Shorty after it occurred, I watched the video of Iryna Zarutska’s murder. That was as bad as you’d expect. I won’t view it again.

Even worse, though, I saw a tribute video one of her friends made of them having fun together. Even more than the murder video, it was hard to view. All the possibilities and promise of her life, gone. All the futures, erased. I’ve seen, I don’t know, thousands of people die in battle now; I’ve spent entirely too much time on the Combat Footage sub-Reddit and other places as I try to figure out how we’ll be fighting in Poland in 2027. Combat, though, will have death. It’s as predictable as gravity. It’s offensive and horrible but there it’s just what happens.

It’s a whole different thing witnessing a young woman murdered on a train where she should’ve been safe, with said murder committed by a worthless scumbag who should not have even been there. Both are affronts to civilization, but the way Iryna was murdered is a denial of the value and purpose of civilization itself. She probably would’ve been better off (and still alive) if she’d stayed in Ukraine.

Charlie Kirk and Iryna Zarutska being murdered so near to one another in very public and horrifying ways is (pun intended) a turning point for the US, I think. We’re on some path that could (and likely will) lead to very bad things as the left goes full woke degwrother and the right seeks out revenge — while also having its own baneful degrowth tendencies.

Nearly all paths lead to ruin and disaster. We built those paths, though, so in reality it’s all our fault.