5 ms·

On Hacker News and Charlie Kirk

7 points by keepamovin 1y ago

Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies. Because these are Hacker News’ ideals as well. The moderators fight for this kind of discussion. This is the place on the internet that most represents the kind of ideal discourse that Charlie Kirk practiced day in and day out. This is what HN aspires to be. Given this truth it’s surprising that despite the volume of discussion about Kirk since his killing, there’s been so little here of that kind of discussion: without hatred, without vitriol, without anger. This is also true here of many topics that challenge us to embody those ideals. I think this realization should prompt reflections on the kind of behavior really here, and hopefully reflecting nudges it back towards collectively creating the kind of discourse that will heal not just America, because HN is truly global, but the world - by talking to each other in the Charlie Kirk way, across divides, without hostility.

rolph 1y ago
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- deleted 1y ago
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- keepamovin 1y ago
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- keepamovin 1y ago
  No disparagement to rolph. Is understandable how he could see this article is true. In truth, the judgment in that link is a distortion of Kirk’s message which then uses its own lies to try to justify his death. It’s a pattern repeated through history, particularly other Marxist condemnation media like 大字报 or Разоблачение.
  - rolph 1y ago
    reading peoples minds, and feeling others pain, are delusions. go get counseling, and try to find a caring environment that will address your needs.
    - keepamovin 1y ago
      No, that’s your chosen reality, rolph. Not truth
      - rolph 1y ago
        there you go again, with the symptoms. im concerned for your wellbeing, i can make arrangements for you to have a safe place where you and others around you will be safe. just go with the police when they come, and it will work out for the better.
        keepamovin 1y ago
        i love you, rolph. you will get through this. we can all have our own experiences, and you will too. belief will come. try not to worry about when. you got this! i believe it :) peace and love, brother. Check out r/empaths and r/remoteviewings for relatability. who convinced you you are not capable? You are!
subsection1h 1y ago
Charlie Kirk advocated that Joe Biden be executed: https://x.com/donwinslow/status/1967348515895693404 https://x.com/donwinslow/status/1967348515895693404
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- keepamovin 1y ago
  This refers to a legal process and due punishment for treason. Understandable if Kirk believes Biden committed treason. Transcript: “should be put in prison and or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”
croes 1y ago
> He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. I like that kind of sarcasm
- keepamovin 1y ago
  Haha, do you mean your sarcasm here? Share with me the times you remember Charlie Kirk talking to another person with vitriol, poison or anger?
  - croes 1y ago
    Sure, calling others a abomination to God is full of joy and kindness. https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1701259614077989121 https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1701259614077989121 Strange that people like him often quote tzhe OLd Testament (you know, the part where god committed multiple genocides) and rarely the New Testament. He even quotes it to contradict the message of the new one, the one that is the reason why Christanity exists in the first place. https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306 https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306 It's also interesting to see the reactions to Kirk's murder. Of course they try for the death penalty for the murderer but God said: >Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
    - keepamovin 1y ago
      Love is the answer. Please try to release and let more love flow for people, even this guy. It's not mental, it's from the heart. I hope you can find a way to make peace with who this guy was and have no hatred for him. Let's talk about what you said. Kirk didn't need anyone's permission to found his movement and be controversial, he didn't waste himself worrying what many called him. He was a rebel and rebels don't care what society says. And it doesn't get any easier to deal with the insults and mislabels of others - you don't solve it by changing society, forcing them to speak correctly - you solve it by embodying not giving a shit what they think and being you anyway. In one sense, Kirk and trans people are united in their rebelliousness towards the mainstream. I think you would have had a good conversation with him. One of the things I saw him do was point out that when you quote from the Bible, take care because you can always find another verse that contradicts. Which is the point he's advocating for in your second link (@patriottakes). Maybe one of the points of the Bible itself being so self-contradictory was - we can't outsource our morality. Not even to God, entirely. We have to figure it out for ourselves to some extent. And I think that by standing up for, talking about, and debating his beliefs, in a respectful way, that’s what he was doing, and encouraging. Your first link deserves its full context. The first video is edited together cuts from from TPUSA Faith in September 2023 where Kirk introduces Riley Gaines (the full unedited video is: https://www.youtube.com/live/KMuBe8wE3K8?si=80ACNykxMdBx8XZV&t=891 https://www.youtube.com/live/KMuBe8wE3K8?si=80ACNykxMdBx8XZV...). The full transcript is included below. I invited you to watch that full introduction, and try to feel who he is, and answer the question, what is your heart-based read of Kirk as a person? Also, from that read do you feel he's someone who hates you? Who hates trans people? It’s clear from context him calling William Thomas an abomination against God is a provocative, rebellious counter, from his cherished Bible, against what he sees as the coercive forced participation of a Mao-like cultural movement intent on rule, and corrupting America, “the trans Mafia”. He talks of watching the trans movement grow, and he is okay with several phases of it: “tolerate trans people” “okay”, “accept”, “okay” - but when it gets to celebrate and participate, he balks. Why would someone insist on violating his boundaries against what he wants to do? You can relate. Thank you, everybody. Please take a seat. Thank you. What a great turnout tonight—welcome to the fall, everybody. This is excellent. We have a very special guest tonight, so I’m not going to spend too much time introducing. But first, I just want to say it is so encouraging and heartwarming to see this event grow and grow and grow. We’ve taken this all across the country. We’ve done this in Virginia, we’ve done Freedom Night in America in Albuquerque. We now have an amazing community of local pastors that we meet with before these events, where we are growing the movement to talk about the church taking a stand for biblical values, taking a stand against tyranny. I have a couple of verses I want to share, but I’m going to just get right to the thing that’s on my heart. And I think we can all agree—and Luke, I hope I’m not talking out of turn—if they try to lock us down again, we are not going to comply with the government. We’re not going to do the masks, we’re not going to shut down the churches, we are not going to comply. Period. Okay, I got that off my chest. Am I good to say that, Luke? Say it again: Dream City Church will not comply. If they try to shut down this church—right. And if this is not your church home, then this probably should become your church home, because how many churches in the valley would say that boldly and clearly? I love the Barnetts. You guys are led so well here. So there’s this movement. I’ve been doing this for 11 years, speaking on college campuses. I’ve given over 2,000 speeches in the last 11 years—literally in every corner of the country. About five or six years ago, you started to see this movement that at first seemed on the fringe. It wasn’t anything necessarily new. Many of you remember growing up, this idea of men cross-dressing—I used to call it transvestite. It was kind of on the fringes; it wasn’t really something we talked about a lot. But as Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, things happen gradually and then suddenly. It’s like we woke up in a different country. One of the themes that we talk about here a lot is that you are living through a cultural revolution—the same that Mao did in China—where they’re trying to actually re-found the country. They look at themselves as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, and George Washington. They’re trying to re-found the country into something new, something weird, something not ordinary, something different. And it’s hard to always notice that when you’re living through it, right? Sometimes you don’t notice it because it’s so confusing. I’m sure some of you sometimes look at your TV and say: what country am I living in? Not— I mean, 600 years in federal prison for a former president—all of that. But the one issue I think that is so against our senses, so against the natural law, and dare I say, a throbbing middle finger to God, is the transgender thing happening in America right now. [Applause] Some of you—and I was guilty of this for years—I used to believe in this “live and let live” thing. I had strong beliefs of what God’s design was, but I said, hey, if it’s not bothering me, then I’m not going to talk much about it. And I’m sure some of you probably said something similar. But it was never about that. It was not about “live and let live.” It was: live and let us rule. What first went from, “Well, we have to tolerate, okay.” Then, “You must accept, okay.” Then, “You must celebrate” I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. And then, “You must participate.” And if you can’t participate, your kids must participate. This used to be just kind of on the fringes. And those of us that do this for a living, we started to speak out more and more—especially three or four years ago. But I was told by the people in charge: “Oh, this is not—it’s just a little thing here, a little thing there.” And then, next thing you know, a story that shocked the world—those of us that pay attention—was all of a sudden when we saw a biological man win an NCAA championship in female athletics and swimming. The people that told us this was on the fringes, this was isolated—you see an institution destroyed in front of our very eyes. The very same people, by the way, that always are lecturing us about the “war on women,” #MeToo, were perfectly fine with a deranged, neurotic man becoming an NCAA champion. But it didn’t stop there. We started to see this in schools and curriculum, pronoun usage. And I do not exaggerate to say this is now the new state-run religion of the United States federal government. Where they have two LGBTQ “alphabet mafia” flags at the White House. Where they have trans people taking off their clothes—not an exaggeration—on the White House lawn. Where the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, comes out and says that biological men can give birth and lactate if they take the right drugs. In fact, the Biden regime says they’re “birthing people,” they are not women. In fact, if you ever want to just see somebody short-circuit, we have to thank the legendary Matt Walsh—who I will get here one night, I will get that done, we will. I will. And I’m not one to cheaply give out comments, but he’s done hero’s work. He’s really special. Where he just asked the simple question that just breaks the matrix of the trans lobby: “What is a woman?” Well, tonight we have a woman speaking to us. And it’s actually the first woman ever at Freedom Night in America. That’s not intentional—it just so happened this way. This young lady had a national championship robbed from her. She’s been lied about. She has been held hostage by left-wing activists at Turning Point USA campus events. And she’s now one of the most important cultural warriors and figures on the landscape right now, arguing for really simple stuff—stuff that people would have rolled their eyes at ten years ago and said, “Okay, why are you saying this, it’s normal.” Now, it’s considered radical. We are in a church, and so it’s important to remember Deuteronomy 22:5: A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. You hear that, William Thomas? You’re an abomination to God. So, God created in His own image—in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. Distinctions keep us free. Men and women are not the same, and that’s a beautiful thing. Tonight, we have one of the most powerful young women in America, fighting the transgender mafia. Join me in welcoming Riley Gaines, everybody.
etblg 1y ago
> Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies. And just so we're clear on what some of those surely great conversations were, to say what he meant, without him being mean, to talk across divides, here's some of the guy's ideals: "If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?" "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." "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." – Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement "We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately." "The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white." "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." "America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America." "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America." "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." Choice quotes from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk... Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in. And since we need a disclaimer in all these threads: I don't care about the guy before or after his death, I don't agree with him at all, and I think his views were pretty bad, pretty bad.
- amradio1989 1y ago
  Okay, you disagree with him. I get that. But why are you telling us? Are you venting? Are you responding to an experience you had in another thread? Right now it feels like you've dropped us in the middle of an argument without any context regarding 1) who you're talking to 2) what you're responding to. You've quoted the OP, but your response seems directed to something else. I don't think the OP lionized anyone, or at the very least, they didn't discourage discussing Charlie Kirk's views. I'm not sure what prompted this response. Are you saying you don't agree with civil discourse? That you don't believe we should learn to talk to each other without vitriol, poison, and anger? That we shouldn't be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean?

7 points by keepamovin 1y ago

rolph 1y ago

[flagged]

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
keepamovin 1y ago
[flagged]
keepamovin 1y ago
No disparagement to rolph. Is understandable how he could see this article is true. In truth, the judgment in that link is a distortion of Kirk’s message which then uses its own lies to try to justify his death. It’s a pattern repeated through history, particularly other Marxist condemnation media like 大字报 or Разоблачение.
- rolph 1y ago
  reading peoples minds, and feeling others pain, are delusions. go get counseling, and try to find a caring environment that will address your needs.
  - keepamovin 1y ago
    No, that’s your chosen reality, rolph. Not truth
    - rolph 1y ago
      there you go again, with the symptoms. im concerned for your wellbeing, i can make arrangements for you to have a safe place where you and others around you will be safe. just go with the police when they come, and it will work out for the better.
      - keepamovin 1y ago
        i love you, rolph. you will get through this. we can all have our own experiences, and you will too. belief will come. try not to worry about when. you got this! i believe it :) peace and love, brother. Check out r/empaths and r/remoteviewings for relatability. who convinced you you are not capable? You are!

subsection1h 1y ago

Charlie Kirk advocated that Joe Biden be executed: https://x.com/donwinslow/status/1967348515895693404 https://x.com/donwinslow/status/1967348515895693404

deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
keepamovin 1y ago
This refers to a legal process and due punishment for treason. Understandable if Kirk believes Biden committed treason. Transcript: “should be put in prison and or given the death penalty for his crimes against America.”

croes 1y ago

> He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. I like that kind of sarcasm

keepamovin 1y ago
Haha, do you mean your sarcasm here? Share with me the times you remember Charlie Kirk talking to another person with vitriol, poison or anger?
- croes 1y ago
  Sure, calling others a abomination to God is full of joy and kindness. https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1701259614077989121 https://x.com/RightWingWatch/status/1701259614077989121 Strange that people like him often quote tzhe OLd Testament (you know, the part where god committed multiple genocides) and rarely the New Testament. He even quotes it to contradict the message of the new one, the one that is the reason why Christanity exists in the first place. https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306 https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1800678317030564306 It's also interesting to see the reactions to Kirk's murder. Of course they try for the death penalty for the murderer but God said: >Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.
  - keepamovin 1y ago
    Love is the answer. Please try to release and let more love flow for people, even this guy. It's not mental, it's from the heart. I hope you can find a way to make peace with who this guy was and have no hatred for him. Let's talk about what you said. Kirk didn't need anyone's permission to found his movement and be controversial, he didn't waste himself worrying what many called him. He was a rebel and rebels don't care what society says. And it doesn't get any easier to deal with the insults and mislabels of others - you don't solve it by changing society, forcing them to speak correctly - you solve it by embodying not giving a shit what they think and being you anyway. In one sense, Kirk and trans people are united in their rebelliousness towards the mainstream. I think you would have had a good conversation with him. One of the things I saw him do was point out that when you quote from the Bible, take care because you can always find another verse that contradicts. Which is the point he's advocating for in your second link (@patriottakes). Maybe one of the points of the Bible itself being so self-contradictory was - we can't outsource our morality. Not even to God, entirely. We have to figure it out for ourselves to some extent. And I think that by standing up for, talking about, and debating his beliefs, in a respectful way, that’s what he was doing, and encouraging. Your first link deserves its full context. The first video is edited together cuts from from TPUSA Faith in September 2023 where Kirk introduces Riley Gaines (the full unedited video is: https://www.youtube.com/live/KMuBe8wE3K8?si=80ACNykxMdBx8XZV&t=891 https://www.youtube.com/live/KMuBe8wE3K8?si=80ACNykxMdBx8XZV...). The full transcript is included below. I invited you to watch that full introduction, and try to feel who he is, and answer the question, what is your heart-based read of Kirk as a person? Also, from that read do you feel he's someone who hates you? Who hates trans people? It’s clear from context him calling William Thomas an abomination against God is a provocative, rebellious counter, from his cherished Bible, against what he sees as the coercive forced participation of a Mao-like cultural movement intent on rule, and corrupting America, “the trans Mafia”. He talks of watching the trans movement grow, and he is okay with several phases of it: “tolerate trans people” “okay”, “accept”, “okay” - but when it gets to celebrate and participate, he balks. Why would someone insist on violating his boundaries against what he wants to do? You can relate. Thank you, everybody. Please take a seat. Thank you. What a great turnout tonight—welcome to the fall, everybody. This is excellent. We have a very special guest tonight, so I’m not going to spend too much time introducing. But first, I just want to say it is so encouraging and heartwarming to see this event grow and grow and grow. We’ve taken this all across the country. We’ve done this in Virginia, we’ve done Freedom Night in America in Albuquerque. We now have an amazing community of local pastors that we meet with before these events, where we are growing the movement to talk about the church taking a stand for biblical values, taking a stand against tyranny. I have a couple of verses I want to share, but I’m going to just get right to the thing that’s on my heart. And I think we can all agree—and Luke, I hope I’m not talking out of turn—if they try to lock us down again, we are not going to comply with the government. We’re not going to do the masks, we’re not going to shut down the churches, we are not going to comply. Period. Okay, I got that off my chest. Am I good to say that, Luke? Say it again: Dream City Church will not comply. If they try to shut down this church—right. And if this is not your church home, then this probably should become your church home, because how many churches in the valley would say that boldly and clearly? I love the Barnetts. You guys are led so well here. So there’s this movement. I’ve been doing this for 11 years, speaking on college campuses. I’ve given over 2,000 speeches in the last 11 years—literally in every corner of the country. About five or six years ago, you started to see this movement that at first seemed on the fringe. It wasn’t anything necessarily new. Many of you remember growing up, this idea of men cross-dressing—I used to call it transvestite. It was kind of on the fringes; it wasn’t really something we talked about a lot. But as Ernest Hemingway famously wrote, things happen gradually and then suddenly. It’s like we woke up in a different country. One of the themes that we talk about here a lot is that you are living through a cultural revolution—the same that Mao did in China—where they’re trying to actually re-found the country. They look at themselves as Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Jay, and George Washington. They’re trying to re-found the country into something new, something weird, something not ordinary, something different. And it’s hard to always notice that when you’re living through it, right? Sometimes you don’t notice it because it’s so confusing. I’m sure some of you sometimes look at your TV and say: what country am I living in? Not— I mean, 600 years in federal prison for a former president—all of that. But the one issue I think that is so against our senses, so against the natural law, and dare I say, a throbbing middle finger to God, is the transgender thing happening in America right now. [Applause] Some of you—and I was guilty of this for years—I used to believe in this “live and let live” thing. I had strong beliefs of what God’s design was, but I said, hey, if it’s not bothering me, then I’m not going to talk much about it. And I’m sure some of you probably said something similar. But it was never about that. It was not about “live and let live.” It was: live and let us rule. What first went from, “Well, we have to tolerate, okay.” Then, “You must accept, okay.” Then, “You must celebrate” I don’t know if I’m comfortable with that. And then, “You must participate.” And if you can’t participate, your kids must participate. This used to be just kind of on the fringes. And those of us that do this for a living, we started to speak out more and more—especially three or four years ago. But I was told by the people in charge: “Oh, this is not—it’s just a little thing here, a little thing there.” And then, next thing you know, a story that shocked the world—those of us that pay attention—was all of a sudden when we saw a biological man win an NCAA championship in female athletics and swimming. The people that told us this was on the fringes, this was isolated—you see an institution destroyed in front of our very eyes. The very same people, by the way, that always are lecturing us about the “war on women,” #MeToo, were perfectly fine with a deranged, neurotic man becoming an NCAA champion. But it didn’t stop there. We started to see this in schools and curriculum, pronoun usage. And I do not exaggerate to say this is now the new state-run religion of the United States federal government. Where they have two LGBTQ “alphabet mafia” flags at the White House. Where they have trans people taking off their clothes—not an exaggeration—on the White House lawn. Where the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control, comes out and says that biological men can give birth and lactate if they take the right drugs. In fact, the Biden regime says they’re “birthing people,” they are not women. In fact, if you ever want to just see somebody short-circuit, we have to thank the legendary Matt Walsh—who I will get here one night, I will get that done, we will. I will. And I’m not one to cheaply give out comments, but he’s done hero’s work. He’s really special. Where he just asked the simple question that just breaks the matrix of the trans lobby: “What is a woman?” Well, tonight we have a woman speaking to us. And it’s actually the first woman ever at Freedom Night in America. That’s not intentional—it just so happened this way. This young lady had a national championship robbed from her. She’s been lied about. She has been held hostage by left-wing activists at Turning Point USA campus events. And she’s now one of the most important cultural warriors and figures on the landscape right now, arguing for really simple stuff—stuff that people would have rolled their eyes at ten years ago and said, “Okay, why are you saying this, it’s normal.” Now, it’s considered radical. We are in a church, and so it’s important to remember Deuteronomy 22:5: A woman shall not wear a man’s garment, nor shall a man put on a woman’s cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God. You hear that, William Thomas? You’re an abomination to God. So, God created in His own image—in the image of God He created them, male and female He created them. Distinctions keep us free. Men and women are not the same, and that’s a beautiful thing. Tonight, we have one of the most powerful young women in America, fighting the transgender mafia. Join me in welcoming Riley Gaines, everybody.

etblg 1y ago

> Charlie Kirk thought conversation was the only way we were going to heal America. He believed we had to learn to talk to each other without vitriol, without poison, without anger. We had to be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean. And to talk to each other across divides. These are exactly the kind of things good discussion here exemplifies. And just so we're clear on what some of those surely great conversations were, to say what he meant, without him being mean, to talk across divides, here's some of the guy's ideals: "If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?" "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." "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." – Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement "We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately." "The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white." "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." "America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America." "Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America." "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." Choice quotes from https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk... Can't lionize a guy for promoting what he believed in without saying what he believed in. And since we need a disclaimer in all these threads: I don't care about the guy before or after his death, I don't agree with him at all, and I think his views were pretty bad, pretty bad.

amradio1989 1y ago
Okay, you disagree with him. I get that. But why are you telling us? Are you venting? Are you responding to an experience you had in another thread? Right now it feels like you've dropped us in the middle of an argument without any context regarding 1) who you're talking to 2) what you're responding to. You've quoted the OP, but your response seems directed to something else. I don't think the OP lionized anyone, or at the very least, they didn't discourage discussing Charlie Kirk's views. I'm not sure what prompted this response. Are you saying you don't agree with civil discourse? That you don't believe we should learn to talk to each other without vitriol, poison, and anger? That we shouldn't be able to listen, and say what we mean, without being mean?