2025 Political Thread

[Evan]

His stance on Leviticus 20:13 is one of his most striking things to me - he basically said that LGBT people should be stoned to death because that’s “god’s perfect plan”. Abhorrent, and I find it a little difficult to sympathize with someone who wished death on several different groups of people.

There's some missing context to when he said that quote and referenced Leviticus 20:13. I've seen the more complete video. It came from an appearance on that lunatic ne’er-do-well Jack Posobiec's clown show (Posobiec being a progenitor of the Pizzagate and Rape Melania hoaxes). Not saying I agree with Kirk's statement, because I do not politically or from a theological perspective, but there was specific context to what was being said.

Trust me, I'm not in the business of defending Charlie Kirk's previous rhetoric, but I think precision is important when discussing this topic for a myriad of reasons.

I monitor a lot of far-right accounts and trends. Kirk was fairly mainstream for most of the MAGA movement, perhaps a little to the right of the average person in the MAGA coalition. Ultimately, it wouldn't matter if he was even significantly worse than someone like Nicholas Fuentes. You cannot assassinate people for their speech or political beliefs, no matter how toxic, extreme, belligerent, racist, homophobic, or vile it might be.

Speech is not violence. Speech is not a crime—outside of speech that is articulated in a way that is directed at producing, and likely to produce, imminent lawless action or speech that constitutes a true threat as defined in Virginia v. Black. Even then, we have law enforcement for those who do cross the line.

Charlie Kirk said a lot of objectionable, hateful, and cruel things. But we don't kill people for that. I'd feel the same way if someone had murdered Fuentes or David Duke.

People can look to Colombia if they want to see what happens when violence truly infiltrates politics. Even after having a number of years with markedly reduced political violence, it is now back with a vengeance in Colombia. Even if only a small minority of 10–20% of extremists believe that political violence is legitimate, it almost always leads to a system that is irreconcilably infected with incurable violence. That generally devolves into armed conflict and "might makes right," and there are way too many people in this country who have forgotten why that's foolish and dangerous, including the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

 

[bjdeming]

Old lady perspective FWIW:

A super narcissistic megalomaniac like Trump is not someone I would omit from committing an atrocity like this for the sake of his own hatred against the left.

That's not the Donald Trump I've known from the headlines all my life -- a likeable, annoying goof with indeed a populist touch.

What we've seen of Trump since January isn't really The Goof, either. He's fronting, drawing attention, polarizing the country, while the puppeteers remain as invisible as Kirk's killer probably will remain.

It isn't "left" or "right" that matters, nor does it matter what appears in media of any sort. Murder matters, the way public figures get dropped when it has a major public impact. I never heard of Kirk, but I heard of two Kennedy's, MLK Jr. (his son told Ray in prison that he did not believe Ray had killed his father), and Malcolm X (maybe).

Different politics, different times -- the ever-changing river of American life. But at the center, always, is a hard core of American (in a dual-continent sense) fascists who know all the ways to manipulate populations and replace governments that displease them.

That matters. In fact, it's terrifying, but it needn't be since they've probably been around for a hundred years or more in this country and are severely constrained by US law and US public support of our laws and institutions, and also by our widespread prosperity and contentment.

These people, though invisibly powerful, are pitiful, actually -- prisoners of their own twisted thoughts and scarred from all the violence they so skillfully wield at times in their never-ending attempt to find self-identity through insubstantial things like power, sex, wealth, and (not so insubstantial!) the suffering of others.

They must have hated the 60s-era revolutions: give peace a chance, "he ain't heavy, he's my brother," and so forth -- but we outnumbered them in a war that we didn't know we were fighting (a lack of awareness that gave us tremendous tactical and strategic advantages).

Now we are fewer and will soon be elsewhere, experiencing the consequences of all our actions, just as everyone must. The fascists knew we would pass and have been chipping away for decades at the US, using chisels of power, sex, and wealth, and now that they see their chance again, I think, they've once more picked up the hammer.

I don't mean to go on like this but have been thinking it over for a while now and do see this ALL, especially since January, as a test of what we believed in during our younger days. Either the control freaks will win or us peaceniks and others who invested their futures with goodwill, empathy, compassion, and other civil and social qualities will win through.

I strongly believe that it will be the latter. But we cannot hate, act impulsively, surrender all thought to the glowing screen, or otherwise make ourselves vulnerable to control-freak manipulation; doing any of that just strengthens the bad guys.

And it's a joy to see many Americans already responding to this terrible crime and crisis the right way (small "R").

Our investment in the future, so diffuse and gentle, is already paying off. But it's gonna be a hard road ahead for a while now.

the person who did this very clearly and obviously knows what they are doing

Definitely rules out Antifa.

 

[UncleJuJu98]

Trump said that they have the guy via live on Fox News. Somebody turned him in and recognized him. Take with a grain of salt until officially confirmed though.

 

[UncleJuJu98]

Suspect was a 22 year old Utah state student. And was a political assassination, 2 bullets had anti fascist messages.

 

[bjdeming]

Reuters, at least, confirms it -- haven't checked the others..

 

[Central Ohio Wx]

Reuters, at least, confirms it -- haven't checked the others..

“Notices bulge” is a phrase I seriously never thought would leave the Internet and reach mainstream news, but I guess I was wrong. Aside from that on one bullet casing he (allegedly) also had “Bella ciao” (the title of a traditional Italian anti-fascist song) and a few other anti-fascist things. Nothing trans-related, though, which is good as it’ll be harder to spin it into an anti-trans thing.

 

[Mike S]

His stance on Leviticus 20:13 is one of his most striking things to me - he basically said that LGBT people should be stoned to death because that’s “god’s perfect plan”. Abhorrent, and I find it a little difficult to sympathize with someone who wished death on several different groups of people.

LOL no he didn't

 

[bjdeming]

Saw this today and just had to share it:

"When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it’s important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember internet fury is not real life. It’s going to be ok."

-- Gov. Spencer Kirk

 

[Evan]

LOL no he didn't

Which is why I pointed it out above as well that the characterization being made wasn't accurate.

That being said,

LOL no he didn't

I agree as I alluded to in my earlier post where I mentioned there was context involved when Kirk mentioned that specific scripture. The full video where Kirk references Leviticus shows it was essentially a theological debate. He might have been a bit reckless in making his point, however, it was evident he was not actually saying that LGBTQ individuals should be stoned to death.

But, I still want to come back to the idea that it only matters because we should be precise when discussing claims of what someone supposedly said.

On a broader level, there are plenty of documented examples of Kirk saying controversial or incendiary things. Some were in service of making analogies but some were just incredibly crude and wrongheaded. He was heavily involved in pushing claims about the 2020 election being fraudulent/stolen, was cavalier with the Paul Pelosi attack (even though he did condemn it), and he hired Blake Neff after Fox News fired him for his past racist, misogynistic, and homophobic writings (not my characterization that's what the CEO of FoxNews called his internet posts).

That is just a small sample of the areas where Kirk engaged in rhetoric or behavior that I think a good number, if not a majority, of Americans would find problematic or disagree with. And, it is precisely that as to WHY any violence toward him should be loudly and explicitly condemned.

Charlie Kirk was the victim of a completely unjustified cold-blooded assassination. It is still early in the investigation, however, current evidence shows that the shooter was politically motivated and wanted to silence Kirk's speech. People are allowed to hold opinions we dislike. People are allowed to hold opinions and express them in incendiary or insensitive ways. I previously pointed out the extremely limited restriction the Supreme Court has imposed on speech in this country. Nothing Kirk said or did even approached that limit. Even if it had, again, that's a matter for law enforcement.

I know you already agree with a lot of what I'm saying here, Mike. Not really "responding" to you as much as using your post to continue the larger conversation. That's because I want to be very very very clear about this as I think it is an extremely important event. We don't use physical violence as a response to speech we dislike or disagree with. We don't attack or murder people because they have beliefs or opinions we find to be vile, incendiary, or ugly.

Matt Yglesias made a tweet that I think encapsulates the exact point I'm trying to make in a much more succinct way:



Someone can absolutely hate or loathe Charlie Kirk if they want. But, EVERYONE should find his assassination to be unacceptable, unjustified, and the antithesis of society that truly believes in free speech and liberal values (the classical liberal definition not the political one).

 

[TH2002]

Not much to add, but I'll say it anyway... whether one liked Charlie Kirk or not, his assassination was a tragedy and a disgusting act. Kirk left behind a wife and two young children that will grow up without ever truly knowing their father.

Off hand I don't know what the shooter's motives/ideology were, and I'm not going to assume anything, but I will say this... if we want change in this country, revolution targets THE ENTIRE SYSTEM - not individuals voicing their opinions, and not just one party.

I feel like I'm living in a crumbling USSR in 1991.

edit: Let me add that when I mention revolution... I am NOT advocating for violence. Actually, nonviolent revolutions have a far higher success rate than violent ones. With only one exception (Romania), the fall of communism in the Warsaw Pact came through peaceful revolutions. I am saying that people need to stop blindly putting their trust in one party or the other. And I'm not saying there are no good people in America's political parties - there are - but blind party loyalty needs to stop. Now.

I think EVERY American, if not every PERSON, needs to read this:

 

[bjdeming]

I feel like I'm living in a crumbling USSR in 1991.

And I also feel like I'm living in a rebirth of Sovietism -- in America.

But maybe -- and I hope I don't rock any boats with this -- we're just new to it, those of us who haven't personally experienced the ugly side of America before.

Some of those who know what that is like are now helping, expanding their resources, as this news story from Atlanta shows one example of.

“We want to start orienting you in the conversation that we believe we all kind of see, but we don’t say it outright: Progress. Backlash. Progress. Backlash. And that pattern that has been in our country since enslavement,”

Nowadays it's not something obvious like skin color. It's what you think, who you know in terms of clout, how much money you can bring to the table, how cynically you can laugh at or besmear Good (two "O's").

Soviet-style crap (the first and last points), exploiting long-term American weaknesses.

I still think that religion, with its ability to make us humble yet at the same time make us believe in others just as we believe in ourselves, is America's only hope now. But no one, not even that Atlanta museum, dares to say it out loud yet. It's so hard.

MLK, Jr., for instance, is called "icon" and "man" in that story, but not a religious leader and symbol of conscience, which is how he was seen during his life and is part of the reason why he was so effective.

That sort of R stuff now gets swept out of public view in the West just as quickly and thoroughly as it has been for more than a century thus far in Russia.

We will find it more of a struggle to love even those closest to us, and especially to love our enemies. Apart from God, we may even struggle to love ourselves. Martin Luther King, Jr. repeatedly addressed the call to love everyone, particularly our enemies. In his sermons, he would make the distinction between liking people and loving them. When he mentioned all the things people had said and done to him and others, including physical abuse and murderous threats, he readily admitted that he did not like these persons at all.

Yet, he said, Jesus commanded that we must love them, which is different than liking. We love them not because they are likable, but because they too are children of God, and as difficult as they may be, God still loves them.

Hatred is destructive and only breeds more hate, but love… love has the power to transform people.

-- Source

My own religion puts it this way, in a collection of verses called the Dhammapada: "Occasions of hatred are never settled by hatred. Occasions of hatred are settled by absence of hatred. This is the eternal law."

And it's so hard.

Heh. Ecumenicism. Another 1960s/1970s religious-left artifact, from before the corruption set in so deeply.

G. K. Chesterton has a clue about why it's so hard, writing somewhere that "Strong and genuine religious sentiment has never had any objection to realism; on the contrary, religion was the realistic thing, the brutal thing, the thing that called names."

Nowadays it's so much easier to use our Puritan background to brutally call others names only, not ourselves (the only venue where we can actually make changes), though the names apply to us equally well because ALL people have a terrible side. We all lack humility (it's hard to relearn when you're 72, too!).

And it's easier to bury realism with, in the left's case anyway, nice-sounding progressive pap -- something we'll get lots of again when the Dems retake Congress next year.

This country isn't going anywhere, though, until it gets humble again and rediscovers that it is perfectly acceptable as well as more productive to call that shovel-shaped gardening tool by its real name: a spade.



In 2024, AI assures me, there were 340.1 million "spades" in this country, and since we haven't gone totally belly-up yet, many of them must be in proper and productive use. More could be.

But it's so hard.

 

[andyhb]

Now Marco Rubio threatening to revoke passports of US citizens who "celebrated" Kirk's death, which in many cases was just posting videos of his rhetoric that could've incited people.

 

[andyhb]

This is insane.

 

[Evan]

This is insane.

See Pam Bondi's recent claims about criminalizing speech yesterday and then her attempted walk back this morning.

We're lucky the President is a stable genius and would never exploit this situation: