The Alec Baldwin Conundrum
Kurt Schlichter
Posted: Oct 25, 2021 12:01 AMAlec Baldwin got to play his dream role last week, and unfortunately for an innocent woman, it was a method-acting version of Ted Kennedy. Now, you note that I am mocking a guy whose probable gross negligence killed a lady and maimed a man, and this raises an important question – do we really want to live in a world where our reaction to a tragedy caused by an enemy is not sorrow and compassion but mockery?
It doesn’t matter what we want. We do live in such a world, in large part due to the likes of Alec Baldwin. Besides his scuzzy abuse of the people – notably women – in his orbit, he is a particularly loathsome social media presence, and as a result, conservatives are gleefully resurrecting his old tweets about guns and his wish for them to be used on his many, many enemies in the wake of his horrible act. There are many, many such tweets. I am not a believer in karma and do not fear it, but I do try to keep a respectful distance from irony.
Note that arguments that this somehow hurts the families of the victims are weak – “My beloved relative has died – I shall seek solace on Twitter” seems far-fetched. Moreover, the families might be mortified to see people taking apart the architect of their pain? Doubtful. If anything, the practical effect of slamming Six Gun Alec is making people think, “Gosh, better not play with firearms lest people on Twitter roast me.”
But there is a legit question of how we should respond to this. There have been two different reactions among those on our general side of the fight to the reactions to Alec Baldwin’s fall from, well, not exactly grace. One is to recoil with horror at the accident and assert that this is a time when we should offer our thoughts and prayers for the victims and for Baldwin, who one would hope is devastated by what he has done. Nice people tend to have this reaction, those who want to live in a more genteel world than we do. I sympathize, in that I would like to live in such a world. I would also like a unicorn pony.
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https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2021/10/25/the-alec-baldwin-conundrum-n2597927
