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A.R. Moxon

3 days ago

A.R. Moxon
3 days ago

"To a supremacist society, most of us are acceptable losses. Charlie Kirk is not. To a supremacist society, guns are allowed to kill most of us, and the pundits can debate later how sad our deaths were. But guns were not supposed to kill Charlie Kirk." www.the-reframe.com/acceptable-l...

Acceptable Losses

Acceptable Losses

Whose deaths get to be deemed unacceptable in supremacist America, and whose are deemed necessary? And who does the deeming?

^{A.R. Moxon (The Reframe)}

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in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

We live in a world where gun massacres are easy, plentiful, and inevitable. We live in that world against our will because of Charlie Kirk and people like him, who demand it as a core tenet of their personal freedom. Don't take my word for it, though. For proof we can go directly to Charlie Kirk.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

"The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government," Kirk said. I should define the Second Amendment.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

"The Second Amendment" is an article of the U.S. Constitution, which deals with arming well-regulated state militias if you actually read it, but which—if you ask a far-right extremist—codifies guns as an inalienable right specifically so citizens can take up arms against a tyrannical government.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

I'll note that who gets to decide that the government is tyrannical or how tyranny might be determined is a gray area, but in practice the answer is "whatever any white conservative says." Anyway, if that definition of the 2nd amendment doesn't glorify political violence, I don't know what does.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

You may have noticed the government is tyrannical right now, with the U.S. military and kidnapping squads invading U.S. cities to terrorize civilian populations and abrogate everyone's constitutional rights, and conservatives think that's great, so "freedom" definitely has an exclusive charter.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

I mention all this because I am currently being scolded that political violence is unacceptable, which is odd because—unlike Charlie Kirk and the conservative apparatus of which he was a part—I am not openly advocating for political gun violence as a core tenet of my personal freedom.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Later in that same speech (which took place in Utah in 2023), Charlie Kirk gave his now-famous quote: “I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other god-given rights.”

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

The it in that is worth it here is gun deaths, of which there were 46,728 in 2023. These remarks came in the aftermath of one of our nation's many many many school shootings, this one at The Covenant School in Nashville Tennessee, which had happened about a week prior.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Kirk's statement is shocking in that context, but I don't think it made a particularly big splash at the time, because this is exactly what any conservative pundit or politician will say after any school shooting; the conservative defense of guns is basically a part of the massacre at this point.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

We might wonder if Kirk meant that the victims of The Covenant School specifically were acceptable losses to his right to political violence, or if he just meant all 46,728 people who would die that year. I suspect the answer is he didn't give a shit.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

I say all this because I am being scolded that violence is never the answer, and I can't help but notice that for the conservative political apparatus of which Kirk was a part, violence is not only an answer but THE answer, and often the question, too. (Violence? Violence!)

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

A couple years later, Charlie Kirk was murdered by a shooter, as Charlie Kirk warned us might be necessary. You know who I feel bad for? The kids. Two of them. Perfectly innocent of all this. They were victims of a school shooting in Colorado, in one of our nation's many, many school shootings.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Which kids did you think I meant? I also feel bad for Kirk's kids, for what it is worth, though I think everyone else already has those bases thoroughly covered. I feel compelled to mention it. I so feel bad for Charlie Kirk's kids. I feel sympathy for them. I always did.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Nevertheless I feel compelled to mention it, because if I don't, it will be assumed by many that this must mean I am very glad that they watched their father Charlie Kirk be murdered horribly in gun violence, as so many thousands are each year—necessarily, per Charlie Kirk. I am not glad of it.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

We live in a world where gun massacres are easy, plentiful, and inevitable, against our collective will, as the direct result of a political decision, which makes every gun death political violence. Yet in the halls of power and influence only Charlie Kirk's murder is considered political violence.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

The death of the 20 kids murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre are not "political violence." Nor are the deaths of those killed in the Virginia Tech massacre. Or the Uvalde massacre. Or the Parkland massacre. Or the University of Texas massacre. Or the Columbine massacre.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Or the Enoch Brown High School massacre. Or the Santa Fe High massacre. Or any of the 574 school shootings that have occurred in the United States since 2000. Their murders were not political violence; they were Charlie Kirk's acceptable losses.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Hundreds of kids, all dead in our elective culture of gun massacres, a price Charlie Kirk and his gang of far-right extremists were and are willing to pay to secure their personal right to enact political violence at their sole discretion. But then something unacceptable happened to Charlie Kirk.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

None of those victims had family members; not in the way that we're told to understand Charlie Kirk had family members. Nobody was admonished that political violence is never appropriate. No, proclamations of their deaths were opened with thoughts and prayers and closed with nothing else.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

It's worth pondering who gets the privilege of having the violence committed against them deemed political violence, and who has to bear the burden of having their existence be deemed political violence.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Homeless people die every day, and that is not considered political violence, even though their circumstances are the direct result of political decisions. A news host can suggest exterminating them on-air, and that is not deemed "unacceptable" or "violence."

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Trans kids commit suicide and that is not political violence. Black people are murdered by cops and that is not political violence. People die of diseases they can't afford to treat and that is not political violence.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

People die of diseases that could have been prevented by good public health policy, environmental protections, infrastructure, vaccines, and that is not political violence.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Our cities are invaded and our neighbors kidnaped, and that is not political violence. Our president declares war against Chicago, but our era of political violence didn't begin until this week, per the Washington Post. Because something unacceptable happened to Charlie Kirk.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Supremacy is the idea that some people's lives matter and the rest don't. If you matter, then violence can be done to you. If you don't matter, than you can only ever threaten violence or be violence. You can't be the victim of unacceptable political violence. You can be an acceptable loss.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

To a supremacist society, Charlie Kirk matters. To varying degrees, most of the rest of us don't matter. Or at least our humanity is left up for debate among people like Charlie Kirk—which I'm told by Ezra Klein is doing politics exactly—EXACTLY—the right way.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Charlie Kirk is a father. Charlie Kirk is a husband. Charlie Kirk's death is a tragedy and totally unacceptable. The rest of us are potentially, if we are unlucky enough, and depending on who or what kills us, simply the sacrifice the 2nd amendment and Charlie Kirk demands.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Depending on circumstances, our deaths are not necessarily unacceptable. Depending on our identities, some of our deaths are extremely acceptable, even desirable.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

This is why there was such a mania to assume the name and identity of the shooter as a member of an out-group that is already targeted for a violence that will never be deemed "political." To supremacists, who claim to be against "identity politics," identity is everything, everything, everything.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

So now here he is, Charlie Kirk: 31 years old and dead by the very situation he forced us all to live in. A hero of whatever the fuck, and if you disagree about that, then you must be the one who wants violence, you must be the one who loves the fact that his kids don't have a father now.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

And now they'll move on from him, the Republicans, and replace him with the next guy willing to say hateful things about targeted minorities. Kirk was only ever a tool to them—as is his death, and the legend they are building around it. But we can know better, if we are willing to use our memories.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Charlie Kirk's last moments before the shooting were spent in an attempt to cast blame for gun violence upon Black people and trans people. Do you know how many mass shooters in America have been trans? Kirk was asked. Too many, he answered.

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

The questioner gave him the answer—five—and asked if he knew how many mass shootings there had been in America in the last 10 years. Counting or not counting gang violence? he replied. You know what? If they ever erect that monument to him in the Capitol building, put that on the plaque. /end

in reply to A.R. Moxon

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A.R. Moxon

in reply to A.R. Moxon 2 days ago

Full essay: www.the-reframe.com/acceptable-l...

Acceptable Losses

Acceptable Losses

Whose deaths get to be deemed unacceptable in supremacist America, and whose are deemed necessary? And who does the deeming?

^{A.R. Moxon (The Reframe)}

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