5 ms·

Amazingly even this post is a reflection of the discourse around Kirk. There are replies equating any criticism of Kirk to celebrating his death and glossing o

by yibg 1y ago

Amazingly even this post is a reflection of the discourse around Kirk. There are replies equating any criticism of Kirk to celebrating his death and glossing over his past nasty behavior. All seems to detached from reality.

mullingitover 1y ago
There is a group who has never debated anything in good faith, and they are certainly not about to start now.
krapp 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horst_Wessel
tootie 1y ago
Kirk, among many other right wing figures, have absolutely made light of past violence against Democrats. The discourse around Paul Pelosi was utterly vile and despicable. Nobody ever threatened his first amendment right to say horrendous things.
- nailer 1y ago
  FWIW I agree Kirk shouldn't have made fun of Paul Pelosi. I think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there.
  - JumpCrisscross 1y ago
    > think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there He had years to apologise. It could have meaningfully altered the temperature of our discourse, particularly among young men. He never did. Kirk gets no credit for amends he never made.
    - tastyface 1y ago
      This is how Charlie Kirk got on my radar: "Mere weeks before his death, Kirk reveled in Trump's deployment of federal troops to DC. 'Shock and awe. Force,' he wrote. 'We're taking our country back from these cockroaches.'" Cockroaches! Literally language of the Rwandan genocide. And it's a Christian saying this about other human beings? The man never changed. (Obviously, he should not have been shot. But his sanctification is repulsive.)
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
      - heavyset_go 1y ago
        In case the reference doesn't click[1]: > Twenty-five years ago this month, all hell broke loose in my country, which is tucked away in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Hordes of members of the Hutu ethnic majority, armed with machetes, spears, nail-studded clubs, and other rudimentary weapons, moved house to house in villages, hunting for Tutsis, the second largest of Rwanda’s three ethnic groups. The radio station RTLM, allied with leaders of the government, had been inciting Hutus against the Tutsi minority, repeatedly describing the latter as inyenzi, or “cockroaches,” and as inzoka, or “snakes.” The station, unfortunately, had many listeners. > The promoters of genocide used other metaphors to turn people against their neighbors. Hutus, by reputation, are shorter than Tutsis; radio broadcasters also urged Hutus to “cut down the tall trees.” > In urban centers, government soldiers and well-armed members of the Interahamwe militia affiliated with the ruling party set up roadblocks filtering out Tutsis and killing them by the roadside. It was an easy task to pick them out. Ever since independence from Belgium in 1962, national identification cards specified ethnicity. > Within 100 days, an estimated 1 million people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Tutsis, lay dead. The worst kind of hatred had been unleashed. What began with dehumanizing words ended in bloodshed. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-shows-how-hateful-speech-leads-violence/587041/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-sho...
      - nailer 1y ago
        [flagged]
  - zzzeek 1y ago
    NARRATOR: he was, in fact, proud of his behavior there, plainly visible by comparing such behavior to hundreds of other publicly recorded instances of such behavior for which he was also quite proud
    - nailer 1y ago
      But that’s not true - it was uncharacteristic. There are many instances where he was kind to someone being openly aggressive towards him and one where he made fun of Paul Pelosi.
      - zzzeek 1y ago
        kind to people....who he was speaking to directly in person? or making social media references while they were not present (or adding them to dox lists so they could be harassed for years with death threats [1]) ? This is the key difference of course. It's also a really basic technique of horrible people to come off as very empathetic and friendly in person under specific circumstances so people are fooled in exactly this way, giving them full leeway to do horrible things elsewhere (such as maintaining dox lists to terrorize people into submission, or referring to women of color as having lesser "brain processing power" - e.g. unfiltered racism [2]....oh or insisting that children should be forced to watch executions [3]). [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlie-kirk-professor-watchlist-free-speech-college-campus-rcna231448 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlie-kirk-professor-... [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-black-women/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-black-women/ [3] https://meidasnews.com/news/charlie-kirk-wants-coca-cola-sponsored-televised-executions-of-trumps-political-opponents https://meidasnews.com/news/charlie-kirk-wants-coca-cola-spo...
        nailer 1y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45554559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45554559
- WickyNilliams 1y ago
  Not an American so I don't have a horse in the race. Didnt Kirk also describe Biden as a "tyrant" and that he should be given the death penalty [0]. Calling for the (then sitting) president to be put to death seems pretty extreme to me. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-biden-death-penalty/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-biden-death-p...
  - ithkuil 1y ago
    Those who think that criticizing Kirk is always calling for this death, would this comment above also be considered violent? Or is this comment also unacceptable? Where is the demarcation?
    - tavavex 1y ago
      The demarcation is that my side celebrating someone's death is reasonable, level-headed criticism that reflects the will of the people and how dire the situation is - you've just gotta consider what we're saying and think that both sides have valid points. On the other hand, your side not showing Kim Jong Il funeral levels of grieving towards my figurehead is extremist violent rhetoric that has no place anywhere in our society, it has to be punished; the deranged, crazed, murder-hungry perpetrators must be suppressed and removed before they kill someone. The demarcation is that I'm stronger than you. Rules and logical consistency don't matter when you have power. I only tried to be mildly cynical here, because I actually can't come up with any other justifications here. I don't think there's anything non-inflammatory that can justify this outside of ideological reasons. If anything can think of any, let me know.
blockmarker 1y ago
[flagged]
- adrr 1y ago
  Were the posts about Kirk deserving it or posts critical of Kirk. People conflate the two. Most of the quotes weren't made up. He did call for political violence like the execution of Joe Biden and for a "patriot" to bail out the person who tried to murder Paul Pelosi.
- standardUser 1y ago
  You speak as if you've never read a YouTube comment section before. Yet you say you've read millions of comments? Maybe consider not reading rage-bait garbage all night long and talk to real people instead.
- estearum 1y ago
  Not only are such comments generally not support for murder, but I'll let you in on a little known fact: In the US Constitution there's a thing called the First Amendment. It actually protects your right to say that you support murder. Either a real historical one or a hypothetical future one. The more you know!
standardUser 1y ago
It's a cudgel. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, it fits in your hand and you can whack your perceived enemies. As always, logic doesn't matter, only owning the libs matters.
titanomachy 1y ago
It doesn't matter. Charlie Kirk could have been the greatest saint of our generation, and it would still be unjust to imprison someone for posting a meme saying that they don't care about his death.
- estearum 1y ago
  It would be unjust to imprison or even have law enforcement knock on the door of a person who was celebrating in the streets that he died! This is completely out of bounds for the United States. But that's the Woke Right for ya.
  - eth0up 1y ago
    Woke right. That actually makes sense. Same form of madness. It will be interesting to see the eventually empowered Left use reflective (identical) tactics to seal the coffin of the Second Amendment. And one could almost pity the... 'woke' Right for not seeing it coming. I lean right. But I'm getting vertigo. I think China must have put prions in our Tupperware a long time ago. We're a dead fuckin ringer for hopeless.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
tavavex 1y ago
This entire story is a culmination of this effect. If 'celebrating someone's death' was a crime in the US, there's no doubt they would've used that to accuse that man. But since that's not actually illegal, they had to bend it out of shape until his milquetoast barely-criticism could somehow be interpreted as an active threat against some random high school. It would be funny if this wasn't completely acceptable behavior now.
EasyMark 1y ago
Right, I despised what he stood for and his death has no impact on my life in reality. Doesn't mean I wanted him harmed in any fashion, I just didn't like him or his platform. I'm not sure why people are such simpletons that they can't distinguish the difference between that and wishing someone harm, especially on a site like HN where people should in general be aware of nuance and separation of concerns.

by yibg 1y ago

mullingitover 1y ago

There is a group who has never debated anything in good faith, and they are certainly not about to start now.

krapp 1y ago

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

tootie 1y ago

Kirk, among many other right wing figures, have absolutely made light of past violence against Democrats. The discourse around Paul Pelosi was utterly vile and despicable. Nobody ever threatened his first amendment right to say horrendous things.

nailer 1y ago
FWIW I agree Kirk shouldn't have made fun of Paul Pelosi. I think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > think Kirk probably wouldn't be proud of his own behaviour there He had years to apologise. It could have meaningfully altered the temperature of our discourse, particularly among young men. He never did. Kirk gets no credit for amends he never made.
  - tastyface 1y ago
    This is how Charlie Kirk got on my radar: "Mere weeks before his death, Kirk reveled in Trump's deployment of federal troops to DC. 'Shock and awe. Force,' he wrote. 'We're taking our country back from these cockroaches.'" Cockroaches! Literally language of the Rwandan genocide. And it's a Christian saying this about other human beings? The man never changed. (Obviously, he should not have been shot. But his sanctification is repulsive.)
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - heavyset_go 1y ago
      In case the reference doesn't click[1]: > Twenty-five years ago this month, all hell broke loose in my country, which is tucked away in the Great Lakes region of Africa. Hordes of members of the Hutu ethnic majority, armed with machetes, spears, nail-studded clubs, and other rudimentary weapons, moved house to house in villages, hunting for Tutsis, the second largest of Rwanda’s three ethnic groups. The radio station RTLM, allied with leaders of the government, had been inciting Hutus against the Tutsi minority, repeatedly describing the latter as inyenzi, or “cockroaches,” and as inzoka, or “snakes.” The station, unfortunately, had many listeners. > The promoters of genocide used other metaphors to turn people against their neighbors. Hutus, by reputation, are shorter than Tutsis; radio broadcasters also urged Hutus to “cut down the tall trees.” > In urban centers, government soldiers and well-armed members of the Interahamwe militia affiliated with the ruling party set up roadblocks filtering out Tutsis and killing them by the roadside. It was an easy task to pick them out. Ever since independence from Belgium in 1962, national identification cards specified ethnicity. > Within 100 days, an estimated 1 million people, the overwhelming majority of whom were Tutsis, lay dead. The worst kind of hatred had been unleashed. What began with dehumanizing words ended in bloodshed. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-shows-how-hateful-speech-leads-violence/587041/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/rwanda-sho...
    - nailer 1y ago
      [flagged]
- zzzeek 1y ago
  NARRATOR: he was, in fact, proud of his behavior there, plainly visible by comparing such behavior to hundreds of other publicly recorded instances of such behavior for which he was also quite proud
  - nailer 1y ago
    But that’s not true - it was uncharacteristic. There are many instances where he was kind to someone being openly aggressive towards him and one where he made fun of Paul Pelosi.
    - zzzeek 1y ago
      kind to people....who he was speaking to directly in person? or making social media references while they were not present (or adding them to dox lists so they could be harassed for years with death threats [1]) ? This is the key difference of course. It's also a really basic technique of horrible people to come off as very empathetic and friendly in person under specific circumstances so people are fooled in exactly this way, giving them full leeway to do horrible things elsewhere (such as maintaining dox lists to terrorize people into submission, or referring to women of color as having lesser "brain processing power" - e.g. unfiltered racism [2]....oh or insisting that children should be forced to watch executions [3]). [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlie-kirk-professor-watchlist-free-speech-college-campus-rcna231448 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/charlie-kirk-professor-... [2] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-black-women/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-black-women/ [3] https://meidasnews.com/news/charlie-kirk-wants-coca-cola-sponsored-televised-executions-of-trumps-political-opponents https://meidasnews.com/news/charlie-kirk-wants-coca-cola-spo...
      - nailer 1y ago
        https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45554559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45554559
WickyNilliams 1y ago
Not an American so I don't have a horse in the race. Didnt Kirk also describe Biden as a "tyrant" and that he should be given the death penalty [0]. Calling for the (then sitting) president to be put to death seems pretty extreme to me. [0] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-biden-death-penalty/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/charlie-kirk-biden-death-p...
- ithkuil 1y ago
  Those who think that criticizing Kirk is always calling for this death, would this comment above also be considered violent? Or is this comment also unacceptable? Where is the demarcation?
  - tavavex 1y ago
    The demarcation is that my side celebrating someone's death is reasonable, level-headed criticism that reflects the will of the people and how dire the situation is - you've just gotta consider what we're saying and think that both sides have valid points. On the other hand, your side not showing Kim Jong Il funeral levels of grieving towards my figurehead is extremist violent rhetoric that has no place anywhere in our society, it has to be punished; the deranged, crazed, murder-hungry perpetrators must be suppressed and removed before they kill someone. The demarcation is that I'm stronger than you. Rules and logical consistency don't matter when you have power. I only tried to be mildly cynical here, because I actually can't come up with any other justifications here. I don't think there's anything non-inflammatory that can justify this outside of ideological reasons. If anything can think of any, let me know.

blockmarker 1y ago

[flagged]

adrr 1y ago
Were the posts about Kirk deserving it or posts critical of Kirk. People conflate the two. Most of the quotes weren't made up. He did call for political violence like the execution of Joe Biden and for a "patriot" to bail out the person who tried to murder Paul Pelosi.
standardUser 1y ago
You speak as if you've never read a YouTube comment section before. Yet you say you've read millions of comments? Maybe consider not reading rage-bait garbage all night long and talk to real people instead.
estearum 1y ago
Not only are such comments generally not support for murder, but I'll let you in on a little known fact: In the US Constitution there's a thing called the First Amendment. It actually protects your right to say that you support murder. Either a real historical one or a hypothetical future one. The more you know!

standardUser 1y ago

It's a cudgel. It doesn't matter if it makes sense, it fits in your hand and you can whack your perceived enemies. As always, logic doesn't matter, only owning the libs matters.

titanomachy 1y ago

It doesn't matter. Charlie Kirk could have been the greatest saint of our generation, and it would still be unjust to imprison someone for posting a meme saying that they don't care about his death.

estearum 1y ago
It would be unjust to imprison or even have law enforcement knock on the door of a person who was celebrating in the streets that he died! This is completely out of bounds for the United States. But that's the Woke Right for ya.
- eth0up 1y ago
  Woke right. That actually makes sense. Same form of madness. It will be interesting to see the eventually empowered Left use reflective (identical) tactics to seal the coffin of the Second Amendment. And one could almost pity the... 'woke' Right for not seeing it coming. I lean right. But I'm getting vertigo. I think China must have put prions in our Tupperware a long time ago. We're a dead fuckin ringer for hopeless.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]

tavavex 1y ago

This entire story is a culmination of this effect. If 'celebrating someone's death' was a crime in the US, there's no doubt they would've used that to accuse that man. But since that's not actually illegal, they had to bend it out of shape until his milquetoast barely-criticism could somehow be interpreted as an active threat against some random high school. It would be funny if this wasn't completely acceptable behavior now.

EasyMark 1y ago

Right, I despised what he stood for and his death has no impact on my life in reality. Doesn't mean I wanted him harmed in any fashion, I just didn't like him or his platform. I'm not sure why people are such simpletons that they can't distinguish the difference between that and wishing someone harm, especially on a site like HN where people should in general be aware of nuance and separation of concerns.