[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
Two hours before he was taken into custody, Tyler Robinson, prime suspect in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, posted messages on the Discord platform explaining to friends that “it was me yesterday at UVU [Utah Valley University] and “im [sic] sorry for all of this.” FBI director Kash Patel is investigating “every single one” of more than 20 people linked to Robinson on Discord. The FBI is also investigating Armed Queers (AQ) for possible ties to Robinson, who had been living with the transgender Lance Twiggs.
As Martin Arostegui reports the AQ-SLC [Salt Lake City] logo “was inscribed on shell casings found at Robinson’s sniper position,” and since Robinson’s arrest the group has scrubbed all social media postings. AQ recruits online and engages in “paramilitary training at gun ranges of a new organization with chapters in all 50 states called Socialist Rifle Association.”
The rifle now in the possession of the FBI is a Mauser bolt-action originally in 7.92×57 but converted to the more powerful 30/06 caliber and because of its age difficult to trace. Such rifles are designed for long-range accuracy not rapid fire. While the FBI sorts out the evidence and connections, it’s vital that people understand the dynamics behind deadly trans-leftist violence.
As Bruce Bawer has pointed out, homosexuality and transgenderism are “utterly different phenomena” and “queer” can mean anything. The LGBTQ formulation is a construct and there is no LGBTQ “community.” Should that be doubted, think of a Lawyer, Gynecologist, Baker, Trucker, Quaker “community” based on that construct of utterly different phenomena.
Those Dave Chappelle calls the “alphabet people” fail to understand that if someone fails to affirm their fakery, or dares to laugh at them, they are not oppressed. The alphabet people are “victims” only of reality dysphoria, but demand that all people acknowledge their victimhood status. The belief in biological reality—that there are only males and females—is taken as an effort to “erase” people like Robert Westman and Audrey Hale. This reality fills them with rage, so they set out to erase the realists’ children.
On March 27, 2023, in the run-up to the April 1 “Trans Day of Vengeance,” Audrey Hale murdered Evelyn Dieckhaus, 9, Mike Hill, 61, William Kinney, 9, Katherine Koonce, 60, Cynthia Peak, 61, and Hallie Scruggs, nine years old and the daughter of Covenant Presbyterian pastor Chad Scruggs. The Trans Resistance Network proclaimed that Audrey Hale “had no other effective way to be seen than to lash out by taking the life of others.” The Biden FBI blocked release of Hale’s manifesto and White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said “our hearts go out to the trans community as they are under attack right now.”
On August 27, in Minneapolis, Robin Westman – born Robert Westman but who “identified” as a woman – opened fire on worshippers at the Annunciation Catholic School, killing eight-year-old Fletcher Merkel, ten-year-old Harper Moyski, and wounding 17 others, 14 of them children before killing himself. In a Wednesday afternoon press conference, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey failed to name or condemn Westman or speculate on the shooter’s motive and defended the “trans community.” This time there was no hiding the motive.
As Kash Patel revealed, Westman left “multiple anti-Catholic, anti-religious references both in his manifesto and written on his firearms” and “expressed hatred and violence toward Jewish people, writing ‘Israel must fall,’ ‘Free Palestine,’ and using explicit language related to the Holocaust.” Minnesota Bishop Robert Barro also weighed in on the motive.
“If someone attacked a synagogue while congregants were praying, would anyone doubt that it was an anti-Semitic act?” Barron told reporters. “If someone shot up a mosque while the devout were praying, would anyone doubt that it was an anti-Islamic attack? So, why would we even hesitate to say that a maniac shooting into a Catholic Church while children are at prayer was committing an anti-Catholic act.”
According to Harvard law professor Lawrence Tribe, “Kirk’s apparent assassin seems to have been ultra-MAGA, exploding the GOP/MAGA attempt to pin the blame for this tragedy on liberals.” In similar style, California Democrat Dave Minidentified Robinson as “MAGA” and blamed the toxic violence of the RADICAL RIGHT.” And so on.
Tribe and Min call to mind Saul Bellow’s observation that “a great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.” On the other hand, the claim that Charlie Kirk was a hateful man who deserved to be shot dead recalls the dynamic outlined by Hippolyte Taine, historian of the French Revolution:
Nothing is more dangerous than a general idea in narrow and empty minds: as they are empty, it finds no knowledge there to interfere with it; as they are narrow it is not long before it occupies the place entirely. Henceforth they no longer belong to themselves but are mastered by it; it works in them and through them, the man, in the true sense of the word, being possessed.
That is the dynamic now in place, abetted by simple cowardice and confirmed by deadly violence at Nashville, Minneapolis and Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk recognized biological reality and encouraged open debate, so he had to be killed. The “Transifa” types function as the einsatzgruppen of the left. Dealing with these killers, and their defenders in Congress and the media, is a huge challenge for the nation moving forward.
