Charlie Kirk.

Are people still clinging to this sad fantasy that some posters are "revelling" in Kirk's death? It's quite pathetic to use his murder as a tool to take cheap shots, honestly.

At least some of these claims are taken somewhat out of context.

The first one for example, he's not so much saying gay people should be stoned as much as he's using a bible verse back to someone who also quoted a bible verse to make whatever point it was they made before that.

The second one is one making a crass point on DEI hires, again, he's not specifically saying black people, or lesbians cannot be anything, more just questioning if DEI policy leads to less qualified people being hired.

Is he right? No idea. Do I agree with his points? No. But there's more to them then what people are reducing them do eg "Charlie Kirk believes gay people should be stoned" or "Charlie Kirk thinks black people can't be doctors".

Obviously I'm not going to watch them all, but I find a lot of the claims about his apparent "hatred" of trans/minorities are really more political opinion points he's making.

Was Charlie Kirk against transgenderism for example? He sure was. Do I agree with that? No. Do I respect that opinion? Again…not really.

But I also think in any clip I've seen of him debating with trans people for example, he generally treated them as people with general respect and on more than one occassion he affirmed that even though he doesn't support their gender identity he still believes in their human rights.

Ben Shapiro was way worse in my opinion for deliberately riling people up and making personal inflamatory statements. I'm sure the killing has left him, and many others like him, seriously rattled.

Some of his opinions I felt had merit to them. Some I didn't agree with. Some I thought he was crazy to think that way.

But the guy put himself out there all the time to discuss and debate his opinions and beliefs in public, which is more than could be said for plenty of other famous figures with very similar opinions deliberately living in echo chambers, that aren't vilified almost nearly as much.

Of a list of people who "deserve" to be assassinated, Charlie Kirk wouldn't even feature. Not saying you specifically are saying otherwise by the way since I quoted this post, but more just on the general sentiment floating around the wider internet.

It's easy to reduce it to this simple thing where Charlie Kirk was an almost cartoon-level sort of evil hate monger but he really wasn't that.

According to David Simon, creator of The Wire, it costs more to execute a man than to send him to Harvard.

What a putrid cesspit of a country.

It's all just so sad and unnecessary, Charlie Kirk is dead, his wife is now a widow and his kids without a father. The shooters family will also be devastated as Tyler is imprisoned, and either condemned to death (Utah law) or left to rot in prison for the rest of his life, maybe fifty or sixty years?

Reminds me a little bit of Mark David Chapman re what (might) happen with conviction & sentencing.

Based on what?

All I've seen from the American right are lies, performative mourning and a desire to use this as their Reichstag Fire.

Well extreme leftists don't like people who speak out against them, so it's not that outrageous a theory at all imo. As i say both extreme leftists and extreme right wingers are a scourge on this planet.

What a truly bizarre post you talk about smears and then use terms like MAGA and right wing court idiots. On some issues i stray more left wing and on others i veer more towards the centre right. I just don't think there's anything progressive about extreme far leftists. They just want to silence whoever disagrees with them by any means necessary. Far right people hate people of certain ethnicities, while far leftists especially extremist ones feel that people of certain backgrounds are beyond reproach or criticism irrespective of what kind of crimes they commit. Is that not a form of discrimination in itself holding a certain category of people to a lower expected standard of behaviour than others?

Grand, I’ll take back the gay stoning.

Explain how the civil rights act is nuanced, I’m interested in that. Go on.

Bollox they were.

He was a hateful and vile human. I take no satisfaction in his death, but I’m in no way rewriting what he was when he was alive either.

Disagree all you want. I stand by what I said, I thought it while he was alive, no reason to change that if he is dead.

What he said still exists.