The Reaction to the Charlie Kirk Killing

 Politics  No Responses »
Sep 142025
 

So some nutter has killed Charlie Kirk, the well known right-winger. This is obviously bad (and I’m a left-winger), but the reaction to his killing is interesting to say the least …

“He’s Not Right-Wing”

And in come the denials as if “right-wing” is something to be ashamed of – now I think it’s something to be ashamed of, but his fellow right-wingers would presumably think it’s fine. But they’re denying it. So let’s have a look at the signs :-

  1. “Charlie Kirk addressed and acknowledged the Great Replacement.“. The “Great Replacement” is a white supremacist theory that there is some conspiracy to “replace” white folk. Charlie once claimed “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified,” – plainly racist. Normally racist is a sign of a right-winger at least amongst reasonable folk.
  2. Raging misogynist: “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.”. Again most reasonable folk classify hatred of women as right-wing.
  3. Kirk on vaccine mandates: “a form of medical apartheid.”. Now this is isn’t right-wing; it’s just nuts. And evil nuts at that.
  4. Most ironically: “I think it’s worth having 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,”.

And there’s more, far more.

Does this make him right-wing? Well yes, but more so – he was a toxic extremist holding views that effectively regarded “others” (women, black folk, homosexuals, etc) as sub-human with fewer rights than the classic rich white men.

Opposing such extremists is something folk should be celebrated for doing. But killing? No that’s just wrong.

The Left Killed Him

As we don’t currently know the motives of the killer, claiming that the left killed him is a bit premature.

One of the related strands is the strange notion that the left is violent whilst the right is peaceful. However a US government survey of political violence shows something very different :-

Ideology1,563—Percentage
Islamist17.6
Left-wing23.4
Right-wing59

(source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9335287/ )

So the 59% of all political violence is right-wingers – exceeding both left-wing and islamists.

Surprised? No wonder – the right-wing is very good at lying.

They (the right) were very quick to start blaming the left even claiming Democrats were effectively urging the murder of Kirk. Well, for a start, the Democrats aren’t leftist – they’re far too right wing for this leftist.

And even if the left in general (and Democrats) criticise Kirk for some of his positions, that isn’t encouraging political violence.

But ultimately we don’t know what motivated the killing of Charlie Kirk. There’s just as many hints that he was right-wing as hints that he was left-wing. But let’s stop pointing fingers until we know.

Even if that’s less fun.

Three Floating Boats

Heat Wave Warnings

 General  No Responses »
Jun 222025
 

One of the most annoying things about heat waves are the petty minded slack-wits who whine every time about heat wave health warnings. “We survived 1976” they go on about.

Well 1976 was a heatwave all right, but as for survival, there were plenty of folk who didn’t – it is estimated that 3,500 folk died during the height of the 1976 heatwave. Given the existence of heatwaves, the increasing severity of them, and the number of folk who do need warning about effects in their health, heatwave warnings are fully justified.

And whinging about them just shows those complainers up as ignorant selfish fuckers. Who should be taken down a peg or two.

In Remembrance

Trip To Penzance

 Humour  No Responses »
Jun 082025
 

This is probably mostly of interest to my future self, but a couple of weeks ago I went for a few days to Penzance, and the trip down was by the Night Riviera (sleeper) :-

Taking a sleeper was … interesting, The first thing to note is that if you’re big then the corridor within the coach can be a wee bit claustrophobic. The cabins are also rather small but oddly not so claustrophobic. The bed is … well kind of narrow.

Funnily enough it was quite easy to sleep whilst the train was running; in fact I woke up when the train stopped. But for me it wasn’t restful and I arrived in need of sleep.

And you arrive at the wrong end of the day – 7:50 in the morning well before you can check-in to a hotel. That isn’t the fault of the train of course; if anything it is the fault of the hotels assuming that you will arrive later in the day.

The more interesting … or perhaps amusing journey was the return :-

This was a day journey … or rather three journeys – Penzance to Exeter (with a reserved seat), Exeter to Salisbury, and than Salisbury to Portsmouth. Just the standard long distance train journey that so happened to leave me without any platform wait long enough to get anything interesting to eat.

But even more amusing was the first leg of the journey – there was no 09:18 train; instead I caught a 9:11 train. And of course my seat reservation was for a fictional train; the seat was reserved for someone else who happily didn’t turn up.

But when I pay for a train ticket I expect it to be for one that actually exists. Similarly I don’t need a seat reservation for a fictional train.

Were The Nazis Socialists?

 Politics  No Responses »
May 302025
 

No.

There’s a popular meme around to categorise the Nazis as socialists because they want to paint all socialists with the colour of murderous dictators. You do have to wonder why given that Stalin existed.

But It’s In The Name!

To be picky it’s not the word “socialist” that exists in the name of the party but the German word sozialistische. The full party name was: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

At least it was after the renaming of the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei; a far right party dedicated to fighting the communists (which were quite popular in Germany after the first world war). The renaming (which Hitler initially opposed) to include the word “sozialistische” was ‘intended to draw upon both left-wing and right-wing ideals, with “Socialist” and “Workers'” appealing to the left, and “National” and “German” appealing to the right.’

How About Their Policies?

If you look at some of the policies of the early Nazi party, they do appear to be influenced by the left: anti-capitalist, anti-big-business, etc. These policies later disappeared as the Nazis grew closer to power and they started to need the support of industrialists.

Another way of looking at it was the association with the militant far-right – the Freicorps (both a generic term and a term applying to a specific group of far-right paramilitary thugs). The Nazis were quite happy to associate in their early days with the Freicorps thugs until they became inconvenient and were “disassociated” during the Night of the Long Knives.

Dachau

The first concentration camp (Dachau) was created for Hitler to punish his political opponents – chiefly communists, socialists, or trade unionists. Some will point at Lenin’s suppression of his political opponents to illustrate that this is not an indication that Hitler wasn’t a socialist.

Only Lenin didn’t suppress leftists initially – for example Emma Goldman was free to visit the Soviet Union, observe, and then return to criticise the revolution. Probably necessarily too – Lenin’s Bolcheviks were probably a minority of leftists in Russia at the time.

Authoritarian

Sometimes those who say “Nazis were socialists” are really grasping for the word “authoritarian” working on the basis that some socialist regimes have been authoritarian. Well “socialist” is the wrong word then – there have been plenty of socialist regimes that were not authoritarian – the UK Labour government of 1945 onwards is a good example.

Fin

Labelling Nazis as socialists is a right-wing deception to hide the fact that the far right come down to evil policies, and to blacken the name of socialism.

Don’t get me wrong – there’s plenty to criticise about socialism but the whole “Look how many folk socialists have killed” thing is really a criticism of authoritarian regimes. Many of which (frequently overlooked by the right) were right-wing regimes: Franco’s Spain, Saddam Hussein, Idi Amin, …

You’ll find some will say “but Stalin killed far more”. Which is true enough, but although Stalin killed an astounding number deliberately, incompetence was also a factor especially when it comes to the famines (and yes there’s a debate to be had about how much was incompetence and how much was maliciousness).

But the key thing is that no serious political historian will classify the Nazis as left-wing. You have to go a lot further than pointing at the name without the audience laughing.

Men At Work
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