That may classify me as right wing. I suppose that’s OK. I do hold a soft spot for Claus von Stauffenberg, who tried for Hitler with a bomb – Claus had lost one eye, his right hand, and two fingers on the left while serving in the Wehrmacht. The ethical quality of assassins has gone down since Claus, though all seem to be in better physical shape.
I suppose the fundamental thing I don’t like is the murder involved. There is something fundamentally wrong with killing people – even if you disagree with their politics. Luigi Mangione backshooting an insurance executive doesn’t rate a higher evaluation than Jack McCall (who backshot Wild Bill Hickock as he played poker in Deadwood). I have despised insurance company employees that I have encountered – and hoped for karma to play a role in their lives – but I don’t hold with murdering them.
I don’t hold with shooting Charlie Kirk – a man who I never realized existed until he was gunned down by a man who disagreed with Charlie’s stance on transexuals. If you can’t make a better case than shooting someone, you’ve conceded the argument. I don’t see the folks who keep emerging from the woodwork to try assassinating Trump as different.
The security has increased around Trump – though the film of a would-be assassin charging through the metal detector with a shotgun suggests his security still needs a bit of fine tuning. So far as I know, more local pols – even our governor – are fairly light on security. Assassins who target a lower level than the presidency – like Luigi Mangione and Tyler Kirk Robinson – can make a disturbing change in our political and social environment.
The thing is, all of us are easy targets for the man or woman who chooses to ignore the sixth commandment (I tend to translate it as ‘thou shall not murder’ – when I read the bible, the book had a lot of killing in it). There is an assumed social contract, where I should be safe from attack – particularly an unanticipated attack. Even the Palestinian who promised me a spot on the Abu Nidal group’s hit list had the fundamental decency to give me a heads up that Mediterranean travel might not improve my life expectancy.
Here’s the deal: Trump is no Hitler. His age and the 22nd Amendment assure me that he will be out of office by January 20, 2029. Each faction gets a chance to run the country as it sees best when they get elected. From my perspective, Trump was a better choice than Hilary, Biden or Harris. If you want to take that statement as saying I prefer a plate with chicken salad over a plate full of chicken sh*t, I’m not going to argue the point.
I was fed up with assassins with Lee Harvey Oswald. James Earl Ray contributed to my disgust. Sirhan Sirhan did his part to convince me that the average assassin (or wannabee assassin) is a loser who takes his shot at someone who is his moral superior. Squeaky Fromme and Sara Jane Moore didn’t convince me that the sex of the assassin changes that evaluation.
As a general rule, I don’t want to associate with assassins or other murderers. I like to believe that I am morally a little bit better than they are. When someone forgets the sixth commandment, we’re all soft targets – and that is a social bad.
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