Freedom of speech isn't tolerated by some

[WhatNextBanana]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/us/comment/2025/09/10/charlie-kirks-shooting-terrible-moment-american-democracy/

Political violence on the rise.

People are getting angry when people have Political views they don't agree with. Freedom of speech must be allowed not shutdown.

Tragic news of a young family man shot by someone today. Please remember he was a human with a family. Violence is never ok.

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die. I am shocked by it. I haven’t listened to everything he has ever said, and I doubt I would agree with all of it but then there is rarely an individual that you will agree with 100% of the time. But the one thing I do know is that he believed in debate and open discussion. That’s one sentiment I am totally behind.

Id probably class myself as centrist. Although even your place on the political spectrum is skewed by how far people are on either side. To a far left, I’d be right wing and to a far right, I’m too much on the left. So here is the thing, if (for example) a militant far left TRA was speaking at a University and spouting rubbish about TERFs or whatever and they got shot in the neck for it, I still would be just as shocked and disgusted by it. Because nobody deserves to die for words. Whether or not those words are classed as hate speech - investigate them and use the law if needs be but they don’t deserve to be fucking shot for just speaking.

I watched a video online of someone walking around the streets of an American uni town asking students their opinion on his death and they all said they were glad and he deserved it. Is that what we have become now?

The thing is, these tribal politics seem to mostly be rife in western democracy. When compared to global politics - especially in more oppressive countries - or if you use historical context, the left and right in the west are barely a few paces from each other. The political spectrum in the west is pretty narrow (on the most part, save for pockets of extremism that I wouldn’t class as main stream) so what the hell are both sides fighting over? We have more in common than not. You could have people debating trans rights, for example, with one side screaming TWAW and the other saying “we don’t want men in our spaces” but if both sides were shown footage of what happens to gay people in extremist countries where it is illegal to be gay, both sides would be totally against it.

So you think we have the right to murder for speech now?

If i don't like things you or your family say can I murder them ? If I find it abhorrent - surely just consequences....

His death has caused a tidal wave of truly dreadful online comments. Whether they're genuine, bots Etc who knows but it's gifted the republicans a tremendous boost.

Ouch!!

Here's a selection of his words, all recent: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs

Did he deserve to die? No.
Is his death a bad thing for the safety of the US? Yes.
Was he a good man? No.

So the left believes in empathy, oppressors and oppressed, perpetrators and victims, good and evil.

If you support the left then you can feel a sense of self righteousness about being on the "good"
side and that the "right" are the evil
or bad guys.

So when the left starts to lose ground to the right on opinion polls or on topics such as immigration or they lose arguments based on reality rather than emotion then the left becomes violent and aggressive whether that be Ricky Jones or an attempted assassination attempt on Trump or the actual assassination of Charlie Kirk.

The left are the fascists whether that be economically wanting state ownership of key industries or forcibly silencing opponents, all the while convinced that they are the "good guys".

Politically we are approaching the turning point in Western democracy and it is unclear which way it will turn.

It reminds me of my favourite quote by Alexander Tyler in late 1790's:

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship"

the left becomes violent and aggressive whether that be Ricky Jones or an attempted assassination attempt on Trump or the actual assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Again, I refer you to the murder of Melissa Hortman. The murder of Heather Heyer. The brutal violence inflicted on left/liberal speakers by right-wing maniacs.

To be clear, I find the murder of political opponents abhorrent whoever is doing it. But it's ridiculous and dishonest to claim that violence is only or even mainly coming from the left towards the right. These attempts to exploit Kirk's death to further the cause of the right and stoke more division are truly appalling.

Do you mean that there are no such things as oppressors and oppressed? That there are no perpetrators and victims? No good and evil? We all like to think of ourselves as 'the good guys' when it's always more complicated than that, but there are things that are objectively wrong, irrespective of whether they are committed by someone on a particular side of the political spectrum. Murdering someone, for example, is wrong.

So was Charlie Kirk homophobic?

He wasn’t pro-life. He was pro birth.

once those children are born he had no issues with them being shot and killed to preserve the second amendment.

he had no issue with women dying as a result of being forced to give birth.

he had no issue with the death penalty.

that is not pro-life.

The ultimate "vibes" post when trying to paint yourself as the side reliant on facts ,😂😂

@1dayatatime how do you know the politics and motive of the shooter? Or are you just jumping to conclusions that reinforce your prejudices?

Would you like to create an articulate compelling counter argument with facts or are you just going to rely emojis ?

Are you going to acknowledge the violence and aggression of the right? Because your argument that it's people on the left who see the world as good vs evil is weakened by the fact that you only give examples of leftist violence and ignore the atrocities committed by the right...almost as though you too have an overly simplistic view of the world as more black and white than it actually is.

Firstly there are no prejudices from me - just simple calm observation.

You are correct, it is an assumption by myself on the politics and motive of the shooter.

But presumably it was someone who disagreed with the views of Charlie Kirk. Now that could be because he thought CK was too left wing or too right wing. My guess is it's the later.

Or alternatively it could be because CK slept with the shooter's girlfriend when they were at college or that CK borrowed and didn't return the shooter's lawnmower.

But it would not be an unreasonable assumption that the shooter disagreed with the politics of CK and was of a left wing persuasion. Although no doubt there will be many willing to explain away the motive as mental illness.

Do we even know why he was killed though? Has that information been released yet?

the left are fascists isn't a particularly calm (or accurate!) observation.

What do you think was the motive for Melissa Hortman's murder? What was the motive behind ramming a car into Heather Heyer? What compelled the attacker of Paul Pelosi to beat him with a hammer?

Presumably as they don’t even know the identity of the shooter yet his motivation remains unknown.

to me, who knows nothing of guns, this smacks of either a professional hit or someone extremely well versed in hunting/shooting. How many amateurs could find that position, wait patiently for a clear kill shot, and leave the scene unhampered?

the right are usually associated with gun culture. So in my mind the kind of person that is that well practiced is someone clearly comfortable with gun culture. More likely than a liberal leftie.

but as has been said, he he actual reason may not be political. Maybe his wife left him because Charlie said women shouldn’t work and he lost his job. Or his sister died from lack of abortion provision. Or is could have been Israel or Trump, or Obama, or any of the other wild speculation out there. Who knows.

Your "simple calm observation" is that the left as a class are fascists. Don't you think that might be just a teensy-weensy bit prejudiced?

These are my thoughts exactly…
no one can know for sure the reasons why he was killed, but what we do know is that deaths by guns would be significantly reduced if America changed their gun laws

Just like Trump some people want to use this to cause even more division amongst Americans - all this ‘ the left’ and ‘the right’ as if everyone is spilt into 2 extreme groups when they aren’t.
Many, many people are in the middle somewhere, not everyone is as extreme as Kirk was.

This is how I feel. He didn't care for the lives of all the innocent people killed by guns, why should I care for his? I do feel for his wife and children though.

Posted on the othe Charlie Kirk thread too. Bears repeating.

As JK Rowling tweeted earlier: "If you believe free speech is for you but not your political opponents, you're illiberal. If no contrary evidence could change your beliefs, you're a fundamentalist. If you believe the state should punish those with contrary views, you're a totalitarian. If you believe political opponents should be punished with violence or death, you're a terrorist." Three hundred and thirty three thousand likes and counting. Thank God for rational, compassionate voices who are willing to call a terrorist a terrorist.

And, as Elon Musk tweeted "The left is the party of murder".

Two people from opposite ends of the political spectrum, one who has traditional leftist values and voted left at the last election. One who is right wing and voted for Trump.

Both are correct.

Every single person crowing about the slaughter of a man in front of his young children for speaking words you do not agree with is a fascist and totalitarian, in favour of terrorism and murder.

I no longer respond to such scum, just to be clear.

And before yesterday I had not heard of him, but I quickly educated myself and discovered that he was a law abiding man who did not advocate violence but believed in free speech.

Those who have been screaming about the danger from the right with their guns turned out to be the violent and dangerous ones all along.

I know plenty of christians who believe that women have the right to control whether or not they have babies, who aren’t homophobic, who don’t believe other religions like Islam are evil or dangerous in some ways.
Kirk was an extremist. A ‘the 10 year old rape victim should have the baby, black people cant be trusted, Islam is evil, gay people are a mistake, school shootings are an acceptable price to pay so we can all own guns’ extremist.

The only free speech he believed in was the free speech of his own side, and if you think otherwise just take a look at the hounding his organisation did of people who really supported free speech.
He’s not the first oil snake salesman to make money out of his supposed ‘morals’ there are plenty of other evangelicals out there doing the same, and enjoying the power and notoriety it brings them. He was high in his own stash.