De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est
This is a hard saying.
To speak nothing but good of the dead is partly rooted in superstition about not angering the spirit of the deceased and partly in mannerly consideration of the feelings of their friends and family.
It becomes difficult to follow when examining what you know of the departed leads to a very short list of good points and long lists of things you had best not mention.
When the people who loved the dead one want you to not merely mutter ‘I am sorry for your loss’ or ‘Please let us know if there is any way we can help’ but want a eulogy and a sincere appreciation for the dead and take offence if you give any less well then there comes a point where you are forced to choose between offending someone and lying to comfort them. I feel I’m being forced to attend a funeral of someone I never knew: the poor bloody clergy who attend cremations and deliver standard boilerplate sermons have my deep sympathies.
I have a sincere conviction that I am an awful liar. I not only find it morally repugnant but I believe I would be totally transparent if I tried.
Validating a philosophy that one believes to be dangerous, foolish and wrong is a thing I can’t do and yet if I refrain I may be accused of elitism, of disdain for alternative points of view and other things.
And on the Scylla side of the dilemma there is also the danger of seeming to say that the deceased was the partial cause of their own demise. Just hinting at that is tantamount to encouraging the next goddamn fool with a rifle and a grievance to take matters into their own hands.
It would be nice if I believed that free speech never hurts the people who propagate it. But we do not live in that sort of a universe, do we?
Oh, why do I think Charlie Kirk died? What killed Charlie Kirk?
He died the way he did because America is the way it is. He died because Americans either cannot or will not amend their great creation. I am very much afraid that it will take a terrible crisis to force a change and terrible crises do not ensure wise and thoughtful resolutions. America has form on making heroic efforts and then fluffing the follow through.
Asleep in Room3b 
Every man’s death diminishes me.
Even my enemy’s.
Even if I had found it necessary to commit the murder myself. It is still a sign of failure. It removes possibilities from the world.
He had years in front of him. He could have changed. I have fewer years in front of me without some major medical breakthrough but I can still change. Possibly for the worse.
Still, I renewed my Senior Citzens Railcard this morning and unlike last time I renewed it on the assumption I’ll get three years of cheaper travel out of it. So I must be feeling slightly otptimstic.