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Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by latexr on Thursday September 11, 2025 @06:51AM (#45210055)
Feels like your second paragraph negates the first. That he wasn’t honestly debating ideas but fishing for soundbites to spread hate and appear intellectual, using the backdrop of college campuses to lend legitimacy to his divisive ideas. That is not what college campuses are for, and it is not a debate.

I’m not American, I never heard of this guy before. But I saw the video of the last moments and it’s a telling snippet. He was incredibly dismissive in his answers which were vague and devoid of information, while being clearly rage bait meant to be cheered on by his base.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by loughnane on Thursday September 11, 2025 @07:34AM (#45210336)
As I've said in a few other comments, I agree it's a poor "debate". But sadly it's the sort we've got now in the public sphere. I hope for better, but I can't help but think his killing doesn't help.
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by johnnyanmac on Thursday September 11, 2025 @04:45PM (#45215948)
>But sadly it's the sort we've got now in the public sphere.

Why can't we strive for a proper environment and expel those who don't want to foster it? Schools are not entitled to give "equal platform" to unequal ideas.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by daveidol on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:23AM (#45221855)
What is an “unequal” idea?
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by LordDragonfang on Friday September 12, 2025 @10:20AM (#45222455)
They pretty clearly meant "ideas", plural, which are pairwise not equal to each other in some metric (presumably,merit).
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by 2OEH8eoCRo0 on Thursday September 11, 2025 @01:42PM (#45214156)
He didn't deserve to die but I don't like how racist rhetoric somehow became honest political discussion. The elevation of racist ideology to being just another political opinion deserving of respect worries me.
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by diogenescynic on Thursday September 11, 2025 @08:33PM (#45217509)
What did he say that was racist? I see a lot of accusations but I've never seen anyone actually quote anything racist he said.

People are just babies now and can't even handle moderate debate or people challenging their ideas. If you don't just reinforce their world views, it's seen as hate speech. We've become far too coddled and whiny and entitled. You are not entitled to not be offended and life in a bubble. People need to grow up.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by digdugdirk on Thursday September 11, 2025 @08:57PM (#45217635)
Luckily, this information is not hard to find for non-entitled people who don't live in a bubble:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk...

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by diogenescynic on Thursday September 11, 2025 @09:05PM (#45217671)
Show me a racist quote. Cite an actual quote, not a link to another website. I looked at the quotes and they're mostly just against mass immigration and DEI hiring (aren't we all?). Not exactly the racist slam dunk you seemed to imply. Where does he use a racial slur or say someone is something negative because of their race?
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by og_kalu on Thursday September 11, 2025 @10:10PM (#45217989)
>Show me a racist quote

If you don't see anything racist in that article, then congrats you're racist.

>Where does he use a racial slur

You think that's the only way to be racist ?

>or say someone is something negative because of their race?

Are you blind, willfully obtuse or is your reading comprehension just this poor ?

"If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified." This is not racist? Are you fucking stupid ?

“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights” - Charlie Kirk

Oh the irony. The more i learn about this piece of shit, the less i care about his death.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by diogenescynic on Thursday September 11, 2025 @10:35PM (#45218124)
>"If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified."

Not racist in the slightest. DEI hires are a threat to competency. I want airlines hiring the BEST pilots, not having ethnic quotas. You're a moron to argue that is a racist opinion. He's not saying black people can't be a good pilot, he's saying DEI politics make him question qualifications/priorities of hiring. The left just argues in bad faith.

> The more i learn about this piece of shit, the less i care about his death.

Ironic that the crowd with 'COEXIST' stickers on their Subarus is the fascist cult cheering on a murder. Completely unhinged losers mad because someone had a different opinion. You are just losers with assigned opinions. You don't even think for yourselves.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by og_kalu on Thursday September 11, 2025 @10:43PM (#45218176)
>Not racist in the slightest. DEI hires are a threat to competency. I want airlines hiring the BEST pilots, not having ethnic quotas. You're a moron to argue that is a racist opinion. He's not saying black people can't be a good pilot, he's saying DEI politics make him question qualifications/priorities of hiring. The left just argues in bad faith.

Oh yeah...all that DEI hiring of pilots...wait what's that ? It doesn't exist and never happened ? If you're out there wondering whether black hires are competent completely unprompted, you're a racist piece of shit sorry.

>Ironic that the crowd with 'COEXIST' stickers on their Subarus is the fascist cult cheering on a murder.

Well it's unsurprising that your reading comprehension is so poor. I clearly said i care less about his death. Nothing there about celebrating it.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by diogenescynic on Thursday September 11, 2025 @11:53PM (#45218512)
>If you're out there wondering whether black hires are competent completely unprompted, you're a racist piece of shit sorry.

You're arguing in bad faith again. I agree with you UNTIL you enact DEI then you have to wonder if they got the job because of qualifications and competency or because of some racial quota...

>I clearly said i care less about his death. Nothing there about celebrating it.

Yes, of course, you didn't come off gloating or gleeful at all... just funny how the party that thinks they have the moral high ground is the first to cheer when someone gets assassinated for political beliefs. If you can't be free to have unpopular opinions or disagree, then you don't live in a free society. I disagree with Rachel Maddow but I don't think she should be assassinated... not sure why it's so hard for the left to make the opposite statement.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by og_kalu on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:33AM (#45218911)
>You're arguing in bad faith again. I agree with you UNTIL you enact DEI then you have to wonder if they got the job because of qualifications and competency or because of some racial quota...

I'm not arguing in bad faith. You do not need to worry about anything. Do your job and mind your business. Millions of white people get hired for dubious reasons but I'm sure you don't go around wondering if every white worker you see is competent. That is what is racist. It's especially silly because it does not mean a lack of competence, so you just look like an idiot hiding behind an asinine 'problem'.

With people like you, there's always the undercurrent that a black person must have been hired because of diversity and not a presence of skill. Why else would you be worrying about a random fucking pilot. Do you have any idea what it takes to be one ? He obviously didn't. Did he know the guy ? No. Did he know anything about the airline's work environment ? No. He just said it because 'oh it's a black person'.

>Yes, of course, you didn't come off gloating or gleeful at all.

You think that was me being gleeful ? Lol

>If you can't be free to have unpopular opinions or disagree, then you don't live in a free society.

You can have your opinions and I can call you a piece of shit for it. It's not mutually exclusive. Fuck ignorant 'opinions' that just spew hatred.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by diogenescynic on Friday September 12, 2025 @10:34AM (#45222600)
>but I'm sure you don't go around wondering if every white worker you see is competent.

Because absolutely no one is hiring white workers solely on the basis of there skin color. There is no DEI category for more white males... They are simply there because they are qualified! You can't say the opposite is true... Go look at Asian discrimination in universities because they perform 'too well'... it's the same thing! It shouldn't based on racial quotas... it should be based on performance....

>You can have your opinions and I can call you a piece of shit for it. It's not mutually exclusive. Fuck ignorant 'opinions' that just spew hatred.

It's funny that you think I'm spewing hatred and don't have an iota of self-awareness. This is the narrow minded tunnel vision of the left--they hold the moral high ground and are simply arguing with subhhuman amoral psychophants... You've frame it all in your mind as good vs evil. Bravo. Continue tilting at windmills and made up boogie men.

What's funny is I'm not even a republican, I've never voted for a republican, and I have been a mostly lifelong democrat until the last election where I didn't bother voting because the left has become so pathetic and filled with people like you who I can't respect and don't want to be a part of in a group. I don't like the right, but I think the left has become even worse and outright lies to live in a fantasy world that is not reality. And I'm not alone--they lost 4 million voters since 2020 and in the same period the GOP gained 4.5 million voters... Take a step back and realize whatever side you're on, you're actively harming it and ensuring that your side will not have any political power for decades to come.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by zahlman on Saturday September 13, 2025 @12:25PM (#45233308)
> Luckily, this information is not hard to find for non-entitled people who don't live in a bubble:

This isn't what respectful discourse looks like and doesn't meet the standard I expect from HN.

> link

There are four quotes given, entirely out of context, "on race". Without looking them up, simply applying basic charity and awareness of basic American right-wing arguments, it's clear that none of them establish what you'd like them to establish.

The first and last do not propose that black people are inherently unqualified for particular jobs or roles. Instead, they propose that employers use discriminatory hiring practices to hire black people preferentially, for the specific purpose of measuring up to some external standard for racial diversity.

It should be clear why many would consider discriminatory hiring practices based on race to be racist, and therefore consider complaints such as this to be in fact anti-racist. There are also any number of factors that could cause a racially unbiased hiring practice to produce racially biased results, including but not limited to: past racism enacted by third parties (perhaps generations ago, resulting in racial correlation with socioeconomic status, which is reinforced by generational wealth); differences in inclination and interest (which may in spring from cultural differences); and workers generally preferring employers of their own race (whether due to actual racism of the workers, low social trust in general, higher ability to make connections in that environment, etc.).

The second conflates several identity markers with a mark of achievement (being in the WNBA) along with what Kirk presumably considered a moral vice (smoking marijuana). But setting up this example doesn't actually associate those identity markers with the moral vice, just as they don't associate them with the achievement (aside from the part where being a lesbian implies being a woman, and being a woman is a prerequisite to play in the WNBA, and if you are about to object with anything whatsoever related to transgender issues then you are missing the point, perhaps deliberately). Possibly Kirk considered being a WNBA athlete a lesser achievement than being a marine, but it doesn't make a big difference to the argument. The point, clearly, is to posit that people belonging to certain identity groups are being held to a lower standard for ideological reasons — which is to say, the same sort of thing going on with the employment examples. In particular, their (supposed) vices are overlooked.

(It's also noteworthy that this source capitalizes "black" while leaving "white" lowercase; this is an example of the exact sort of institutional bias that these arguments critique.)

The third describes a particular pattern of racially motivated criminal behaviour. It seems that Kirk might have considered the killing of Iryna Zarutska to fit this pattern. However, pointing out that these things happen is not attributing that behaviour to an entire race, or stereotyping the race. It cannot be, because it's commonly understood that very few people overall engage in violent crime (society could not have ever existed otherwise). The only "group" that can meaningfully be stereotyped this way is the one labelled "criminals".

Kirk points out race here because, presumably, he is aware of statistics that show racial disparities in who tends to do the attacking, and perhaps in who tends to get attacked. I am deliberately being vague about this because I am not interested in debating the numbers, nor spending time on researching citations, nor in being seen as the sort of person who routinely cites them. But from everything I've seen, it really isn't something that can be disputed in good faith. Again, there are many possible contributing factors to this, and simply observing the statistical fact does not allege any specific explanation.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by zahlman on Friday September 12, 2025 @09:36PM (#45228585)
> I don't like how racist rhetoric somehow became honest political discussion.

It didn't.

> The elevation of racist ideology to being just another political opinion deserving of respect

This has not occurred.

This is also irrelevant, because Kirk has not made racist claims.

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by fzeroracer on Saturday September 13, 2025 @04:13AM (#45230282)
> This is also irrelevant, because Kirk has not made racist claims.

He's said multiple very obviously racist remarks, on video, with full context.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/fact-check-charlie-kirk-...

Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by lilsoso on Friday September 12, 2025 @01:01AM (#45218755)
To dismiss him as being “devoid of information” is lazy and cheap. He had scholars on his team shape his message.
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by BolexNOLA on Tuesday September 16, 2025 @06:34PM (#45269132)
“Scholars”
Re:Charlie Kirk shot at event in Utah by matheusmoreira on Friday September 12, 2025 @02:24AM (#45219174)
> That he wasn’t honestly debating ideas but fishing for soundbites to spread hate and appear intellectual

I'm not convinced political debates are good for anything else. Most people believe in things without really thinking about them. Especially politics.

If you stop and actually reason this stuff out, you're going to reach some deeply disturbing conclusions which border on wrongthink. If you try to spread the nuggets of truth you discovered, you just fail miserably at first. People will not be convinced.

They probably won't really refute you either. Maybe it's because you're right, maybe it's because they didn't even think about what you said and just responded emotionally, there's no way to know for sure because trying to test ideas in debates just doesn't work with the vast majority of human beings.

If you insist on this path, people start thinking you're acting superior to them with your unconventional ideas. At some point you start getting flagged and downvoted on sight. Then you start getting personally called out. Labeled as some "extremist". Maybe one day you become such a nuisance authorities actually knock on your door and arrest you. Maybe your ideas offend someone so much they assassinate you.

So I don't blame this guy at all for debating like a politician. If he debated seriously and won, would his opponents revise their entire belief systems and start following his logical footsteps? Of course not.