Fascinating how the guardian can spin people celebrating one of the most destabilising acts of evil committed this year into a free speech issue. There's something very wrong with people when they celebrate cold blooded murderers like luigi miagione. Reddit is full of people almost openly gleeful about this and the Guardian chooses to take their side.
Brian Kilmeade called for the execution of homeless people on Fox news. Hopefully these same tone police/anti calls for violence people push to get him fired from Fox.
Since he is talking a literal fascist talking point (execute the undesirables) there is no way my right wing friends can support him talking for them, since they HATE to be associated with fascists/called fascists.
No just make it clear that it is not tolerated in a civilised society. Well done to the guardian for challenging that idea. It takes a unique kind of courage to stick up for people who like political assassinations in todays day and age. I'm really impressed at their progressiveness that they are concerned about the rights of even such contempible people. Someone needs to look out for them. People calling for violence are one of the most suppressed groups, they deserve a platform.
Even in the cherry-picked, out-of-context quotes I see Kirk's detractors throwing around these discussions, I have seen nothing that advocates violence, except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
There are quite a few to be found if you look around.
From Wikipedia:
On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
Sounds plenty violent to me. I'd have to agree with those who say there are grounds for seeing Kirk as someone who frequently advocated for violence.
>From Wikipedia: On January 4, 2021 (the day before the Capitol attack), Kirk tweeted that Turning Point Action and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots” to Washington, D.C. to “fight for this president.”
Was it clear 2 days before Jan 6 that it was going to be violent, or does this hinge on the "fight" wording?
>On March 21st 2024, he called for the whipping and using rubber bullets and lethal force on migrants at the southern border.
See: >except perhaps the government monopoly on force (e.g. to speak in favour of the death penalty).
Yes, Kirk advocated for a violent solution due to the election not going his way. It's also standing in stark juxtaposition to how Brazil handled similar issues with a much greater level of integrity.
"Expect perhaps" now seems as only so much weasel words. Whipping? What manner of government monopoly on violence needs to include whipping?
What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
I think it’s prodding people to do something dangerous and illegal and a risk to democracy herself, and I’m not really sure what else it could be.
(Why… would Trump hold a rally in DC on that particular day to begin with? And why did he and other speakers choose to say what they did? None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks in ways that it don’t think it would in any analogous situation that didn’t involve partisan politics)
> What could “fight for this President” possibly mean when you’re sending people to the capital, after the election’s over, while telling them the election was stolen, on the very day that the election is to be formally certified? The election was over, the contest had ended… so far as legal options that follow the usual route for the peaceful transfer of power. What does “fight” mean here? What is someone using that kind of language around an event like that trying to accomplish?
The same, non-violent thing that it means in the stock phrase "fight for your rights".
> None of this is mysterious, it’s easy to read, but it still seems to be eluding a lot of folks
Other people are not unaware of the possible connotations you describe. They have evaluated the evidence for themselves and concluded that those connotations were not intended.
Two days before the January 6, 2021 insurrection, there were already clear and documented warning signs that violence was likely. Intelligence units within the FBI and DHS were aware of this chatter, and the FBI’s Norfolk office even issued a report on Jan 5 warning of extremists preparing for “war” at the Capitol. Social media and fringe platforms (Parler, TheDonald.win, Gab, Telegram, etc.) were full of posts openly discussing storming the Capitol, bringing weapons, and even targeting lawmakers.
We can conclude with very high certainty that joining this clamour with promises to send busloads of people to fight was a call for violence at the time.
> there were already clear and documented warning signs that violence was likely.
Even taking your claims for granted (none of this sounds familiar to me) there is no reason to suppose Kirk would have had any knowledge of it. For that matter, the FBI and DHS believing something about an ideological group doesn't make it true.
It means what "fight" always means in a political discussion, work hard to make your voice heard and win the argument. So you know exactly what it could be. There were still court cases out there, and shenanigans being uncovered. And in the end the only person that died was a trump supporter. Unlike the other riots during that time where dozens died and it's much more easy to read what one side wanted to happen, namely country-wide intimidation and destruction. And another politician shouted "Fight like hell!". Do you denounce that? Of course now. I'm sure you don't even want to discuss it.
Even after taking the quote that far out of context, coming up with that meaning requires extensive, uncharitable interpretation.
I don't think the median person in the 50s and 60s even had any mental concept of "being transgender" in the first place. In those days, it was considered an exceptionally rare condition (I can remember seeing a figure in the ballpark of 1 in 30,000).
> I don't think the median person in the 50s and 60s even had any mental concept of "being transgender" in the first place.
Oh, the people he's referring to had no problem understanding the simple mental concept that the best way to deal with a f** or a cross-dresser was to beat the shit out of them, while the authorities look the other way.
If you disagree, do tell me, pray tell, what do you think he meant by that statement? How does his well-documented history of playing identity politics that explicitly attack trans people fit into your interpretation?
(Which was certainly a bit better than the 40s, where a large number of people felt that the best way to deal with them was chemical castration or an extermination camp.)
> Even after taking the quote that far out of context, coming up with that meaning requires extensive, uncharitable interpretation.
I'm getting rather tired of the expectation that far-right media personas saying sick shit requires us to bend over backwards to take the most charitable view of them and their attacks and dogwhistles, while random nobodies griping about them are held to a Caesar's Wife standard of civility that the targets of their ire don't even try to meet.
Just look at what happened to Brian Kilmeade the other night - nothing. But heaven forbid someone says a harsh word about him or someone else equally repugnant...
Countless people had an opportunity to ask him to clarify. To the best of my knowledge, none ever did. If someone had asked, and he said anything that confirmed the narrative people are running with, I'm sure it would have been shouted from the rafters. So I can only assume that either nobody asked, or he meant something that simply doesn't support the narrative.
Alternately, you could write to TPUSA and ask them.
Many others have offered plausible interpretations that don't advocate for violence; I see no need to rehash that here. But the main point here is that Kirk's objection was very clearly not, in context, to transgender people simply existing. The objection in that instance was very specifically to trans women competing alongside cis women in competitive sports, on the grounds that this is unfair to the cis women for physiological reasons (the same ones that motivate separating women from men in most sports in the first place).
When I try to search for information on the quote, I find even more misrepresentations, so I can't really just quote you an analysis. One article lede claims:
> He went on to say he blamed "the decline of American men" on trans people.
This is blatantly incorrect; he blamed this putative decline for a willingness to accept such competition rules.
> How does his well-documented history of playing identity politics that explicitly attack trans people
He has no such history. There is a history of people representing his quotes in this manner. Considering them in context makes it very clear that he did not "attack" trans people and did not wish them harm, especially not physical harm. He simply disagreed about which/how many people are trans, what forms of care would be best for their well-being; and he furthermore had concerns about people (especially minors) being convinced of being transgender when that wasn't (in his view) actually the case.
> I'm getting rather tired of the expectation that far-right media personas saying sick shit requires us to bend over backwards to take the most charitable view of them and their attacks and dogwhistles, while random nobodies griping about them are held to a Caesar's Wife standard of civility that the targets of their ire don't even try to meet.
Civility is expected for everyone. But people making strongly worded political claims that you disagree with is not incivil. Calling someone else's opinion "sick shit" is not. A claim about a "dogwhistle" is inherently saying that you know someone meant something worse than what was actually said, while denying that you have any burden of proof. You do have a very strong burden of proof for such things.
There is no double standard. Holding views on these "culture war" issues is not what gets leftists censured; endorsing extrajudicial violence is. The rightists I know do not take clips of leftist speakers out of context, and are happy to give detailed arguments against those positions, rather than letting quotes stand on their own. They do not argue that it's immoral or disgusting to have certain beliefs — only that the consequences of the corresponding policy would be immoral or disgusting.
There are no clips of Charlie Kirk telling the students at these debates that they believed or espoused "sick shit" or anything of the sort. He didn't even call them stupid, or otherwise insult them. He just wasn't that kind of guy. When students at the mic complained that he was setting people up to look dumb, he would simply point out that they weren't bringing specifics that could be debated in any meaningful way, or didn't seem to know his actual position, etc. And in point of fact, they all had ample time to prepare, had they been in interested in talking about issues with Charlie Kirk, rather than in trying to make points about what he believed while addressing him.
It's not at all "bending over backwards" to apply the basic charity required. It's not a matter of searching for possible explanations of a phrase that aren't horrible — except for those who have not developed an understanding of the underlying mode of thought. Rather, it's a matter of listening to people who offer such explanations, learning how easy it is to make people sound bad out of context, and not immediately jumping to meanings that are horrible simply because they would be convenient for your argument.
