domain:youtu.be
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
47m ago
Because it's relevant? I'm sure some leftists claimed that Floyd's drug habits were beyond the scope of the discussion, but they would have been wrong given whether he had fentanyl in his system could have been very, very important in how he died.
KMC
48m ago
It only took them sixty years and four chief justices to reach the correct answer.
pigeonburger
50m ago
It's not necessarily that unfair, because the "ambushed" side has the benefit of chosing whether or not to engage, whereas the professional looks bad if he refuses to debate someone, no one will know about the amateurs that don't show up. The amateur can research the specific point they want to make beforehand, has the benefit of researching the person they will debate beforehand... Knowing that you're going to go against someone who does that professionally, you would assume that they've already encountered every easy surface level arguments. But yeah, some people just look at "easy looking" carnival games and assume that there's nothing funny going on, just like I imagine some people look at a "debate me" event from a pro-gun person and think they never considered school shootings can and have happened. Still, they walked in it of their own accord; and it's a lot fairer than gotcha vox-pop you see on TV.
Catsnakes_
50m ago
If you walk up to somebody to get into an argument with them (even if they're encouraging you to do this), can you really say you were ambushed?
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
50m ago
This so so boo outgroup I'm shocked it doesn't run afoul of the rules.
It's not, for the sme reason your post isn't.
Now the right is committed to glazing Kirk and any concept of the "Truth" is out the window, and the right wants to silence you when you speak up. The "moderate" lefties are probably doing the same exact thing the "moderate" righties were doing.
This makes no sense as a steelman. Kirk does not represent a a detraction from the truth so great, any concept ofbit goes out the window. Anyone who claims so would have to be even more diaguated by academia, the mainstream media, not to mention the heaps upon heaps of influencers they follow themselves.
They can't be disturbed by the silencing in principle, because that would require them to have a long track record of complaints against the much worse silencing done by the left.
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
51m ago
Any of Kirk's content that zoomers were seeing on TikTok was of course going to be highly cherrypicked.
I don't know if he also did full unedited livestreams, but even if he did I'd hardly call it amazing. Debate is mostly fake. By that, I mean the idea that the strongest argument (or the most truth-seeking individual, or even just the most persuasive) inevitably wins is fake. It's a skill like any other -- Yglesias has gone into this on the case of Hasan.
Spookykou
51m ago
This really reads as a tongue in cheek gotcha, he can't stop smirking as he makes the argument. I don't think he takes the scripture literally, he immediately explains his personal interpretation of the 'love your neighbor' bit, and I think he is also explaining his interpretation of the myriad 'stone the gays' bits in the bible in the same moment.
I would imagine that his position, which he half states in the clip, is that homosexuality is a sin and as a good and loving Christian he has an obligation to help gay people understand that truth rather then just affirming their identity.
This is just based on the clip. I have seen very little Charlie Kirk content so he might in other places make claims that undermine this reading.
zoink
51m ago
That's not a debate, that's an ambush.
Kirk's interlocutors chose to walk up to the mic. His appearances are announced weeks (months?) in advance. Kirk had a decade of his strongest arguments publicly available. This is as far from an ambush as you can get.
This whole attempt to lionize Kirk after his death has been extremely black pulling, as a leftist.
I don't think any lionization is aimed at blackpilled leftists. Ezra Klein says free speech is good, but he doesn't lionize him. This is about the best response that can be mustered among a sea of "he didn't deserve to die, but..."
I don't know much about Kirk. As far as political influencers go, a commitment to the exercise of speech and "Debate*" is worth a nod even in an asterisked, scare quoted own-the-lib form. Doubly so in an environment where an exercise of (obnoxious) speech, the bedrock of our polite society, will get you targeted. I wish Kirk's politics were more like mine in his life and advocacy, but that goes for everyone.
Would it be helpful if you pretended Joe Rogan was killed instead? That sounds snarky, but I am curious who might be a controversial, but deserving figure you dislike to receive more than mostly derision with a he didn't deserve, but... primer.
Catsnakes_
53m ago
You can make all kinds of responses to the right wing narratives, but I don't see how criticizing the dead man is a necessary component of any response to how the right wing is acting unless the speaker means to tacitly add "(and so for that reason it's good that he's dead)" to the end of their response.
KMC
54m ago
It feels like we rapidly are descending into an authoritarian anti-free speech environment
This is called a slippery slope, and we're already halfway down and too far gone to slow or stop. The time to slow or stop was 10 years ago, or 5. Now we are too late.
Past tense, please.
I want to shake this person and ask what good this kind of statement actually does for our cause. Do you want more vigilante killings?
The answer is obviously yes, and it's been obvious for years. That's the natural conclusion of punch a nazi, resistance, Trump is a fascist rhetoric. I think that yes, leftists genuinely want people like Kirk, Trump, Tucker Carlson, and Stephen Miller dead, assassinated, shot, exploded, defenestrated, and generally removed from the living. I think your colleague wants it.
Hell, I think my own father wants it, because his reaction to Trump's assassination was first disappointment, and was never outrage.
Do you want to win elections?
I think they want to stop having elections that hinge on what they consider settled matters, as if one side simply considering it settled is enough to move on. One way to accomplish that is to murder those who keep raising settled issues until nobody has the guts to raise them again.
If martyrdom doesn't make one a hero, nothing can.
Kirk was a man. Not a symbol. Now the opposite is true.
Calling that state of affairs a lie is just raw unfettered denial of the human experience.
You can say neither side cares about the truth, you might even be right. But the one guy who did so enough to talk publicly to the other side in places that are meant for a debate that never happens isn't here anymore.
Who's really so afraid of what he had to say?
None of it matters now. The debate is over. We all lose.
Update to this from 2 weeks ago.
I'm continuing to see a therapist weekly and keeping the weekly meetings with our pastor. Two weeks ago I shared the timeline I'd assembled along with emails and chat logs between my wife and the Elons with my therapist. Last week she said she shared this with her clinical supervisor and the clinic director and that they're all very concerned, but also that my wife had only seen her therapist twice so far.
Last week I saw the nurse practitioner at our GP's office for an SSRI. While I was in the office she said she'd tried contacting my wife several times but that she didn't answer / respond.
4 - 5 days in the emotional blunting was noticeable and a welcome relief. I was able to discuss the current situation with another parent at the language school the kids attend on Saturday and was easily able to maintain emotional regulation.
I also attended, via Zoom, a local NAMI support group.
The children seem to be doing well in school, I met with the adjustment counselor at the elementary school to let her know about the situation, she said she had introduced herself to the kids but they seem to be adjusting well. Their new term of swim lessons and swim club began this week. The oldest seems to be engaging with his classes in middle school. His first swim meet is in 9 days and enjoys the regular practices.
With the recent violence reported in the news my wife's Twitter has been active with posts and reposts viewing the events though an anti-white lens. On Monday once the children were at school I asked her that when she's with the children to refrain from the white-wellbeing 'activism' and live-stream / podcast consumption. She denied that she had / was, I noted her posting of the live-stream she said she only posted it, until I noted her screen-name joined the live-stream at the 34 second mark, she then said she only watched for 5 minutes and that our daughter wasn't watching it. She then accused me of being controlling and that I should talk to my attorney and therapist. I emailed my attorney that day and spoke to my therapist about this today.
Jason Köhne and nowhiteguilt.org doesn't seem to get much attention in the wider press but I did see these two articles where he's mentioned.
I read 'I Am Not Sick I Don't Need Help', I think if we were speaking the LEAP method it describes would be helpful.
The summons is back from the court and gone to the constables, I expect she'll be served next week while the children are in school.
LateMechanic
58m ago
The only way I can picture a 'next shoe dropping' big congealing shift happening among normie liberal masses is more based on who comes out with a strong take, more so than necessarily what the take is. It seems like it takes someone like Chappelle or Jon Stewart to successfully rein people in and to feel a bit ashamed for their previous zeal, or to give the go-ahead that their righteous feelings are directionally correct. I can't think of many others, but these figures are a step above the basic Colbert/Kimmel cultural level (who can come up with great rhetoric for any position but lack authenticity).
I could be wrong about this, but my recollection of the post-George Floyd time period was that it was pretty easy to be hesitant about Floyd as a victim for normies, for the first week. But then Chappelle went viral with his '8 minutes and 46 seconds' angle, and the gas pedal was just locked to the floor after that. And obviously on the flip side, the 'moderating gatekeeper' role is well established.
If nothing like that happens, then everyone is just kind of shooting from the hip, and blame/justifications are going to stay all over the place.
Mihow
Lipstick on a guitar
59m ago
This is a high level bad take.
He want to Universities and spoke to everyone. Most college kids are dumb now - what can you do?
Milo was a piece of shit asshole - Kirk was a kid who started a company that became defining for a generation.
Kirk was a completely nice, normal conservative.
He represents the best of ‘ that side ‘ imo. That side being people on the right.
BahRamYou
1hr ago
I think debates should have some sort of fairness to them. It's fine if two random men on the street want to get into an argument and film it, that's fair. It's less fair if one of them is a professional talking head, and he's been researching talking points and practicing this debate professionally, while the other person is just getting into it for the first time. That's not a debate, that's an ambush.
Stefferi
Chief Suomiposter
1hr ago
The point being answered is “If someone is glad that Charlie Kirk, a moderate conservative squish, is dead and deserved to be killed for what he believed, they’d be ecstatic if I or people like me died / were killed based on what I believe”. The lefties who are cheering for his death would not have seen him as a moderate, and as mentioned many times, he himself referred to his view on a key issue as being very, very radical, making it less likely this would be his self-description, either.
NullHypothesis
1hr ago
A willingness to talk to the other side might be a low bar, but it seems to be a bar that so many have difficulty meeting. How many people in the realm of politics are making the effort to reach out to everyday people of the other side and have a discussion? Even if one were to think he's an intellectual hack creating viral moments by dunking on uninformed college students, do not regular everyday college students have the right to talk to someone with a different political perspective? What conservative voices exist in college and universities, which is populated by professors of increasing left-leaning ideologies? Universities invite left leaning speakers all the time without having to constantly worry about protestors against said speaker. Kirk died talking to students on campuses.
I don't know how I feel about flip-flopping criticisms. On the one hand, yes, a certain type of flip-flopping can be evidence of a lack of pillar of values shaping a world view. On the other hand, that's an uncharitable way of describing people that update their views and change their mind based on new information or changing circumstances. There's flip-flopping your core values, and then there's flip-flopping the results of applying your core values.
On Epstein:
Here is a video of Kirk saying all the Epstein files should be released. This was just a few days ago. https://instagram.com/reel/DOda98IEjzx/
Does this shift the needle in any way? Is he a flip flopper or someone that just kowtows to party lines? I guess this could be considered more evidence to the flip-flopping allegation.
Foreign Policy:
The Iran situation was not in the public consciousness when Kirk made his comment in April. His comment about a war in the Middle East is applied to a different set of circumstances than to that in June. If I recall, in the end the US did not deploy a large number of ground troops in Iran and the whole thing wrapped up relatively quickly compared to something like Afghanistan. I imagine when people say US involvement in a war in the Middle East, we're trying to avoid another Afghanistan or Iraq. It's hard to say the situation with Iran is similar in the reasons that might have motivated Kirk to say we should avoid another war in the Middle East.
TikTok:
This does seem like a valid example of flip-flopping. To play some defense though, Kirk's demand for banning TikTok is preceded by fan accounts being banned for hate speech, so I suppose he might have had a TikTok is not a free speech platform angle here. By the time he changes his mind, he acknowledges TikTok can be used to reach out to millions of zoomers. I think a more thorough examination into the reasons why Kirk may have wanted to ban TikTok can make this a better example of flip-flopping.
De Santis:
After a certain point you rally behind the candidate that has the greatest chance of wining. This is politics 101. I don't think this is a great example of flip-flopping. It's a stupid move to continue to support a weaker candidate in an attempt to be more principled, which would result in an increased likelihood a candidate from the opposite party who holds even less values you agree with becomes president instead.
Mail-in Ballots:
The article you linked does not strongly support your claim. Kirk made a post that he thought was evidence of mail-in voting shenanigans. I think a more valid criticism would be that he didn't do his due diligence to fully vet the source. It's absurdly stupid to make up something false because it can be so easily proven false, so it's more likely he jumped the gun on spreading a story that he thought was real.
I don't really know about Chase the Vote. Did they get people to do mail-in ballots? I checked Arizona and that state has early in person ballots. I guess if they ended up getting early votes via mail-voting this could be considered a strong example of flip-flopping considering how much of a role distrust of mail-in voting had for the republican side. That being said, nowhere in the article you linked does Kirk say should only vote in person.
Political Violence/Pelosi
Here's more of the Paul Pelosi quote
I'm looking at Politico.com, I looking at the New York times, I'm looking at all these places, and there's a little bit of mention here. For example, Politico says, ‘top Republicans reject any link between GOP rhetoric and Paul Pelosi assault.’ Of course, you should reject any link!
Why is the Republican party — why is the conservative movement to blame for gay, schizophrenic, nudists that are hemp jewelry makers, breaking into somebody’s home or maybe not breaking into somebody’s home? Why are we to blame for that exactly?
And why is he still in jail? Why has he not been bailed out? By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out. I bet his bail’s like thirty or forty thousand bucks. Bail him out and then go ask him some questions. I wonder what his bail is? They’re going after him with attempted murder, political assassination, all this sort of stuff.
I’m not qualifying it. I think it’s awful, it’s not right. But why is it that in Chicago you’re able to commit murder and be out the next day? Why is it that you're able to trespass, 2nd degree murder, arson, threat a public official, cashless bail, this happens all over San Francisco. But if you go after the Pelosis, oh you're [???] immediately
Note the last line. Actual murderers and other high stake criminals go out on bail all the time. You're trying to spin this as evidence is his endorsement of political violence, but Kirk is making his statement in context of a city that literally bails out criminals all the time. I didn't see anything in here that endorses political violence.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
1hr ago
In the light of what blue sky looks like now, are they wrong?
TheAntipopulist
Formerly Ben___Garrison
1hr ago
Top right-wing leaders are already pushing political narratives, so it's reasonable to respond to those narratives. Something similar happened around when Floyd was killed, and while I'm sure some leftists said it was "too soon" for conservatives to make counterarguments soon after he died, the conservatives were justified in doing so given the types of arguments leftists were pushing.
thejdizzler
1hr ago
So we just had an emergency lab meeting about the Charlie Kirk situation. Someone screenshotted an instagram story from one of my fellow lab members and sent in anonymous email to my PI (professor/supervisor). The instagram story said basically that Charlie Kirk's death was a good thing, actually. PI didn't name names, and it was also unclear what exactly the anonymous emailer wanted, but did caution us that this is a dangerous environment to be posting this kind of thing.
I have a couple thoughts about this. Firstly, it's legitimately pretty scary that internet posting is now important enough to warrant an emergency lab meeting. It feels like we rapidly are descending into an authoritarian anti-free speech environment (not that universities were bastions of this to begin with). My own social media and blog are extremely clean, but it's trivially easy to link this account with my real name, and I've posted some not kosher things here before.
Secondly, universities/leftists have kind of done this to themselves. This is the old Cory Doctrow/ Freddie DeBoer stick. Trigger warnings, anti-racism and cancel culture have all led to this kind of environment where speech can be policed in this way by the state and doesn't look hypocritical.
Thirdly, and I hate to say this, but whichever one of my colleagues posted this is a fucking idiot, along with most of the left in my generation. I still think of myself as a socialist, perhaps less so recently, and I want to shake this person and ask what good this kind of statement actually does for our cause. Do you want more vigilante killings? The right is going to come up on top with that one, as most lefties in this country are strangely anti-gun. Do you want to win elections? Advocating for murder isn't very popular with most of the electorate. Do you want continued science funding so you can have a job and accomplish the things that you think are so important you dedicated 8-12 hours of your day to, every day? Then stop tarnishing the reputation of universities and science in general with your crazy politics: our stipends come from taxpayer money. As I've written on earlier, scientists are woefully naive about politics. This is not how you win political victories, which makes me think that the goal isn't actually political victory, but some kind of LARP/ in-group signaling game.
ThomasdelVasto
Κύριε, ποίησόν με ὄργανον τῆς ἀγάπης σου
1hr ago
I stopped playing Silksong after I bought a 5070 Ti last Sunday. Thought it would be weird not to play something 3D. Clair Obscur has been bought, downloaded, but I haven't launched it yet.
Clair Obscur is amazing. Cyberpunk was kinda cool I guess, but idk I couldn't get that into it. Played it for a while but never finished it.
Clair Obscur though, that game is a work of art man. Seriously once in a generation. Do it.
hanikrummihundursvin
1hr ago
But then the dad allegedly tells a member of the clergy who then notifies the authorities, according to the article.
At the same time, the time and place event is posted online, so students have time to do research and prepare their points of view. I don't think asking students at colleges and universities to come prepared for a discussion is too much.
If they aren't even capable of that, they shouldn't even be attending said universities, or at the very least willingly stepping up to the mic. The problem is, a lot of students come up to the mic convinced in their beliefs with little to no reasoning, so they get stumped at the slightest bit of questioning. A simple acknowledgement of "hmm, I don't know, I guess I'll look into it more" would paint them in a less embarrassing light. But because they're not approaching with the intent of conversation so much as wanting to oppose Kirk, they inevitably come off as foolish.
Also, the format is more along the lines of a conversation and less of an actual structured formal debate. Kirk has done actual formal structured debate. So yea, he's not engaging in a debate, he's engaging in conversation.
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