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Best not to speculate on motivations at this time, IMO. It's the most likely scenario given his notoriety, but we don't know anything yet and that's a slippery slope.
Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
371–380 of 1001 posts
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
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Was he involved in any mutual defense pacts I am not aware of?
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#373I was just at a conference today where one of the presenters referenced the "Trust barometer": https://www.edelman.com/trust/2025/trust-barometer According to that study, 23% approved of the statement "I approve hostile activism to drive change by threatening or committing violence". It's even higher if you only focus on 18-34 year olds. Full report here: https://www.edelman.com/sites/g/files/aatuss191/files/2025-0..…
"threatening or committing violence" could mean almost anything. It isn't hard to find evidence of people (especially young ones) equating speech with violence. I imagine that "I support assassination to drive change" would be even less popular.
It will be a range of opinions within that area, but even at the tail there are a concerning number of people.
One person in a thousand prepared to commit violence for political ends can be enough to turn a country into chaos.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#374Am I wrong in thinking this guy isn't/wasn't a very influential person, outside of Twitter and the people that stay on there 24/7? If so, why even target the poor guy? What change was the person who shot him hoping to elicit? Either way, I hope he makes it, even though it looks like it was a fatal blow
I saw his videos occasionally on youtube/facebook. I didn't really agree with his stances on immigration most of the time, though I thought some of his other arguments on other topics were thought provoking at least, and I also thought it was cool that he always had an open mic for anyone that wanted to debate him. Seemed like he had an encyclopedic memory when it came to things like SCOTUS cases or historical events.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#375We are a society whose culture has become unmoored from the values that built it.
Values don't make stonks go up
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#376Just the other day I was reading about the Italian "Years Of Lead" [1] which I wasn't old enough to understand myself at the time in the UK. I was wondering if we could see something similar as various forces internal and external strained at the seams of western democracies. For context, there is quite febrile atmosphere in the UK at the moment so I feel it is useful to attempt to calibrate these things for stochast…
Without knowing what happened, it's difficult to make the comparison between the Italian Years of Lead and what happened earlier today at Utah Valley University.
My understanding of the Italian political climate of the 60s, 70s, and 80s is that there were political groups/cells (on both the far right and far left) that organized around violent acts to further their political goals (which involved the eventual authoritarian takeover of the Italian government by either the far right or far left). For example, you can think of the Red Brigades to be akin to the Black Panthers, but with actual terrorism.
In contrast, most political violence in America has been less organized and more individual-driven (e.g., see the Oklahoma City Bombing). For better or worse, the police state in the US has been quite successful in addressing and dispersing political groups that advocate for violence as a viable means for societal change.
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#377I bang on a lot about not saying things like "this person is a threat to democracy" and other such apocalyptic statements. This right here is a perfect example of why: when you steep people in a culture that tells them someone is (or their ideas are) an existential threat, eventually someone is going to be the right level of scared + unstable that causes them to kill people to try to defend their way of life. If you…
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Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#378I bang on a lot about not saying things like "this person is a threat to democracy" and other such apocalyptic statements. This right here is a perfect example of why: when you steep people in a culture that tells them someone is (or their ideas are) an existential threat, eventually someone is going to be the right level of scared + unstable that causes them to kill people to try to defend their way of life. If you…
What if it is true that someone is a threat to democracy?
Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#379I bang on a lot about not saying things like "this person is a threat to democracy" and other such apocalyptic statements. This right here is a perfect example of why: when you steep people in a culture that tells them someone is (or their ideas are) an existential threat, eventually someone is going to be the right level of scared + unstable that causes them to kill people to try to defend their way of life. If you…
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Re: Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
#380I bang on a lot about not saying things like "this person is a threat to democracy" and other such apocalyptic statements. This right here is a perfect example of why: when you steep people in a culture that tells them someone is (or their ideas are) an existential threat, eventually someone is going to be the right level of scared + unstable that causes them to kill people to try to defend their way of life. If you…
The othering that is so very common in online discussion is genuinely dangerous. It's incredibly common and almost benign at this point because it's just everywhere.
It is historically proven as the first step to violence. People seem to think that words don't matter.
They matter very much. Just because you can read millions of words a day, doesn't mean they're not powerful.
Support him or no, he didn't deserve to die for his political beliefs.