On Charlie Kirk’s killing: the Left — condolences and calls for gun reform; the Right — calls for war against the Left
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Frank you are ignorant leftist piece of shit
Thanks Jake Broe (“bro”?) for helping to tone it all down.
Thank you Frank for being a good moderator and removing my earlier comment , it only coarsened the dialog . I blame the day drinking.
Lao Tzu taught “Getting to know others is wisdom, getting to know yourself is Enlightenment.”
When I was in 7th grade, Mr. Godwin, my teacher, had us do this. “Raise your hand if your parents are democrats and will vote for Kennedy. Raise your hand if they are Republicans and will vote for Nixon.” Mom was a Republican, Dad a Democrat. Mom read everything current and shared, so I raised my hand and was placed on the side of the classroom with Republicans. Then Mr. Goodwin said, “Be prepared for a debate in two weeks. Republicans, you will prepare ‘for’ arguing for Kennedy. Democrats for Nixon”. (In case you are too young to know, Kennedy was a democrat, Nixon a republican.) Maybe I learned more from this activity than anything else in academia. I have been a Republican, a Democrat, a We the People, and a Libertarian.
Good old Mr. Godwin also had us write a paper on all of the major religions. I got an A+, probably because it was clear I had changed in the process. I have been a student of spiritual awakening most of my life. I know a little about most religions and respect most of them, including Christianity.
The ONLY WAY our world is going to kill hatred is to have open discussions with each other, respectfully. Congress won’t do it. Most of the media won’t do it. Academia won’t do it. Despite the media spin in the last few days, it looks to me like Charlie was bringing the Socratic Method to college students. Did he have strong opinions about faith, family, and free speech? Oh, yes, but he was willing to go into the lion’s den and have open forums with students who were hearing one side of the philosophical and political spectrum. He influenced people because he listened to them and responded with respect even when he was challenging their point of view. He should not have been killed for opening forums of free speech, for being a Christian, or for being a leader in the conservative movement. He should not have been killed because he supported Trump. Here is my suggestion. “Raise your hand if you are a liberal. Watch Fox News for at least 6 months, as many shows as you can. Raise your hand if you’re a conservative. You watch KPBS, NBC, or CNN.” WHY DO THIS? Because if you don’t, you are part of the problem that polarizes our world and poisons our youth. Where does this hate come from? Simply said, hate is taught, programmed, and impressed on all of our psyches, especially our youth. So is love. Psychological warfare is real and powerful, and has been used for years in this country. The War conservative pundits reference, they say, is already happening–it is a spiritual war. I am pretty sure no one will take this action seriously and actually do the Godwin technique. Most people are too inmeshed in their own description of the world and their ideology to stretch their perception. It is painful, and why bother? If you can’t do this, maybe listen to Chris Cuomo’s YouTube video about this incident. Maybe listen to Bernie. Maybe listen to the widow Kirk. Maybe turn off your ego long enough to realize that there are many people who do not see the world the way you do. They are not bad, or facist, or stupid, or zealots. If we don’t all stretch our capacity to listen and learn from each other through respectful discourse, then the divide will destroy us. (If you can’t hear what I am saying because you know you are right, then you are wrong.)
I hear you Lynne!
Very well said.
Here’s a few of Kirk’s memorable quotes:
On Race:
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
On Debate
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
Prove me wrong.
– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.
On Gender, Feminism & Reproductive Rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024
On Guns
I think it’s worth it 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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On Immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024
On Islam & Religion
America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025
Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.
– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022
I rest my case.
Very well written and I agree in the broadest of terms but you are absolutely wrong about Kirk. I hope you’ve since read the excerpts that Frank Gormlie posted here below. Here are two other articles I recommend to you.
https://substack.com/@kathy622729/note/c-154932171?r=1kncci
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-evil-that-men-do-lives-after?triedRedirect=true Just click X to close when the popup box asks you if you’re a subscriber.
Interesting. Just not sure where you are going with the network comparisons. Around 1970, Roger Ailes had an idea for a GOP network with corporate leaning to right wing twists and bias, more propaganda than news. Nixon soiled the idea for some years, and Ailes found enough funding in non-American Murdoch to begin Fox about 1996. KPBS, as far as I know, strives for facts, science, and truths. With the threat of lawsuits from the present administration, the other major news outlets have slanted more right as it becomes the new norm. Studies have proven people inside the Fox bubble have less knowledge of what is truly going on than people who do not watch news. To keep it short, everything has been pulled to the right. Could Eisenhower have supported unions, labor, and social security today? Could Nixon have instituted the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) today? Hell no, they would be considered woke radicals. If Obama and Biden merely mentioned 1/1000th of what the present administration has said and implemented, it’s front page for a week, lead in on TV for a month, all major media. Countless examples. Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die this way. Charlie Kirk was a racist, anti-LGBTQ, instigator, liar & propagandist who said some gun deaths are an acceptable cost to uphold the (misinterpreted) Second Amendment. Thoughts and prayers to the people who don’t see the world the way I do. And money in politics, even before the conservative SCOTUS made it legal to own politicians and elections, is the true root of all evil.
Mr. Godwin would not give you a passing grade. You missed my point entirely. Try the experiment I suggested. I know you won’t. Your Rag is a gift to many, and to me it has been a wonderful venue for writing and trying to make a difference in our world. However, you only present one side of a two-sided coin, and that is the problem with our world. It is called censorship, but it is your private paper, you are free to do and say what you want. However, Charlie was sure not a racist, one of his best friends was Candace Owen who is a black woman. It is easy to paint a picture of a person to fit your personal agenda with quotes out of context, but it is yellow journalism. Buddhist walk the razor’s edge, with a foot in each world, whether it is liberal or conservative, human or divine. I am not exactly a Buddhist, but I have studied with advanced teachers and mystics and enlightened gurus. Mr Godwin, I appreciate your teaching – it was designed to help young people explore the world with open minds and hearts. I wish todays’s academia set that as their intention. I wish all of you well who are connected with the Rag, and hope you find inner joy and peace. I also hope you stretch your view of the world. It is a Turning Point for me. I am sickened to the core that there is so much misinformation (haha) about who Charlie was and so much willingness to paint a picture that discredits him. I still recommend a book called Virus of the Mind. It could help everyone understand where their beliefs were seeded. One last thought, was anything posted about the 22 year old Ukrainian immigrant who was stabbed by a person who had been arrested and released 14 times? Wonder why? Best to all you Obicians, it has been a blast!! Over and Out.
Have you read either of the stories I linked in reply to your initial post? Did you actually read the many excerpts from Kirk that Frank G. posted? Are you really on board with Kirk’s racist and sexist preaching? Here are the links once again:
https://substack.com/@kathy622729/note/c-154932171?r=1kncci
https://www.wonkette.com/p/the-evil-that-men-do-lives-after?triedRedirect=true
Charlie Kirk — a person whose name I had never heard before this week’s tragedy — was not the free-speech-loving, God-fearing beacon of democracy that many seem to claim. He was a handsome, articulate, politically ambitious demagogue who used his gifts of language, confidence and financial bankroll to influence young people through social media and in-person appearances on college campuses to vote for Donald Trump. He was a savvy strategist, a contributor to MAGA’s electoral success and a rising political star at 31 years of age — still too young to run for President of the United States, though surely that was a future possibility.
Since Kirk’s death, I have listened to the substance of some of his “conversations:” they were neither open-minded nor tolerant of human differences nor charitable toward others unlike himself.
Like Mary Brown, I too hear Lynne’s appeal for us to “just get along,” but no one needs to immerse herself in unrestrained divisive propaganda from any source to achieve enlightened “respectful discourse.” Teacher Godwin”s “technique” was meant to illustrate that any position under the sun can be convincingly described, argued and defended, but that ultimate decisions for or against are made by informed educated individuals.
That said, our fundamental problem — again — is that we are drowning in a sea of preventable gun violence. Charlie Kirk was just another victim — one among too many — of our incapacity to fix our more-guns-than-people-problem with bi-partisan political action on gun control. No need to make Kirk into an avatar of goodness — he wasn’t . No need to generalize our horror at another shooting death by blaming one another for living in idealogical silos. Let’s get bi-partisan gun control from Congress and have Trump boldly sign
it.
This article by Lynne Miller reflects my evolution of both religious and political think. I should start that my great grandparents were recruited in Denmark to come to North America to practice a new religion and they ended up scattered between Idaho and Utah. Third generation, I began life as Mormon in an apolitical family. My birth father just returned from a medical ward in Belgium having fought through the Normandy Invasion, France, only to be wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. Their only political reference in the post war 1940s was that Adolph Hitler was an inane dictator. But that family dissolved and I came to live with my maternal grandparents, who were Mormon and conservative. Then I had a new family, who were not religious but old time conservative. That freed me for the first time in my life, but carried with me strong community values and a sense of responsibility to the greater community beyond my front door. I distinctly recall a small family coming to the church on a Sunday and speaking that they were new, had no home, no job but wanted community. Immediately, someone offered them a place to live, someone else offered them a job, and the church offered boxes of food and clothing. Yes, those kinds of values. No one in my time period talked bad of other minorities, religions, or beliefs. In public school, we learned to respect our neighbors, which in Point Loma included Portuguese and Italian fishing families with their own religion and values that we respected. The thought of hating people or shooting anyone was beyond our comprehension. And here is the crux of the thing, as we gradually rolled into the 1960s, 70s, 80s, and 90s, the greater San Diego community began to stop going to churches and as Society began to dissolve talk show hosts began sewing hatred, bigotry, and violence. I distinctly recall the County of San Diego approving a permit for a church in Spring Valley to hold 5,000 people, but by year 2000, the parking lots were vacant on Sundays. As I approach year 80 in my life, I am horrified to see mass shootings in schools, movie theaters, and where ever people speak publicly. I am more horrified that the 22-year old man who shot and killed Charlie Kirk is a Caucasian, Mormon from a deeply conservative family who seem to have replaced high community values and the Spirit of the United States Constitution with political idolatry and moral decay. Is this truly the America our ancestors wanted when they emigrated in the 19th century?
As people used to say, “It’s a Free Country,” and so Lynne Miller, I would like to think you are free to take a vacation from the OB Rag, but please consider that you will write here again another day, because, realistically, where else is there? One thing for SURE: The thoughtful comments to this article represent much more real discussion than you will ever hear with City of San Diego City Council member discussions!
Oh hell, nostalgic, it’s NEVER been a ‘Free Country.’ Never has been a real ‘Democracy’ either, for that matter. There has always been a scapegoat to piss down on, color of skin, nationality (remember when the Irish weren’t legally considered white folk?), gender, on and on the list goes.
Wow. The divisions in society are about as large as they were during the 1850s. Or the 1890s during the Gilded Age of Oligarchs. Remember the Christian ‘prosperity doctrine’ espoused then by the disgustingly wealthy Robber Barons? Or during the 1929 Republican Great Depression. Or the 1950s ‘The Commies are coming’ with Sen. Joe McCarthy (who wouldn’t have been considered a white mane 50 years earlier) destroying people because they ‘thought differently.’ Same with the 1960s and early 70s politics. Destroying people and lives to keep the vicious right-wing GOPer Nixon happy.
And then there was Reagan, and we’ve been living HIS fantasy world these last 40 years with either political party in power. Which is why I voted for Ralph Nader. Twice.
__
But this kid I’m sure has been listening (being as he suddenly ‘got political) to possibly this person:
Laura Loomer
@lauraloomer
I do not ever want to hear @charlierkirk11 claim he is pro-Trump ever again. After this weekend, I’d say he has revealed himself to be a political opportunist and I have had a front row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last ten years.
Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs him in the back the next.
TPUSA was only able to thrive due to the generosity of President Trump.
On the one year anniversary of the assassination attempt on Trump’s life, he hosted @comicDaveSmith at TPUSA’s SAS conference where Dave Smith was able to speak to a bunch of conservative youth at an organization that claims to be pro-Trump.
Three weeks ago, Dave Smith called for President Trump to be IMPEACHED and REMOVED from office over his decision to blow up Iran’s nuclear facilities.
Charlie played both sides of the Iran issue as we all saw, because he wanted to play both sides of the aisle.
The honorable thing to do is have a position and defend it to the death instead of flip-flopping.
Smith said that all of MAGA should “turn on Trump and abandon him.” He said this three weeks ago.
See the clip below.
TPUSA is definitely not Pro-Trump. If they were, they certainly aren’t anymore.
__
Note: These are HER words, copied off her acccount, and she is serious Trump sycophant like the Utah shooter was. Like Jan 6th and Trump’s ‘Be there it’ll be wild’ speech that incited a coup attempt due to his hidden dog whistles to the MAGA crowd, Loomer was talking to the faithful. And, believe it, the faithful hear exactly what they are really saying about what to do. Did the Utah kid hear her loud and clear a few weeks ago?
__
As for Lynne Miller and her 7th grade teacher’s little exercise, to be a comparison to the current political climate you would have squared off with half the class being a no-holds-barred Fascist Authoritarian Oligarchy that cannot stop lying because their leader is probably a pathological liar, at least his Psychologist niece Mary Trump sure thinks he’s seriously irreparably f**ked up in the head and has been his ENTIRE LIFE.
And Lynne, I took a Deductive Logic Math class at Utah State University my 2nd year or maybe in my junior year. It was an accredited math class yet was about what people say or write to arrive at how they really think by tearing apart and correlating the pieces against one another to find what they are REALLY saying (or not saying out-loud). Quite instructive.
In a sane society there wouldn’t be a MAGA movement. Nor would there be billionaires. And there would be an entire planet of the same species of primate solving the problems of a crashing ecosystem instead of the ostrich’s head-in-the-sand ignore it and the problems will all go away society we have now.
But your plea to please find a way to converse when one side keeps publicly repeating that they WANT TO KILL OR “ROUND UP” anyone not one of them? Bluntly speaking, how did that work out for the Jews in the 1930s when the Fascist Authoritarians spoke the same words being used today about people in this country by Trump and MAGA? The cognitive dissonance if they started any kind of critical thinking would be staggering.
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Ron May: I had a MUCH different experience surrounded in the mormon cult for 6.5 years. I wrote a little about it on another OB Rag post (link below. the latest post of mine), and have mentioned bits and pieces of other memories in other replies to posts previously on the RAG over the years.
https://obrag.org/2025/06/la-is-just-a-dress-rehearsal-for-what-trump-really-has-planned/
What wasn’t included this time is a first person story about my 2nd grader step-daughter’s first real experience with extreme prejudice in her classroom. 2 out of 30+ kids were non-mormon, her and a Hispanic Catholic girl, and every kid got a birthday party invitation excepting them, and they were told that non-mormons were NOT allowed in their house because they are all going to Hell. She came home crying. This was 1990, when they moved up to live with me. MAGA was already living in Utah forty years ago.
sealintheSelkirks
Such a well written comment with an important message — we all need to “stretch our capacity to listen and learn from each other through respectful discourse.” The more this thought is nurtured, without blame and recriminations, the more our democracy will flourish. Mr Godwin would be proud!
When a man states to the world that he would make his 10 year daughter carry a pregnancy to term if she was raped, I stop listening and move on.
Thumbs up emoji
Lynne,
I am guilty of being very one-sided and it’s refreshing to be reminded to think about other positions as well. Open-minded! We can still have our beliefs, but listening is a great art and we should do more of this. Thank you for your thoughtful approach.
Here is Charlie Kirk calling for President Biden to be given the death penalty. His OWN WORDS.
Segment begins at 3:30 with Mockler asking asking what would be the MAGA reaction if he switches out Biden’s name for Trump:
INSANE Charlie Kirk Clip Explains Everything 3:50-4:03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upp7HVa1lVY
Who wants to have a ‘conversation’ with people like this? Who actually thinks a conversation is even possible??
And if you are interested, the first 3 minutes of this link is Kirk arguing at a guy that schools should not feed poor kids. Parents should “get a job” but the questioner tears him up about low minimum wages…and Kirk obviously did not like that rebuttal.
sealintheSelkirks
This is about the other Charlie, the one who supported Hitler with the same kind of rhetoric that the recently deceased one use to inflame Fascism in this country.
We’ve been here before. Not us, but the United States. The people who remember this are all dead but Charlie Kirk was just a copycat of this guy:
Charles Edward Coughlin was an ultra-right Catholic priest, Christian nationalist and fascist sympathizer in the 1930s and 1940s. :
A Tale of Two Charlies
https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/09/18/a-tale-of-two-charlies/
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sealintheSelkirks