If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes. These places amplify and feed upon themselves, and can lead you to a dark place where you’d glorify this kind of death.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
> If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes.
This presents a conundrum to somebody wanting to stay abreast of current events. The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died. And if you look back a few decades in American history, assassination of politicians and activists happened long before the advent of social media.
> The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died.
Trump was not publicly seen for four days.
Hard to believe that there were zero opportunities for some kind of public interaction, even with cabinet members or civil service / WH staff folks. POTUS just 'disappearing' for several days is a bit odd.
It didn't help that they tried to provide 'proof of life' by posting golfing photos… that were taken a week before.
I’m not sure there’s much use to “staying abreast of current events” for most people. Media (social/traditional) focuses on amping up your anxiety and putting your side against there’s. Rather than a balanced view of the details. Alarmist headlines and hand wringing tweets are engineered to anger and outrage you. It’s very hard to keep up with news while keeping your rational brain engaged.
If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
If something happens that impacts you, you’ll find out when it happens and then you’ll get informed if there’s anything you can do about it.
Howard Stern noted once how people who disliked him spent more time listening to him than those who liked him.
Kirk seemed to have invested heavily in aggravating people in order to make an audience. It seemed so obvious to me that I don't understand why those who disliked him would waste their time trying to debate him.
I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left, and nothing was known right now. Literally facts, and people downvoted them. (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
> I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left
I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd. It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder. False flags really aren't that common, in general. This is the same kind of conspiratorial thinking behind Alex Jones' "crisis actors".
Also, your comment was off-topic to the sub-thread. People were discussing whether Kirk would be seen as a martyr. The ideology of the shooter has quite little to do with that.
> (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
Commentary like this is inherently obnoxious, and tends towards self-fulfilling prophecy.
> I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd.
Especially if you look at the data. The political right is more likely to do violence:
Two right-wingers can disagree with one another to pretty extreme degrees.
This is like thinking Christian-on-Christian violence over religion is implausible and claiming someone suggesting it’s in-fact plausible is being “disingenuous”—surely it can only be someone from a different faith entirely.
But politically-motivated assassinations in the US are very rare, and almost exclusively lone actors (not part of a movement).
The assassination attempts (whether successful or failed) on prominent political figures in this country have almost all been carried out by people with personal reasons to want to kill them, not politically motivated killers killing people they don't agree with.
> It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder.
Is the likelihood lower or higher if it already happened (at least) once last year?
Is it lower or higher if you’re aware of the hostile dynamics between TPU and at least one popular very much violence-encouraging even-farther-right influencer? Nb this group has opposed Trump for being too timidly white supremacist. Would that shift your guess at the odds?
Safe bet if you’ve been paying attention to this stuff for a few decades was about equal odds right or left winger, and maybe somewhat higher right, if the target’s a right winger (almost certainly the attacker is, if relevantly affiliated, right-affiliated if the target’s a Democrat or otherwise left) or else (in either case of political affiliation of the target) there’s fair odds of apolitical notoriety-seeking or straight up lunacy without a strong political motivation.
[edit] nb I’m not saying 100% that the guy won’t turn out to be coming from the left, but I think if you’re playing the odds on something like this and go “must be a leftist” you’ve misread the situation in this country.
It doesn't sound conspiratorial to me. It seems a lot of shooters are right wing, I guess because they like guns and the right tends to be more pro gun.
The conspiratorial thinking is jumping to an assumption of a high probability of a "false flag". In reality, the base rate of such attacks is low.
> It seems a lot of shooters are right wing
Many right-wingers would dispute the methodology behind these statistics, but that's beside the point. This information, however, is more or less rendered irrelevant by the circumstantial evidence that this was a political assassination, combined with the fact that the victim was right-wing.
> Also "just as likely be" <> "equal probability".
It quite literally means the same thing. If I flip a coin, the result is (ignoring all the standard gotchas) just as likely to be heads as tails. If I flip a coin, the probability of a heads result (ignoring all the standard gotchas) is equal to the probability of a tails result. The information content of the previous two sentences is the same.
Far as reporting goes, theres two tracks. Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
> Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
I don't think you can get much further right than he was though. When I hear of all the stuff he was saying. I don't think even Trump has ever said some of that stuff. Like that women should be secondary to men.
Apparently he also said that "a few deaths a year are a small price to pay for access to weapons". I wonder if he still felt that way knowing what was coming. I don't have the source link to hand though. News goes so fast now and I don't archive everything.
Personally I'd never heard of the guy but I'm not in the US (and very glad about that right now, the country seems to be tearing itself apart)
PS Also I'm not trying to defend the far right, I'm very left (especially by US standards which doesn't really have a 'left' compared to Europe, liberalism here is a moderate right-wing thing). But murder is definitely not ok in my book, of course. I would grin when I see a tesla dealership graffiti'd or a "swasticar" or "from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" poster at a bus stop. but that's about as far as it goes. You don't touch people ever. Or really destroy stuff of value.
How does that square with the issue that he texted his trans significant other to go pick up his rifle which he could not do as feds found the rifle first. [1] The feds are interviewing the trans partner as we speak. To be clear I am not anti-trans, rather just confused how he could also be a Groyper. Maybe this is possible, just a new concept to me.
Well, groyper thought leader Nick Fuentes uploaded a video long time ago where he goes into what was basically a date with a another white nationalist dressed like a catboy. Also there's a common meme about the twink -> white nationalist pipeline Gryoper lore is hard to follow even for terminally online people.
> According to public records, Lance Twiggs, 22, resided at the same address where Robinson lived. A relative of Twiggs confirmed to The Post Saturday that “yes, they were roommates.”
> The family member, who asked not to be identified, said Twiggs was the “black sheep” of their St. George, Utah, family, but declined to speculate on a romantic relationship between the two men.
> She said she didn’t know her relative’s politics or whether Twiggs was transitioning to become a woman, but added that it wouldn’t surprise her.
So basically the source is "it was revealed to me in a dream". For all we know they were just roommates.
It's possible. I keep hearing terms used interchangably on different YT channels and all of that could be people just projecting their preferred narratives so I guess we will have to wait for the Discord and cell phone text message transcripts assuming those ever drop. They so rarely do. Either way at least we know the roommate was involved to some extent. The Discord transcripts may be the most telling of the relationship.
When Nick Fuentes first appeared, him and his little gang of nerds were definitely more far right than Kirk. TPUSA had a gay man on staff, and put him all over those little memes they made.
Israel is about the only thing Charlie and Nick disagree on now.
From what I’ve seen, Charlie stopped at promoting lies that if you believe them imply violence is on the table (and that have a history of inspiring violent acts). Nick has been willing to take the next step and go “We can’t do anything! Except kill them. But don’t do that! I didn’t say to! But what else can we do?” (So, Fuentes is closer to Trump’s level of flirting-with-telling-people-to-kill than Kirk was, AFAIK)
As far as their disagreements over doctrine of-late, I’m not sure. Their messages do/did differ in where they drew the line, though.
I’ve seen Loomer’s turning on Kirk (over his “turning” on Trump re: the Epstein files) cited as part of this, with Nick’s crowd being on Loomer’s side, but given Nick’s history with Trump that I know of I’d find that surprising, but I’ve not closely followed Fuentes so I’ve got some reading to do there.
You'll want to look into the "groypers," who are the group the alleged shooter may have been most closely affiliated with. They and Kirk's Turning Point USA had a falling out over TPU's unwillingness to be as ultra-nationalist, isolationist, or white supremacist as the groypers are. They assert that Kirk's brand of conservatism was carrying a kind of stolen valor over claiming they got Trump elected when the groypers would argue they were the ones most instrumental in cementing Trump's support among traditionally disenfranchised white nationalism.
It's too early to know, but it may be the case that this shooting was the right-wing equivalent of Stalin having Lenin removed as an ivory-tower elite obstacle to "true communism."
I'd be interested to know your sources. Information is flowing fast (as it often does in such a tragedy); I'd be interested to know what's being said outside my sphere.
The bullet engravings are well known (and people pushing the groyper theory seem to believe the engravings support their theory just as well).
There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Many sources similarly assert that Robinson's father "recognized" him in photos and "encouraged him to turn himself in" (see e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/12/tyler-rob...). However, I don't know anything specific about his "testimony".
> There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Could turn out to be true, but considering the hilariously wrong stuff that was being published even by mainstream sources in the 24 hours after (the initially extremely-wrong reports about the engravings, for instance) I’d not yet treat this as meaningful at all. I’ve not seen anything above tabloid-level pushing it yet.
They saw arrows and thought "must be trans ideology!" Turned out to be a Helldivers 2 reference, as with the "hey fascist catch this". The other references are all textbook groyper, and Robinson was even pictured on his mother's Facebook "as a guy from a meme" which was a copy of a groyper Pepe meme.
The very first reports of the engravings to break, supposedly from FBI sources, just said they had “pro trans” messages.
> The meaning and implications of these engravings is the subject of intense debate, and not at all an objective matter at the moment.
I agree. We can take away some things (like “very online” and some suggestions of certain connections to spheres or activities, like the Helldivers 2 reference) but there’s little more than rather mixed suggestions that could go multiple ways, as far as political affiliation and motivation that we can read from them, so far.
Ah, thanks for the link. I saw several headlines about it when that “news” dropped, but only followed one, and it claimed an FBI source. It may have been even worse than the others, and downstream from them, so to speak.
This is a frequent challenge when following breaking news.
I similarly delayed accepting Charlie Kirk had actually died because the only source I could find was President Trump (and news sources reporting Charlie Kirk's death that, ultimately, seemed to be using President Trump as a source).
Since President Trump is an extremely-well-documented liar, this was not a reliable source. It can be hard to figure out the source for news like this, since news outlets are not in the habit of doing well-disciplined source citation or summarizing sources to make it easy to identify them (in contrast to, say, a research publication).
I also find it very interesting that Netanyahu's post about Charlie Kirk happened at the same time as Trump's. How would he know before the rest of the world such that he could post at the exact same time as Trump?
Yeah at the time (and I’ve yet to see this contradicted?) it seemed like Trump broke the news on that one, which is certainly an unusual way for that to happen, which also made it more reasonable to put that on the “maybe, but let’s see” pile.
(I did believe it, but only because I’d watched the close-view video and regarded survival as all but impossible… without that I’d have “grain of salt”ed it, too)
You can read anything you want into those if you want to. To me they reek weeb culture (as opposed to furry like everyone else jumps to - there are overlaps but they are distinct), 4chan trolling and lemmy more than anything. We can not know the intentions behind those engravings and they say nothing about which, if any, affiliation the shooter had. Could be a Luigi wannabe, could be a false flag to induce civil war.
"Unafilliated" seems like the most plausible assumption right now. Everyone pushing theories about shooter affiliation right now either has their own political agenda behind it and are doing so incincerly or are useful idiots serving the aforementioned.
Your post prompted me to reread everything after perviously reading social media processed information, and you are right, it's not clear cut. Especially once they redacted/not-redacted (actually read both in the same article) the bullet engravings story.
(https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/charlie...)
However from what did seem credible I think this still looks left-wing motivated
What is the point of voting when gerrymandering decides the outcome? We don't have a functional voting system by any stretch of the imagination. If we did, gerrymandering wouldn't be a thing, and we'd be using ranked-choice or range-voting. So many of the right-wing states have banned these superior voting methods because they're so afraid the ones in power will lose immediately. Granted, it's true that Trump won the popular vote in 2024, but note that voting rights have unfairly been denied to many citizens, especially in right-wing states, so was it really an honest win?
Gerrymandering has no effect on votes for president or senate, and ranked choice/range voting has no impact on gerrymandering. To eliminate gerrymandering you'd need to have an at-large/seat based voting system instead of district based. In other words - instead of voting for a representative, you'd vote for a party - and the party would then fill the seats they won at their discretion. Another option is multi-member districts which is a 'softer' version of the same idea.
So was your issue with hyperbolic use of the word "literally", or are you rejecting the premise all together, because you would have to try really hard to deny that there has been an unrelenting crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses in the name of "anti-semitism"?
I did not downvote you. I think people who did disagree with your claim that literally every Israel protest is banned. BTW, it is hard to understand what does "Israel protest" even means. Does it mean it is a pro Israel protest? Pro Palestinian?
I think formulating your claims better could have avoided the downvotes, and allowed others to understand what you mean exactly.
I’m starting to think cancel culture isn’t about regulating behavior or speech and is just about abusing power to punish people. Both sides have used it the last 25 years and both sides have complained about it as an abuse of power when they’ve been on the receiving end.
Perhaps we should focus more on learning and growing and healing than punishment?
Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize.
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
King apologised because he made a claim that was absolutely false and in fact the opposite of Kirk's position on a matter. Not for "chiming in". Not for "disagreeing". For lying.
Just for the record, his Youtube channel has about 4.5M subscribers. But the lack of a dot after "Mr" suggests to me that you might be from the UK, so...
> At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced.
Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.
The statistics are bloodless, when attempting to dismiss them in the abstract. “Bloodless” modified “statistics”. That the real thing is not bloodless ever was the point, I believe.
Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal." In other words, some people are expendable (for a greater good).
I also agree that killing someone with a gunshot isn't "bloodless." But the statistics are, and that's the thing about the kind of rhetoric Kirk engaged in. It's easy to birds-eye-view the problem and say things like there is a reasonable weighing of right to own a firearm vs. the inevitable result of increased firearm homicide when it is not one's own neck catching the bullet. In that sense, the statistics (and rhetoric around them) are "bloodless."
Indeed, I suspect that one of the things that has made the discussion around firearm ownership in the United States increasingly charged year upon year is that as an increasing number of our friends, loved ones, and selves become the statistic of the day, the conversation cannot stay clinical and detached. Because for too many Americans, it's no longer some abstract someone somewhere who got shot that day; it's their neighbor. Or their mom. Or their kid.
No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care.
FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.
I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point.
I respect your lack of desire to engage on the topic and will not ask it of you, but FWIW: if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)... You are not.
> if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings
He did make that assertion.
> (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)
If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? Because it sounds like they're the ones we spend to buy the freedoms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. As Kirk said in 2023, "Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty." If you're paying human lives for something, those lives are expendable by definition. Etymology of the word: Latin, expendere, "to pay out, weigh out."
In the US, our armed citizenry is part of our liberty. This year, Charlie Kirk had the extreme misfortune to be part of the price.
But....mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States despite the intense media coverage on it over other forms of homicide.
Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
“””
“We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday
“””
I wonder what Kirk would have thought about these firings.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
You don’t have to rely on second-hand reporting, there’s no lack of material from the man himself to form an opinion from, like for example: https://www.youtube.com/@RealCharlieKirk/videos
I doubt Kirk believed in anything, but he was happy to say whatever would get him attention and keep his benefactors happy. He wasn't particularly ideologically consistent, though to be fair, Republicans of his time weren't either.
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
> He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
Apparently, Kirk said Hasan's visa should be revoked, as he was unaware of Hasan's citizenship. But Kirk also said in his rant to "get him off TV", which indicates that his instinctual reaction does include silencing people he disagrees with.
> According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
Folks are added to the "Professor Watchlist" for everything ranging from being critical of Trump/MAGA to discussing institutional racism through the United States' history. Folks who wind up on the list routinely get harassed in person, online, and via direct calls/emails with racist and misogynist slurs as well as rape and death threats by Turning Point's followers.
We shouldn't care too much on what Kirk thought. Obviously it's horrible he was assassinated, but partisan hacks who make their living dividing people are not people we should try to emulate, even if they're dead. I'm sorry for his family and sorry for violence, but it's worrying how much people are demanding respect for him
I was talking with a friend about this and came to the conclusion that people in certain lines of work should be held to a higher standard when it comes to situations like this:
* government officials (as you say), members of federal agencies, civil servants etc.
* journalists
* healthcare workers and emergency services personnel
* educators
There may have been more on my list, but it doesn't come to mind at the moment.
All of these are places where a mindset that glorifies or justifies political violence and death seems like it would be an impediment to actually doing the job properly, which is the only thing that would make me accept "cancel culture". Others may be morally unjustified in "crossing the line", but should not lose their jobs for it.
For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone. The "stochastic terrorism" argument is especially insidious: it attempts to launder "speech" into "violence" (and thus justify "an eye for an eye" etc.) by hand-waving at some vague notion of, basically, extremely non-imminent incitement. The idea is that convincing a wide audience of people to have a more negative impression of a group stochastically increases the number of members of that group that will die to violence. But none of the dots are ever actually connected in this argument; and taken seriously and applied even-handedly, it would make basically any form of political discourse impossible.
Initially, I thought Matthew Dowd's comments (I had very little exposure to them) didn't fall into that category — that they were simply made in incredibly bad taste. But I looked up some more of the transcript and, yeah, I can't excuse that. Certainly he wasn't as aggressive about it as, say, some Bluesky users. But part of it does fundamentally boil down to making the "fuck around and find out" argument, and "finding out" is just not supposed to involve being shot and killed.
> For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone
It's really difficult. How do you apply this to government worker? Some are actively involved in killing people, foe example the military, (some) police, the judiciary in some jurisdictions, politicians.
In places with a judicial death sentence it's acceptable to decide that someone deserve to die.
I spoke too briefly in spite of myself. Consider standard exemptions to apply: war combatants, people actively threatening your life, etc. I personally oppose the death penalty, but not strongly enough to deny other jurisdictions the right to impose it.
It's funny, because government officials, journalist, healthcare workers, and educators are exactly the kind of people Kirk attacked as a podcaster, and generally have been the primary targets of the MAGA right. Podcasters are apparently not high enough on the trust ladder to be held to a higher standard for what they say.
We are at a place where the president of the united states gets to mount an insurrection and pardon people who beat cops with the American flag then claim the opposition is "fostering violence"; gets to claim that educators are "grooming and indoctrinating kids", that journalists are the "enemy of the people", that government officials are the "enemy within". While those people on the left are expected to summarily disarm their rhetoric because they are in positions of trust. Sure but what about: gestures toward the president of the united states.
Or what about, I don't know, the world's richest man, Elon Musk? He has so much power and therefore responsibility. Why isn't he expected to speak with prudence and responsibility? He's on Twitter spouting off about how the left is "the party of murder" before anyone even knew anything.
AOC, Bernie, and Zohran are often labeled "radical left socialists", but they offered nothing but calls for peace and calm from them. Meanwhile Musk was calling them murderers! No one is going to fire him for that rhetoric!
So if you're going to demand accountability for words from people in positions of trust -- which to be clear I agree with -- let's be honest about the fact that some people are put in higher positions of trust, and some people should be, but for some reason (money/power) are not ever, never, not once held to account for what they say. So maybe if we want to actually change something as a society, we should stop doing the same thing, and instead hold people at the highest echelons of power responsible for the things they say and do.
I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.
Dowd didn't say that it was good, but did seem to agree that it was justified:
> Dowd responded by saying about about Kirk: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”
That? That reads like “if you put a lot of hateful words out in the world you should expect it to lead to hateful action”. If anything this would be more relevant if Kirk inspired someone to kill any of the various groups he encouraged violence against. It doesn’t read at all like a justifying for killing him.
It's hilarious watching the right wing embrace cancel culture now that they're in power. To be honest, I think most were waiting for a reason to go full mask off.
Trump started blaming the "radical left" before they had even caught someone. I'm still not convinced we have the persons full picture. Some of the terminology used hints at in-group memes from the "groypers"
He was also asked on a Fox News show what we need to do to avoid creating radicals on both sides and his response was the following:
"I'll tell you something that's going to get me in trouble, but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. They don't want to see crime. Worried about the border. They're saying, We don't want these people coming in. We don't want you burning our shopping centers. We don't want you shooting our people in the middle of the street"
"The radicals on the left are the problem," Trump continued, "and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy, although they want men and women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders."
If you wanted to unify, this isn't the way. Witch hunts and dog whistles certainly won't help.
The same people on the left who say Kirk’s words brought a predictable response are now horrified when those very words bring an equally predictable response ( albeit a much lesser one ).
Rhetoric on social media must be deescalated. Let’s hope this is the start.
I didn't celebrate his death and I don't really care if people lose their jobs over doing it. I just find it hilarious that MAGA cried for so long over being "cancelled" and now they're doing it themselves.
> Rhetoric on social media must be deescalated. Let’s hope this is the start.
Right, because the President of the United States holding water for certain types of radicals and accusing one side without any evidence will be the start to that. It starts at the top.
Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend.
If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job.
Have free speech, but use it wisely.
Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it.
Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole.
Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate.
But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.
It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/
1. I'm actually fine with people getting fired for openly celebrating or claiming murder is a good thing.
2. People getting fired for simply pointing out that Kirk is a victim of a system he helped build are getting fired, which is a completely different situation.
3. The Trump admiration openly going after people is infringing on freedom of speech.
Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing.
Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ.
It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
Huh? The link you posted shows that Trump condemned the shooting, calling it "horrific" and saying the shooter will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You're equating not flying flags at half mast, despite condemning the violence, to gloating over murder. You're trying to justify the gloating and celebration of violence and it's disgusting.
This is exactly right. People get fired over social media posts all of the time. The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employers if they see fit though.
I’m not trying to make a point. I was trying to understand if it’s legal to sack someone in the US if you don’t like their views and I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.
But if you express them in a way that reflects badly on your employer, then you can be sacked.
I.e. if an airline pilot posts “That assassin didn’t get away, but his sacrifice was totally worth it” can expect to be dismissed. Nobody wants to fly with a guy with that attitude.
No, you can't fire someone for their views. That's 100% illegal, but given the track record of our current Supreme Court, I don't see that being the case for long.
Yes, in general a private employer can legally fire an employee for their political views. There are exceptions in some states, including California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, that have protections for firing by political affiliation or activities, but that's the exception to the rule. Another exception applies to any public employee, since the first amendment applies to their employer.
The default employment rule is at-will, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited. Political affiliation is not a federally protected category.
> The default employment rule is at-will employment, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited.
Even then, in practice they can fire people for prohibited reasons, as long as it can't be proven that those reasons were used. Which in practice could be very difficult.
I just randomly clicked one of the professors in that list:
- "Shaviro has been suspended after he posted on Facebook that it would be better for people to kill their political opponents than to protest them. In a now-deleted post, Shaviro wrote:"
- “So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”
That's straight from the website, which may or may not be accurate or true. The way it looks, is still about the way it looks given the larger context of the rest of its post.
It's particularly relevant given the recent events.
> no one was fired due to their insensitive comments about her and her husband.
Who exactly made comments that attempted to justify or rationalize her death as a consequence of things she had said in the past?
And what does your article — which basically just establishes "Trump doesn't like Tim Walz and didn't consider Hortman's case as important" — have to do with that?
If you're referring to Senator Mike Lee's comment, I don't think it's anything of the sort. It comes across to me that Lee was speculating that the murderer was a "Marxist" (i.e., anyone he would consider more radical than Hortman). Political football, and offensive, sure. But not the same kind of thing. Besides which, can Senators be "fired"?
> Who exactly made comments that attempted to justify or rationalize her death as a consequence of things she had said in the past?
Well, gee, it sorta seems like that kind of behavior would be more prevalent when the person in question has actually said things in the past that support killing people.
Did Melissa Hortman say such things?
Did she found an entire organization dedicated to promoting bigotry, hate, and the inherent superiority of a particular "race"?
Did she make explicit statements that we should all be happy to accept some innocent deaths every year as a cost of unlimited access to firearms?
Because if she didn't say stuff like that, then it would be much, much less likely that anyone would even suggest that her words were in any way related to her death.
presumably she implicitly believes in tradeoffs because she hasn't campaigned to remove all motor vehicles from the road. surely, anyone arguing that cars should be allowed on the road when they are one of the leading causes of deaths is irredeemably evil and deserves to be mocked if they have the misfortune of dying in a car accident. Also, if Minnesota executed people for traffic violations then Hortman would not have been killed by Boetler. Surely, this means she is a hypocrite because she would not support such a policy.
"Great Replacement Theory" is an inherently racist ideology that ignores (in the context of the US) multiple centuries of history in favor of an idea that there's an "other" that is going to replace "real Americans." It is, perhaps, a stretch to claim that the organization he founded promoted bigotry, hate, or the superiority of a particular race... But it's not much of a stretch when the organization's founder and leader is making easily-verified racist statements such as this one.
> Suggesting that someone's words justified death is an absolute moral wrong no matter what those words were.
In general, I haven't seen people making the hard assertion online that his words justified his death and I would agree with you. But I have seen plenty of "I don't think Charlie Kirk should have died, but the philosophy Charlie Kirk espoused shouldn't care if Charlie Kirk died" and I don't think I can argue with that assessment of the legacy of his work.
> "Great Replacement Theory" is an inherently racist ideology
No, it is neither racist (edit: as described by Kirk) nor an ideology.
It's an accusation about the intentions of others, in a "the purpose of a system is what it does" kind of way (faulty logic — as I've argued on HN before — but not bigoted), based on observing demographic trends, the rate of immigration etc.
It is deeply conspiratorial thinking, but it does not claim that the people being "replaced" are inherently superior. Thus it is not racist even if we establish that the ingroup-outgroup distinction is racial, which already requires a quite broad conception of "race". (And Americans really are strange about that, in my opinion. There have been multiple occasions where I have been told that Americans generally consider a specific person to be "black" and I have deeply struggled to understand how that could be.)
It is perfectly legitimate to suppose that the existing population of a country has a greater right to continue to exist on that land, and for their offspring to live there, than those who are petitioning from abroad to live there. In fact, it's hard to argue that a legitimate nation exists, in a place that lacks a government trusted to determine questions of citizenship. Besides which, one individual's use of a term does not necessarily carry every other user's intent.
In brief, Kirk never argued that someone should be extradited, or lose citizenship, on the basis of race. Nor does that argument follow from anything he said.
And note that you have not at all addressed the point about "words that support killing people".
> In general, I haven't seen people making the hard assertion online that his words justified his death
I have been shown many people outright celebrating. This is not something that can be feasibly done by someone who has normal psychological aversion to death and doesn't consider the death justified.
> But I have seen plenty of "I don't think Charlie Kirk should have died, but the philosophy Charlie Kirk espoused shouldn't care if Charlie Kirk died"
I've seen plenty of messages that included the second part without the first part. But regardless, this reflects a plain misunderstanding of that philosophy.
Again, no pro-killing ideology here, outside of e.g. support for potentially-lethal police force to apprehend criminals in the act.
Kirk didn't advocate for merely an armed police force; he advocated for an armed citizenry. And he made clear his belief that the purpose of arming that citizenry is to fight the police if they try to impose tyranny. "The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government."
We don't yet know the motives of his killer, but it may be worth observing that it is an unfortunate consequence of Kirk's philosophy of liberty that, since nobody controls who the citizens define as part of the "tyranny," a so-armed individual can, of their own free will, conclude that the man who (by his own claims) was instrumental in electing a tyrant, supports that tyrant, is clearly in the inner circle of that tyrant (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33r4kjez6no)... Is someone who needs to die.
Personally, I think that's repugnant and I hope the person who took the law into their own hands is constrained from further harming this society indefinitely. But I don't agree with Kirk's philosophy on the purpose, origins, or nature of the Second Amendment.
GRT is racist because it's essential premise is that America belongs to white people, who are not the "existing population of [the] country" in any objective sense independent of racist ideology. GRTs do not care how long you have been in the US; they only care if you are white. (So people with indigenous ancestry and the great great grandchildren of slaves can go take a hike.)
Murder and political assassination are deeply wrong, but are you sure you really want to go down the rabbit hole of GRT apologism to make your point about that?
> GRT is racist because it's essential premise is that America belongs to white people, who are not the "existing population of [the] country" in any objective sense independent of racist ideology. GRTs do not care how long you have been in the US; they only care if you are white. (So people with indigenous ancestry and the great great grandchildren of slaves can go take a hike.)
Feel free to show me the part where Kirk macro-expanded the thought and asserted anything about whiteness having anything to do with a legitimate claim to residency.
I don't think he has said anything like that.
Part of the reason I don't think he has is that I was literally just watching an extended clip in which he directly addressed a legal Mexican immigrant and asserted unequivocally that the distinction he intended to draw was not based on race or nationality, but on following the immigration rules.
> are you sure you really want to go down the rabbit hole of GRT apologism
The large majority of people I have seen labelled as subscribing to this theory had, upon examination, views like Kirk's, and not ones consistent with racial supremacy. If you're going to say that the theory requires such an attitude, then you are not working with the same definitions as the person ascribing the theory to Kirk, assuming intellectual honesty. I responded to a person using a definition compatible with Kirk's ideology, using arguments compatible with what the evidence says about Kirk's ideology. To conflate this is to commit the "worst argument in the world" i.e. the noncentral fallacy (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...).
Edit: I find it rather amazing that someone managed to downvote me in less time than it would have taken to read and properly understand the comment. My understanding is that downvotes are not available downthread when you're having a back-and-forth, so this must have come from a third party that somehow happened to come across this immediately, 8 comments deep.
I for one do not want an airline pilot that praises an assassin, or my child to have a teacher that mocks people in mourning.
I do have political opinions, but I try very hard to stay back from a line that would mark my words as unprofessional. Social media has normalized behavior that would have brought termination instantly 10 years ago.
The firings are regrettable, but if they lead to more civil public interactions they are worth it.
Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
No just make it clear that it is not tolerated in a civilised society. Well done to the guardian for challenging that idea. It takes a unique kind of courage to stick up for people who like political assassinations in todays day and age. I'm really impressed at their progressiveness that they are concerned about the rights of even such contempible people. Someone needs to look out for them. People calling for violence are one of the most suppressed groups, they deserve a platform.
Even in the cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes I see Kirk's detractors throwing around these discussions, I have seen nothing that advocates violence, except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
There are quite a few to be found if you look around.
From Wikipedia:
On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
Sounds plenty violent to me. I'd have to agree with those who say there are grounds for seeing Kirk as someone who frequently advocated for violence.
>From Wikipedia: On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
Was it clear 2 days before Jan 6 that it was going to be violent, or does this hinge on the "fight" wording?
>On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
See: >except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
I think it’s prodding people to do something dangerous and illegal and a risk to democracy herself, and I’m not really sure what else it could be.
(Why… would Trump hold a rally in DC on that particular day to begin with? And why did he and other speakers choose to say what they did? None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks in ways that it don’t think it would in any analogous situation that didn’t involve partisan politics)
> What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
The same, non-violent thing that it means in the stock phrase "fight for your rights".
> None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks
Other people are not unaware of the possible connotations you describe. They have evaluated the evidence for themselves and concluded that those connotations were not intended.
I think it's easy for people to forget sometimes because the interface doesn't make it particularly obvious that much of social media is screaming from a soapbox in some of the world's largest agoras.
The interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
The people getting fired have shown themselves to be exactly the types of people Popper warned about in his Paradox of Tolerance: they "begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
These vigilantes are just socially (and constitutionally!) doing what Popper said to do when faced with those that teach people to answer arguments with bullets: "We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. It's called being a decent human being. As we say in America, if there’s a terrorist at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 terrorists.
This is a talking point I have seen repeated constantly throughout the discussion. It does not accurately represent the point being made, as explained in the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234349 .
I actually have witnessed the concept of empathy used on many occasions for a sort of rhetorical abuse, by alternately demanding it of people and then denying that they are fundamentally capable of it in a given situation due to identity differences. In the literal sense, empathy requires (https://www.simplypsychology.org/sympathy-empathy-compassion...) a deeper understanding of negative emotions based in "putting oneself in another's shoes"; but many will argue that this simply can't be properly done.
A simple example is that men are accused of lacking "empathy" for women who feel endangered in social/dating circumstances where the man might feel empowered. But we simply cannot spontaneously change our perspective on a given circumstance. (And, of course, it is treated as offensive to turn the example around; but that's another discussion.)
Indeed, your empathy is not being expected here by anyone. But your sympathy is. You are being expected to treat murder as a crime and the loss of a healthy adult life as a tragedy. Kirk had many ideas about how people should go about their lives that you might strongly disagree with, or even consider unconscionable. He also had many ideas about the reality of how businesses and other institutions operate, or about what is fair in that context, similarly.
But from what I can tell, nothing he ever said rose to the level of supposing that ending someone's life is an appropriate response to that person having the wrong ideas. (And the bit you're quoting is so incredibly far from that, that it's hard to assume good faith when people make this argument.)
His killer apparently disagreed. And many people on social media also seem to disagree, although they haven't taken action on it.
Does that, in your mind, apply to everyone? For example, would it be okay to execute a few of the people people who protested in support of Oct 8 just when it happened, long before there was any reaction?
I would also like to point out there is a very large difference between firing and killing. So no, people getting fired is not somehow equivalent to a killing.
There are incredible numbers of people who support, even celebrate deaths. And we're not even talking about the other difficulties, like perspective (e.g. the death of a Russian father fighting in Ukraine, do you celebrate or mourn?)
Sure, but the HN guidelines apply to us all, no matter who or what you're commenting about. If someone else posts a comment that's against the guidelines, flag it and/or email us (hn@ycombinator.com ). If you disagree with it, respond in a way that is within the guidelines, or don't respond at all, please.
Do you have any detailed thoughts on what these people should have done or said, and what they actually did or said?
This seems like you are feeling quite offended -- to judge (now ex?) friends as "inhuman", and to further alienate them by labeling them as "liberals".
The 4th Amendment prevents police from conducting searches without a warrant. There are criminals who are going to escape detection because of that, and there are known criminals who go free because of that, and every year some of those criminals are going to commit murder and other crimes that they would not have been able to commit if it weren't for the 4th Amendment. And the 4th Amendment is not the only other amendment in the Bill of Rights that makes it harder to catch and prosecute criminals.
Is it worth it to have a cost of some deaths every year so that we can have the Bill of Rights? Yes, it is. If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
> If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
Since GP also made the typo, I don't know if/to what extent a joke was intended here.
(The adjective, here intended to mean "emotionally hardened", is "callous". A callus (noun) is a region of literal thickened skin. Although "callous" can also literally refer to skin which has calluses.)
Do you think the same thing about "give me liberty or give me death?"
"...cost of unfortunately..." Is that not clear? The context was he was responding about a question about the 2nd amendment. clearly the first order thinking would make it clear it's not the rule, it's the purpose of the rule that's important.
The purpose is so you don't get arrested for some social media comment or other rights, like what is happening in the UK right now.
I didn't like or respect the guy but really that is probably the most reasonable thing he ever said (other than release the Epstein Files), if you believed the 2nd Amendment is important to have then you are essentially arguing for some gun deaths every year.
Note: I believe the 2nd Amendment is really the proof that the founding fathers weren't the super geniuses the mythology has them as, but hey, too late now.
Pretty much everything out of the guys mouth was either stupid or horrible. This just happens to be one of the most relevant to the current conversation
You are purposely misinterpreting what he wrote. He said that it doesn’t matter how you die, it shouldn’t whitewash you. If you were radical and widely considered dangerous to the fabric of society, your death doesn’t magically absolve you of that or erase everything you said while alive.
Sorry if you misunderstood, it is a nuanced take, I'm saying acknowledging one as a terrible person in response to flowery embellishments of their life isn't celebrating that death. My statement wasn't about political violence, rather, we shouldn't be punishing people for pointing out the false depiction of the dead. I think ideally we all should be mature enough to both mourn the loss of a human and also acknowledge who they really were.
> I think ideally we all should be mature enough to both mourn the loss of a human and also acknowledge who they really were.
I have a nice little trick for it: when you go to a funeral of a person in your family, or close to your family, who was an asshole, I bet you won't be saying to other people "yeah, sad, very sad. But, please remember, he was an asshole". Right? I would not -- not the time, nor the place.
Yes, Kirk is not a family (probably not yours, and definitely not mine), but the same standard of being polite and reasonable person should apply.
These people aren't at a funeral, they are online, responding to false glorifications of him. These comments obviously aren't directed at the family but the news publications and media's handling of his passing. If that's not the appropriate space for that criticism when/where is it? Just after the public not ever knowing their real action's in life have moved on with a false glorified image of the person, move on and aren't paying attention anymore?
> the same standard of being polite and reasonable person should apply.
I'm curious how standard this "standard" is, did you (and the rest of America) mourn the death of Osama bin Laden? Did you express condolences to his family and try to remember him by the positive things he did in life?
> I'm curious how standard this "standard" is, did you (and the rest of America) mourn the death of Osama bin Laden? Did you express condolences to his family and try to remember him by the positive things he did in life?
Perhaps I missed the part where Charlie Kirk organized a group of guys to hijack a bunch of planes with civilians on board, and then crash them into buildings.
On a serious note, if you cannot see a difference between these two, I have no idea what to say.
Let me be more specific, how much division, hatred, pain, and violence does a person have to be responsible for before it's socially acceptable to express an opinion that the world is better off without them?
How much before it's okay to party on the streets after learning about their death?
Clearly there's a difference in magnitude between Kirk and bin Laden, but both were merchants of hate and violence, so where's the line?
If people are whitewashing his history then it's to be expected that other people will speak out to set the record straight. That's how free speech works and trying to silence it on the basis of "decorum" is dishonest and manipulative.
> Clearly there's a difference in magnitude between Kirk and bin Laden, but both were merchants of hate and violence, so where's the line?
To answer this question, we would have to first agree on the term "hate", and what does it mean to be a "merchant of hate". Then, we examine the evidence, and arrive to the conclusion.
So, what is "hate"? What is "merchant of hate"? Why Kirk, in your view, was one?
We aren't at his funeral and he's a public figure. It was Voltaire who said "We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth". I tend to agree. He's a public figure, he's fair game to criticise. He didn't magically become a good guy by virtue of having been murdered. If I were somehow at his funeral, I'd absolutely show respect and not mention all the weird and nasty as fuck shit he said.
Fred Rogers getting shot would have been a lot worse, and great mourning of his passing more justified, than Charles Manson getting shot. Clearly this is neither of those cases, but, as clearly, we don’t regret the murder of every famous person equally, even if we would rather the murder hadn’t happened in each case.
The canonization effort around an only-known-in-certain-circles propagandist has been utterly bizarre to watch. Air Force 2 escort? What, pardon me, the fuck.
[edit] I’ll add that the fawning wall-to-wall treatment and coverage has been especially wild to watch when it occurs so close, time-wise, to a murderer with a kill-list shooting two democratic politicians in their homes, killing one of them plus a spouse (and a dog, as everyone always seems to add) before being stopped, which news was so barely-covered and left the news cycle so fast (and saw the same kind of callousness from the right that they’re now perceiving from the left, including, as always when it’s this guy, from the President of the United States) that, when I’ve brought it up or seen it brought up after this event, it’s been easy to find people who didn’t even know it happened.
Yes. Yes, it is a tragic event. Apart from it being simply morally utterly reprehensible, it is an extremely primitive and counter-productive way to fight against ideas and the messengers of those ideas.
Again, morally reprehensible and it doesn't fucking work. It only shows 'the other side is just as bad/worse', turns the messenger into a martyr, and galvanizes support.
> What is actually tragic is that spreading lies, as he did
Unlike many others, he invited anyone to the mic to prove him wrong. Hardly qualifies as lying. Anyone could have gotten to the mic and debate him. Sure, you may don't like his beliefs, but there is a huge difference between lying, and defending (even incorrect and unfounded) claims in public.
Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
Let me document five very serious lies from him:
1. On Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble, Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose.
2. Ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Kirk spread falsehoods about voter fraud, and immediately after Trump lost the 2020 election, Kirk promoted false and disproven claims of fraud in the election.
3. Kirk called the public health measure of social distancing prohibitions in churches a "Democratic plot against Christianity".
4. In the 2020s, Kirk was a Christian nationalist who called the separation of Church and state in the United States a "fabrication".
5. Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in 2024, he said: "This is a Christian state. I'd like to see it stay that way."
There are innumerable more. For the record, the February 2023 Brookings Institution study found Kirk's podcast contained the second-highest proportion of false, misleading, and unsubstantiated statements among 36,603 episodes produced by 79 prominent political podcasters. [1]
Contrast it with the way in which truth is actually spread; it is by citing good-quality references.
> Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
This is far fetched. People who have sent the death threats are lunatics. If the number of people who are sending death threats is our new standard for the quality and importance of debates, then we should simply stop the debates. There are always unhinged people around. Where does it leave us?
> Let me document five very serious lies from him:
Sure. Some are maybe lies, some are his opinions, some are misleading claims, and the rest are his own beliefs. Still, anyone could have went in front of the mic and debated him for it. In my opinion, someone is a liar when they have a platform to lie, and no way for the public to engage, debate, and correct them. While Kirk's beliefs are very far from my own (e.g., I do not believe that election was stolen), I still think that what he did is needed today: speaking your mind, and being open to be challenged in public.
It is bewildering how the Republican voters don't realize that the party cares exclusively about those who fund the party, not about those who vote for it. The votes are gained exactly on the basis of lies. If the party actually cared for its voters, it would send all the non-immigrant work-visa employees back home immediately if they don't have a PhD degree in their field of work.
What we need is for politicians to not keep labeling their opposition with violent rhetoric. Everything from punch a Nazi, to death to communism, we've got to get the violent rhetoric out of politics. Too many unstable people.
Both sides have their nut cases. And you can’t actually restrict nut case speech with our current constitution at least, you can’t even prevent them from being elected.
Didn’t the President of the United States say he didn’t care about bringing the people together, and has wished violence upon people who don’t support him politically?
Where do you think this comes from, and, rather than arm ourselves with similarly martial language, we should be expected simply to lie flat?
Such a powerful message Trump sent when the very first thing he did in January after the inauguration was to pardon the people who tried to murder his vice president and did beat cops with an American flag. He pardoned people convicted in a court of law of seditious conspiracy against the United states. That was a permission slip.
So I agree, there's a direct line from the political violence on J6, to the political violence we see today. If there is any lingering doubt, the the message from the President is clear: he literally said he doesn't consider violence from the right to be a problem. Right wing extremists are just people trying to reduce what they see as crime, according to him.
I was borderline, almost, kinda, 10% rethinking whether I was actually wrong to label MAGA fascists.
Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
I mean, that’s literal Nazi shit. They say literal Nazi shit, this isn’t isolated. What do you call it? WTF. Elon sieg-heils twice at the inauguration and they don’t disown him. What is it going to take before we get folks who still think calling them fascists is the problem, actually, to blame the party that twice elected a guy president who told his supporters they could shoot his opponent if she won?
> Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
Yeah, it was an escalating suggestion from what another host had put on the table, which was the once-far-right “if they refuse help, lock them up” (the missing step here that someone from the left-leaning-middle would want to perform, is being curious about why homeless people refuse help and seeing if that’s something we can address without the very-expensive and sharply illiberal [classical sense] step of imprisoning them) but I guess now we have to call that moderate right because even the part of the far right that’s within Fox News’ window is saying “do Nazi stuff”.
Granted, you’ve been hearing little suggestions like this for a long time from ordinary republican voters, if you’ve been in their spaces much, but hearing it from a host on the most popular “news” station in the country, with neither of his co-hosts even pausing to go “uh, haha, wait now” is… something else.
> hearing it from a host on the most popular “news” station in the country, with neither of his co-hosts even pausing to go “uh, haha, wait now” is… something else.
Meanwhile, another Fox News host has been promoted to Secretary of "War", and is busy drone striking random boats and straight up murdering people.
While yet another Fox News host has been charging people with crimes that juries refuse to indict because they're so preposterous.
It seems we have a serious problem with Fox News hosts and podcaster bros running this government and directing policy. Remember, Fox News isn't just talking to its audience -- it's talking to the President, he watches religiously. He pays more attention to them than all his cabinet and advisors combined.
The most disconcerting thing about this murder is that it seems like the killer was relatively normal beyond being excessively involved in online politics. In many of these things there's fairly obvious symptoms of major mental illness, or at the minimum it's some guy who's basically way down out in life. This was a young seemingly smart guy who just decided to throw his life away, and murder somebody else, probably as a result of spending way too much time in online circle jerks.
Have you actually watched any of his content? Like many I'd literally never even heard of him until today, and now I'm watching his videos. [1]
He was going into generally extremely liberal areas and willing to openly debate and discuss his generally conservative and Christian values in 'real time', while encouraging his opponents to use the internet, chat bots, and whatever else they might like to try to get a zinger off on him. And it was real debate - not the media/talk show nonsense where two people just scream at and interrupt each other, with no real debate happening. He happily let people go off on their monologues before responding, and without resorting to typical fallacies you see online like ad hominem, straw-manning, etc.
I don't really agree with a lot of his values, but I think he is an absolute icon in terms of how political discussions should happen. This is how democracy, debate, and more broadly - an Open Society should work, and he was killed for pursuing this. If this isn't the path forward for debate in society, then what is?
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
'Prowling Blacks go around for fun to target white people' – video
On debate
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024
Charlie Kirk in his own words: 'A Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic' – video
On gun violence
I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024
America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025
Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.
– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
Having strongly held opinion on who lives and who dies are petty heavy opinions one might say, correct? Like just pushing the opinion on whether Palestine should or should not be wiped out means that you are advocating for the lives/deaths of one group of people or another?
I'm not saying people should necessarily die for their opinions. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that if your opinion, and the political policies you push for, literally result in the life or death of someone's family members, then those people may have very strong reactions to that.
Like if there was an entire town of purple people and I went around saying I want all people purple people to be killed, should I be surprised if purple people might want to cause violence towards me? I mean, I'm just debating and using words, right? But those words an debates are literally about the lives and deaths of other people.
> Like just pushing the opinion on whether Palestine should or should not be wiped out means that you are advocating for the lives/deaths of one group of people or another?
Can you show me a video/article/blog post where he said that Palestinians should be wiped out? I would like to see/read it myself.
Are you looking for something where he literally says "wiped out"? Or are you looking for his stance that it doesn't and shouldn't exist? I'm not a follower of Charlie Kirk or his positions and I don't support any violence against him. However, finding his position on Israel and Palestine is a very simple google search away. You can hear it from his own mouth right here:
How did this interaction end? Why do you show a short scene from a potentially long discussion?
This one looks like a rage bait more than anything. Pretty equivalent to taking a phrase out of context, and then claiming whatever suits your narrative.
My point was that many of the "debates" Charlie Kirk was having were about who lives and who dies in the world. Doing so publicly with the intent of swaying policy and elections. And the fact that the topics being discussed with "just words" are really discussion of life and death. You seem to be trying to say that these debates weren't really about who lives and dies.
You asked for evidence of this. I provided you an example of him literally telling someone from Palestine that the place they live doesn't exist and was not owned by him or his people.
I mean, do you think the follow up to this conversation results in the gentleman he is "debating" to walk away happily and change his views on whether Palestine exists? Because that seems to be what you're insinuating. You seem to be saying, that either his debates really weren't about the lives and deaths of others. Or that his opinions and policies were really "the right thing to do" and people on the other side just didn't understand that yet.
> You asked for evidence of this. I provided you an example of him literally telling someone from Palestine that the place they live doesn't exist and was not owned by him or his people.
You took a part of the conversation and showed it to me. Show me the whole thing, and not a rage bait piece potentially taking out of context.
I've seen your comments elsewhere and you're not arguing in good faith. You're doing a "no true scottsman" argument when you know full well there is plenty out there. But nothing will convince you.
For you it seems like unless there is a video where Charlie Kirk is telling a soldier to pull the trigger and kill somebody directly, you won't be convinced. It's the same argument that Charles Manson shouldn't be guilty because it was just his opinions that caused people to be killed.
> I've seen your comments elsewhere and you're not arguing in good faith.
What? Why?
What you did with your example is that you took a 60 second snippet from a conversation and use it to prove your point. I am not buying this because taking things out of context does not constitute a proof. An example would be saying that Charlie Kirk thought that empty is invented concept (a lot of people repeat it), while in fact if you watch the full video where he said that, you would know that his position was that sympathy is a better choice of a word. Now, when you learn this you realize that a single quote without a context means nothing.
This is why I am asking you to show me context.
We started this conversation when you mentioned strong opinions on who should live or die. Then, you proceeded with an example of wiping out Palestinians. Then you said that he said it "doesn't and shouldn't exist". To prove your point, you showed a short cut from a much longer discussion. I am willing to engage with you on the merits of the evidence you provide, but I think we should conduct this discussion based on the full video, and not a piece that was cut out for a rage bait articles or tweets.
This is why. In the other reply to me you said "This is a silly example: beauty is subjective. Thus, what you are doing you are insulting a person, and of course there are consequences for that." So you clearly understand that insulting people can have consequences. I take your combined arguments to either be that everything Kirk said was objective (as if it being objective would automatically mean people can't be insulted). Or nothing that he said should have insulted anyone and therefore should not have consequences.
If you can't find quotes in context made by Kirk that people would find insulting, then that is a search issue. Does that mean he should have been killed? Absolutely not. But again, it is quite obvious that saying things that insult people can lead to consequences. And those consequences can vary because people vary.
He promoted the “Great Replacement Theory” (a “fact” as he characterized it) which is plainly a violent-radicalizing notion, with a long violent-radicalizing history and recent examples of violence done in its name.
He promoted 2020 election denial conspiracies. Moves to mess with due process for voting, or to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power (say, promoting coup attempts) are some of the gravest threats to peace possible in a democracy, as far as speech goes. Lying about such, is right up there.
[edit] sources easily searchable if you have the topics, letting people pick their own works better if search turns them up pretty easily, that way there’s no worry that I’m choosing clips out of context or something.
> sources easily searchable if you have the topics,
So, you made a claim. I asked you for an example of a material that you based your claim on, and instead of backing up your claim you are sending me to find a source that will prove it?
> letting people pick their own works better if search turns them up pretty easily, that way there’s no worry that I’m choosing clips out of context or something.
What is the source material, a video, or a text, that you based your claims on? Is there a chance that you actually never saw the source material yourself?
It would have taken you a lot less time to type “Charlie Kirk great replacement theory fact” into a search box and find his own words than to post on here over and over pretending both to give a shit and like you don’t know how to use a search engine.
You see, I can find some link and read them, but then I may come back and challenge you on what you've said. However, since I've read a different source (not the one you've read/watched), then we are going to find ourselves in a situation where we arguing about different things. To avoid this, people typically cite their references. So, you are not willing to do so, which makes me believe that you never actually read/watched a source material yourself, and best case scenario it was a tweet.
I have no idea why you resort to name-calling, it does not look good on you.
Dude(tte) you’re on HN in 2025 and pretended not to understand how to google. Assuming trolling and that it was pretending is the generous reading of that.
No. Many people have shown me reasons they think I should believe it. In every single case, it has been plain and obvious to me that it's nothing of the sort.
Let's not kid ourselves here. The arguments being made were often opinions on whether one set of people should be killed and another side being saved. For example, by stating the opinion that we should cut funding for Ukraine means that Ukrainian will die as a result. Saying thousands of people should be fired from their lifelong jobs in the federal government means you have had major and long-standing impacts to entire families (and there have been many suicides as a result. You can go on and on like this (Israel/Palestine for example).
Yes, these are just opinions and debate. But these are opinions and debates about the lives and deaths of real people. That doesn't justify him being killed, I don't support his killing in any way. But you can't just debate who lives and dies and push policy one way or another and then be shocked that the people being impacted by those opinions or decisions are going to want to cause violence towards you.
> But you can't just debate who lives and dies and push policy one way or another and then be shocked that the people being impacted by those opinions or decisions are going to want to cause violence towards you.
I am a bit confused. Are you saying that now we should stop debate hot topic because opinions/claims we voice during those debates can impact people and cause them to commit violence towards us?
I think you're confusing a few things here. I think you would agree that opinions exist on a spectrum from minimal impact to maximum impact. I could say I have an opinion on my preferred type of ramen noodles and people may disagree, but ultimately, it's not changing anyone's life and killing people. And on the other side of the spectrum you have things that cause harm to people. Like racism, genocide, etc.
If I use my words and political influence to support say genocide, is that a bad thing? Because you could say it is a debate we should have, right? It's just words. But topics like this mean people are literally dying. Having an opinion, especially have a strong public opinion, that people in Gaza should me evacuated, starve to death, etc. Isn't really just words. You're literally arguing those people should be displaced, eradicated, starved, etc.
You are expecting people who are the victims and supporters of death and destruction to be rational. To use words to "debate" their points. That's like arguing Israel/Hamas should be debating until there is a "winner" and the other side concedes. When in reality, there are generations of hate and anger. Neither side is really interested in a debate. And there is likely no realistic solution that either side with peacefully support. But make no mistake, this debate result in the deaths of others. People are literally dying and starving. Just because you in particular are not in that position doesn't mean you words about have no meaning. This is a person using influence to change political policy and elections. To literally choose who lives and who dies.
If you dropped into Gaza right now and tried to "debate" someone that Israel is correct, you might get some resistance, no? It's even highly likely you would meet some violence. This is pretty obvious to most of us. Didn't your parent tell you not to discuss religion or politics in certain settings? These are heated topics with histories of violence. It's disingenuous to think you can make strong public statement on those topics and not meet strong resistance in the least, and violence at the worst.
Now, it shouldn't be this way. And I wish it wasn't. But as long as military's exist and you have people willing to kill to make their points instead of debating, then that is just reality. It's like trying to debate a hornets nest and being surprised that bees aren't particularly interested in debates.
I guess in your world, there are no opinions that incite violence. Even if those opinions are that violence should occur. Which, unless you live in a vacuum is simply not how the world works. Why don't you walk into your local bar tonight and walk up to each couple. Tell the male that in your opinion his wife/girlfriend is ugly. Surely you're not going to incite any violence. It's just your opinion man, you should just be debated.
> I guess in your world, there are no opinions that incite violence. Even if those opinions are that violence should occur.
I am a bit confused. An opinion that states that a violence towards particular group should happen is an incitement for violence.
> Tell the male that in your opinion his wife/girlfriend is ugly. Surely you're not going to incite any violence. It's just your opinion man, you should just be debated.
This is a silly example: beauty is subjective. Thus, what you are doing you are insulting a person, and of course there are consequences for that.
Inducing rage and anger is what algorithms on social networks are optimized for. So we are sooner or later getting governments to regulate almighty algorithms driving social networks of today.
This is much more reasonable than getting fired over questioning mass experimental gene therapy or smiling in a photo with a Native American, or making the "ok' hand sign. Or ...
If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes. These places amplify and feed upon themselves, and can lead you to a dark place where you’d glorify this kind of death.
After all this is exactly how to shooter himself ended up thinking he had to assassinate Kirk.
> If there’s anything that this horrific event has taught me it’s to step away from social media political rabbit holes.
This presents a conundrum to somebody wanting to stay abreast of current events. The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died. And if you look back a few decades in American history, assassination of politicians and activists happened long before the advent of social media.
You can skim it without going down the rabbit hole.
> The president of the US is always-online to the point that not posting to twitter for a few hours sparks rumors that he's died.
Trump was not publicly seen for four days.
Hard to believe that there were zero opportunities for some kind of public interaction, even with cabinet members or civil service / WH staff folks. POTUS just 'disappearing' for several days is a bit odd.
It didn't help that they tried to provide 'proof of life' by posting golfing photos… that were taken a week before.
I’m not sure there’s much use to “staying abreast of current events” for most people. Media (social/traditional) focuses on amping up your anxiety and putting your side against there’s. Rather than a balanced view of the details. Alarmist headlines and hand wringing tweets are engineered to anger and outrage you. It’s very hard to keep up with news while keeping your rational brain engaged.
If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
If something happens that impacts you, you’ll find out when it happens and then you’ll get informed if there’s anything you can do about it.
> If something truly momentous happens about it, you’ll hear about it.
From who? And where are they getting their information?
It bears mentioning that you're presently participating in a political conversation on social media.
Discord again?
Seems like all of these shooters get a lot of encouragement and support on discord.
Howard Stern noted once how people who disliked him spent more time listening to him than those who liked him.
Kirk seemed to have invested heavily in aggravating people in order to make an audience. It seemed so obvious to me that I don't understand why those who disliked him would waste their time trying to debate him.
His rallies didn’t seem to be full of people who didn’t like him.
Of course. There's a ton of people who want to see their beliefs validated and he offered them this through this false debating.
The people who tried to change his mind were blind to the trap he set up. No logic would ever change his message.
Of course, he shouldn't have died because of this, but that's another issue.
I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left, and nothing was known right now. Literally facts, and people downvoted them. (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
It's funny because the shooter ended up being a fuckin groyper, which pretty much means "Nazi"
I don't believe there's any strong evidence of this as yet.
The left calls everything it doesn't like "Nazi" these days.
And the right calls everything it doesn't like "Communist".
Still, have you looked into what a groyper really is?
> I got flagged here on HN for stating (right as the news was breaking) that the shooter could just as likely be right wing as left
I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd. It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder. False flags really aren't that common, in general. This is the same kind of conspiratorial thinking behind Alex Jones' "crisis actors".
Also, your comment was off-topic to the sub-thread. People were discussing whether Kirk would be seen as a martyr. The ideology of the shooter has quite little to do with that.
> (I'll probably get downvoted again for this lol)
Commentary like this is inherently obnoxious, and tends towards self-fulfilling prophecy.
> I don't think you should have been flagged for such an observation in general, but assigning a prior of equal probability strikes me as frankly absurd.
Especially if you look at the data. The political right is more likely to do violence:
* https://www.cato.org/blog/politically-motivated-violence-rar...
* https://archive.is/https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/...
You’re being disingenuous of course but the reality is that politically motivated killers kill people they don’t agree with.
Two right-wingers can disagree with one another to pretty extreme degrees.
This is like thinking Christian-on-Christian violence over religion is implausible and claiming someone suggesting it’s in-fact plausible is being “disingenuous”—surely it can only be someone from a different faith entirely.
In what way do you think I'm being disingenuous?
But politically-motivated assassinations in the US are very rare, and almost exclusively lone actors (not part of a movement).
The assassination attempts (whether successful or failed) on prominent political figures in this country have almost all been carried out by people with personal reasons to want to kill them, not politically motivated killers killing people they don't agree with.
> It would be much harder for someone on the same ideological "side" to have a motivation to murder.
Is the likelihood lower or higher if it already happened (at least) once last year?
Is it lower or higher if you’re aware of the hostile dynamics between TPU and at least one popular very much violence-encouraging even-farther-right influencer? Nb this group has opposed Trump for being too timidly white supremacist. Would that shift your guess at the odds?
Safe bet if you’ve been paying attention to this stuff for a few decades was about equal odds right or left winger, and maybe somewhat higher right, if the target’s a right winger (almost certainly the attacker is, if relevantly affiliated, right-affiliated if the target’s a Democrat or otherwise left) or else (in either case of political affiliation of the target) there’s fair odds of apolitical notoriety-seeking or straight up lunacy without a strong political motivation.
[edit] nb I’m not saying 100% that the guy won’t turn out to be coming from the left, but I think if you’re playing the odds on something like this and go “must be a leftist” you’ve misread the situation in this country.
It doesn't sound conspiratorial to me. It seems a lot of shooters are right wing, I guess because they like guns and the right tends to be more pro gun.
Also "just as likely be" <> "equal probability".
> It doesn't sound conspiratorial to me.
The conspiratorial thinking is jumping to an assumption of a high probability of a "false flag". In reality, the base rate of such attacks is low.
> It seems a lot of shooters are right wing
Many right-wingers would dispute the methodology behind these statistics, but that's beside the point. This information, however, is more or less rendered irrelevant by the circumstantial evidence that this was a political assassination, combined with the fact that the victim was right-wing.
> Also "just as likely be" <> "equal probability".
It quite literally means the same thing. If I flip a coin, the result is (ignoring all the standard gotchas) just as likely to be heads as tails. If I flip a coin, the probability of a heads result (ignoring all the standard gotchas) is equal to the probability of a tails result. The information content of the previous two sentences is the same.
I use just as likely in the manner of it's just as likely to be sunny tomorrow as not, ie. of approximately similar likelihood, not exactly 50/50.
Far as reporting goes, theres two tracks. Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
There is an objective way to understand the fuzzy logic problem media provides, but that leads to one type of politic.
The problem is rational thinking is whats under attack. Particularly when it leads to future predictions. Thats the danger because you can create a self fulfilling prophecy.
The far right in every country is trying to spread isolationism to reduce the capacity of society to benefit the most people because economic slavery is the only way oligarchy survives.
> Either he was upset with charlie not being far right enough, or somehow he was influences by the far left.
I don't think you can get much further right than he was though. When I hear of all the stuff he was saying. I don't think even Trump has ever said some of that stuff. Like that women should be secondary to men.
Apparently he also said that "a few deaths a year are a small price to pay for access to weapons". I wonder if he still felt that way knowing what was coming. I don't have the source link to hand though. News goes so fast now and I don't archive everything.
Personally I'd never heard of the guy but I'm not in the US (and very glad about that right now, the country seems to be tearing itself apart)
PS Also I'm not trying to defend the far right, I'm very left (especially by US standards which doesn't really have a 'left' compared to Europe, liberalism here is a moderate right-wing thing). But murder is definitely not ok in my book, of course. I would grin when I see a tesla dealership graffiti'd or a "swasticar" or "from 0 to 1939 in 3 seconds" poster at a bus stop. but that's about as far as it goes. You don't touch people ever. Or really destroy stuff of value.
> I don't think you can get much further right than he was though.
Groypers.
Groypers
How does that square with the issue that he texted his trans significant other to go pick up his rifle which he could not do as feds found the rifle first. [1] The feds are interviewing the trans partner as we speak. To be clear I am not anti-trans, rather just confused how he could also be a Groyper. Maybe this is possible, just a new concept to me.
[1] - https://nypost.com/2025/09/13/us-news/charlie-kirk-shooter-t...
Well, groyper thought leader Nick Fuentes uploaded a video long time ago where he goes into what was basically a date with a another white nationalist dressed like a catboy. Also there's a common meme about the twink -> white nationalist pipeline Gryoper lore is hard to follow even for terminally online people.
> his trans significant
From the article you posted:
> According to public records, Lance Twiggs, 22, resided at the same address where Robinson lived. A relative of Twiggs confirmed to The Post Saturday that “yes, they were roommates.”
> The family member, who asked not to be identified, said Twiggs was the “black sheep” of their St. George, Utah, family, but declined to speculate on a romantic relationship between the two men.
> She said she didn’t know her relative’s politics or whether Twiggs was transitioning to become a woman, but added that it wouldn’t surprise her.
So basically the source is "it was revealed to me in a dream". For all we know they were just roommates.
For all we know they were just roommates.
It's possible. I keep hearing terms used interchangably on different YT channels and all of that could be people just projecting their preferred narratives so I guess we will have to wait for the Discord and cell phone text message transcripts assuming those ever drop. They so rarely do. Either way at least we know the roommate was involved to some extent. The Discord transcripts may be the most telling of the relationship.
Turns out you can buy anyones chat messages on discard apparently but I have no idea what his discord username was.
Nazis still have their kinks
Link:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groypers
When Nick Fuentes first appeared, him and his little gang of nerds were definitely more far right than Kirk. TPUSA had a gay man on staff, and put him all over those little memes they made.
Israel is about the only thing Charlie and Nick disagree on now.
From what I’ve seen, Charlie stopped at promoting lies that if you believe them imply violence is on the table (and that have a history of inspiring violent acts). Nick has been willing to take the next step and go “We can’t do anything! Except kill them. But don’t do that! I didn’t say to! But what else can we do?” (So, Fuentes is closer to Trump’s level of flirting-with-telling-people-to-kill than Kirk was, AFAIK)
As far as their disagreements over doctrine of-late, I’m not sure. Their messages do/did differ in where they drew the line, though.
I’ve seen Loomer’s turning on Kirk (over his “turning” on Trump re: the Epstein files) cited as part of this, with Nick’s crowd being on Loomer’s side, but given Nick’s history with Trump that I know of I’d find that surprising, but I’ve not closely followed Fuentes so I’ve got some reading to do there.
[dead]
You'll want to look into the "groypers," who are the group the alleged shooter may have been most closely affiliated with. They and Kirk's Turning Point USA had a falling out over TPU's unwillingness to be as ultra-nationalist, isolationist, or white supremacist as the groypers are. They assert that Kirk's brand of conservatism was carrying a kind of stolen valor over claiming they got Trump elected when the groypers would argue they were the ones most instrumental in cementing Trump's support among traditionally disenfranchised white nationalism.
It's too early to know, but it may be the case that this shooting was the right-wing equivalent of Stalin having Lenin removed as an ivory-tower elite obstacle to "true communism."
From what I read everything pointed at a killer from the extreme left
(bullet engravings, his partner, his father's testimony)
I'd be interested to know your sources. Information is flowing fast (as it often does in such a tragedy); I'd be interested to know what's being said outside my sphere.
The bullet engravings are well known (and people pushing the groyper theory seem to believe the engravings support their theory just as well).
There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Many sources similarly assert that Robinson's father "recognized" him in photos and "encouraged him to turn himself in" (see e.g. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/12/tyler-rob...). However, I don't know anything specific about his "testimony".
> There is a claim circulating that Robinson had a transgender/transitioning (MtF) roommate/partner. A simple web search will easily find multiple sources for this claim, but most of them aren't exactly what you'd consider authoritative or journalistic.
Could turn out to be true, but considering the hilariously wrong stuff that was being published even by mainstream sources in the 24 hours after (the initially extremely-wrong reports about the engravings, for instance) I’d not yet treat this as meaningful at all. I’ve not seen anything above tabloid-level pushing it yet.
> the initially extremely-wrong reports about the engravings, for instance
I am unaware of any mistakes of fact as to the actual text of the engravings published by any mainstream source at any point.
"Not getting the reference" is not the same thing as making an "extremely-wrong report".
The meaning and implications of these engravings is the subject of intense debate, and not at all an objective matter at the moment.
They saw arrows and thought "must be trans ideology!" Turned out to be a Helldivers 2 reference, as with the "hey fascist catch this". The other references are all textbook groyper, and Robinson was even pictured on his mother's Facebook "as a guy from a meme" which was a copy of a groyper Pepe meme.
The very first reports of the engravings to break, supposedly from FBI sources, just said they had “pro trans” messages.
> The meaning and implications of these engravings is the subject of intense debate, and not at all an objective matter at the moment.
I agree. We can take away some things (like “very online” and some suggestions of certain connections to spheres or activities, like the Helldivers 2 reference) but there’s little more than rather mixed suggestions that could go multiple ways, as far as political affiliation and motivation that we can read from them, so far.
> The very first reports of the engravings to break, supposedly from FBI sources, just said they had “pro trans” messages.
Not the FBI, and the story is much more complex than that: https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/09/12/charlie-kirk-bullets-...
Ah, thanks for the link. I saw several headlines about it when that “news” dropped, but only followed one, and it claimed an FBI source. It may have been even worse than the others, and downstream from them, so to speak.
This is a frequent challenge when following breaking news.
I similarly delayed accepting Charlie Kirk had actually died because the only source I could find was President Trump (and news sources reporting Charlie Kirk's death that, ultimately, seemed to be using President Trump as a source).
Since President Trump is an extremely-well-documented liar, this was not a reliable source. It can be hard to figure out the source for news like this, since news outlets are not in the habit of doing well-disciplined source citation or summarizing sources to make it easy to identify them (in contrast to, say, a research publication).
I also find it very interesting that Netanyahu's post about Charlie Kirk happened at the same time as Trump's. How would he know before the rest of the world such that he could post at the exact same time as Trump?
Yeah at the time (and I’ve yet to see this contradicted?) it seemed like Trump broke the news on that one, which is certainly an unusual way for that to happen, which also made it more reasonable to put that on the “maybe, but let’s see” pile.
(I did believe it, but only because I’d watched the close-view video and regarded survival as all but impossible… without that I’d have “grain of salt”ed it, too)
> The bullet engravings are well known
You can read anything you want into those if you want to. To me they reek weeb culture (as opposed to furry like everyone else jumps to - there are overlaps but they are distinct), 4chan trolling and lemmy more than anything. We can not know the intentions behind those engravings and they say nothing about which, if any, affiliation the shooter had. Could be a Luigi wannabe, could be a false flag to induce civil war.
"Unafilliated" seems like the most plausible assumption right now. Everyone pushing theories about shooter affiliation right now either has their own political agenda behind it and are doing so incincerly or are useful idiots serving the aforementioned.
Your post prompted me to reread everything after perviously reading social media processed information, and you are right, it's not clear cut. Especially once they redacted/not-redacted (actually read both in the same article) the bullet engravings story. (https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/09/charlie...)
However from what did seem credible I think this still looks left-wing motivated
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> the only options left
There are lots of options left. The big one would be to vote and to help others vote. In 2024, only 42% of young people cast a ballot.
What is the point of voting when gerrymandering decides the outcome? We don't have a functional voting system by any stretch of the imagination. If we did, gerrymandering wouldn't be a thing, and we'd be using ranked-choice or range-voting. So many of the right-wing states have banned these superior voting methods because they're so afraid the ones in power will lose immediately. Granted, it's true that Trump won the popular vote in 2024, but note that voting rights have unfairly been denied to many citizens, especially in right-wing states, so was it really an honest win?
Gerrymandering has no effect on votes for president or senate, and ranked choice/range voting has no impact on gerrymandering. To eliminate gerrymandering you'd need to have an at-large/seat based voting system instead of district based. In other words - instead of voting for a representative, you'd vote for a party - and the party would then fill the seats they won at their discretion. Another option is multi-member districts which is a 'softer' version of the same idea.
what "peaceful means of protest" has the government shut down exactly?
Cutting university funding if they don’t block protests. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cqly0zrnnv3o
The ones at many Ivy League schools.
Literally every Israel protest.
> Literally every Israel protest.
I just googled and found at least three pro Palestine protests today. One is in NYC.
So... seems like nothing was banned, and this is why you were downvoted.
So was your issue with hyperbolic use of the word "literally", or are you rejecting the premise all together, because you would have to try really hard to deny that there has been an unrelenting crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses in the name of "anti-semitism"?
I did not downvote you. I think people who did disagree with your claim that literally every Israel protest is banned. BTW, it is hard to understand what does "Israel protest" even means. Does it mean it is a pro Israel protest? Pro Palestinian?
I think formulating your claims better could have avoided the downvotes, and allowed others to understand what you mean exactly.
I think it's quite clear what he means tbh, unless you don't follow American politics.
Whoever just downvoted this, how about using your words instead.
I’m starting to think cancel culture isn’t about regulating behavior or speech and is just about abusing power to punish people. Both sides have used it the last 25 years and both sides have complained about it as an abuse of power when they’ve been on the receiving end.
Perhaps we should focus more on learning and growing and healing than punishment?
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Stephen King made the mistake of chiming in on X then having to apologize.
I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting so I don’t want to support his beliefs or dismiss them but I think we need to promote freedom of speech/expression. People say things we disagree with, things that are truly horrible, etc. At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
King apologised because he made a claim that was absolutely false and in fact the opposite of Kirk's position on a matter. Not for "chiming in". Not for "disagreeing". For lying.
> I never heard of Mr Kirk until the shooting
Just for the record, his Youtube channel has about 4.5M subscribers. But the lack of a dot after "Mr" suggests to me that you might be from the UK, so...
> At least in the United States, we should be a bit more tolerant when we disagree.
Ah, never mind.
The things is... The things said do have consequences. Stochastic terrorism is real. Say people deserve to die (or are expendable) long enough and loud enough and someone ends up convinced.
Kirk literally died in the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime. He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
It seems that what many are reeling from in this moment is the consequences of speech like this had never blown back to harm someone they identified with, who looked and acted enough like them to engage all their empathy.
> Say people deserve to die (or are expendable)
> the act of making the case that mass shootings aren't statistically meaningful because most violence is black-on-black gang crime
These are not even remotely the same thing.
> He didn't get to finish his thought because someone turned him into one of those bloodless statistics.
Killing someone with a gunshot to the neck is absolutely not "bloodless".
The statistics are bloodless, when attempting to dismiss them in the abstract. “Bloodless” modified “statistics”. That the real thing is not bloodless ever was the point, I believe.
Agreed the above are not the same thing. Independent of what Kirk was saying at the time, he has also said "I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal." In other words, some people are expendable (for a greater good).
I also agree that killing someone with a gunshot isn't "bloodless." But the statistics are, and that's the thing about the kind of rhetoric Kirk engaged in. It's easy to birds-eye-view the problem and say things like there is a reasonable weighing of right to own a firearm vs. the inevitable result of increased firearm homicide when it is not one's own neck catching the bullet. In that sense, the statistics (and rhetoric around them) are "bloodless."
Indeed, I suspect that one of the things that has made the discussion around firearm ownership in the United States increasingly charged year upon year is that as an increasing number of our friends, loved ones, and selves become the statistic of the day, the conversation cannot stay clinical and detached. Because for too many Americans, it's no longer some abstract someone somewhere who got shot that day; it's their neighbor. Or their mom. Or their kid.
> In other words
No, that is an invalid rephrasing that misses the point. I have had this discussion numerous times already and am not interested in rehashing it. Check my comment history if you care.
FWIW, I actually am from Canada and generally disagree with the premise of the Second Amendment. However, I consider it a morally consistent position, and the way that the government goes after gun owners in Canada — and in the US, actually — is a travesty. The lawmakers have entirely too little understanding of the things they seek to ban.
I have read one page into your responses in threads on HN and found no clarification as to how my rephrasing misses the point.
I respect your lack of desire to engage on the topic and will not ask it of you, but FWIW: if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)... You are not.
> if you believe you are making the point that Charlie Kirk did not assert that the tradeoff of protecting the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms was an acceptable tradeoff for the deaths of Americans in mass shootings
He did make that assertion.
> (which implies the ones lost are expendable, at least expendable enough that we won't change the society's norms to prevent those deaths)
It does not imply this.
If the people who will be the "some gun deaths every single year" aren't expendable, what are they? Because it sounds like they're the ones we spend to buy the freedoms guaranteed by the Second Amendment. As Kirk said in 2023, "Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty." If you're paying human lives for something, those lives are expendable by definition. Etymology of the word: Latin, expendere, "to pay out, weigh out."
In the US, our armed citizenry is part of our liberty. This year, Charlie Kirk had the extreme misfortune to be part of the price.
But....mass shootings accounted for under 0.2% of gun deaths in the United States despite the intense media coverage on it over other forms of homicide.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_S...
True, and this is the point Charlie Kirk (it seems from the transcript of the comments) was about to make before he was killed.
I doubt he would have taken much comfort in knowing his death is a fascinating statistical anomaly.
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Who’s the media? I don’t follow a lot of news and I didn’t know Mr Kirk until last week.
People are in these media bubbles where they’re amped up all the time. Each side does a lot of name calling.
Each group boils it down to us vs them.
Who is "the media" in this context? MSNBC just let someone go for even suggesting Kirk deserved what happened. If anything, it seems at least mainstream media is very conservative about the labels it assigns to political speakers.
Here’s exactly what was said.
“”” “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd told anchor Katy Tur shortly after Kirk was shot at a Utah university Wednesday “””
Nb this was said when this was breaking, and they didn’t even know anyone had been shot yet.
It wasn’t her hearing he got shot in the neck and going “lol maybe it was celebratory gunfire and bad luck?”
Counterpoint: If Adolf Hitler had been killed while he was still in the giving speeches phase, the world would be a better place.
I wonder what Kirk would have thought about these firings.
I had never heard of the man before, but now his quotes and fragments of quotes are being weaponized on all fronts, making it hard to see what he actually believed.
You don’t have to rely on second-hand reporting, there’s no lack of material from the man himself to form an opinion from, like for example: https://www.youtube.com/@RealCharlieKirk/videos
I doubt Kirk believed in anything, but he was happy to say whatever would get him attention and keep his benefactors happy. He wasn't particularly ideologically consistent, though to be fair, Republicans of his time weren't either.
You don't need to wonder too hard. He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for. He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
He was not pro-free speech. It is not hard to see what he actually believed. Maybe it is right now with all of the news happening.
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
> He also said Medhi Hasan should be deported.
Apparently, Kirk said Hasan's visa should be revoked, as he was unaware of Hasan's citizenship. But Kirk also said in his rant to "get him off TV", which indicates that his instinctual reaction does include silencing people he disagrees with.
> According to its About page, it's for documentation only;
Sure, and all those trolls online are "just asking questions."
> According to its About page, it's for documentation only; "TPUSA will continue to fight for free speech and the right of professors to say whatever they believe".
Well that clears things up...
> He created the "Professor Watchlist". You can imagine what thats for.
Yes; it's for freely expressing the idea that the people on the list have expressed harmful ideas with their own freedom of speech.
Or, in at least one case (Eric Clanton), that they have committed serious physical violence for ideological reasons.
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Folks are added to the "Professor Watchlist" for everything ranging from being critical of Trump/MAGA to discussing institutional racism through the United States' history. Folks who wind up on the list routinely get harassed in person, online, and via direct calls/emails with racist and misogynist slurs as well as rape and death threats by Turning Point's followers.
We shouldn't care too much on what Kirk thought. Obviously it's horrible he was assassinated, but partisan hacks who make their living dividing people are not people we should try to emulate, even if they're dead. I'm sorry for his family and sorry for violence, but it's worrying how much people are demanding respect for him
Your comment seems critical of him.
So where is the line? What commentary on his death is acceptable and won’t get a person sacked or sanctioned from a government job?
I was talking with a friend about this and came to the conclusion that people in certain lines of work should be held to a higher standard when it comes to situations like this:
* government officials (as you say), members of federal agencies, civil servants etc.
* journalists
* healthcare workers and emergency services personnel
* educators
There may have been more on my list, but it doesn't come to mind at the moment.
All of these are places where a mindset that glorifies or justifies political violence and death seems like it would be an impediment to actually doing the job properly, which is the only thing that would make me accept "cancel culture". Others may be morally unjustified in "crossing the line", but should not lose their jobs for it.
For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone. The "stochastic terrorism" argument is especially insidious: it attempts to launder "speech" into "violence" (and thus justify "an eye for an eye" etc.) by hand-waving at some vague notion of, basically, extremely non-imminent incitement. The idea is that convincing a wide audience of people to have a more negative impression of a group stochastically increases the number of members of that group that will die to violence. But none of the dots are ever actually connected in this argument; and taken seriously and applied even-handedly, it would make basically any form of political discourse impossible.
Initially, I thought Matthew Dowd's comments (I had very little exposure to them) didn't fall into that category — that they were simply made in incredibly bad taste. But I looked up some more of the transcript and, yeah, I can't excuse that. Certainly he wasn't as aggressive about it as, say, some Bluesky users. But part of it does fundamentally boil down to making the "fuck around and find out" argument, and "finding out" is just not supposed to involve being shot and killed.
This is fundamental for me; see e.g. https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/svuBpoSduzhYjFPrA/elements-o... .
> For me, the line is drawn where anyone proposes that anything a person said justifies or excuses killing someone
It's really difficult. How do you apply this to government worker? Some are actively involved in killing people, foe example the military, (some) police, the judiciary in some jurisdictions, politicians. In places with a judicial death sentence it's acceptable to decide that someone deserve to die.
I spoke too briefly in spite of myself. Consider standard exemptions to apply: war combatants, people actively threatening your life, etc. I personally oppose the death penalty, but not strongly enough to deny other jurisdictions the right to impose it.
It's funny, because government officials, journalist, healthcare workers, and educators are exactly the kind of people Kirk attacked as a podcaster, and generally have been the primary targets of the MAGA right. Podcasters are apparently not high enough on the trust ladder to be held to a higher standard for what they say.
We are at a place where the president of the united states gets to mount an insurrection and pardon people who beat cops with the American flag then claim the opposition is "fostering violence"; gets to claim that educators are "grooming and indoctrinating kids", that journalists are the "enemy of the people", that government officials are the "enemy within". While those people on the left are expected to summarily disarm their rhetoric because they are in positions of trust. Sure but what about: gestures toward the president of the united states.
Or what about, I don't know, the world's richest man, Elon Musk? He has so much power and therefore responsibility. Why isn't he expected to speak with prudence and responsibility? He's on Twitter spouting off about how the left is "the party of murder" before anyone even knew anything.
AOC, Bernie, and Zohran are often labeled "radical left socialists", but they offered nothing but calls for peace and calm from them. Meanwhile Musk was calling them murderers! No one is going to fire him for that rhetoric!
So if you're going to demand accountability for words from people in positions of trust -- which to be clear I agree with -- let's be honest about the fact that some people are put in higher positions of trust, and some people should be, but for some reason (money/power) are not ever, never, not once held to account for what they say. So maybe if we want to actually change something as a society, we should stop doing the same thing, and instead hold people at the highest echelons of power responsible for the things they say and do.
I don't know the specifics about most of the firings. I think saying it's good someone was killed is inflammatory and not something people should do and expect no consequences. That MSNBC guy getting fired was ridiculous though. Kirk isn't suddenly due respect and zero criticism because he died.
Dowd didn't say that it was good, but did seem to agree that it was justified:
> Dowd responded by saying about about Kirk: “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in.”
(via https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/comcast-execs-criticize-...)
To me, that's approximately as bad.
That? That reads like “if you put a lot of hateful words out in the world you should expect it to lead to hateful action”. If anything this would be more relevant if Kirk inspired someone to kill any of the various groups he encouraged violence against. It doesn’t read at all like a justifying for killing him.
Proof by counterexample: It's good that Adolf Hitler died.
Is this the cancel culture people got so upset about?
Interview with the guy who was talking to kirk as he got shot: https://youtu.be/18FNK6ZNGuo?si=CcBpH4n1E90817cc
This is actually the interview medly that turned me off C5
It's hilarious watching the right wing embrace cancel culture now that they're in power. To be honest, I think most were waiting for a reason to go full mask off.
Trump started blaming the "radical left" before they had even caught someone. I'm still not convinced we have the persons full picture. Some of the terminology used hints at in-group memes from the "groypers"
He was also asked on a Fox News show what we need to do to avoid creating radicals on both sides and his response was the following:
If you wanted to unify, this isn't the way. Witch hunts and dog whistles certainly won't help.https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-doubles-blaming-radica...
It’s funny how we can see things so differently.
The same people on the left who say Kirk’s words brought a predictable response are now horrified when those very words bring an equally predictable response ( albeit a much lesser one ).
Rhetoric on social media must be deescalated. Let’s hope this is the start.
I didn't celebrate his death and I don't really care if people lose their jobs over doing it. I just find it hilarious that MAGA cried for so long over being "cancelled" and now they're doing it themselves.
> Rhetoric on social media must be deescalated. Let’s hope this is the start.
Right, because the President of the United States holding water for certain types of radicals and accusing one side without any evidence will be the start to that. It starts at the top.
So the government mandates it's okay to be insensitive about other people's deaths, all of which are horrific, just not this one. Got it.
anyone from the administration?
is it limited to people sharing a certain sentiment or common statement?
"Free speech for me and not for thee..."
Unlimited free speech for everyone, but consequences for saying things that harm or offend.
If you say "Democrats suck", don't expect them to buy your product. If you say "God doesn't exist," don't expect Christians to come to your business. If you say "I hate gays", expect to get fired from your medical clinic job.
Have free speech, but use it wisely.
Having free speech serves to diffuse social tension. It ensures we don't wind up as cattle, like in 1984. Just don't expect that you can praise the death of certain people and expect everyone to love you for it.
Maybe above all you should be kind. Regardless of your politics. Articulate what you don't like with your free speech, but don't be an asshole.
Unfortunately social media encourages fast engagement with little nuance, so we see a sewer instead of a noble land of open thought and debate.
But we shouldn't throw free speech out with the bath water.
Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government.
"Offend" is subjective, and US Citizens should not have punitive governmental consequences as a result.
But private organizations, should be able to make their own decisions on all the above.
> Harm in the physical sense, agreed. But "harm" newly defined 2013-2025 mutated into "speech I don't like" by the government.
By the government? I doubt that “speech is violence” comes from the government.
It's been amazing to watch the chair occupants change on this subject (free speech) in the last few years. I still remember "freeze peach" and https://xkcd.com/1357/
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1. I'm actually fine with people getting fired for openly celebrating or claiming murder is a good thing.
2. People getting fired for simply pointing out that Kirk is a victim of a system he helped build are getting fired, which is a completely different situation.
3. The Trump admiration openly going after people is infringing on freedom of speech.
This is a strange take. A right wing firebrand just got shot. How is this an example of an action having consequences against the left?
Relating to the topic of the article, lefties rejoicing in Kirk getting shot are getting doxed and losing their jobs. That was a tactic pioneered by the left over the past decade. Now the same tactic is being used against them.
I suspect the consequences they're referring to are the consequences the right is currently trying to manufacture consent for. Stochastic violence against the transgender community, the government proscribing leftist political orgs as terrorist groups, Trump sending the national guard into blue states to "crack skulls," that sort of thing.
Trump orders all flags in the nation at half mast and Kirk is being treated like a fallen statesman and hero, the State Department claiming it will revoke the visas of any immigrant who speaks negatively of Kirk, the breathless media coverage, Trump ranting about "leftist violence", the right wing's endless calls for violence and war on social media (going entirely unclamped-down upon,) and the narrative being created that Charlie Kirk was a peaceful intellectual scholar and activist of the likes of MLK Jr and Jesus Christ.
It's obvious a stage is being set here. And of course when whatever happens happens, it will be blamed on the left.
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That was mostly the case pre 2025.
We all have to fight to undo the Obama Smith-Mundt Modernization Act that allowed the executive branch to create domestic propaganda.
The only problem I have with this is:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/people-are-calling-o...
No reaction occurred when Melissa Hortman was killed to people doing the same thing as people are doing now with Kirk.
Edit: make things a little bit clearer, AFAIK, no one was fired due to their insensitive comments about her and her husband.
Huh? The link you posted shows that Trump condemned the shooting, calling it "horrific" and saying the shooter will prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. You're equating not flying flags at half mast, despite condemning the violence, to gloating over murder. You're trying to justify the gloating and celebration of violence and it's disgusting.
It is disgusting.
And it’s also free speech to gloat about it. Is it legal to sack someone who is gleeful?
The consensus on Hacker News was that New Zealand made an error blocking and banning the video of the Christchurch mosque shootings.
What’s the right way to handle these scenarios? Kirk was a free speech advocate with strong views on gun violence, further complicating things.
The 1st amendment doesn't protect your job, never has.
If you work for the government, shouldn't it?
This is exactly right. People get fired over social media posts all of the time. The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employers if they see fit though.
Do you mean ‘The 1st amendment absolutely gives people the right to boycott these employees if they see fit’.
Sorry, I’m not American so have little idea how it works.
No, I meant what I said.
I also did not agree against the legality of being fired for a social media post. It's been happening since social media first existed.
You also can't boycott an employee. I really don't know what point you are trying to make here.
I’m not trying to make a point. I was trying to understand if it’s legal to sack someone in the US if you don’t like their views and I didn’t read your comment carefully enough.
You cannot sack someone for their views.
But if you express them in a way that reflects badly on your employer, then you can be sacked.
I.e. if an airline pilot posts “That assassin didn’t get away, but his sacrifice was totally worth it” can expect to be dismissed. Nobody wants to fly with a guy with that attitude.
No, you can't fire someone for their views. That's 100% illegal, but given the track record of our current Supreme Court, I don't see that being the case for long.
Yes, in general a private employer can legally fire an employee for their political views. There are exceptions in some states, including California, New York, Colorado, North Dakota, that have protections for firing by political affiliation or activities, but that's the exception to the rule. Another exception applies to any public employee, since the first amendment applies to their employer.
The default employment rule is at-will, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited. Political affiliation is not a federally protected category.
> The default employment rule is at-will employment, meaning someone can be fired for any reason not explicitly prohibited.
Even then, in practice they can fire people for prohibited reasons, as long as it can't be proven that those reasons were used. Which in practice could be very difficult.
I guess I've been living in a free state for so long that I overlooked this fact.
This whole "Kirk was a free speech advocate" nonsense needs to stop. It wasn't true then, and it certainly isn't true now.
https://www.professorwatchlist.org
That website has a list of professors they claim were interfering with, educating against or are openly against free speech.
https://www.professorwatchlist.org/tags/anti-1st-amendment
I just randomly clicked one of the professors in that list:
- "Shaviro has been suspended after he posted on Facebook that it would be better for people to kill their political opponents than to protest them. In a now-deleted post, Shaviro wrote:"
- “So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”
That's straight from the website, which may or may not be accurate or true. The way it looks, is still about the way it looks given the larger context of the rest of its post.
It's particularly relevant given the recent events.
>This whole "Kirk was a free speech advocate" nonsense needs to stop.
That’s different. ‘They’ don’t have the right to say those things, but Kirk maintained his right to say what he liked.
> no one was fired due to their insensitive comments about her and her husband.
Who exactly made comments that attempted to justify or rationalize her death as a consequence of things she had said in the past?
And what does your article — which basically just establishes "Trump doesn't like Tim Walz and didn't consider Hortman's case as important" — have to do with that?
If you're referring to Senator Mike Lee's comment, I don't think it's anything of the sort. It comes across to me that Lee was speculating that the murderer was a "Marxist" (i.e., anyone he would consider more radical than Hortman). Political football, and offensive, sure. But not the same kind of thing. Besides which, can Senators be "fired"?
> Who exactly made comments that attempted to justify or rationalize her death as a consequence of things she had said in the past?
Well, gee, it sorta seems like that kind of behavior would be more prevalent when the person in question has actually said things in the past that support killing people.
Did Melissa Hortman say such things?
Did she found an entire organization dedicated to promoting bigotry, hate, and the inherent superiority of a particular "race"?
Did she make explicit statements that we should all be happy to accept some innocent deaths every year as a cost of unlimited access to firearms?
Because if she didn't say stuff like that, then it would be much, much less likely that anyone would even suggest that her words were in any way related to her death.
presumably she implicitly believes in tradeoffs because she hasn't campaigned to remove all motor vehicles from the road. surely, anyone arguing that cars should be allowed on the road when they are one of the leading causes of deaths is irredeemably evil and deserves to be mocked if they have the misfortune of dying in a car accident. Also, if Minnesota executed people for traffic violations then Hortman would not have been killed by Boetler. Surely, this means she is a hypocrite because she would not support such a policy.
> when the person in question has actually said things in the past that support killing people.
Charlie Kirk has said nothing of the sort, so none of this is relevant.
> Did she found an entire organization dedicated to promoting bigotry, hate, and the inherent superiority of a particular "race"?
Kirk's organization is not dedicated to anything of the sort.
> Did she make explicit statements that we should all be happy to accept some innocent deaths every year as a cost of unlimited access to firearms?
Kirk did not say anything about being happy about it; regardless this statement does not support killing people.
> it would be much, much less likely that anyone would even suggest that her words were in any way related to her death.
But anyway, this still doesn't matter. Suggesting that someone's words justified death is an absolute moral wrong no matter what those words were.
In Mr. Kirk's own words, "The “Great Replacement” is not a theory, it’s a reality." https://www.instagram.com/p/C3swagnvfbN/
"Great Replacement Theory" is an inherently racist ideology that ignores (in the context of the US) multiple centuries of history in favor of an idea that there's an "other" that is going to replace "real Americans." It is, perhaps, a stretch to claim that the organization he founded promoted bigotry, hate, or the superiority of a particular race... But it's not much of a stretch when the organization's founder and leader is making easily-verified racist statements such as this one.
> Suggesting that someone's words justified death is an absolute moral wrong no matter what those words were.
In general, I haven't seen people making the hard assertion online that his words justified his death and I would agree with you. But I have seen plenty of "I don't think Charlie Kirk should have died, but the philosophy Charlie Kirk espoused shouldn't care if Charlie Kirk died" and I don't think I can argue with that assessment of the legacy of his work.
> "Great Replacement Theory" is an inherently racist ideology
No, it is neither racist (edit: as described by Kirk) nor an ideology.
It's an accusation about the intentions of others, in a "the purpose of a system is what it does" kind of way (faulty logic — as I've argued on HN before — but not bigoted), based on observing demographic trends, the rate of immigration etc.
It is deeply conspiratorial thinking, but it does not claim that the people being "replaced" are inherently superior. Thus it is not racist even if we establish that the ingroup-outgroup distinction is racial, which already requires a quite broad conception of "race". (And Americans really are strange about that, in my opinion. There have been multiple occasions where I have been told that Americans generally consider a specific person to be "black" and I have deeply struggled to understand how that could be.)
It is perfectly legitimate to suppose that the existing population of a country has a greater right to continue to exist on that land, and for their offspring to live there, than those who are petitioning from abroad to live there. In fact, it's hard to argue that a legitimate nation exists, in a place that lacks a government trusted to determine questions of citizenship. Besides which, one individual's use of a term does not necessarily carry every other user's intent.
In brief, Kirk never argued that someone should be extradited, or lose citizenship, on the basis of race. Nor does that argument follow from anything he said.
And note that you have not at all addressed the point about "words that support killing people".
> In general, I haven't seen people making the hard assertion online that his words justified his death
I have been shown many people outright celebrating. This is not something that can be feasibly done by someone who has normal psychological aversion to death and doesn't consider the death justified.
> But I have seen plenty of "I don't think Charlie Kirk should have died, but the philosophy Charlie Kirk espoused shouldn't care if Charlie Kirk died"
I've seen plenty of messages that included the second part without the first part. But regardless, this reflects a plain misunderstanding of that philosophy.
Again, no pro-killing ideology here, outside of e.g. support for potentially-lethal police force to apprehend criminals in the act.
Kirk didn't advocate for merely an armed police force; he advocated for an armed citizenry. And he made clear his belief that the purpose of arming that citizenry is to fight the police if they try to impose tyranny. "The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government."
We don't yet know the motives of his killer, but it may be worth observing that it is an unfortunate consequence of Kirk's philosophy of liberty that, since nobody controls who the citizens define as part of the "tyranny," a so-armed individual can, of their own free will, conclude that the man who (by his own claims) was instrumental in electing a tyrant, supports that tyrant, is clearly in the inner circle of that tyrant (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c33r4kjez6no)... Is someone who needs to die.
Personally, I think that's repugnant and I hope the person who took the law into their own hands is constrained from further harming this society indefinitely. But I don't agree with Kirk's philosophy on the purpose, origins, or nature of the Second Amendment.
GRT is racist because it's essential premise is that America belongs to white people, who are not the "existing population of [the] country" in any objective sense independent of racist ideology. GRTs do not care how long you have been in the US; they only care if you are white. (So people with indigenous ancestry and the great great grandchildren of slaves can go take a hike.)
Murder and political assassination are deeply wrong, but are you sure you really want to go down the rabbit hole of GRT apologism to make your point about that?
> GRT is racist because it's essential premise is that America belongs to white people, who are not the "existing population of [the] country" in any objective sense independent of racist ideology. GRTs do not care how long you have been in the US; they only care if you are white. (So people with indigenous ancestry and the great great grandchildren of slaves can go take a hike.)
Feel free to show me the part where Kirk macro-expanded the thought and asserted anything about whiteness having anything to do with a legitimate claim to residency.
I don't think he has said anything like that.
Part of the reason I don't think he has is that I was literally just watching an extended clip in which he directly addressed a legal Mexican immigrant and asserted unequivocally that the distinction he intended to draw was not based on race or nationality, but on following the immigration rules.
> are you sure you really want to go down the rabbit hole of GRT apologism
The large majority of people I have seen labelled as subscribing to this theory had, upon examination, views like Kirk's, and not ones consistent with racial supremacy. If you're going to say that the theory requires such an attitude, then you are not working with the same definitions as the person ascribing the theory to Kirk, assuming intellectual honesty. I responded to a person using a definition compatible with Kirk's ideology, using arguments compatible with what the evidence says about Kirk's ideology. To conflate this is to commit the "worst argument in the world" i.e. the noncentral fallacy (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/yCWPkLi8wJvewPbEp/the-noncen...).
Edit: I find it rather amazing that someone managed to downvote me in less time than it would have taken to read and properly understand the comment. My understanding is that downvotes are not available downthread when you're having a back-and-forth, so this must have come from a third party that somehow happened to come across this immediately, 8 comments deep.
What are you talking about, tons of people were asking for the guy to get investigated and his manifesto to be released.
At least on X/Twitter.
I for one do not want an airline pilot that praises an assassin, or my child to have a teacher that mocks people in mourning.
I do have political opinions, but I try very hard to stay back from a line that would mark my words as unprofessional. Social media has normalized behavior that would have brought termination instantly 10 years ago.
The firings are regrettable, but if they lead to more civil public interactions they are worth it.
Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
I don't think you should be pre-judging Luigi Magione. Is there no respect for people's rights to a fair trial these days?
So what do you do? Ban that sort of talk and speech?
No just make it clear that it is not tolerated in a civilised society. Well done to the guardian for challenging that idea. It takes a unique kind of courage to stick up for people who like political assassinations in todays day and age. I'm really impressed at their progressiveness that they are concerned about the rights of even such contempible people. Someone needs to look out for them. People calling for violence are one of the most suppressed groups, they deserve a platform.
What of the violence advocated by Kirk himself?
Even in the cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes I see Kirk's detractors throwing around these discussions, I have seen nothing that advocates violence, except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
There are quite a few to be found if you look around.
From Wikipedia: On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
Sounds plenty violent to me. I'd have to agree with those who say there are grounds for seeing Kirk as someone who frequently advocated for violence.
>From Wikipedia: On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
Was it clear 2 days before Jan 6 that it was going to be violent, or does this hinge on the "fight" wording?
>On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
See: >except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
I think it’s prodding people to do something dangerous and illegal and a risk to democracy herself, and I’m not really sure what else it could be.
(Why… would Trump hold a rally in DC on that particular day to begin with? And why did he and other speakers choose to say what they did? None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks in ways that it don’t think it would in any analogous situation that didn’t involve partisan politics)
> What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
The same, non-violent thing that it means in the stock phrase "fight for your rights".
> None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks
Other people are not unaware of the possible connotations you describe. They have evaluated the evidence for themselves and concluded that those connotations were not intended.
I think it's easy for people to forget sometimes because the interface doesn't make it particularly obvious that much of social media is screaming from a soapbox in some of the world's largest agoras.
The interface makes it feel like you're having a polite conversation among like-minded folk. In reality, you're like one of those folks on a street corner with a megaphone and most of the time the rest of the world isn't listening to you. But they can tune you in anytime they want, and there can be consequences for holding a strong opinion incompatible with the strong opinion of other people you will be wanting to do business with.
... That of course includes this medium. Watch what you say today everyone, your future and current employers are reading Hacker News.
They're just showing them the door: https://xkcd.com/1357/
The people getting fired have shown themselves to be exactly the types of people Popper warned about in his Paradox of Tolerance: they "begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols."
These vigilantes are just socially (and constitutionally!) doing what Popper said to do when faced with those that teach people to answer arguments with bullets: "We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal."
Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. It's called being a decent human being. As we say in America, if there’s a terrorist at the table and 10 other people sitting there talking to him, you got a table with 11 terrorists.
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Please don't post flamebait or inflammatory rhetoric on HN. The guidelines are clear about this:
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
Eschew flamebait. Avoid generic tangents. Omit internet tropes.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234112 and marked it off topic.
This is a talking point I have seen repeated constantly throughout the discussion. It does not accurately represent the point being made, as explained in the sibling comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45234349 .
I actually have witnessed the concept of empathy used on many occasions for a sort of rhetorical abuse, by alternately demanding it of people and then denying that they are fundamentally capable of it in a given situation due to identity differences. In the literal sense, empathy requires (https://www.simplypsychology.org/sympathy-empathy-compassion...) a deeper understanding of negative emotions based in "putting oneself in another's shoes"; but many will argue that this simply can't be properly done.
A simple example is that men are accused of lacking "empathy" for women who feel endangered in social/dating circumstances where the man might feel empowered. But we simply cannot spontaneously change our perspective on a given circumstance. (And, of course, it is treated as offensive to turn the example around; but that's another discussion.)
Indeed, your empathy is not being expected here by anyone. But your sympathy is. You are being expected to treat murder as a crime and the loss of a healthy adult life as a tragedy. Kirk had many ideas about how people should go about their lives that you might strongly disagree with, or even consider unconscionable. He also had many ideas about the reality of how businesses and other institutions operate, or about what is fair in that context, similarly.
But from what I can tell, nothing he ever said rose to the level of supposing that ending someone's life is an appropriate response to that person having the wrong ideas. (And the bit you're quoting is so incredibly far from that, that it's hard to assume good faith when people make this argument.)
His killer apparently disagreed. And many people on social media also seem to disagree, although they haven't taken action on it.
> I would argue that the only people we do not owe empathy to are those who oppose empathy, as Kirk did.
The full quote said that instead of empathy one should think about sympathy. However, with the full quote the argument looks weak.
Edit: here is a link https://m.youtube.com/shorts/vojXvj2B6RI
Does that, in your mind, apply to everyone? For example, would it be okay to execute a few of the people people who protested in support of Oct 8 just when it happened, long before there was any reaction?
I would also like to point out there is a very large difference between firing and killing. So no, people getting fired is not somehow equivalent to a killing.
There are incredible numbers of people who support, even celebrate deaths. And we're not even talking about the other difficulties, like perspective (e.g. the death of a Russian father fighting in Ukraine, do you celebrate or mourn?)
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I understand your distress, but this is not an appropriate way to point out the issue with the argument.
I'm just sick of lies and propaganda like this leading to the brutal murder of people. Actual brutal murder, not imagined.
Sure, but the HN guidelines apply to us all, no matter who or what you're commenting about. If someone else posts a comment that's against the guidelines, flag it and/or email us (hn@ycombinator.com ). If you disagree with it, respond in a way that is within the guidelines, or don't respond at all, please.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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I mean, TikTok was made illegal by congress many, many months ago. Charlie supported this.
He also somehow supported the president "saving" TikTok, and was one of the most prominent influencers on the platform.
Seems really easy to solve this problem. Follow the law. The president must love the CCP or something.
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Do you have any detailed thoughts on what these people should have done or said, and what they actually did or said?
This seems like you are feeling quite offended -- to judge (now ex?) friends as "inhuman", and to further alienate them by labeling them as "liberals".
That's certainly over-stating the situation, no?
This is the same train of thought as the murderer, and all the right-wing examples of praising murder/violence.
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The 4th Amendment prevents police from conducting searches without a warrant. There are criminals who are going to escape detection because of that, and there are known criminals who go free because of that, and every year some of those criminals are going to commit murder and other crimes that they would not have been able to commit if it weren't for the 4th Amendment. And the 4th Amendment is not the only other amendment in the Bill of Rights that makes it harder to catch and prosecute criminals.
Is it worth it to have a cost of some deaths every year so that we can have the Bill of Rights? Yes, it is. If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
> If you think that makes me callus, you need to develop a thicker skin.
Since GP also made the typo, I don't know if/to what extent a joke was intended here.
(The adjective, here intended to mean "emotionally hardened", is "callous". A callus (noun) is a region of literal thickened skin. Although "callous" can also literally refer to skin which has calluses.)
Then perhaps people who share that point of view need to develop a thicker skin now that Kirk is part of the cost.
Do you think the same thing about "give me liberty or give me death?"
"...cost of unfortunately..." Is that not clear? The context was he was responding about a question about the 2nd amendment. clearly the first order thinking would make it clear it's not the rule, it's the purpose of the rule that's important.
The purpose is so you don't get arrested for some social media comment or other rights, like what is happening in the UK right now.
Well now he's one of those unfortunate sacrifices. I guess it had to happen, nothing we could do about it besides send hopes and prayers I guess.
I didn't like or respect the guy but really that is probably the most reasonable thing he ever said (other than release the Epstein Files), if you believed the 2nd Amendment is important to have then you are essentially arguing for some gun deaths every year.
Note: I believe the 2nd Amendment is really the proof that the founding fathers weren't the super geniuses the mythology has them as, but hey, too late now.
Pretty much everything out of the guys mouth was either stupid or horrible. This just happens to be one of the most relevant to the current conversation
The only reason we look at the 2nd Amendment as we do today is because of the NRA.
The founding fathers had vastly different ideas for drafting the 2nd.
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> All that said,
So, basically, what you are saying is "it is bad to celebrate the death of people, but...".
So, you have to choose what to be: a person who is fine with political violence, or someone who is against any sort of political violence.
You are purposely misinterpreting what he wrote. He said that it doesn’t matter how you die, it shouldn’t whitewash you. If you were radical and widely considered dangerous to the fabric of society, your death doesn’t magically absolve you of that or erase everything you said while alive.
Sorry if you misunderstood, it is a nuanced take, I'm saying acknowledging one as a terrible person in response to flowery embellishments of their life isn't celebrating that death. My statement wasn't about political violence, rather, we shouldn't be punishing people for pointing out the false depiction of the dead. I think ideally we all should be mature enough to both mourn the loss of a human and also acknowledge who they really were.
> I think ideally we all should be mature enough to both mourn the loss of a human and also acknowledge who they really were.
I have a nice little trick for it: when you go to a funeral of a person in your family, or close to your family, who was an asshole, I bet you won't be saying to other people "yeah, sad, very sad. But, please remember, he was an asshole". Right? I would not -- not the time, nor the place.
Yes, Kirk is not a family (probably not yours, and definitely not mine), but the same standard of being polite and reasonable person should apply.
These people aren't at a funeral, they are online, responding to false glorifications of him. These comments obviously aren't directed at the family but the news publications and media's handling of his passing. If that's not the appropriate space for that criticism when/where is it? Just after the public not ever knowing their real action's in life have moved on with a false glorified image of the person, move on and aren't paying attention anymore?
> the same standard of being polite and reasonable person should apply.
I'm curious how standard this "standard" is, did you (and the rest of America) mourn the death of Osama bin Laden? Did you express condolences to his family and try to remember him by the positive things he did in life?
> I'm curious how standard this "standard" is, did you (and the rest of America) mourn the death of Osama bin Laden? Did you express condolences to his family and try to remember him by the positive things he did in life?
Perhaps I missed the part where Charlie Kirk organized a group of guys to hijack a bunch of planes with civilians on board, and then crash them into buildings.
On a serious note, if you cannot see a difference between these two, I have no idea what to say.
Let me be more specific, how much division, hatred, pain, and violence does a person have to be responsible for before it's socially acceptable to express an opinion that the world is better off without them?
How much before it's okay to party on the streets after learning about their death?
Clearly there's a difference in magnitude between Kirk and bin Laden, but both were merchants of hate and violence, so where's the line?
If people are whitewashing his history then it's to be expected that other people will speak out to set the record straight. That's how free speech works and trying to silence it on the basis of "decorum" is dishonest and manipulative.
> Clearly there's a difference in magnitude between Kirk and bin Laden, but both were merchants of hate and violence, so where's the line?
To answer this question, we would have to first agree on the term "hate", and what does it mean to be a "merchant of hate". Then, we examine the evidence, and arrive to the conclusion.
So, what is "hate"? What is "merchant of hate"? Why Kirk, in your view, was one?
We aren't at his funeral and he's a public figure. It was Voltaire who said "We owe respect to the living; to the dead we owe only truth". I tend to agree. He's a public figure, he's fair game to criticise. He didn't magically become a good guy by virtue of having been murdered. If I were somehow at his funeral, I'd absolutely show respect and not mention all the weird and nasty as fuck shit he said.
Fred Rogers getting shot would have been a lot worse, and great mourning of his passing more justified, than Charles Manson getting shot. Clearly this is neither of those cases, but, as clearly, we don’t regret the murder of every famous person equally, even if we would rather the murder hadn’t happened in each case.
The canonization effort around an only-known-in-certain-circles propagandist has been utterly bizarre to watch. Air Force 2 escort? What, pardon me, the fuck.
[edit] I’ll add that the fawning wall-to-wall treatment and coverage has been especially wild to watch when it occurs so close, time-wise, to a murderer with a kill-list shooting two democratic politicians in their homes, killing one of them plus a spouse (and a dog, as everyone always seems to add) before being stopped, which news was so barely-covered and left the news cycle so fast (and saw the same kind of callousness from the right that they’re now perceiving from the left, including, as always when it’s this guy, from the President of the United States) that, when I’ve brought it up or seen it brought up after this event, it’s been easy to find people who didn’t even know it happened.
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Yes. Yes, it is a tragic event. Apart from it being simply morally utterly reprehensible, it is an extremely primitive and counter-productive way to fight against ideas and the messengers of those ideas.
Again, morally reprehensible and it doesn't fucking work. It only shows 'the other side is just as bad/worse', turns the messenger into a martyr, and galvanizes support.
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> What is actually tragic is that spreading lies, as he did
Unlike many others, he invited anyone to the mic to prove him wrong. Hardly qualifies as lying. Anyone could have gotten to the mic and debate him. Sure, you may don't like his beliefs, but there is a huge difference between lying, and defending (even incorrect and unfounded) claims in public.
Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
Let me document five very serious lies from him:
1. On Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble, Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose.
2. Ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, Kirk spread falsehoods about voter fraud, and immediately after Trump lost the 2020 election, Kirk promoted false and disproven claims of fraud in the election.
3. Kirk called the public health measure of social distancing prohibitions in churches a "Democratic plot against Christianity".
4. In the 2020s, Kirk was a Christian nationalist who called the separation of Church and state in the United States a "fabrication".
5. Appearing at a Trump campaign rally in 2024, he said: "This is a Christian state. I'd like to see it stay that way."
There are innumerable more. For the record, the February 2023 Brookings Institution study found Kirk's podcast contained the second-highest proportion of false, misleading, and unsubstantiated statements among 36,603 episodes produced by 79 prominent political podcasters. [1]
Contrast it with the way in which truth is actually spread; it is by citing good-quality references.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/09/technology/podcasts-steve...
> Even if he believed that himself, anyone who came to the stage to dispute him would receive death threats. Read the audience. He knew what he was doing.
This is far fetched. People who have sent the death threats are lunatics. If the number of people who are sending death threats is our new standard for the quality and importance of debates, then we should simply stop the debates. There are always unhinged people around. Where does it leave us?
> Let me document five very serious lies from him:
Sure. Some are maybe lies, some are his opinions, some are misleading claims, and the rest are his own beliefs. Still, anyone could have went in front of the mic and debated him for it. In my opinion, someone is a liar when they have a platform to lie, and no way for the public to engage, debate, and correct them. While Kirk's beliefs are very far from my own (e.g., I do not believe that election was stolen), I still think that what he did is needed today: speaking your mind, and being open to be challenged in public.
In fact I am not sure if he spoke any truths.
It is bewildering how the Republican voters don't realize that the party cares exclusively about those who fund the party, not about those who vote for it. The votes are gained exactly on the basis of lies. If the party actually cared for its voters, it would send all the non-immigrant work-visa employees back home immediately if they don't have a PhD degree in their field of work.
In effect, politics is ruled and ruined by money.
What we need is for politicians to not keep labeling their opposition with violent rhetoric. Everything from punch a Nazi, to death to communism, we've got to get the violent rhetoric out of politics. Too many unstable people.
Both sides have their nut cases. And you can’t actually restrict nut case speech with our current constitution at least, you can’t even prevent them from being elected.
How do you apply what you’re saying?
Apply it to current US politicians. Who is doing this, how do you stop them?
Didn’t the President of the United States say he didn’t care about bringing the people together, and has wished violence upon people who don’t support him politically?
Where do you think this comes from, and, rather than arm ourselves with similarly martial language, we should be expected simply to lie flat?
Ridiculous.
Such a powerful message Trump sent when the very first thing he did in January after the inauguration was to pardon the people who tried to murder his vice president and did beat cops with an American flag. He pardoned people convicted in a court of law of seditious conspiracy against the United states. That was a permission slip.
So I agree, there's a direct line from the political violence on J6, to the political violence we see today. If there is any lingering doubt, the the message from the President is clear: he literally said he doesn't consider violence from the right to be a problem. Right wing extremists are just people trying to reduce what they see as crime, according to him.
Therefore we will see more of it.
I was borderline, almost, kinda, 10% rethinking whether I was actually wrong to label MAGA fascists.
Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
I mean, that’s literal Nazi shit. They say literal Nazi shit, this isn’t isolated. What do you call it? WTF. Elon sieg-heils twice at the inauguration and they don’t disown him. What is it going to take before we get folks who still think calling them fascists is the problem, actually, to blame the party that twice elected a guy president who told his supporters they could shoot his opponent if she won?
> Then Kilmeade (multi-decade Fox News host) just casually dropped “we should lethal inject homeless people who refuse help” a day or two ago, and his co-hosts didn’t even miss a beat.
See:
* https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-friends/fox-news-host-menta...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kilmeade
"...or you know, involuntary lethal injections. Just kill em." -Brian Kilmeade, Fox and Friends
Yeah, it was an escalating suggestion from what another host had put on the table, which was the once-far-right “if they refuse help, lock them up” (the missing step here that someone from the left-leaning-middle would want to perform, is being curious about why homeless people refuse help and seeing if that’s something we can address without the very-expensive and sharply illiberal [classical sense] step of imprisoning them) but I guess now we have to call that moderate right because even the part of the far right that’s within Fox News’ window is saying “do Nazi stuff”.
Granted, you’ve been hearing little suggestions like this for a long time from ordinary republican voters, if you’ve been in their spaces much, but hearing it from a host on the most popular “news” station in the country, with neither of his co-hosts even pausing to go “uh, haha, wait now” is… something else.
> hearing it from a host on the most popular “news” station in the country, with neither of his co-hosts even pausing to go “uh, haha, wait now” is… something else.
Meanwhile, another Fox News host has been promoted to Secretary of "War", and is busy drone striking random boats and straight up murdering people.
While yet another Fox News host has been charging people with crimes that juries refuse to indict because they're so preposterous.
It seems we have a serious problem with Fox News hosts and podcaster bros running this government and directing policy. Remember, Fox News isn't just talking to its audience -- it's talking to the President, he watches religiously. He pays more attention to them than all his cabinet and advisors combined.
The most disconcerting thing about this murder is that it seems like the killer was relatively normal beyond being excessively involved in online politics. In many of these things there's fairly obvious symptoms of major mental illness, or at the minimum it's some guy who's basically way down out in life. This was a young seemingly smart guy who just decided to throw his life away, and murder somebody else, probably as a result of spending way too much time in online circle jerks.
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Have you actually watched any of his content? Like many I'd literally never even heard of him until today, and now I'm watching his videos. [1]
He was going into generally extremely liberal areas and willing to openly debate and discuss his generally conservative and Christian values in 'real time', while encouraging his opponents to use the internet, chat bots, and whatever else they might like to try to get a zinger off on him. And it was real debate - not the media/talk show nonsense where two people just scream at and interrupt each other, with no real debate happening. He happily let people go off on their monologues before responding, and without resorting to typical fallacies you see online like ad hominem, straw-manning, etc.
I don't really agree with a lot of his values, but I think he is an absolute icon in terms of how political discussions should happen. This is how democracy, debate, and more broadly - an Open Society should work, and he was killed for pursuing this. If this isn't the path forward for debate in society, then what is?
[1] - https://www.youtube.com/@RealCharlieKirk
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022
If you hear these words and think "This man just wants a nice civil debate" you are probably new to being a human being.
Good takes. He will he missed.
I see no reason whatsoever to believe that he had any such intent. He simply had strongly held opinions that you and others find disagreeable.
Having strongly held opinion on who lives and who dies are petty heavy opinions one might say, correct? Like just pushing the opinion on whether Palestine should or should not be wiped out means that you are advocating for the lives/deaths of one group of people or another?
I'm not saying people should necessarily die for their opinions. But it shouldn't come as a surprise that if your opinion, and the political policies you push for, literally result in the life or death of someone's family members, then those people may have very strong reactions to that.
Like if there was an entire town of purple people and I went around saying I want all people purple people to be killed, should I be surprised if purple people might want to cause violence towards me? I mean, I'm just debating and using words, right? But those words an debates are literally about the lives and deaths of other people.
> Like just pushing the opinion on whether Palestine should or should not be wiped out means that you are advocating for the lives/deaths of one group of people or another?
Can you show me a video/article/blog post where he said that Palestinians should be wiped out? I would like to see/read it myself.
Are you looking for something where he literally says "wiped out"? Or are you looking for his stance that it doesn't and shouldn't exist? I'm not a follower of Charlie Kirk or his positions and I don't support any violence against him. However, finding his position on Israel and Palestine is a very simple google search away. You can hear it from his own mouth right here:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DOd0yN_jKVs/
How did this interaction end? Why do you show a short scene from a potentially long discussion?
This one looks like a rage bait more than anything. Pretty equivalent to taking a phrase out of context, and then claiming whatever suits your narrative.
My point was that many of the "debates" Charlie Kirk was having were about who lives and who dies in the world. Doing so publicly with the intent of swaying policy and elections. And the fact that the topics being discussed with "just words" are really discussion of life and death. You seem to be trying to say that these debates weren't really about who lives and dies.
You asked for evidence of this. I provided you an example of him literally telling someone from Palestine that the place they live doesn't exist and was not owned by him or his people.
I mean, do you think the follow up to this conversation results in the gentleman he is "debating" to walk away happily and change his views on whether Palestine exists? Because that seems to be what you're insinuating. You seem to be saying, that either his debates really weren't about the lives and deaths of others. Or that his opinions and policies were really "the right thing to do" and people on the other side just didn't understand that yet.
> You asked for evidence of this. I provided you an example of him literally telling someone from Palestine that the place they live doesn't exist and was not owned by him or his people.
You took a part of the conversation and showed it to me. Show me the whole thing, and not a rage bait piece potentially taking out of context.
I've seen your comments elsewhere and you're not arguing in good faith. You're doing a "no true scottsman" argument when you know full well there is plenty out there. But nothing will convince you.
For you it seems like unless there is a video where Charlie Kirk is telling a soldier to pull the trigger and kill somebody directly, you won't be convinced. It's the same argument that Charles Manson shouldn't be guilty because it was just his opinions that caused people to be killed.
> I've seen your comments elsewhere and you're not arguing in good faith.
What? Why?
What you did with your example is that you took a 60 second snippet from a conversation and use it to prove your point. I am not buying this because taking things out of context does not constitute a proof. An example would be saying that Charlie Kirk thought that empty is invented concept (a lot of people repeat it), while in fact if you watch the full video where he said that, you would know that his position was that sympathy is a better choice of a word. Now, when you learn this you realize that a single quote without a context means nothing.
This is why I am asking you to show me context.
We started this conversation when you mentioned strong opinions on who should live or die. Then, you proceeded with an example of wiping out Palestinians. Then you said that he said it "doesn't and shouldn't exist". To prove your point, you showed a short cut from a much longer discussion. I am willing to engage with you on the merits of the evidence you provide, but I think we should conduct this discussion based on the full video, and not a piece that was cut out for a rage bait articles or tweets.
This is why. In the other reply to me you said "This is a silly example: beauty is subjective. Thus, what you are doing you are insulting a person, and of course there are consequences for that." So you clearly understand that insulting people can have consequences. I take your combined arguments to either be that everything Kirk said was objective (as if it being objective would automatically mean people can't be insulted). Or nothing that he said should have insulted anyone and therefore should not have consequences.
If you can't find quotes in context made by Kirk that people would find insulting, then that is a search issue. Does that mean he should have been killed? Absolutely not. But again, it is quite obvious that saying things that insult people can lead to consequences. And those consequences can vary because people vary.
His material’s all over the internet. So. May everyone go see for themselves.
I have spent considerable time doing this.
None of it has given me any reason to believe he had the intent of inciting rage.
The specific quotes people are spamming in these discussions especially don't convince me.
> His material’s all over the internet. So. May everyone go see for themselves.
Can you provide an example of his material where he incites rage? I am curious to see.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...
The are a dozen or so here.
He promoted the “Great Replacement Theory” (a “fact” as he characterized it) which is plainly a violent-radicalizing notion, with a long violent-radicalizing history and recent examples of violence done in its name.
He promoted 2020 election denial conspiracies. Moves to mess with due process for voting, or to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power (say, promoting coup attempts) are some of the gravest threats to peace possible in a democracy, as far as speech goes. Lying about such, is right up there.
[edit] sources easily searchable if you have the topics, letting people pick their own works better if search turns them up pretty easily, that way there’s no worry that I’m choosing clips out of context or something.
> sources easily searchable if you have the topics,
So, you made a claim. I asked you for an example of a material that you based your claim on, and instead of backing up your claim you are sending me to find a source that will prove it?
> letting people pick their own works better if search turns them up pretty easily, that way there’s no worry that I’m choosing clips out of context or something.
What is the source material, a video, or a text, that you based your claims on? Is there a chance that you actually never saw the source material yourself?
Actually all I did originally was note that it’s pretty easy to find primary sources in this case. If you don’t care, though, then don’t.
Hm. I tried to google for "things that prove yepitwas' claims about Charlie Kirk", but nothing came up.
I assume you never seen anything like that yourself, but rather read a tweet or two that claim that it happened, and you go off of it.
It would have taken you a lot less time to type “Charlie Kirk great replacement theory fact” into a search box and find his own words than to post on here over and over pretending both to give a shit and like you don’t know how to use a search engine.
> It would have taken you a lot less time to type “Charlie Kirk great replacement theory fact” into a search box
It shows me a bunch of links to various websites. So, which one was the one that you've read/watched to inform your opinion?
Kirk’s own words, you ass. His own actual words. Which you’d have found by now if you weren’t a troll.
You have to click on the links and read, HTH.
> You have to click on the links and read, HTH.
You see, I can find some link and read them, but then I may come back and challenge you on what you've said. However, since I've read a different source (not the one you've read/watched), then we are going to find ourselves in a situation where we arguing about different things. To avoid this, people typically cite their references. So, you are not willing to do so, which makes me believe that you never actually read/watched a source material yourself, and best case scenario it was a tweet.
I have no idea why you resort to name-calling, it does not look good on you.
Dude(tte) you’re on HN in 2025 and pretended not to understand how to google. Assuming trolling and that it was pretending is the generous reading of that.
you're still burying your head in the sand.
you realize it too.
No. Many people have shown me reasons they think I should believe it. In every single case, it has been plain and obvious to me that it's nothing of the sort.
Disagreeing with you is not avoiding anything.
To "realize" something, it would have to be true.
“Prove me wrong”
Not going to engage, but you are absolutely burying your head in the sand, bud.
> Not going to engage
Then commenting to repeat yourself is obnoxious and unproductive conduct.
> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
> Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.
> Kirk earned a living by intentionally inciting rage
By siting in a tent with "Prove me wrong" poster, inviting people to debate him, and then posting it on the internet?
How is that "inciting rage"?
Let's not kid ourselves here. The arguments being made were often opinions on whether one set of people should be killed and another side being saved. For example, by stating the opinion that we should cut funding for Ukraine means that Ukrainian will die as a result. Saying thousands of people should be fired from their lifelong jobs in the federal government means you have had major and long-standing impacts to entire families (and there have been many suicides as a result. You can go on and on like this (Israel/Palestine for example).
Yes, these are just opinions and debate. But these are opinions and debates about the lives and deaths of real people. That doesn't justify him being killed, I don't support his killing in any way. But you can't just debate who lives and dies and push policy one way or another and then be shocked that the people being impacted by those opinions or decisions are going to want to cause violence towards you.
> But you can't just debate who lives and dies and push policy one way or another and then be shocked that the people being impacted by those opinions or decisions are going to want to cause violence towards you.
I am a bit confused. Are you saying that now we should stop debate hot topic because opinions/claims we voice during those debates can impact people and cause them to commit violence towards us?
Are you serious?
I think you're confusing a few things here. I think you would agree that opinions exist on a spectrum from minimal impact to maximum impact. I could say I have an opinion on my preferred type of ramen noodles and people may disagree, but ultimately, it's not changing anyone's life and killing people. And on the other side of the spectrum you have things that cause harm to people. Like racism, genocide, etc.
If I use my words and political influence to support say genocide, is that a bad thing? Because you could say it is a debate we should have, right? It's just words. But topics like this mean people are literally dying. Having an opinion, especially have a strong public opinion, that people in Gaza should me evacuated, starve to death, etc. Isn't really just words. You're literally arguing those people should be displaced, eradicated, starved, etc.
You are expecting people who are the victims and supporters of death and destruction to be rational. To use words to "debate" their points. That's like arguing Israel/Hamas should be debating until there is a "winner" and the other side concedes. When in reality, there are generations of hate and anger. Neither side is really interested in a debate. And there is likely no realistic solution that either side with peacefully support. But make no mistake, this debate result in the deaths of others. People are literally dying and starving. Just because you in particular are not in that position doesn't mean you words about have no meaning. This is a person using influence to change political policy and elections. To literally choose who lives and who dies.
If you dropped into Gaza right now and tried to "debate" someone that Israel is correct, you might get some resistance, no? It's even highly likely you would meet some violence. This is pretty obvious to most of us. Didn't your parent tell you not to discuss religion or politics in certain settings? These are heated topics with histories of violence. It's disingenuous to think you can make strong public statement on those topics and not meet strong resistance in the least, and violence at the worst.
Now, it shouldn't be this way. And I wish it wasn't. But as long as military's exist and you have people willing to kill to make their points instead of debating, then that is just reality. It's like trying to debate a hornets nest and being surprised that bees aren't particularly interested in debates.
> I think you're confusing a few things here.
I think you are. Opinions are opinions. Incitement for violence is incitement to commit violence.
Completely different things.
I guess in your world, there are no opinions that incite violence. Even if those opinions are that violence should occur. Which, unless you live in a vacuum is simply not how the world works. Why don't you walk into your local bar tonight and walk up to each couple. Tell the male that in your opinion his wife/girlfriend is ugly. Surely you're not going to incite any violence. It's just your opinion man, you should just be debated.
> I guess in your world, there are no opinions that incite violence. Even if those opinions are that violence should occur.
I am a bit confused. An opinion that states that a violence towards particular group should happen is an incitement for violence.
> Tell the male that in your opinion his wife/girlfriend is ugly. Surely you're not going to incite any violence. It's just your opinion man, you should just be debated.
This is a silly example: beauty is subjective. Thus, what you are doing you are insulting a person, and of course there are consequences for that.
Inducing rage and anger is what algorithms on social networks are optimized for. So we are sooner or later getting governments to regulate almighty algorithms driving social networks of today.
“facts don’t care about your feelings”
Putting aside that this kind of pithy quotation isn't contributing to productive discourse, it comes from Shapiro, not Kirk.
Can we flag this post? It doesn't add value to the platform.
PS: Take a deep breath before you reply. Don't let me ruin your day.
This is much more reasonable than getting fired over questioning mass experimental gene therapy or smiling in a photo with a Native American, or making the "ok' hand sign. Or ...
"or making the "ok' hand sign."
You just discovered why dog whistles exist.
"The entire scuba diving community is fascist!"
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