Charlie Kirk shot during a debate about trans people

[feministmom4ever]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15086277/Charlie-Kirks-final-words-assassinated-Utah-dead.html

I didn’t agree with many of his political views, but I liked how he interacted with college students who couldn’t answer the question “what is a woman?”.

Do you think that’s true of Kemi Badenoch?

Yes, because i was late to the thread and ready for bed.

Have you ever read any Mary Harrington? Such as 'Feminism against Progress'.

She reflects on a lot of the same points albeit in a less provocative way.

The modern day left are obsessed with race though. All these schemes which prioritise people based on the colour of their skin are racist by definition. Dividing people up according to skin colour or ethnic background and then calling those who critique those policies “racist” is such twisted logic.

I understand, it was a v late-night thread!

I have read Harrington, didn' agree w all but thought she made some interesting points

This sounds like you’ve never studied the Soviet Union in the Stalin and post-Stalin period.

Or, alternatively, you are someone who discovers official racism in left wing societies and immediately explains why this is ‘very right wing’.

Yes, she can be a bit eccentric and convoluted, but she is not afraid to explore or to discuss and push the boat out on any idea. I like that she confronts 'no go' areas and questions a lot of what might be termed Leftist/Progressive dogma.

I saw something similar yesterday on another forum I post on. When a violent crime is committed by a Leftist actor, it's really because they actually hold "right wing views".

Being of the Left is an idealistic endeavour.......and one can never be pure or virtuous enough to attain it.

People are not supporting him as an individual so much as supporting the free discussion of ideas as the best way to proceed. At heart his arguments have merit and have a right to be aired. A lot of what we might call 'right wing' rhetoric serves as a counter-balance to too much 'left wing' rhetoric. Neither 'side' has the whole truth. They are two opposite sides of a coin.

You cannot suppress thoughts and observations because they offend your 'feminist' credentials. Feminism must ultimately be about centring ( spelling?) women and their concerns and their lives, rather than adhering to any one particular ideology?

I quite like her! Is that permitted?

Any ideology taken to an extreme becomes totalitarian. Totalitarianism is essentially neither right nor left. Extreme ideologies of all colour rely on suppression and oppression to operate.

"Have merit?" er which ones?

His views, if enacted, would throw women back into the 50s, the 1850s.......

I'd seriously like to know where all this "Leftwing" rhetoric is...? politics has very much swung to the right.
e.g A US VP supporting Tommy Robinson

imho people/pp, who previously had never heard of him, are jumping on the bandwagon to attack the 'left, thats its, no real concern for women, who normally would run a mile from a man with his views.

Every pro post, attacks the left, yet we don't even know the killers motives

| actually think that capitalism has arisen everywhere because it more accurately reflects human nature and human societies......rather than right wing policies.

Left wing politics is built on a foundation of nice concepts about 'Equality' 'Brotherhood' and so on......but human nature doesn't always conform......and so the Left wing journey is a never ending one in which the 'right side of history' is always just around the next corner. A sort of religious quest.

People are not all the same and in that they are not all 'equal'. Equality can be as much about recognising differences as it can be about enforcing conformity with an ideal.

I am no Charlie Kirk expert at all, but in my view, based on what I have read recently...

Some of his views were terrible (his views on women's rights over their own bodies and the Russian war on Ukraine being two obvious ones).

Some of his views were spot on. I will never forget my first time hearing a black American woman eloquently explain how horrible it is to spend every single day of your working life dealing with white people who assume that you got the job due to skin colour not ability. Her opinion was not "white people are racist", her opinion was (paraphrased) "it is wrong that white people know that I might have got the job due to skin colour - I want to live in a world where everyone knows that everyone, black and white, is in their job on merit."

It is entirely reasonable, in a world where people are hired to increase ethnic minority representation not because they are the best, to hope that your black pilot is not someone who only got the job due to skin colour. You want your pilot to have passed the toughest of assessment and to be there due to competence and nothing else.

Some of his views are probably more middle ground. For example his views on stay at home mums and traditional families. I am absolutely delighted we no longer live in the 50s stereotype of breadwinner and obedient homemaker with her weekly allowance. But on the other hand I also believe that it is good for kids if one parent - mother usually better suited - stays at home for at least a few years and maybe much longer, and it is good for everyone if families can afford to make that choice. I think the feminist dream should be that every woman has the choice of returning to work, or being a stay at home mum for life, and that the family can have a decent standard of living either way.

But all of this is irrelevant. It is 100% wrong that he was killed for his views. And not only that, in today's world of slogans and chants and anonymous keyboard warriors ANYONE who gets their face out in public and is willing to debate is a massive force for good, in my view. Debate is a public good, and debate cannot happen if the only people debating are people you agree with 100%.

A discord group called 'transguns' has been shutdown in the wake of Kirk's shooting.

I don't doubt there's zillions of right wing social media discords talking about guns and violence - we know and accept this possibility as problematic within our society. We have right wing extremist groups which are recognised as an issue.

But jez when are people on the left going to recognise and acknowledge there is a problem with militant left wing trans activism which has become extremist and should be dealt with in a similar fashion. The refusal to acknowledge the issue because it undermines 'the most vulnerable in society' is not helping anyone - particularly transpeople who don't go round issuing threats, condemn political violence and yes are vulnerable in society.

That being a mother and having a family can sometimes be the most satisfying role ina woman's life ( not that it MUST be)....that 'no time limit' abortion is morally flawed or even repugnant; that males should not be competing in female sports or be housed in women's prisons, and so on.

The rise of the far right is very much due to the failures of the centre left to listen and take action on key issues and to acknowledge its own flaws. It's a collapse in trust.

Until the left takes on board criticisms about certain issues rather than going shouting bigot and proves alternative narratives that cut through to groups which are less engaged with them, then yeah voters will look elsewhere for ideas because they don't think the left represents them anymore.

Charlie Kirk recognised this dissatisfaction and sense of grievance more than most. He said it out loud.

That's the frustrating thing - he took the opportunity that he was presented with which would not have been an opportunity 15 years ago. Why was he able to do this and why did what he say resonant is the question the left still can't cope with because it requires self reflection rather hurling insults for being offensive. And no it's not Elons fault either. These ideas have been growing for sometime before he bought twitter. And no it's not purely the internet either. It's a political trust issue that tracks back probably 25 years or so.

This is ultimately the problem; the arrogance and self righteousness of the left has become a massive turn off to voters. It needs to learn humility and admit it's faults and weaknesses before it will be trusted again amongst quite a number of groups.

That involves some bloody difficult conversations which aren't going to go away.

There's a common belief, and you often see it on FWR, that being "left wing" is a sign of being a good and moral person. I don't think that survives contact with left wing activism, and that's why sometimes you find newcomers here who don't realise that those of us who are now politically homeless often started out on the left.

Socialist Worker currently has a big article up saying that Charlie Kirk got what he deserved. The author, Judy Cox, dances around explicitly supporting the murder, but clearly says that if this happens to someone with (what she regards as) terrible views is killed, well, they kind of had it coming.

If, God forbid, a trans extremist were to follow through on their threats to JKR or Rosie Duffield, she'd say very much the same thing.

This Judy Cox, by the way, who sets herself up as a moral arbiter of who deserves to live or die, was a stalwart defender of the SWP's coverup of the rape of its young female members.

Now, this is the bile generated by a small sect with an extremist ideology, but it's not entirely irrelevant. Because the very same people run the campaign "Stand Up To Racism", which is funded by our unions and endorsed by Labour MPs and left wing celebrities, who seem to be quite comfortable with them as long as they present themselves as opposing Tommy Robinson.

I don't like Tommy Robinson either. But there's no way I'm going to join the march against him tomorrow, precisely because it's led by these rape defenders - Weyman Bennett, Samira Ali, Lewis Nielsen and their chums. Now ask me again if being left wing means you're a morally good person.

Charlie Kirk spoke an awful lot in his short life, and he said many things I don't agree with. That's not really relevant. The vast bulk of what Charlie Kirk did was to have polite conversations with people who disagreed with him. And by doing so in the open air, surrounded by people who have been hyped up by their media and political leaders into believing that half the American population are literal Nazis, he made himself an easy target. And now he's dead, because he wouldn't stop having those conversations.

If there's one thing I agree with him on, it's that you have to have the difficult conversations, because if we as a society stop talking, that's when violence starts.

Just randomly hysterical

What's with the misogynistic slur being used so often on her? You'd think women on this site would know better.

Who said being "left wing" is moral or good? and i'm sure you wont find anyone on the right, saying they are immoral or bad either....

Anyone pleased he has been killed is just a nasty person, as are people using his murder to sow even more hate.

That knowledge seems to go out the window when it's a woman with the wrong politics.

But you’re ignoring the distinction that extreme right wing ideology when taken to a totalitarian point often results in the oppression or genocide of ethnic minorities. So for me, as a black woman, I’d take my chances of likely death and oppression under totalitarian communism, over certain death and oppression because of my ethnicity under totalitarian fascism. If you’re the ethnic majority in the US (white); you might consider right wing totalitarianism to be the lesser evil, since white people (except the very poor) have historically fared well in modern fascist states.

But what you cannot do is ignore the particularly brutal pain and suffering inflicted on ethnic minorities under right wing totalitarian states or dismiss the legitimate concerns about the rise in extreme right wing rhetoric - for those whose parents, grandparents and ancestors know what it is to survive extreme right wing governments, it’s worrying.

Oh come on.....the Left has laways been sanctimonious.... because they believe in 'fairness' and 'justice' and free stuff for everyone. They really care about people...not like those evil Tories who only care about money and their corporate friends.

I don’t think the old left/right divisions really work any more. Trump and Farage are opportunist populists who will quite happily claim they will protect the public services on which so many of their supporters rely.

They draw much of their support from areas that would have been traditionally union supporting and left wing.

Meanwhile the ‘omnicause’ issues (Palestine, trans rights, extinction rebellion) are all over the place. Support for ‘gender affirming’ care in particular seems to be based in the same capitalist ideology as the rest of the plastic surgery industry.

If the shooter has anything in common with people who have carried out similar crimes, it is likely that they have poor mental health, are too on line and do not have a coherent political philosophy.

I hadn’t heard of Charlie Kirk before this week, but I get the impression that he was as much a social media content creator as an activist and the business model promotes and feeds off dischord,

Out of interest, do you think Tommy Robinson hates you because of the colour of your skin and if so can you provide the reasons you believe this?

This. Fairly predictable from certain posters.