Charlie Kirk Assassination

[Greg Bernhardt]

I have no love for Charlie's abhorrent ideology and activism, but this event is tragic and horrifying. Our nation is in deep deep trouble and this only makes it much much worse.

Charlie Kirk assassinated at university event in Utah

Authorities say conservative activist Charlie Kirk was killed by a single shot in a targeted attack during an outdoor event Wednesday at Utah Valley University.

apnews.com

 

[fresh_42]

Well, my favorite satire site posted:

Man, according to whom tens of thousands of deaths have to be accepted every year for the basic right to firearms, died by firearm violence

Source: https://www.der-postillon.com/2025/09/charlie-kirk.html

That pretty much hits the point. He received the bill he wanted thousands of others (yearly) to pay.

Another site (I have forgotten where) mentioned that he made it into the news, whereas a school shooting (IIRC in SC) didn't, and wrote that there have been 98 so far this year.

Here is another comment:




This makes it very difficult for me to feel sorry. It is easy to accept others, even children, dying for your stupid ideology. Lance Armstrong once said in a different context: "What goes around, comes around!"

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

This makes it very difficult for me to feel sorry. It is easy to accept others, even children, dying for your stupid ideology. Lance Armstrong once said in a different context: "What goes around, comes around!"

Hard disagree. No one deserves to be murdered in front of their wife and children. A free society must have "free speech". This will have a both a cooling effect on journalism, political courage and at the same time sow the seeds for revenge activism by the hard right.

 

[fresh_42]

Hard disagree. No one deserves to be murdered in front of their wife and children. A free society must have "free speech". This will have a both a cooling effect on journalism, political courage and at the same time sow the seeds for revenge activism by the hard right.

Yes, that's the reasonable point of view which I share. I just can't have the same emotional standpoint in this case, especially if I read that he, in a way, justified violence himself by accepting others to die as inevitable side effects, or the attack on the Pelosi family.

I strongly believe that tolerance has to end if it implies demanding intolerance. If the right to free speech is used to end the right to free speech, then can we still have it? This is not about free speech, though; it is about justifying what actually has happened as a "natural" price to be paid. It is easy to require that if it only applies to others.

 

[fresh_42]

Hard disagree. No one deserves to be murdered in front of their wife and children. A free society must have "free speech". This will have a both a cooling effect on journalism, political courage and at the same time sow the seeds for revenge activism by the hard right.

I think my main problem is that this event is considered "important", whereas the daily violence that causes the same harm and grief for those involved is considered "inevitable". I think about those who aren't mentioned and have to suffer the same. And this protagonist thought that such suffering is acceptable. No, it is not. Listen to the doctors who deal with gun violence in the ERs around the entire USA, not to activists who think this would be ok.

As usual: it's the two measures that disturb me.

This:

 

[gleem]

Matt Dowd, an MSNBC political analyst, has been fired for suggesting that Kirk brought this on himself.

Supposedly Kirk quoted Mao Zedong on a pod cast abut second ammendment rights:

"Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." Our principle is that the Party commands the gun, and the gun must never be allowed to command the Party.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_power_grows_out_of_the_barrel_of_a_gun

As @fresh_42 notes the Republican party has not vehemently condemed attacks on Democrats over the last several years.

The govenor of Utah Spencer Cox and Fox commentator Jess Watters quickly claimed the shooting was politically motivated fomenting a conspiracy.

 

[Borg]

This makes it very difficult for me to feel sorry. It is easy to accept others, even children, dying for your stupid ideology. Lance Armstrong once said in a different context: "What goes around, comes around!"

Ditto. I am a generally peaceful person but I draw the line at those who would harm or through their actions, cause harm to others. I don't feel sadness that Hitler died but I'm supposed to feel sadness for someone who espoused similar hateful ideologies? I just can't feel sorry for someone who was happily a giant cog in the MAGA wheel of lies.

 

[fresh_42]

Ditto. I am a generally peaceful person but I draw the line at those who would harm or through their actions, cause harm to others. I don't feel sadness that Hitler died but I'm supposed to feel sadness for someone who espoused similar hateful ideologies? I just can't feel sorry for someone who was happily a giant cog in the MAGA wheel of lies.

It wasn't right, and murder cannot be justified. But that also holds for all the nameless victims who don't make headlines, or for whom flags aren't set on half-mast.

It is very disturbing to me that someone who called victims of gun violence inevitable should now be mourned for gun violence. Before I think about him, I think about the countless others without headlines and half-mast. And I start with Austin Eubanks and the victims of Sandy Hook. Yes, a wrong cannot be justified by another wrong, but I set priorities.

 

[Borg]

The orange buffoon has already decided to give him the Medal of Freedom. That honor used to actually mean something.

 

[fresh_42]

The orange buffoon has already decided to give him the Medal of Freedom. That honor used to actually mean something.

We others, who are not committed to the American narrative, call this ...



... racism. I'm not sure whether this is true, but it matches the expectations.

 

[EricDMMiller]

Hard disagree. No one deserves to be murdered in front of their wife and children. A free society must have "free speech". This will have a both a cooling effect on journalism, political courage and at the same time sow the seeds for revenge activism by the hard right.

He wouldn't want you to have concern for him, his wife, or children.

"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage."

Well, if you say so, Mr. Kirk.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Regardless of his rhetoric, his children deserve a father.

The problem here is that now we've normalized assassination and violence when we don't agree with what someone is saying. That is not a free society.

 

[fresh_42]

Regardless of his rhetoric, his children deserve a father.

The problem here is that now we've normalized assassination and violence when we don't agree with what someone is saying. That is not a free society.

Yes, but that started on 6th Jan. 2021. This is when violence became a legitimate method of debate for the right-wing. If not even before, when IIRC a right-wing nationalist murdered a journalist with his car. The lack of public condemnation, and even the justification through many, including some very strange pardons, made this a normality. Kirk was another victim of such an "agreement".

Please, don't get me wrong, I do not justify any of this. However, those complaints are more than four and a half years late. And it was the right-wing that significantly contributed to making it possible.

And they still refuse to see these connections!

SPIRIT

Who calls me?


FAUST (with averted head)

Terrible to see!

SPIRIT

Me hast thou long with might attracted,
Long from my sphere thy food exacted,
And now—

FAUST

Woe! I endure not thee!


SPIRIT

To view me is thine aspiration,
My voice to hear, my countenance to see;
Thy powerful yearning moveth me,
Here am I!—what mean perturbation
Thee, superhuman, shakes? Thy soul’s high calling, where?
Where is the breast, which from itself a world did bear,
And shaped and cherished—which with joy expanded,
To be our peer, with us, the Spirits, banded?
Where art thou, Faust, whose voice has pierced to me,
Who towards me pressed with all thine energy?
He art thou, who, my presence breathing, seeing,
Trembles through all the depths of being,
A writhing worm, a terror-stricken form?

 

[EricDMMiller]

The problem here is that now we've normalized assassination and violence when we don't agree with what someone is saying. That is not a free society.

Speech is only useful in a functioning liberal democracy.

Once that breaks down, violence becomes the only remaining method of communication.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Once that breaks down, violence becomes the only remaining method of communication.

So full on civil war and assassinations all around... great. Shameful and dangerous.

 

[placebo]

I'm not sure whether this is true, but it matches the expectations.

I'm pretty sure it is true. It was mentioned on the NY Times podcast The Daily.

 

[fresh_42]

So full on civil war and assassinations all around... great. Shameful and dangerous.

This isn't new either: Lincoln, MLK, JFK, Reagan, Giffords, Hortman. Probably more. Assuming that this murder had been politically motivated, it is still not a new phenomenon. I cannot see why this one is any different from the others. The problem is, in my opinion, the massive arming of the civil society and the overall availability of guns. This makes it easy for those statistical outliers to commit their crime. The only difference is that this time, it hit someone who explicitly stood for exactly this right, which makes it ironic. When I read "God given right of arms", then I don't know whether to laugh, to point out the blasphemy of it from a deeply Christian nation, or just turn away in amazement. It is by no means "God given", it is human-given and a decision. A decision that the victim himself claimed to have consequences like this, and which have to be tolerated.

I do not see this as an attack on a free society, at least not any more than the attack on 6th Jan. The beginning of the current brutalization of society must be seen in the storming of the Capitol, or in a larger historical context, as deeply rooted in American society. In any case, I don't see why the Kirk case warrants such a stir while no one is talking about Hortman. That's the real scandal.

 

[placebo]

The problem here is that now we've normalized assassination and violence when we don't agree with what someone is saying. That is not a free society.

I don't think anyone here is saying that the assassination was justified or that political violence should be the norm. But you can't really fault people for being indifferent to Kirk's death. I feel bad for his wife and kids, who lost a husband and father. But it's hard to feel sad for someone who spread lies and misinformation, sowed hate and distrust, and implicitly condoned political violence against those he perceived to be the enemy. If someone else on the right had been the victim, I have little doubt Kirk would currently be fomenting more political violence by joining in on the chorus of right-wing commentators, including the President, blaming the incident on the left without even knowing who the perpetrator was.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

But it's hard to feel sad for someone who spread lies and misinformation, sowed hate and distrust, and implicitly condoned political violence against those he perceived to be the enemy.

It's hard, but this is what it means to be free. If he's broken a law, send him to trial, don't murder out of cold blood for what someone says.

 

[EricDMMiller]

There's a vast gulf between "don't murder him" and "feel bad because someone murdered him."

I haven't murdered him and I wouldn't.

I'll never care about him or his kids or his wife.

 

[Grinkle]

I'll never care about him or his kids or his wife.

You might if you met them. You might not, too, but its much harder to stay cold-hearted when f2f with people.

 

[fresh_42]

You might if you met them. You might not, too, but its much harder to stay cold-hearted when f2f with people.

Yes, I stumbled over that line, too. Nevertheless, my question remains: Why didn't we have this discussion earlier, e.g., about Melissa Hortman, Gabi Giffords, MLK, or even Lincoln?

This reaches way deeper than the current incident. It obviously hadn't been addressed properly earlier, so why should it be any different now? And I still think that the current wave of violence in the political debate originates on 1/6/2021.

We regularly use a short version of Hosea 8:7 here:

For they have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it hath no stalk: the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.

or more secular:

As you shout into the forest, so it echoes back out.

These are no justifications at all. It only means that I am asking: Why now? Why was Kirk more important than Giffords or Hortman?

 

[EricDMMiller]

Nevertheless, my question remains: Why didn't we have this discussion earlier, e.g., about Melissa Hortman, Gabi Giffords, MLK, or even Lincoln?

You know very well why.

You know why the "bastion of free speech" in the "free world" is now banning people for posting jokes to their social media.

You know why the vile miscreants are complaining that the "bullets are only going one way".

They don't want to stop the bullets. They don't want peace and reconciliation. They want their thugs out and active.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

They got the shooter. Guess what. Not the profile MAGA wanted to see.

Tyler Robinson named suspect in Charlie Kirk shooting, how he was caught

Authorities have taken into custody the person they suspect of shooting and killing conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday at a Utah university campus event.

abcnews.go.com

 

[jack action]

It's hard, but this is what it means to be free.

How free you are depends a lot on the laws you are subjected to. Are you really free when the government in place demands redistricting to favor its party?

In June 2025, The New York Times reported that the Trump administration had urged Republican leadership in the state of Texas to redistrict the state's legislative boundaries in order to benefit Republicans.

If he's broken a law, send him to trial,

In the US, right now, there are a lot of people who may be breaking the laws and have no trials:

It is not possible to have trials for millions and millions of people. We know who the Criminals are, and we must get them out of the U.S.A. ¬— and FAST!

 

[fresh_42]

How free you are depends a lot on the laws you are subjected to. Are you really free when the government in place demands redistricting to favor its party?



In the US, right now, there are a lot of people who may be breaking the laws and have no trials:

... not to mention those who are convicted criminals and run free anyway!

 

[EricDMMiller]

You, know, like the President of the United States and everyone around him.

Engage with the system in good faith only while it functions.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

How free you are depends a lot on the laws you are subjected to. Are you really free when the government in place demands redistricting to favor its party?

In the US, right now, there are a lot of people who may be breaking the laws and have no trials:

The answer is not murder. There is no excuse.

 

[jack action]

The answer is not murder. There is no excuse.

I'm not saying I disagree, but I'm curious about what you think would be the answer to someone who bully their way to power.

 

[fresh_42]

The answer is not murder. There is no excuse.

This is trivial, and nobody here has a different opinion. But if we ask for the reasons why this had happened, we find a rather complex situation with many non-trivial aspects.

Still, I stick with



Source: www.facebook.com/OfficialTVITW/videos/1484173572801749

The real scandal happened long ago!