Charlie Kirk shot at (shot?) in Utah

[ZiprHead]

Charlie Kirk's allies warn Americans: Mourn him properly or else

After the fatal shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, U.S. Republicans have a warning for Americans: Mourn him respectfully or suffer the consequences.

www.reuters.com

At least 15 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs after discussing the killing online, according to a Reuters tally based on interviews, public statements and local press reports. The total includes journalists, academic workers and teachers. On Friday, a junior Nasdaq employee was fired over her posts related to Kirk.
Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in right-wing rage that has followed the killing.
Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk's critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.

 

[crazyfingers]

Charlie Kirk's allies warn Americans: Mourn him properly or else

After the fatal shooting of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, U.S. Republicans have a warning for Americans: Mourn him respectfully or suffer the consequences.

www.reuters.com

At least 15 people have been fired or suspended from their jobs after discussing the killing online, according to a Reuters tally based on interviews, public statements and local press reports. The total includes journalists, academic workers and teachers. On Friday, a junior Nasdaq employee was fired over her posts related to Kirk.
Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in right-wing rage that has followed the killing.
Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk's critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.

I guess freedom of speech is only for righwingers. They make fun of the attack on the Pelosi's and they can cheer when Minnesota Democratic lawmakers get shot and killed. But they will ruine someone's life for not respecting Kirk.

The rightwing prove their fascism every day.

 

[DBT]

The sad thing is that there doesn't seem to be any way out of this deep divide.

 

[crazyfingers]

The sad thing is that there doesn't seem to be any way out of this deep divide.

And Trump is making it wider on purpose.

 

[Toni]

This from the Grownups News Network:
Who is Tyler Robinson, the suspect in Charlie Kirk's murder?
Given his age, did he have time to form much of an ideology, one so strong it would lead him to this? He looks to be an otherwise decent kid up until. Perhaps this is more of what can happen to a 22 year old brain born in to a world of social media and god knows what on the internet. Is his reality so far removed from one of an older generation, of people who did not have all this shit invading what should have been a simple childhood? How is access to everything everywhere all at once, good and bad shaping the cognitive and emotional development of children?

Uh, how old do you think pretty much every soldier ever has been? Just because you're old as shit now doesn't mean twenty year olds aren't adults anymore. If anything, young people are far more likely to take radical political actions. They have a lot of energy, a relatively simplistic view of the world, and less to lose.

Twenty year olds are legally adults ( in some respects): they can vote, they can get tattoos, they can sign up to kill or be killed/defend this country. They can reproduce but few people think this is a good idea. They can sign some contracts. But there are many things they cannot legally do because they are under 21 or 24. We have an imperfect stepwise understanding of reaching adulthood within our system of laws and it very imperfectly correlates to actual biological adulthood if you are talking about brain maturity and the ability to engage in long term thinking and to appreciate the consequences of their actions. They are still adolescents.

I was among the first of the 18 year olds granted the right to vote—so yep, old as dirt, but not so senior yet that I do not know and remember that the primary justification for giving 18 year olds the right to vote was that we shouldn’t be able to send to war people who were not old enough to vote for those who make such decisions.

Not that 18 year olds were or are today old enough to be sent off to die in some rich old men’s wars, but we decreed it thus, all evidence to the contrary.

And some people want to give 16 year olds the right to vote.

 

[Toni]

The sad thing is that there doesn't seem to be any way out of this deep divide.

Invasion from outer space.

 

[Elixir]

How long before the Fuentes gang takes out a hit on poor Tyler?

 

[TV and credit cards]

A person his age may very well have had access throughout his childhood to all the world's ugliness.

Maybe; But so did most (or at least many) people his age.

If your hypothesis, that "access throughout ... childhood to all the world's ugliness" causes people to become assassins, is correct, then how do you explain the fact that assassination remains such a rarity? Where is the spike in such assassinations, tracking the spike in Internet access in the last thirty years or so, that your hypothesis predicts?

My point is that he lived a childhood very very different from mine or even my 33 year old daughter's.

My point is that so did everyone else his age, but they are not all out there assassinating people.

More speculation than a "hypothesis". Speculation from reading the Reuters article about him; his opportunities, college if he wanted and if the reports of his testing scores are accurate, he likely would have breezed through, then voctech school and a seemingly responsible home life.
But then what happened?
I wonder about the influences on people his age and younger as we are just coming in to a generation immersed in not just everything on the internet but social media, if I use the rise of facebook as a benchmark. This is wholly a part of their social development and goes far beyond anything previous generations may have had to deal with.

No "they are not all out assassinating people" as they do not all think with one mind. But based of reports on how social media affects the mental health of children, I don't think minors should have access to social media at all. I see no disadvantage to their having to interact with peers the old fashion way. I can only think of a handful of people who would be disadvantaged.
I'm just not inclined to wait for a body of evidence. The mental health reports are enough.
At least now we have mental health apps. A solution to a problem that need not exist.

 

[Patooka]

"Legitimate political discourse".

That is how the head of the RNC described domestic terrorism.

 

[barbos]

I blame the internet. The guy probably had some underlying mental problems but it was free access to crap on the internet which programmed him. In theory there should be age restrictions for doing politics in general. 20 year-olds are mentally unfit for politics.

 

[Politesse]

A person his age may very well have had access throughout his childhood to all the world's ugliness.

Maybe; But so did most (or at least many) people his age.

If your hypothesis, that "access throughout ... childhood to all the world's ugliness" causes people to become assassins, is correct, then how do you explain the fact that assassination remains such a rarity? Where is the spike in such assassinations, tracking the spike in Internet access in the last thirty years or so, that your hypothesis predicts?

My point is that he lived a childhood very very different from mine or even my 33 year old daughter's.

My point is that so did everyone else his age, but they are not all out there assassinating people.

More speculation than a "hypothesis". Speculation from reading the Reuters article about him; his opportunities, college if he wanted and if the reports of his testing scores are accurate, he likely would have breezed through, then voctech school and a seemingly responsible home life.
But then what happened?
I wonder about the influences on people his age and younger as we are just coming in to a generation immersed in not just everything on the internet but social media, if I use the rise of facebook as a benchmark. This is wholly a part of their social development and goes far beyond anything previous generations may have had to deal with.

No "they are not all out assassinating people" as they do not all think with one mind. But based of reports on how social media affects the mental health of children, I don't think minors should have access to social media at all. I see no disadvantage to their having to interact with peers the old fashion way. I can only think of a handful of people who would be disadvantaged.
I'm just not inclined to wait for a body of evidence. The mental health reports are enough.
At least now we have mental health apps. A solution to a problem that need not exist.

Why stop at "social media", if technological advancement is the problem? Shouldn't all media be censored for the young, in that case? Surely television and radio are just as dangerous, given the reach and influence of Fox and Friends and extremist right-wing radio programs. Electricity is the real problem here. Children should all be confined to the library and gardens until they reach reproductive age. What they don't know, can't hurt them.

 

[unapologetic]

Sure 'social media' deserves SOME blame. But don't forget FauxNews is a key player in starting and ptomoting this culture war.

 

[patchy]

The entire difference between America’s Left and Right can be summarized by comparing how the Right reacted to Kyle Rittenhouse, and how the Left reacted to Tyler Robinson.

The Right widely, openly, unabashedly celebrated Kyle Rittenhouse; made him a hero. GoFundMe pages sprung up for his defense, he was booked as a guest on multiple Conservative media outlets, he appeared at rallies. There were flirtations with actually running him as a candidate himself, so wide was his appeal, simply for killing two people (and wounding a third). The Right certainly showed no sympathy or respect for Rittenhouse’s victims, as they were lionizing him as a role model. They were allowed to express “good riddance” sentiments at the loss of protesters who “wouldn’t be missed.”

The response from the Left, towards Tyler Robinson, has nearly universally been to decry the act of politicized murder (while noting the ironic context of Charlie Kirk’s own acceptance of school shootings as being an acceptable trade off for 2nd Amendment rights.) He certainly isn’t being hailed as a hero by the Democratic institution—some inevitable cheering from individuals here and there on social media, of course—but he isn’t being leveraged as a media darling to be fawned over, yet alone a candidate for elected office.
The Left’s expressions of “good riddance,” in high contrast, are being met with threats of reprisals from the sitting President of the United States, and have already resulted in more than a dozen people being fired from their jobs.

Put it this way: if the current president happened to be a Democrat—any Democrat—Tyler Robinson wouldn’t be in line for a Presidential Medal of Freedom.

 

[GenesisNemesis]

The right wing doing as the right wing does: harming innocent people.

https://www.joemygod.com/2025/09/meet-the-canadian-that-maga-accused-of-killing-kirk/