The Charlie Kirk Thread

dukeman92 said:
Zenmode? 💯
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Eh, I wouldn't say that. If I was forced to guess, his wife is just like most of us around here and he says the things to us that would get him divorced at home. This is his place to vent what he can't say there but desperately wants to. Again, just my guess.
 
1moretimeagain said:
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I'm sure JD plans on making a calm and rational plea to a divided nation to lower the temperature and work harder to see each other as all Americans, not as members of opposing political, ethnic, or religions tribes.

LOL just kidding he's going to spend the whole time calling the left godless evil commies who are brainwashing good young conservative kids into angry psycho killers. Well except for the time he spends extolling Charlie Kirk as the perfect Christian husband, father, and person (which is why, of course, the evil left hates him)
 
akillesheel said:
It's telling that you had to pivot to Trump saying "the 2020 election was stolen" instead of the example I gave, which was a summation of right-wing politicians and other high-profile figures actually inciting violence.

There is a huge difference between rhetoric that is negatively polarizing and rhetoric that is explicitly violent. Politics have been full of the former since they were invented. Only one side does the latter.
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You're going to claim there is a big difference, but when Trump repeatedly says "They're stealing your country. Your vote doesn't count", etc, even without a single word that can be labeled as violent, it's still going to impact people's behavior over time. The same is true with the non-violent rhetoric from the Left. Van Jones set the tone when he called Trump's win a "white lash" and that same type of mostly non-violent rhetoric continued, unabated, for nearly a decade.
 
sringwal said:
I'm curious where you are going with this. Are you implying that Vance and Gutfeld have changed their views? Or are you implying that they are both grifting by pretending to have done so?
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JD Vance was opposed to Donald Trump when he believed it benefitted his personal ambition to oppose him. He then began supporting Donald Trump when he believed it benefitted her personal ambition to do that.
 
ZenMode said:
You're going to claim there is a big difference, but when Trump repeatedly says "They're stealing your country. Your vote doesn't count", etc, even without a single word that can be labeled as violent, it's still going to impact people's behavior over time. The same is true with the non-violent rhetoric from the Left. Van Jones set the tone when he called Trump's win a "white lash" and that same type of mostly non-violent rhetoric continued, unabated, for nearly a decade.
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well attacking the Capitol is 1-0 and not bosideable.

There we can specifically point tough words to action.

see I’m not one of you woke people who thinks that a politician can’t say we need to fight for our rights. We need to stand up and stand strong as Americans.

Is completely different than Trump at a rally telling the cops to beat someone up or refusing to tone down the rhetoric on jan six while this is happening… or applaud the dude that smashed Nancy Pelosi’s husband in the head with a hammer.

Honestly, even though we know that this kid was in that groryper group…it doesn’t matter. We have a crazy gun issue… but the lengths that Maga has gone to try to blame this on the liberals from Day 1 is completely disgusting you must admit. Why are we even jumping into conclusions when we don’t know anything… it’s clearly a political play on the right who pretend that they cared about this dude.

Also, whoever put his grieving wife up to that incendiary speech is also a piece of shit.

Trump has somehow convinced you guys to include this into political discourse…it’s not at all.
 
Ddseddse said:
I think Kirk meant exactly what he said, and that is the problem. The fundamental divide between conservatives and liberal is whether they feel the need to treat members of out-groups as equal (in rights, in status, even in humanity) with their own preferred in-group. Empathy (by putting yourself in others shoes and experiencing the world as they experience it) demands that you you treat out groups as equal status to your in group. Sympathy is a cheat code where you get to still feel good about yourself while taking a dump on members of out-groups.

There's a ton of utility in this in group vs. out group frame, because it cuts the "identity politics" cord. There are many conservatives who do not use race as an in-group/out-group classifier (preferring political affiliation, for example) and that tends to stymie liberals who throw our blanket racism charges (making them easily refutable).

This doesn't change the fact that Kirk was clearly a racist. Nor does it change the fact that the racist conservatives outnumber the non-racist conservatives, and once they take full power they will purge their ranks and force their racist agenda universally (as any student of history will tell you is 100% inevitable).
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I think you are right on all accounts here. To touch on your second paragraph, sometimes those of us on the left stick to a stereotype of MAGA that isn't correct, especially around race.

The racial views among MAGA I know vary widely. I would say the most common are people who do not know that they subconsciously hold some biases which honestly most of us have. The way to combat it is to acknowledge the presence of it and they fail to do that. That is where having honest conversations without finger pointing is so important. I think some conservative recoil so hard about possibly having some bias (understandable if they are called racist for simply supporting one political party) that they can't have any introspection on the issue.

I think we need to be able to have more open conversations about things like affirmative action. Being against it does not make one a racist. IMO it just means that they don't have the understanding of the topic that I have. If you have never confronted your own instinctual biases, then you won't understand how those small biases and things like institutional racism affect minorities.

We do have a right to call out people like Kirk who discuss these topics in such provocative ways. People say Kirk is taken out of context. No, I got the full context of what he was saying about the black pilot. I can give him the benefit of the doubt by assuming he wasn't saying black < white. I understand his intent was to say that affirmative action has made it more likely for unqualified minorities to reach unjustified levels. I get that. The racism wasn't the message but the way it was delivered. (I believe the crowded space of right wing influencers push people to be more and more provocative to stand out.)

Kirk liked to view himself as someone who has a dialog with those who disagree with him but the language he uses intentionally cuts off real meaningful dialog. If I had to guess the college students he debates fall into that trap and become offended and emotional.

I'm rambling so I'll stop.
 
ZenMode said:
You're going to claim there is a big difference, but when Trump repeatedly says "They're stealing your country. Your vote doesn't count", etc, even without a single word that can be labeled as violent, it's still going to impact people's behavior over time. The same is true with the non-violent rhetoric from the Left. Van Jones set the tone when he called Trump's win a "white lash" and that same type of mostly non-violent rhetoric continued, unabated, for nearly a decade.
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even though I think there's a rhetorical difference between "they're stealing your country" and "he's a racist," (excusing the fact that one is true and one is false) that's still not what I'm talking about.

do you remember when Trump told the Proud Boys on national television to "stand down and stand by" and it was immediately understood as not a condemnation but as marching orders? can you imagine any Dem leader saying that, if you're somehow capable of imagining a group they could say it to? (because it's only organized groups on the right that openly commit themselves to violence)

do you remember when he heard a protestor at one of his own rallies and told the crowd to "take him out on a stretcher?"

or back in 2016, when he encouraged his 2A-loving supporters to assassinate Hillary and/or her selected SC justices if she won the election?

that's just trump. it's not even getting into all the things his sycophants have said over the years. and there's absolutely no dem equivalent.
 
nycfan said:


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I think this points to a problem that I don't know how it can be solved.

The mainstream media (for lack of better term) operates in a wait and see mode. They don't want to report things until they have firm validation on it. Other media sources jump to push a narrative which the MSM can't counter other than saying we don't yet know all of the facts. By the time the facts start coming in, the narrative has already solidified.

Not sure it would make any difference as people keep to their own echo chambers but the traditional wait for confirmation approach to journalism ironically makes it harder for the truth to get out.

Not suggesting journalism standards should change. Just an observation.
 
ChileG said:
Surely you agree that when the violence is so heavily tilted to one side that it should be acknowledged.
And look at the rhetoric coming from the leaders of the democrats compared to the republicans since CK died.
All the calls for violence and retribution are coming from the right. It’s crazy to not acknowledge the vast discrepancy.
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I think that isn't exactly a fair comparison because it was one of them who was killed. Obviously the left isn't going to react to this event with calls of violence and retribution.

The more fair comparison is to compare the response to this versus the response to the Minnesota killings. Your point would still be valid. People with influence on the left didn't call for civil war, republican groups to be labeled as terrorist organizations, or anything like that after those assassinations. And instead of expressing dismay many leaders on the right simply ignored that incident.
 


“… It started Friday when the Associate Principal Cynthia Rehberg was included in a post on X by conservative influencer Ryan Fournier.

In the post, Fournier said Rehberg "celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk's assassination."

The post, which was later deleted, included a photo that showed Rehberg's school employee photo underneath a Facebook post made by Cynthia Irene.

… Tadlock said that the woman who posted it is not Rehberg. He also added that Rehberg does not have Irene as a maiden or middle name.

… The district received 800 voicemails as of Sunday morning from people angered, thinking Rehberg was the one who made the post. 12 News obtained some of the voicemails.

Many of the voicemails demanded that Rehberg be fired. A number of them even included death threats.…”
 
ChapelHillSooner said:
I think that isn't exactly a fair comparison because it was one of them who was killed. Obviously the left isn't going to react to this event with calls of violence and retribution.

The more fair comparison is to compare the response to this versus the response to the Minnesota killings. Your point would still be valid. People with influence on the left didn't call for civil war, republican groups to be labeled as terrorist organizations, or anything like that after those assassinations. And instead of expressing dismay many leaders on the right simply ignored that incident.
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Good point.
 
The groyper thing doesn't really make sense, assuming the trans roommate/significant other thing is true. CNN reported it this morning, so I assume it is. I believe groyphers are anti-trans/oppose LGBT rights/etc.

That doesn't mean he was liberal. The simplest explanation is that he was likely apolitical/anarchist. And perhaps self-hating, due to his very conservative, anti-gay culture and upbringing and his attraction to someone that was trans.
 
wmheel1287 said:
Eh, I wouldn't say that. If I was forced to guess, his wife is just like most of us around here and he says the things to us that would get him divorced at home. This is his place to vent what he can't say there but desperately wants to. Again, just my guess.
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I agree with this. When I express opprobrium towards posters it’s towards the persona, not the human. There is one exception and that is not Zen. I respect I can’t control how it’s taken, but just as I’m a sliver of myself here (in fact a sliver I rarely allow the light IRL) I assume the same for others. This is an info sharing and processing space. With that in mind, ZenMode is a sleazy persona infected thoroughly with flimsy and unethical bosiding, and I suspect a healthy dose of troll, hidden beneath a veneer of educated and informed.
 
lightbluenc said:
What kind of method?
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I think you have mistaken OGtruthhurts for someone who care about fixing anything. He will be happy to tell you how everyone but him is wrong, but asking him to contribute anything constructive about what his own beliefs are or how we should go about fixing any problems is a bridge too far. Much easier to just saying that everyone else is a fool and a sheep than to offer any opinions of his own and risk being exposed as both.
 
Healing said:
I agree with this. When I express opprobrium towards posters it’s towards the persona, not the human. There is one exception and that is not Zen. I respect I can’t control how it’s taken, but just as I’m a sliver of myself here (in fact a sliver I rarely allow the light IRL) I assume the same for others. This is an info sharing and processing space. With that in mind, ZenMode is a sleazy persona infected thoroughly with flimsy and unethical bosiding, and I suspect a healthy dose of troll, hidden beneath a veneer of educated and informed.
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This is great perspective; anonymous message board posting generally isn’t a good way to assess someone’s real life personality. That’s not necessarily a good or a bad thing, it just is.

I also agree about posters who troll and are deliberately contrarian about everything. Think it’s a safe bet that I would find them to be grating to be around in real life as well.
 
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