6 ms·

Never really followed this guy and only knew of him because he'd randomly be mentioned in news stories. Regardless of your political bent, this sort of shit is

by avazhi 1y ago

Never really followed this guy and only knew of him because he'd randomly be mentioned in news stories. Regardless of your political bent, this sort of shit is sickening and genuinely disturbing, particularly when it occurs at (as this did) at a university whose ostensible raison d'etre is to ventilate different ideas, offensive or not. I realise this event wasn't a 'debate' per se but nevertheless it's the ethos and optics that matter. There's also the incredibly myopic immaturity inherent in using violence for the sole or primary purpose of silencing the speaker and signalling to others that violence is somehow an acceptable form of dialogue. The myopic absurdity of this is of course that it is a cycle that can never end if all participants share that view, ensuring that it is inevitably self-defeating. Violence can make sense under certain circumstances - coups, revolutions, wars - but in the context of mere rhetoric it's abhorrent to witness. Just a grotesque reflection in a long list of them that we as a species, or very many of us - perhaps more than we want to admit - are extremely violent and brutal. Sickening and sobering, and again you could plug in any speaker/polemicist from whichever part of the political spectrum in here and it would be no less true.

another_twist 1y ago
The only reason I know of him is the master debate episode from South Park. I wanted context. Fwiw, he was a bad debater but he openly said he didnt know about something in public and thats something I dont see people doing often. I appreciated that.
bradhe 1y ago
[flagged]
- avazhi 1y ago
  If a person espoused and encouraged assassination as a means to achieve his political or philosophical goals then it's difficult to see how he could be surprised if he himself were to be assassinated or affected by violence. In a sense that would just be logical cause and effect. But to my knowledge Kirk never did and 'live by the sword, die by the sword' wouldn't apply here. In fact I can't think of an instance in recent history where this would have applied - the logical implications inherent in such rhetoric are obvious to most people immediately. Even the Russians as a general rule don't murder their exiled former rulers - the new Czar figures he could be next, and wouldn't want to set a precedent.
  - PenguinCoder 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - avazhi 1y ago
      If you can't tell the difference between the quote you've attributed to him, on the one hand, and actively encouraging assassination and political violence on the other, then I don't know what to tell you other than that they are categorically different statements. The statement "I think a few people dying in car accidents is a valid price to pay for being able to travel quickly in cars between point A and B" very obviously is not the same thing as the statement "I encourage people to kill themselves in their cars while driving" or "I am glad people routinely die in car crashes". It's expressing the balancing of two things, endorsing State A over State B (Guns vs No Guns) without endorsing violence itself; seen another way, it's endorsing A over B without necessarily saying A is the ultimate ideal - it's just that A is in that person's opinion preferable to B. Personally I think the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks and indeed I'd say the benefits of being vaccinated are worth the harms they may cause, even to myself; surely it's obvious to you that I can extol vaccine benefits over their known harms while simultaneously hoping that nobody is in fact harmed by them, even thought I know some subset of the population will be (by myocarditis, for example). You've conflated the expression of a preference for active malice. Apathy or acceptance of something is passive; incitement and encouragement of something is active. Surely that's obvious. As far as I know he never advocated murder through assassination or targeted extrajudicial killing. His views on guns and indeed the fact he was speaking about gun violence when he was shot may qualify as ironic, but his philosophical views on the availability of guns to the public were not tantamount to actively encouraging violence.
      - PenguinCoder 1y ago
        > actively encouraging assassination and political violence on the other Quit putting words in my mouth. I am not encouraging violence or assassination of political differences. I merely said, his death is quite literally _live by the sword, die by the sword_. That's it. He advocated for freedom of firearms, and died by one. Nothing further to it to read into. This is not malice or extolling violence. Here's a couple of sources of the quote I attribute to him, since you don't believe me or are willfully, obtusely, ignoring what he said. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-worth-have-cost-unfortunately-some-gun-deaths-every-single-year-so-we https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-w... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-quote/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-qu...
- newman8r 1y ago
  What does 'preaching violence' mean to you? Because to some people, simply supporting the talking points of the political party they don't like counts as violence. Your comment HERE could even be interpreted by some as preaching for violence - because you're implying that there's a line you can cross where the opinions you share justify your death.
ncr100 1y ago
I'd say we _can_ be violent / brutal / unfair. I'm e.g. not violent / brutal when putting my clean dishes away. This may have been an offensive reply to the original comment: It's important for Me to play Devil's Advocate, here, because the original statement overlooks the amazingly constructive qualities humanity offers. Overlooking == under-capitalizing. Which is an error. And judgement is important to hang onto in a crisis. This is a crisis.
- avazhi 1y ago
  I wasn't overlooking mankind's potential to do amazing things. I'm reflecting on the fact that despite our ability and propensity to do amazing things, we are also at base more violent, far more violent, than I think we give ourselves credit for. I'm sure this sentiment isn't new. I can remember the opening page of Blood Meridian being a newspaper clipping from Arizona reporting on the fact that, essentially, we've been scalping (ie violently brutalising) one another for tens of thousands of years. Perhaps it's a sine qua non of being human. Despite all our fancy gadgets and fancy thinking and fancy philosophies, we aren't really all that different from those who lived a thousand or ten thousand years ago.

by avazhi 1y ago

another_twist 1y ago

The only reason I know of him is the master debate episode from South Park. I wanted context. Fwiw, he was a bad debater but he openly said he didnt know about something in public and thats something I dont see people doing often. I appreciated that.

bradhe 1y ago

[flagged]

avazhi 1y ago
If a person espoused and encouraged assassination as a means to achieve his political or philosophical goals then it's difficult to see how he could be surprised if he himself were to be assassinated or affected by violence. In a sense that would just be logical cause and effect. But to my knowledge Kirk never did and 'live by the sword, die by the sword' wouldn't apply here. In fact I can't think of an instance in recent history where this would have applied - the logical implications inherent in such rhetoric are obvious to most people immediately. Even the Russians as a general rule don't murder their exiled former rulers - the new Czar figures he could be next, and wouldn't want to set a precedent.
- PenguinCoder 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - avazhi 1y ago
    If you can't tell the difference between the quote you've attributed to him, on the one hand, and actively encouraging assassination and political violence on the other, then I don't know what to tell you other than that they are categorically different statements. The statement "I think a few people dying in car accidents is a valid price to pay for being able to travel quickly in cars between point A and B" very obviously is not the same thing as the statement "I encourage people to kill themselves in their cars while driving" or "I am glad people routinely die in car crashes". It's expressing the balancing of two things, endorsing State A over State B (Guns vs No Guns) without endorsing violence itself; seen another way, it's endorsing A over B without necessarily saying A is the ultimate ideal - it's just that A is in that person's opinion preferable to B. Personally I think the benefits of getting vaccinated outweigh the risks and indeed I'd say the benefits of being vaccinated are worth the harms they may cause, even to myself; surely it's obvious to you that I can extol vaccine benefits over their known harms while simultaneously hoping that nobody is in fact harmed by them, even thought I know some subset of the population will be (by myocarditis, for example). You've conflated the expression of a preference for active malice. Apathy or acceptance of something is passive; incitement and encouragement of something is active. Surely that's obvious. As far as I know he never advocated murder through assassination or targeted extrajudicial killing. His views on guns and indeed the fact he was speaking about gun violence when he was shot may qualify as ironic, but his philosophical views on the availability of guns to the public were not tantamount to actively encouraging violence.
    - PenguinCoder 1y ago
      > actively encouraging assassination and political violence on the other Quit putting words in my mouth. I am not encouraging violence or assassination of political differences. I merely said, his death is quite literally _live by the sword, die by the sword_. That's it. He advocated for freedom of firearms, and died by one. Nothing further to it to read into. This is not malice or extolling violence. Here's a couple of sources of the quote I attribute to him, since you don't believe me or are willfully, obtusely, ignoring what he said. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-worth-have-cost-unfortunately-some-gun-deaths-every-single-year-so-we https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-w... https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-quote/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-gun-deaths-qu...
newman8r 1y ago
What does 'preaching violence' mean to you? Because to some people, simply supporting the talking points of the political party they don't like counts as violence. Your comment HERE could even be interpreted by some as preaching for violence - because you're implying that there's a line you can cross where the opinions you share justify your death.

ncr100 1y ago

I'd say we _can_ be violent / brutal / unfair. I'm e.g. not violent / brutal when putting my clean dishes away. This may have been an offensive reply to the original comment: It's important for Me to play Devil's Advocate, here, because the original statement overlooks the amazingly constructive qualities humanity offers. Overlooking == under-capitalizing. Which is an error. And judgement is important to hang onto in a crisis. This is a crisis.

avazhi 1y ago
I wasn't overlooking mankind's potential to do amazing things. I'm reflecting on the fact that despite our ability and propensity to do amazing things, we are also at base more violent, far more violent, than I think we give ourselves credit for. I'm sure this sentiment isn't new. I can remember the opening page of Blood Meridian being a newspaper clipping from Arizona reporting on the fact that, essentially, we've been scalping (ie violently brutalising) one another for tens of thousands of years. Perhaps it's a sine qua non of being human. Despite all our fancy gadgets and fancy thinking and fancy philosophies, we aren't really all that different from those who lived a thousand or ten thousand years ago.