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?”.

In politics there seem to be certain issues that you cannot question without your moral integrity being called into question. Things like climate, immigration, abortion, assisted suicide, Israel/Gaza, LGBTQIA, DEI, Brexit, intersectionality etc. I don’t think this is purely a left wing thing (abortion in particular is moralised from both directions) but I have the impression that there is less of a moral imperative for everyone to hold the exact same position on those issues on the right of politics than on the left. I might be wrong. Most my friends and family are liberal/ leftist so perhaps I probably have a lopsided perspective.

This is the type of rhetoric I’m talking about…

https://m.youtube.com/shorts/JiCCzALb6Ig

In my view politics is mainly about -

Economics - extreme right wing free market to social democratic capitalism to full state ownership communism on the left)

Liberalism - extreme authoritarianism to anything goes liberalism

Social attitudes - extreme prudishness to conservatism to progressivism (supporting women and LGB people and racial equality) and onto insane woke ideology which elevates undeserving minorities at the expense of progressive policies (eg men in women's spaces, quotas based on skin colour not the best person getting the job etc).

I think Farage and Trump are both very much right wing in basic economic terms, whilst potentially (and contradictorily) probably as willing or more so than the Dems of Labour to have massive state intervensions to suit their own agenda.

In my view the neo-liberal era is ending, because it has successfully (as intended) massively increased the wealth of the richest to the point that the masses are fuming at things like dreadful NHS, high house prices, low living standards. The left/right class based analysis is needed more than it has been since before WW2

There was a tweet yesterday which I think is useful:

Cynical Publius AT cynicalpublius
Today is, I think, a very appropriate day to revive this famous quote from the late, great Charles Krauthammer:

“To understand the workings of American politics, you have to understand this fundamental law: Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.”

___

So if you think someone is stupid, you go to where they live and try to convince them of their stupid errors. Like Charlie Kirk did.

But if you really, truly believe someone is "evil," you kill them. Like what some stupid, evil person did to Charlie Kirk.

I don't know how we break this unholy paradigm.

There was a reply to that

Tom Royce AT TomRoyce
The crux of the matter, and it shows in this quote, is that:

Conservatives typically have religion, so politics is an intellectual battle.

Liberals turn politics into religion, so the conflict is an emotional and religious one.

I personally don't fully agree with that, but as a starting point for understanding the conflict within US politics it's not a bad one. There are obvious exceptions to this and there are areas where it doesn't apply.

We see it in the UK with Brexit versus remain. We had an argument where the emotional response was to leave the UK countered by a logical argument to remain.

Emotional arguments have a completely different power and attraction than logical ones. And logic can cease to be logical if it spirals and loses contact with people if it fails to connect emotionally to people if it doesn't reflect their lived experience.

This logic can turn to self righteous and you stop listening to everyone, you turn out from your own biases and the data which you build your logic from becomes flawed and misleading. You end up being removed from humans. You turn off people.

And those who do value logic and can see this conflict between emotional thinking without practical thought and spiraling logical fallacy turning into religious type lunacy are left in the middle going 'wtf' and having to pick between rock and hard place in terms of which is less shit. (They are both shit).

Those who spiral continue to spiral unchecked and unchallenged by their own due to a lack of accountability and that's when they become actively dangerous and totally distrusted.

If enough people start telling you there is a problem with X, you should pause to think why, rather than dismissing them and detaching from them. They are saying that for a reason. People don't complain for no reason. You need to take the time to understand this rather than assuming they are wrong or dismissing them because they tell you in terms which you don't like. The underlying problem will remain.

The right in the US has capitalised on this phenomena to great effect by engaging with those who feel shut out by those who have gone on a purity spiral and turned identity into an opposing religion to the Christian Right, because the religious community they are in offers more in the way of acceptance on a personal level than the political left has, who has labelled them as bigoted.

It's enough to tip the balance of power.

Lol No they don't... the benefits culture exploded under the Cons, disability benefits, ECHP, nmw, furlough, eat out..... hand outs for all....

& it was May, who first rolled out the Trans agenda and then Boris who gave us more gender clinics and slashed fees for a GRC....

Ironically, for you, its Lab who will have to cut benefits and the 'right will howl, just as they did earlier in the year.

Left or Right, people have polarised views, as this thread proves.

But tsome of the largest left wing genocide's in history were also based on race:

Holodomor -Russians killed 5 million Ukranians
Khemer Rouge - 3 million The Khmer Rouge Communist regime in the 1970s, brutally targeting all minorities in its quest to create an ethnically "pure" Cambodia.

That's not how I understand the history of politics in this country over the past 20 years at all.

Honestly - I don’t care about Tommy Robinson because he is not in power and never will be. So I don’t really concern myself with his views.

I do concern myself with the views of those in power. Charlie Kirk represented the powerful majority in the US right now. I watched closely when Boris Johnson was elected and am also following Reform’s stance and policies since they are more likely to affect me should they come into power.

I grew up as the only minority in my area- so I am used to overt racism from the working class or those who are equally powerless. It’s the racism from people in positions of authority over me (such as teachers, coaches) that had a real impact on me growing up. It’s far more insidious and difficult to prove- because it’s less overtly racist than being spat on and called the n word by the local waster as you’re walking down the high street. But it’s more dangerous.

I actually think that in the UK, ethnic minorities face similar struggles to the working class but with the added factor of race. Racism operates differently here due to the class system, than it does in the US, but it absolutely exists.

Plenty of left-wing states have committed mass violence, genocide etc. I think as I wrote in a previous post that they're less likely to state racial hierarchy or in-group preference as an explicit founding goal, because it doesn't sound idealistic - but lefties can get hold of guns (and armies, and secret police...) just as easily as anyone else.

I'm also extremely concerned about trans militia violence in particular.

Stoking a sense of persecution into a group of people known for well-above normal levels of serious mental illness and a loose grip on reality... good luck with that

Yep. See also the rush to defend Sandie Pegg. Racists deserve single sex spaces too but there was outright denial that she was racist.

Most people are talking about the very worrying tendency in society to believe words are violence and violence against people we don’t like the opinions of is justified, which this situation is an example of. It’s also very relevant to women here as trans rights activists are frequently threatening us with violence for our lack of belief in their claims.

The fact that we’re not discussing what you personally see as the more important issue doesn’t mean we’re in favour of ignoring it in general. For me the general thrust of posts on the thread is about the lack of humanity of people (not on this thread) cheering on a man’s death, not quibbling about whether extreme left or right societies are worse and for whom. I fully accept that extreme right societies oppress some people more than others, but imagine being a dissident in Mao’s China or in a Soviet gulag.

I'm interested in whether what purports to be the left (Labour) is actually capable of thwarting Reform's progress.

I've a feeling its too late, and the problems are so baked in that Reform government is inevitable, but perhaps there's still an outside chance Labour could stem that?

@Voulezvous re. your 'I'm, fascinated, but not surprised, that so-called feminists ...' post with suggestions that this is somehow damning for members of this board to express sympathy, curiosity and speculation about his death and how that happened.

I refer you to the JKR post copied into this thread:

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.

It seems to me that the TRA side of this 'debate' consider that anyone who disagrees with TWAW/TMAM unreflectively want to extinguish trans people and trans ideology. I think that the people on this board want to question and find out more and understand. I did not know CK but he is reputed to want to talk, respectfully, listening. He may not have had views that you/I/others like but he was entitled to free speech, from what BuckAngel says on his podcast CK was capable of changing views, he provided a platform to air those with opposing views and he did not deserve death or violence or threats of either. He was acting legally when he was shot.

We should ask whether this was an escalation in trans activism. It concerns all of us if it is. To not ask and not have the freedom to ask (open mindedly) would be significant. Its not anti-feminist to ask. Please let's carry on asking ... even if it leads us into considering uncomfortable truths and ideas that we would not own as ours.

Well said.

Exactly.

I do not share this sentiment.

I have felt for some time, before they were elected, that Labour would be a one term government.

They were not elected with enthusiasm. All the trends show it was a backlash against the Tories rather than a vote FOR Labour.

They were given an economic dog turd to deal with, whilst over promising economically and failing to acknowledge their own flaws and deal with them. It was a fudge government from the start with no where to go but down.

There is no alternative vision in British politics. Farage filled that void.

It doesn't mean I think Reform will be anything other than a car crash and I remain unconvinced about how long they will last. A narrow majority, is more likely to result in a collapse in government early. A big majority is where it gets slightly scary though.

Exhibit 1: The “Zizian” cult

In some ways, the Zizians are precisely a product of their privileged backgrounds. They drank deep on narratives of trans victimhood, on the bigotry of mainstream society and on the need to ward off an apocalyptic future. Their view of the world is a Manichaean one, divided up into ‘good’ and ‘evil’ people, the latter of whom no doubt deserve to die. It is what their prep schools and universities had drilled into them since they were kids. They differed from their peers only in their arrogance, self-righteousness and literal-mindedness.
The Zizians tick all the same boxes as the cults of old – murder, intimidation and a messiah-like leader. But they come with some 21st-century updates. Trans, vegan and convinced of their own moral rectitude, they are very much a cult of our time.

https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/16/inside-the-trans-vegan-death-cult/

Yes you’re right - though the Ukraine genocide was a famine similar to the Irish famine. Some could argue that it was economically motivated with racial undertones - but it’s not the same as, for example, the holocaust. Though all genocide is devastating and horrific regardless of the perpetrator’s motivations.

I am under no illusion that communist totalitarian states are brutal and wrong - but I’m just saying I would take my chances because I 100% know I would have been gassed in Nazi Germany.

I agree. I think it is inevitable.

Thanks for this commentary. Enough people on this thread seem to agree with his ideas and beliefs. Are you denying them?

I don’t support CK’s ideology. I think his murder is abhorrent and I’ve already stated that on other threads. Both things can be true at the same time.

Feminists should start considering how to address that now.

What damage might Labour do on its way out?

Reform are fairly TWAW. And reactive, and irrational. How to handle that?

A coalition government might still happen. In which case the broad cross party nature of 'gender critical' feminism will be a strength.

We should ask whether this was an escalation in trans activism. It concerns all of us if it is. To not ask and not have the freedom to ask (open mindedly) would be significant. Its not anti-feminist to ask. Please let's carry on asking ... even if it leads us into considering uncomfortable truths and ideas that we would not own as ours.

Well said 👍
It also puts in mind this quotation

“When you tear out a man’s tongue, you are not proving him a liar, you’re only telling the world that you fear what he might say”

Yes, definitely. I would hope that people are already strategically thinking about the different scenarios.

I’ve seen a lot of misrepresentation of CK’s views. I don’t understand the need to make someone appear to be worse than they are. Politics would be far less polarising if people made the slightest effort to fairly represent their opponents opinions.

This is a tactic continually used against Feminists. We should seriously guard against it and not be using such underhand methods ourselves.