The dominant public occurrence in America this day continues to be the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the Illinois-born, college dropout, Arizona-resident, anti-everything Trumpist.
Murder is illegal and immoral.
Assassination is a type of murder. It is illegal, particularly illegal, one might say, in that it is an "aggravating factor" or a "special circumstance", the language varies by state, justifying the state, key term that, state, in seeking the death penalty against the perp., in this instance Tyler Robinson.
Assassinations thus are different from other murders. They are different because it is not "just" one individual who is killed; to some people he is an instantiation of the state that they want and that state's values. In assassination, it is the dead person's political thought, speech and action that are killed along with his corporeal being. Therein lies the rub with our reactions to assassinations. To be 1,000,000% clear, all murder is illegal, assassination is a species of murder, ergo all assassination is illegal.
As all murders are not created equal, even more so all assassinations are not created equal. Is every assassination immoral as well as being illegal? Not an academic exercise. People are getting fired in academia over it. Do you agree with the dead guy's politics? Do you agree with the perp's? Those are not legally relevant to guilt or innocence but they are very relevant to our reactions to the assassination: How "wrong" was it? One man's savior is another man's oppressor.
Reinhard Heydrich, whom history has judged the darkest man in Nazi Germany next to Adolph Hitler, was assassinated by Czech partisans. To Hitler Heydrich was a martyr, the same word applied by Trump to Kirk. To Trump, there "were good people on both sides" in the American Nazi march in Charlottesville and the counter-protest in which a (presumably "good") American Nazi killed an anti-Nazi protester. The Nazi state hunted down Heydrich's assassins and killed them, as Trump's American state intends with Tyler Robinson (after trial and conviction of course (due process, you know)). For good measure, the German Nazi state razed two villages, their residents executed. In all, 5,000 Czechs were massacred in "chickens coming home to roost" (with extreme prejudice) justice. Heydrich was given an elaborate state funeral. Kirk's body was carried to Air Force Two by the state vice president and flown to his home state, Arizona, for burial. State flags were lowered to half staff in mourning of Kirk. Heydrich's death mask, considered the epitome of Nazi beauty and serenity in death, was used on a state commemorative stamp.
Tell the people of the Czech Republic that the assassination of Nazi "Protectorate" administrator Reinhard Heydrich was immoral. They celebrate it!
How about this? Remember this one?
Luigi "Pep" Mangione murdering United Health CEO Brian Thompson.
That was just a few months ago. It was called an assassination (e.g. "a brazen assassination", "I was deeply horrified by the assassination"). Trump's reaction was to again call for the death penalty. The reaction of many other people, however, including physicians and the undersigned, all but celebrated (inter alia, "UnitedHealthcare’s own bereavement message online was cruelly mocked by 77,000 laughing response posts") the killing, characterizing it as "misdemeanor murder" or "shooting into occupied clothing", and cheered Mangione's audacity and his temporary successful flight from arrest (all me). And guess what? Just today, and just as I was researching for this post, the trial judge DISMISSED first degree murder and terrorism charges against Mangione. The highest degree murder charge he can now be convicted of is second degree murder (not exactly "misdemeanor murder" but a FAR piece away from first and the DP.) My reactions to Thompson's killing were wrong. Full stop.
The points are two-fold: 1) We can separate emotional our emotional reaction and our ability at dispassionate legal analysis. 2) What we feel about assassinations depends on whose ox is gored or whose neck punctured.
Reinhard Heydrich was pro-fascist, Brian Thompson was corporate amoral, putting money over people's lives and health (Fittingly, he died at a hospital to which he had just denied payments.); Charlie Kirk was pro-fascist, the Czech people were anti-fascist. I am anti-fascist. I condemn Heydrich. I guess I celebrate his assassins, but 5,000 for one doesn't seem much to celebrate on a practical, i.e. non-emotional level. I do not condemn the Czech people for celebrating the assassination of their oppressor; Since Thompson's killing was not an assassination, is not even now a first degree murder, I don't grant the same leeway to differences between emotional and intellectual response. I don't celebrate it. I do condemn it. I do condemn Luigi Mangione. I would with free conscience prosecute or defend the case. I do not celebrate Kirk's assassination (as it stands now); He wasn't Heydrich. I'm not going to be attending any "Free Tyler" demos. I could prosecute and defend Robinson easily. We can separate emotion and intellect. So don't tell me I have to mourn Heydrich or Thompson or Kirk. I can't and I won't.
Can we just say that we would do our duty as jurors? Can we grant ourselves the grace to either mourn the loss to violent death of one who to us was the extinguishment of a point of light in humanity; or conversely to feel that the heavens did not darken with someone's killing and move the fuck on?