In the USA, 24 hour talking heads on our cable news channels, social media and politicians using vile names to denigrate their opponents have unleashed a radicalization of certain personality types who glory in denigrating name calling that leads them to violence.
It appears the killer of Charlie Kirk was radicalized in some way by someone or some ideological group to assassinate the young leader of a conservative political movement in this country. He wanted to kill not just a man but a political movement with which he disagreed and hated.
The loose use of the terms of Nazi, fascist, dictator, king, oligarch and God knows what else, gives those Lone Rangers, radicalized by these words and what they mean, to take action. Kirk’s assassin saw him as a fascist. That was reason enough to do what he did thinking he was doing his country a service.
It’s one thing to feel passionate about your political opinions, its quite another thing to call your opponents by names that suggest they should be eliminated because these names are associated with the most vile and sick ideologies Europe has ever experienced.
My father fought during World War II to end Nazism and Fascism. He knew what it was and it isn’t anyone in the Republican Party. He would be sickened by anyone using those terms against their political opponents in this country.
My mother as an adult experienced Fascism and Nazism in her city of Livorno, Italy. Nazis in uniform were stationed in her city. If she were living, she would decry the flippant name calling of the President and others associated with him Nazis or fascists.
I’m impressed with the governor of Utah and his call to tone down the political ideology of vile name calling using names associated with the Holocaust which provoke the radicalized to take action as did the assassin of Charlie Kirk.
It’s all a part of the contempt for the sacredness of human life and the respect due to men and women created in the image and likeness of God. And the greater problem is that politics and political affiliations have become an idol replacing true religion and true morality.
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