You Be the Judge

Kicking a man less than a week into the grave. Shameful. Here is the snippet, simply copied and pasted without much thought as to the contents. Therefore, I have decided to do the exact same thing. I copied and pasted two responses to Mr. Coyote’s rather ugly comments. You be the judge. To repeat, NONE OF THESE WORDS ARE MINE. I am simply doing what someone else did- posting words someone else said. First, the rather rude comment by Mr. Coyote, followed by two responses I chose from his very profile.

The first short response is by a Zen Buddist, since Mr. Coyote apparently follows that religion.  

Please note: this is also not my response to Charlie Kirk's assassination. I have been thinking about it a lot, especially with my firsthand experience involving labeling/name calling/humanity denying in May of this year. I will write it out in a day or two. I felt this horrific post was worthy of a response.  

Peter Coyote

I want to be crystal clear that Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die or be physically assaulted for the positions he espoused. However, let’s not sugar-coat what this young man stood for and espoused, or towards what ends he directed his charisma and intelligence, campaigned, raised money, and preached for, okay?

Kirk became a prominent advocate of Christian nationalism in the 2020s, calling for an end to the separation of church and state and asserting that “you cannot have liberty if you do not have a Christian population.” He advocated for the Seven Mountain Mandate, pushing for Christians to take over key spheres of society. Does that sound like an America in which Buddhists, Muslims ordinary Protestants and Catholics would respected and empowered?

Abortion: He described abortion as murder and argued it should be illegal, with no exceptions for rape—not even for young girls. He sometimes described abortion as worse than the Holocaust. Are those beliefs you and your wives, daughters and sisters would espouse?

Kirk was a staunch defender of the Second Amendment, insisting that the cost of some gun deaths each year was “worth it” to preserve gun ownership rights? Why? According to what? He argued that more armed Americans and armed guards in schools were the solution to gun violence. Really? On what factual evidence other than the lobbying arm of the armaments industry?

LGBTQ+ rights and gender: He openly opposed gay and transgender rights, referring to transgender identity as a “mental disease” and pushing young conservatives to avoid what he called “gender ideology.” He encouraged students to report educators endorsing such views. Snitching your friends out?

Race and Civil Rights: Kirk was controversial for his criticism of civil rights legislation and key historical figures such as Martin Luther King Jr., whom he called “awful.” He argued that the Civil Rights Act of the 1960s was a mistake and promoted divisive and racist rhetoric targeting Black Americans and Muslims. What do Black Americans and Muslims feel about the Civil Rights Act, or women, who were its greatest beneficiary?

Kirk promoted the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory.

He Spread COVID-19 misinformation likening masks and vaccine mandates to “medical apartheid.”

Suggested mass incarceration as a fix for the housing crisis

Advocated for public, televised executions even for children to watch.

Dismissed Black competence and made demeaning statements about Black women, claiming that Michelle Obama and other supporters of affirmative action “lacked the brain processing power” to understand arguments on those policies. He also made undermining comments toward Black pilots, saying, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ’Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”.

It's no wonder that the Trump family loved this young man. Trump is not the President of ALL Americans. He’s crystal clear that he does not represent Democrats, for instance

Kirk urged social mobilization against professors, educators, and school officials whom he accused of indoctrination or leftist bias by means of watchlists and mass complaints.

On June 14, 2025, Rep. Melissa Hortman (Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, DFL) and her husband were murdered in their home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. Donald Trump did not lower flags to half-mast that day or call the Governor with condolences. Are we to assume that Democratic deaths mean less to him, the President of the United States, than Republican deaths??

•That same day, Sen. John Hoffman (DFL) and his wife were shot and hospitalized; both survived. Donald Trump did not call with condolences.

•The attacker, MAGA extremist, Vance Luther Boelter, had a “target list” including Democratic politicians and abortion providers; authorities described this as “targeted political violence”.

•Kirk consistently used his platforms—radio, podcast, and campus events—to shape the MAGA movement, reinforcing strict ideological boundaries and populist messaging, in opposition to mainstream Republicanism and liberal social trends.

In summary, Kirk’s positions were consistently extreme, sharply divisive, and unapologetically populist, advocating for a Christianized, nationalist, and reactionary vision of American society, which he broadcast in highly combative, media-centric formats. No wonder the President loved him, he was carrying his water.

I mourn his death, feel the great loss for his wife and children, but I do not miss his absence.

He posited a vision of America contrary to that of the Founding Fathers and the great diverse, creative mixing of all souls, races, and historical backgrounds that is this country, unrivaled by any other on earth—unless we self-immolate ourselves in with Hatred and refusal to see the “other” as a part of us. What we should be murdering is our own intolerance, certainty that we’re correct, vanity that we are better than all others. That’s the real work.

Thomas Mason

As a Zen Buddhist, you know that gossiping is a form of unskillful or "wrong" speech, which creates negative karma for both the speaker and those they speak to. It is considered harmful because it promotes division, feeds unwholesome states of mind, and distracts from the path of mindfulness and liberation.

Your half-truths about Charlie Kirk place you in karmic peril.

I exhort you to view his actual words before speaking. Blindly parroting the thoughts of others (lacking study and reflection), strays from the path.

Peace to you.

Pat Buchana

Since your rambling laundry list post about Charlie Kirk is polluted with your highly selective analysis and supporters echoing your rant, here is a full rebuttal to straighten the record:

1. Your Tactic

You don’t “mourn” Charlie by unloading a wall of attacks. That’s not sympathy, it’s a political hit job dressed up as compassion. Every line of your post drips with labels, out-of-context quotes, and selective outrage.

2. Debate & Ideas

You say he never debated? That’s flat-out false. Charlie lived in hostile Q&A environments on campuses every week, taking questions from critics face to face. Politicians dodge heat, radical leftists disrupt then hide in shadows.... Charlie ran straight toward it like the Marines.

3. Faith & Liberty

You smear him as pushing “theocracy,” but his point - that liberty depends on a moral culture rooted in faith - echoes Washington, Adams, and Tocqueville. He was standing in America’s founding tradition, not inventing extremism.

4. Life Issues

You dismiss his pro-life stance as “extreme.” Tens of millions of Americans share it. Calling abortion murder is a conviction supported by science and morality, not hate speech. Comparing it to the Holocaust is blunt, but it shows moral seriousness, not bigotry.

5. Second Amendment

You claim he was parroting lobbyists. Wrong. His defense of the Second Amendment is grounded in constitutional law....the same principles affirmed in Heller (2008) and Bruen (2022). Modern progressives slyly try to diminish 2A down to self defense, ignoring the civic duty pillar and then cry foul when their revisionist attempts fail.

6. Civil Rights & Race

You drag up quotes without context to smear him as racist or anti-Muslim...straight out of Saul Alinsky's playbook. Kirk's target was identity politics being weaponized, not civil rights themselves. And let’s be honest... the left has a pattern of this. Take Charlie’s remarks about George Floyd: he called Floyd a “scumbag” because of his criminal record, then immediately clarified that Floyd’s death was still tragic and that justice should be pursued. He even denigrated Derek Chauvin in the next breath at Minnesota State (2021). You all on the left clipped only the insult, stripped away the nuance, and blasted it everywhere to paint him as mocking a man’s death. That’s the tired old standard playbook..... rip out a label, erase the context, and then scream “racist.” Reducing him to caricature doesn’t prove your point, it just shows how desperate the tactic is.

7. “Misinformation”

You hide behind the word “misinformation” as if it’s a magic eraser for any position you dislike and you own the definition. That’s not debate, that’s censorship by label. Questioning mask mandates or vaccine policies isn’t extremism... it’s what half the country did, and much of it was later validated when those mandates crumbled under their own contradictions. You call cultural pushback “dangerous,” but the real danger is branding dissent as illegitimate simply because it challenges your narrative.

8. Trump Distraction

You even dragged in Democrat murders and half-mast flags as if that has anything to do with Charlie Kirk. But since you can't be honest, I'll do it for you...most of those tragic attacks against Democrats were carried out by anti-government loners not loyal to Republicans. They weren’t done by people hunting Democrats because they were liberals. Meanwhile, conservatives and Christians have been attacked directly for who they are and you know it. Remember the congressional baseball shooting where Republicans were targeted for being Republicans? Or the wave of violence after the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision in 2022, when Roe v. Wade was overturned? Churches were vandalized, Catholic statues smashed, and pregnancy resource centers were literally firebombed by groups like Jane’s Revenge... all because they were pro-life and Christian. You’re trying to tie Charlie to violence he never endorsed while ignoring your side’s violence openly aimed at the very people he stood with. That’s the double standard, and everyone who cares about honesty and the truth sees it.

9. Your Hypocrisy

History is full of malcontents who dressed up their contempt for America as “progress.” The leftist Weather Underground bombed government buildings in the 1970s. Radical left student groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) splintered into chaos and violence. Communist sympathizers during the Cold War openly aligned with regimes that slaughtered millions while pretending it was justice. And today, Antifa acts on snippets of George Floyd videos to burn cities and attack innocent people and businesses while waving the flag of anarchy. None of them strengthened America...they only tore at its fabric. You’re walking that same tired path. The left would be wise to understand that stoking division has consequences....and pretending your venom is “tolerance” doesn’t change that.

The hallmark of the left - straight out of Saul Alinsky’s playbook - is cherry-picked soundbites repeated loud and long until people mistake them for truth. That’s exactly what you just did. Make no mistake, your view is the extreme one, and it’s losing ground. Trying to bury Charlie Kirk under a laundry list of venom has only ensured his voice will echo louder as a martyr than it ever did in life.

If you actually want to resolve conflict, start by acknowledging the shortcomings of your side, the full picture of his legacy, and stop the propagandist caricature of Kirk. It also means separating disagreement from dehumanization....because mocking a man’s death and smearing everyone who respected him isn’t “debate,” it’s just hate.

Until you can engage his strongest ideas fully the way he did, instead of hiding behind cherry-picked soundbites, you’re not advancing dialogue you’re proving why America is divided.