House of Eratosthenes

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, while I’m waiting for the various falsehoods to stop flying around and get exposed, I’m struck by the parallel with another, entirely unrelated, set of issues. Every now and then a man will complain “A woman did something” or “Women do this thing” and, sure as the next sunrise, someone will emerge — not necessarily a female — to say “But all women aren’t like that” and/or “Oh yeah, well men are just as bad.” Or, “He made her do it.”

Answers no one wanted or needed, to questions no one asked.

These don’t move the conversation forward. They’re just defense mechanisms. Because it’s not a contest. You may assert that men are just as bad, or even worse. You might prove it, too. The problem is that 1) men have problems, 2) women have problems, and most importantly, 3) men and women got to where they are by way of different paths of travel. To ignore the problems with women and concentrate on fixing what’s wrong with men, in hopes that said fix will somehow spill over and improve women because what the heck, they’re all people, no different from each other — this is a false hope. It’s fallacious thinking. “The watch went missing over the ditch on that side of the road, but there’s no light there, the light’s much better on this side so let’s look for it over here.” People don’t want to criticize women. So they do this fix-men-instead thing. They do it a lot. They think they’re on the right track. They aren’t.

Enough about that.

This has been an awkward week for dedicated liberals, many of whom become liberals in the first place because they want to think better of themselves, as people. They want to be on the positive side, the peaceful side, the “look out for the little guy” side. And if that doesn’t work, a lot of them, I notice, are enchanted with the prospect of becoming perpetual victims. Oh, I can’t win. Oh, they’re doing this to me, they’re doing that to me.

So now one from among them has settled scores with a 30-06. Charlie Kirk lies dead. Having done nothing to hurt anybody anywhere. What to do?

This is where the defense mechanisms kick in. All left-wingers are not like that. Right wingers are just as bad. And your side — somehow — made him do it.

The desire among those who are on The Right, for The Left to press for much needed internal reforms, is sincere. Nobody wants to get shot. And The Left does need these reforms. This isn’t an issue with isolated incidents of dehumanizing and name-calling; the not-real-people lashing out against the opposition, has been coming from the top, and for many years now. Bitter Clingers. Baskets of Deplorables. Not welcome anywhere. Follow them to restaurants and yell at them. Fascists. MAGA Republicans. Garbage. Bigots. TERFs. Racist, racist, racist.

Pivot This kind of stuff stifles discussion. Ultimately, it gets bullets flying, because there’s bound to be a “follower” with a screw loose. But to concerns like these, I see The Left has a ready response in “The January Six Insurrection.” A little bit of look in this ditch where the light is better, not in that ditch where the watch was dropped. They don’t want to fix things where they’re actually broken.

Again: It’s not a contest. Also, it isn’t the same. If you take the time to actually listen to what conservatives have to say about January 6, they’re arguing against the setup, the hidden evidence, the various criminal missteps by the January 6 committee. And, the lying. The police officer pummeled to death with a fire extinguisher — sorry, it didn’t happen. Also, what kind of “insurrection” begins with the officials leading the insurrectionists on a guided tour through the building?

When you pin down what this-or-that insurrectionist did, that is violent, inexcusable, and most important of all, verified — the conservative will agree, yes, that person should be punished. I’ve not seen any exceptions to this. So no, it’s not the same. And it doesn’t work as a rebuttal against the Kirk assassination.

The fact of the matter is, this angry-little-lefty trope has been around for a long time now. We’ve slowly been adapting to it. Bullets are flying now, because of that. And it never did anything positive anywhere. A lot of these activists are out there flaring their pierced nostrils, balling up their little fists and stamping their little feet, anxious to show how they’re just about ready to lose it. Ready to show that what little control they still have over their surging emotions, is about to be overwhelmed and the dam is just about to break. A good chunk of the time it’s likely true, strung out as they are on their psychotropic meds and SSRIs.

Charlie Kirk showed the way. Unfortunately, it looks like those sorts of discussions are going to have to be had indoors from here on out, but I don’t think it’s too much to ask that the other side veer off more in that direction, discussing things coherently and courteously the way Charlie did, and get away from this “I’m so mad things aren’t being done my way” stuff. It’s unseemly as well as dangerous. If such a reform could be possible, I’d be all for it although I’d fall short of purchasing it at the expense of martyr’s blood. It’s valuable, but not that valuable. Be that as it may, what’s done is done, and Charlie is gone. My hope is that this era of the “non threatening but aggressively so” Hawkeye Pierce foot-stomping thing-throwing liberal, comes to a stop right about now. I know best case scenario, there will be a deceleration curve, and it’s going to take awhile. Things were tempestuous in our government and in our culture in the years following Lincoln’s assassination, and JFK’s. But there was some restraint kicking in, that had been lacking in the years previous, as well.

Besides, it’s tedious. I really don’t care how angry David Hogg is today or any other day. His various temper tantrums doth not an argument make. That goes for Greta Thunberg, too. These well-broadcast and thoroughly-replayed hissy fits are embarrassing to watch, embarrassing by proxy.

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The Defense Mechanisms Are ImpressiveMonday, September 15th, 2025

The Defense Mechanisms Are Impressive
Monday, September 15th, 2025