you had to live with? If your dp’s word was the final one, every time, no ‘back chat’ from you?

The men like him and the men like Andrew Tate have a central thread that is identical - if you are a woman, they despise you, they disrespect your mind, your body, your facility to be independent and in control of your actions.

Mourn a society that is so heavily and casually armed that a man can be shot so easily, in a way that he espoused himself. Don’t mourn a man who would treat women like somewhere between an animal and a child.

I don’t understand the praise for ‘debating’ some truly vile misogynistic racist views. There is no value in allowing people to platform these views as debate worthy - it gives them credence. He was also woefully ill informed on some very basic rules about how the government works. At best he was mildly spoken although what he was saying certainly wasn’t mild. It appears, although early days and surprisingly given the accuracy, that it was a young man acting alone which is how most of these gun tragedies seem to occur and why they seem so easily stoppable by other countries…

Yes, @LimeShaker in these debates did he EVER change his mind?

I'm reading them. And yes, I went with one of the default names mumsnet offered, as coming up with creative user names is not a skill or hobby of mine.

Well, after yesterday's Tommy Robinson march with man of the people Elon Musk extorting people to 'fight back', I think I have even less in common with the far right.

There have been some really well expressed posts on this thread.

All beliefs look awful if you push them to the extreme.

In the abortion debate, forced birther/baby murderer, for example.

Generally people hold their position because they think it more beneficial than the alternative. No one wants forced births or full term babies murdered. Those are both abhorrent, and unfair characterisations of the position.

It’s unhelpful and unproductive to characterise the position of the opposition in that way- though useful in debate to flesh out the implications of policies people adopt unthinkingly.

There’s a philosophy professor in the US who films discussion games on campus. He lays out 5 numbered markers representing the discussion on abortion, for example. 1=forced birthing, no abortion under any circumstance. 5=women are free to terminate at any point, for any reason.

People stand where they feel represents their opinion, and he uses discussion to encourage people to move along the scale. It’s interesting.

We need more of it.