My last words

 A relative has cancer. He was diagnosed probably a bit over a year ago. We all stood talking one summer evening. He matter of factly said, "It has jumped the fence."

I never heard that phrase before, but what he was saying was that his cancer had spread. It was now in his brain and his bones. 

A few of you took umbrage at my last post, feeling that poor Charlie Kirk had been taken out of context. 

Perhaps. 

So, I will give you another chance. He told a 14 year old girl that she should spend her school years looking for a husband. That women should go to college for a 'Mrs degree'. What is the proper context for that?

Ah...I see. She asked his opinion at an event. He was merely posed a question. He simply answered it in accordance to his own beliefs and faith. 

So, what about his thoughts on the whole Taylor Swift/Travis Kelce engagement. He called for her to become more conservative, to submit to her husband, to have more children than houses, that being a 35 year old unmarried woman made her a bad role model for young girls.

Pretty sure his opinion wasn't requested by the either of the two of them. 

He had lots of opinions, on black people "who stepped into white roles",  MAGA. On abortion. About Muslims. About immigration. He claimed democrats hated America.

Those are his opinions.  Like my sister says: "Opinions are like hiney holes. Everybody has one." It is important to see that his comments are opinions, not fact, and no matter what topic he spoke on, when you look at it closely, it falls apart. A lot of it isn't even biblically supported. Scientifically supported.

Is a person who believes Israel is behaving badly a terrorist who hates America and needs to be deported? Do you believe in the great replacement theory? Do you believe that abortion and women's rights brought about Auschwitz? 

I could go on and on. 

Let me say that he had, in effect, 'jumped the fence'. He was no longer a simple man living his own faith. He was demanding, like MAGA, that all of us live according to his faith as well. Over and over again, you can see that people who say, 'Yeah, but...' are painted as the enemy.

Years ago, there were the 'great translators', the fine folk who took trump's word salad and tried to make it sound sensible. That's exactly what people are doing now with Charlie Kirk. Some people believe that we must strive to put his words in context, we have to see the big picture, etc.

Do we, though?

Should we, though?

Isn't that exactly how MAGA grows? We white wash what they are saying until it becomes something that we can stomach. Meanwhile, the country moves closer and closer to true fascism.

No. I am not interested in trying to understand. Ignoring the big picture is exactly what brought us to the point we are at today. 

LATE EDIT: FROM HERE ON, THIS IS SOMEONE ELSE'S STORY

Adding to my last words with someone else's: 

One thing that has become really clear since yesterday is that we live in at least two different realities. Talking to a friend who only knew Charlie as a Christian motivational speaker because that's all that ever came across her feed. Showed me videos I've never seen before of him saying perfectly reasonable and empowering things. 

I showed her videos she'd never seen before of his racism, misogyny, homophobia, advocating for violence against specific groups of people. She was horrified by his remarks about Pelosi's husband's attacker being bailed out and celebrated for his violent act. She was horrified by a number of things that he said, but she had never seen or heard them before, the same as I had never seen or heard the generalized clips of him sounding like a perfectly nice loving man and father.

Neither of us had a whole picture of this man. I mentioned he was a known white supremacist and she thought I was joking. She talked about him giving a speech about finding your purpose and doing good in the world and I thought she was joking.

I saw why this friend was mourning the loss of a person she thought was a good person. My friend, bless her, saw why I feel the way I do about him. We understood each other better. In spite of a multi-billion dollar internet machine specifically focused on keeping us apart. Because we talked to each other with the desire to listen and to learn rather than the desire to change someone else's mind or to be "right".

None of those motivational things he said change my opinion about him because they don't erase the negativity, the subtle calls for violence, the belittling and denigrating of other races religions genders etc. His negative and blaming comments about homeless people, the poor, and victims of domestic violence. His comments about rounding up people who didn't think like him and putting them in camps where their behavior could be corrected. That time he said empathy was a made-up word he didn't believe in. That other time he said the Civil Rights Act was a mistake. The time he said most people are afraid when they get on a plane and see that there's a black pilot. His anti-vaccination rhetoric and his active campaigning against people being allowed to wear masks for their own health. His open support of fascism and white supremacy. To me, all of those are fully unchristian sentiments. Those are undeniable and just one of them would be a deal-breaker for me. All of them together are a picture of a man who was polarizing, enraged a lot of people and rightly so, but even with all of that I would never wish upon him or especially his children the end that he got.

Oh, and my friend had never heard, and God help me I don't know how she escaped the news, but she had never heard of the Minnesota legislators who were shot in June. The husband and wife and dog who were killed, one after throwing themselves over their child to protect the child. The other couple who somehow survived. Politically motivated attacks specifically because they were democrats. She learned about those shootings that happened months ago because I showed her Charlie Kirk's comments about them. The kidnapping plot against a female Midwestern Democratic governor. The assassination attempt against Pennsylvania's democratic governor. All things Charlie had plenty to say about while supporting the Second Amendment and bashing the Democratic party. She didn't know about any of it because we're all living in two different worlds and none of us have the whole story.