Left-wing on-line streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker condemned a “culture of violence” in america following the homicide of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“In less than two weeks, I was supposed to debate Charlie Kirk,” Piker wrote in a New York Instances op-ed revealed on Saturday.
Piker mentioned he was live-streaming when he discovered about Kirk’s ugly killing on Wednesday and was “shocked” by what he noticed.
“It was the horror of seeing someone whom I know — not a friend or an ally, but a human being I know personally and have debated before — fall victim to what clearly seems to be a rising tide of political violence,” he wrote.
Phillip Faraone/Getty Pictures for Politicon)
As of Saturday, the motives of Kirk’s killer had been unclear. Shell casings from the weapon used to shoot Kirk had been coated in messages that appeared to reference web meme tradition and video video games.
Within the op-ed, Piker mirrored on the elements he sees as contributing to the killing of Kirk, expressing his want to debate these items with Kirk himself.
“I would have liked to ask Mr. Kirk about all these things,” he mentioned, noting that the 2 “identified some of the same problems,” although they “clashed” on causes and options.
Benjamin Hanson / Center East Pictures through AFP
The progressive influencer first famous the excessive charges of violent gun deaths within the U.S., coupled with “feelings of isolation and resentment” he described as rising amid points like rising housing prices and inequality.
“Americans inhabit a culture of violence to which we have become habitually desensitized,” he wrote, earlier than making a case that there’s a connection between that tradition and U.S. international coverage.
“Over time, our culture of violence has targeted people around the world — anywhere from Cuba to Iraq — people who serve as literal targets for American weapons and bombs, absorbing what I think of as Americans’ excess capacity for violence,” he wrote.
He later continued, “A foreign policy organized around punishing and killing our supposedly sworn enemies, diplomacy be damned, conveys the terrible message that we can only kill and maim our way to achieving the world we want to live in.”
In the meantime, distinguished right-wing figures have made references to being at “war” with liberals and Democrats within the wake of Kirk’s dying.
