Charlie Kirk's beliefs

[MsAmerica]

If You're Wondering What Charlie Kirk Believed In, Here Are 14 Real Quotes
In light of his death, Charlie Kirk's legacy is being remembered through these viral quotes.
BuzzFeed

https://www.buzzfeed.com/alexalisitza/viral-charlie-kirk-quotes

I’ve quoted precisely what he actually said and provided the video clip of him saying it.

He stated many times that in his opinion everyone should follow literally the words in the Bible (neglecting that this was a many times translated document from one language to another, cobbled together with many different versions created by many different humans initially before humans eventually agreed on the current version (in English, which also changes its meaning over time as all languages do), but ok…. Apparently it is “the literal word of God”).

He stated that the “law of God about sexual matters” is set out in Leviticus 18. He said that not complying with the “law of God” in the Bible is “a sin”.

The (current) agreed English version in the King James Bible states in Leviticus 18:

18:22: “Thou shall not lie with a male as with a woman: it is an abomination. Do not lie with a male as one lies with a woman; it is an abhorrence.”.

The “New American Bible” goes further and states in its translation of the same verse: “Do not practice homosexuality, having sex with another man as with a woman. It is a detestable sin.”.

Leaving aside how this can be the “literal word of God” when translations of versions of translations of versions over two thousand years can possibly be taken to have any reliability at all evidenced by the huge variation in them, Mr Kirk himself stated explicitly that homosexuality was a “sin” and that the “law of God” as set out in the Bible (written by humans and translated and reinterpreted by humans hundreds of times to reach the current versions) should be followed by all. I.e. he believed not just that he should have the right not to be homosexual, but that nobody should be allowed to be homosexual and that this was somehow “morally wrong”. His campaigning organisation also very publicly campaigned to remove rights protections for people who were homosexual.

As in so many other matters, Mr Kirk was not content to follow his own beliefs in this respect, but was determined to inflict them on others and prohibit by law others from doing anything with which he disagreed.

Leviticus then states: “If a man lies with a male as lying with a woman, they both committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”

This is the part of the Bible that he was referencing in the clip posted earlier, for all to see. This was the “morality” that apparently guided Mr Kirk’s “values” as he believed every word of the Bible to be literally true and “the law of God”. He was no different to the islamist extremists who are also homophobic and racist as well as being misogynistic and wanting to subjugate women (Mr Kirk’s expressed preference), viewing women as of inferior intellect, their purpose being to “serve men” and “submit to them” (Kirk’s own words).

The main difference between Mr Kirk and the islamist extremists was that Mr Kirk was very angry that in several countries the islamic extremists are still able to force their appalling ideology onto the entire population and at present in western countries people like Mr Kirk are no longer able to do the same with their Christian extremism, so he was working very hard to change that situation and go back to the “good old days”.

What?

This is not the view of extremist Christians like Kirk, who believe the entire Bible (Old Testament as well as New Testament) is “the literal word of God”.

In the video clip I posted he even referred to the passage in Leviticus that I’ve quoted as “God’s law on sexual matters”.

Do you not even read what you’re responding to before posting? Almost everything you’ve posted here has been something nonsensical which demonstrates you don’t actually understand the posts to which you’re replying, or haven’t bothered to read them at all. The post you’ve quoted here was a response to the precise point that you’ve then written in response to me. Embarrassing.

@TheClaaaw
Did you watch the Kirk video where he strongly argued with a fellow Trump supporter about homosexuality?

This is all covered earlier in the thread. Did you actually read it?

Actually you’re partially correct in some of this but your basic premise is wrong. Kirk did not say that gay people should be stoned to death nor was he advocating for a return to Old Testament ‘punishment’. To help spare your blushes, a friendly suggestion from me would be to not say that to someone with even a basic understanding of Christianity as they’ll tell you straight away that Jesus came to fulfil the old law so that death and punishments were no longer necessary.

However you are right that most evangelical Christians will wrestle with the verses in the New Testament which do talk quite openly about homosexuality being a sin. Many will argue it’s a matter of interpretation and some will land on an ‘affirming’ position and others will land elsewhere. As you might know it’s a massive issue/discussion point within the C of E and other mainstream denominations and is certainly not a niche issue that only Charlie Kirk talked about. At some point I expect there will be a massive split within the global church on this and related issues. The C of E is doing its best to try and unify different voices and certainly shouting ‘you’re a bigot’ over the aisles helps no one.

Perhaps you misunderstood: these are quotes from the Bible to which Mr Kirk gave his endorsement, in a podcast which is available online to view to which I posted a link.

I am not stating these “hateful lies” as my own opinions: they are quotes from the Bible to which Mr Kirk not only subscribed personally but was campaigning to try to enact into current US law to force others to comply with them also.

But that is how democracy works. Can you clarify how you think democracy works?

people can set up lobbying groups/ political parties on pretty much any issue. Doesn’t mean they will get elected. They may, if lucky, get the influence the public mood and influence policy but that isn’t a given.

the fact that CK was able to do this shows a fully functioning democracy. I am slightly worried you would advocate for him not to be able to do this. I hate the throw the phrase fascism around because it is overused at every turn but suggesting Ck kept his options to himself rather than letting people hear them and judge them fits the description right?

@TheClaaaw
Did I read where you demonstrated that Kirk wants to remove the right of sexual consent? I don't think so, but you have made quite a few eccentric claims here and I tend to zone out when people are just whipping up fear and hate.

I’m not interested in different people’s interpretation of fairly irrelevant books from thousands of years ago (much more interesting and enlightening ones have been written since) which they are only reading in translation of translation of translation anyway, or the mental gymnastics that they try to do to justify their position.

As I said, if this is how they wish to spend their spare time then it’s of no concern to me, providing they’re doing so with consenting compos mentis adults, and not inflicting any abuse onto children (as Mr Kirk very explicitly publicly stated that he would do to his own daughter if she was raped as a ten year old, and force the child to carry the rapist’s baby to term and give birth to it. Clearly in such cases of abuse the child - who cannot consent to being part of this ideological cult - must be protected from such abuse and the state should intervene).

The problem with Mr Kirk was him setting up organisations with the expressed and clear purpose of trying to undermine fundamental freedoms for other people to have freedom in private life and to instead impose his “values” - including misogynism and subjugation of women and removal of their rights to contraception, reproductive choices, education, divorce, financial freedom, free speech, voting, and sexual consent; homophobia; racism; and even enforced child abuse - on everyone else in society.

His hobbies whether they were going to church or lego or knitting are irrelevant. He was a hypocrite, a deeply unpleasant man with objectively abhorrent views and his stated aim - the entire purpose of the political organisations he founded and his career campaigning to make his “beliefs” law mandated for everyone - was to remove the rights and freedoms of over 50% of society.

Nobody has said that all religion should be prohibited. Most religious people of any faith in western countries are not extremists and are happy to practice their religion in private without trying to curtail the rights and freedoms of other people, as is necessary for a free or democratic society to continue to exist. The point is that Mr Kirk was an extremist, and his beliefs were just as appalling as those in any extremist islamic society, or indeed the few islamic extremists that do live in western societies whom he (very hypocritically) said were trying to destroy it when in fact his own views were far closer to theirs than to those of the majority of the population.

Perhaps you should visit some of the countries still governed by religious fanatics if you want to see what Mr Kirk’s vision of society would look like in practice, given you don’t (presumably) have a time machine to be able to go back and see for yourself what it was like when Christians did the same thing in western countries in the past. Thankfully we’ve moved on since then but Mr Kirk was very, very angry about this and wanted to reverse it and the outcome would look exactly the same as it does when the same thing is implemented under a different label in Afghanistan, Iran etc.

No. The fact Mr Kirk was able to do what he did and there are so many apologists for him shows that people have forgotten the fundamental principles that are necessary to maintain a democracy so that there are any freedoms for anybody. The fact that people are supporting his deliberate attempts to undermine this and engineer its collapse shows that people have forgotten how fragile it is and that we all have responsibilities that come with the rights and should be very, very concerned about people like him trying to destroy it. The fact that people expressing concern about this - for example, describing the fact established in law over 100 years ago in the US that freedom of speech necessarily comes with constraints otherwise it won’t exist at all - are gaslighted and accused of trying to undermine what they are desperately trying to get you to see must be preserved, before it is too late, just shows the level of double-speak that is now taking place and how twisted and delusional public discourse has become.

But can someone like him speak? If your answer is yes what’s changing?

Or is your answer no?

Yeah, you definitely don't understand what democracy is.

I'd guess you are still reeling from Brexit

Well I liked him. I’m pretty middle of the road. I didn’t agree with him on everything but I liked that he was willing to engage and debate. I’d rather that he was in politics than a lot of other people who won’t listen. So Sorry I don’t agree with you at all. I think you are speaking to your own echo chamber as I don’t know anyone who feels like you do.

My hopeful solution to this would be that we hugely increase our funding into education and basic living standards to remove some of the resentment fuelling people moving to political extremes and give people the tools to be able to evaluate information logically and rationally for themselves, reducing their susceptibility to extremist views and gullibility to vote for them without understanding what the consequences will be.

I’m not suggesting people like Kirk should be silenced. There will always be despicable and disgusting people and I think it’s better for them to be able to air their views, but what would have happened in any rational society is for everyone to laugh at him at the outset and reject them.

Someone like Kirk would be laughed at for his obvious hypocrisy and absurdity by anybody who’s had the opportunity of a decent education and a decent life with hope to build a future for themself. People like him are bottom feeders, sucking up the rage of the angry and hopeless to redirect it for their own nefarious purposes and the really sad thing is that these people vociferously defend him and his ilk without seeming to comprehend that these people care nothing for them at all and are simply using them as pawns because they know that to take control and remove people’s freedoms they must first get these people to vote for them, so will tell them fairly tales they want to hear and stir up the emotions of those they know react based on emotions and not rationality.

It wouldn’t take a genuis to set out a policy programme that would, in 15 years or so, address most of the UK’s worst problems if it was implemented consistently and would at least save it from the very fast decline in living standards and social unrest that awaits it if it carries on with its current trajectory or - even worse - the electorate is stupid enough to vote for Reform at the next election which will turn the doom loop into a death spiral. I could set out a coherent policy programme to avoid this in a morning so it’s not plausible that none of our politicians are capable of this either, despite the low quality of them at present (they do at least have very competent Civil Servants advising them on the whole, but mainly choose to ignore them, it appears). They don’t do it because people prefer slogans and undeliverable promises and democracy has probably collapsed in on itself too far already for any sane and objective, evidenced-based policy to be implemented: the time for action on most things that need to be done was 30-40 years ago. The discussions like those on this thread evidence this: so many silly posters responding to everything with “the left this” and “the right that” and partisan nonsense and no objectivity whatsoever.

Western governments are not taking this seriously enough. The only way out of it is to reform the economic system and invest properly in education and things that will raise living standards rather than continuing to try to sell fairy tales and make short-term decisions. And therein lies the rub, because a democracy set up like ours will always encourage this short-term and self-interested behaviour and kicking the can down the road on anything important and difficult to fix. One thing that could improve that a lot would be to reform our electoral system (the same in the US) to be more plural and based on coalitions/ PR so that consensus on long-term objectives is reached rather than swinging between ever-increasing extremes which is worse than doing nothing in terms of social and economic outcomes. Things are probably still just about fixable if action is taken now.

Do I think this will happen? No. Because our political systems are completely dysfunctional and an enormous economic upheaval to dwarf all of those of the past is coming towards us much faster than anybody seems prepared to accept, which will make all of this polarisation orders of magnitudes worse without people like Kirk to deliberately accelerated the process.

I think you are speaking to your own echo chamber as I don’t know anyone who feels like you do.

Hahaa! Very funny. 🤣 Thank you.

Do you agree with his views on the second amendment, gay marriages, abortion and diversity programs ?

Middle of the road would have had to shift a great deal to have Charlie Kirk fans sitting there.

Anyone actually in the centre - moderate right or left - would be horrified at the 'prowling blacks' and 'submit to your husband' comments he made. Those statements, in the context within which Kirk made them, are currently not mainstream or moderate. No one in the middle of the road actually thinks it's acceptable to use those phrases.

There is a desperate attempt going on at the moment to normalise this kind of abhorrent discourse, and to make extreme ideas seem more widely embraced than they are. But you cannot go into normal spaces - like work or school - and start talking about how prowling blacks are attacking white people for fun. When a female colleague announces her engagement, you can't say 'submit to your husband' in the congratulations card.

These are not normal things to say. Not yet, thank goodness. Kirk was trying very hard to establish them in mainstream discourse, and we are seeing this exhausting wave of posters insisting over and over that it's completely fine, but that's not true. And when people go offline and talk to normal people out there in the world, they do not come across that kind of talk.

If you think 'prowling blacks' and 'submit to your husband' are normal things to say, you are not middle of the road. You are a long way out from the centre and if you say those things out in public, most people will be appalled. Say them in a workplace and see what the consequences are.

I’m serious. I appreciate you feel strongly about this.

contrary to what you believe. Issues such as racism, women’s rights, abortion etc have not all been decided and the door shut on them. No one is going to accept that the year 2025 was the year these ethical dilemmas are not allowed to be debated ever again. Abortion will continue to be an emotive discussion and it is perfectly reasonable that people can share their views on it. Silencing people only breeds problems.

these issues will be debated for eternity. Every generation has to right to reopen discussions and if you look at the last century, society tends to move from conservative to liberal to conservative in cycles as each generation rebels against the next.

silencing anyone who doesn’t agree with your views because you have decided that they shouldn’t be debated any more is an affront to democracy whatever you think.

Fantasist

What policies would fix living standards?

Genuine question for @TheClaaaw - if you were to debate a Charlie Kirk type figure, assuming both parties were debating in good faith, do you think you could find any slither of common ground?

I have several great friends who are polar opposite to me when it comes to politics but I’d say our friendships are richer for it. I see things from a different perspective when talking to them but we also know where the lines are, how not to go so far that it damages the friendship. I love being with people who have a totally different worldview.

As you’ll have noted, not a single one of the links I posted was to Reddit. 🙄