he could come across as arrogant at times but his main thing was talking....civilly
no hysteria, violence, name calling (yeah trump is a guilty as anyone)
Bennet is spot on imo
Absolutely Bennett is, but MapleTom is a player in the game of considering someone engaging in nothing more than civil debate to be a troll, & that it’s not ok to acknowledge election fraud & advocate change that improves election security, & that those of us that don’t want the ideology of the left crammed down our childrens’ throats are starting a culture war, & discussing & questioning that we have allowed tens of millions of illegals into the country to “replace” voters from the right are all things that he/they want to continue to suppress. This is why Charlie’s a modern day MLK & cannot be forgotten!
@mapletom are all of the people that went to the mic to debate Charlie trolls as well?
acknowledge election fraud? we’re still trotting that one out?
modern day MLK? Again, he was more Al Sharpton than MLK. Played only to one side, used lies and conspiracies to “rescue” stupid kids from the other band of idiots.
Just because the left is an unelectable clusterfk doesn’t make it smart to elevate really mediocre people to national hero status.
lol. Is this another lame Jimmy Kimmel attempt at a joke. Poor Jimmy.
Nobody cared about whether that day was a holiday or not except those that couldn't just vote no and move on. Instead that side must platform the lame reasons why the guy who was assassinated was evil and hated by their side. Thanks for more enlightenment on how the unleadable/unelectable clusterF left thinks.
I'll make plans not to work on Charlie Kirk day ever again. What day was that going to be? I don't want miss taking it off.
Better yet, I'll be attending work on MLK day going forward. It will be good recognition for being a dedicated worker on a holiday.
I have zero patience for people that never listened to Charlie Kirk, that now want to attack his legacy.
They will seize upon out of context quotes or even straight up poorly worded and wrong statements to paint him as some sort of divisive and hateful figure.
He talked for a living, thousands of hours, and you grasp for the worst straws.
The body of work evidences exactly the opposite. He was a kind and good person. If you can’t see that, it’s because you’re hateful.
Some of those "worst straws" were beyond the pale. They were brand, not misquotes.
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."
William Butler Yeats wrote those words about Europe after the Great War, but they ring with terrible clarity this week as we bury Charlie Kirk, murdered at 31 for the crime of arguing in public. The young man who built an empire of discourse from a suburban garage has been silenced by someone who apparently found bullets more persuasive than words.
But here is what strikes me as I reflect on this tragedy: Charlie Kirk may have been the last American who genuinely believed you could change someone's mind with a good argument. Think about that. When was the last time you saw someone actually switch positions during a debate? When did you last witness someone say three of the most treasured words in the English language: "I was wrong?"
My younger son understood this belief. He called me after Kirk’s death and shared something that possibly captured our national descent. "Dad," he said, "I used to be like Charlie Kirk— I used to think people could be persuaded with reason."
My son learned otherwise during the 2016 election, while in graduate school. He started getting several calls a day from classmates wanting to understand how he could support someone they genuinely believed was the modern-day equivalent of Hitler. These graduate students—educated, intelligent people pursuing MBAs—literally thought Trump was on par with Hitler and were calling my son because they could not reconcile how someone like him could support such evil.
So, in good faith, he engaged everyone who contacted him. From his own account: "I came to business school to learn things like accounting, not to practice defending myself from being called a Nazi. I lost friends through this period, and it ended up being one of the hardest times of my life."
Let me advance an unconventional thesis: Charlie Kirk died because we have forgotten how to hate properly. G.K. Chesterton observed that "the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind [or next to] him." We fight not for hatred of our enemies but love of our fellow soldiers and the ideals of our country. We have inverted this wisdom. We teach our young people to hate their opponents rather than love their own principles. We have made politics a blood sport precisely because we have drained it of transcendent meaning. When you believe in nothing greater than your own righteousness, the only thing left is to destroy those who challenge your certainty.
As my son lost friends, he did something quite understandable. Shortly after Trump's election, he stopped actively participating in politics—watching the news, talking about it with friends, and reading the articles he used to read daily. "I found myself getting physically uncomfortable when the news came on," he told me. "Defending yourself against being called a Nazi, racist, sexist, endlessly just for communicating relatively common-sense ideas like boys go to the boys' bathroom and girls go to the girls' bathroom, or that throwing Molotov cocktails into police cars is a bad idea (something a classmate of his actually did during the George Floyd protests) just gets really draining after a while."
My son learned a hard, unfortunate lesson during graduate school, one countless other students have learned in recent years. The modern university, where Kirk met his end, has become the opposite of what John Henry Newman envisioned when he wrote "The Idea of a University." Newman imagined institutions where "a habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom." Instead, we have created factories of fragility, where students pay $70,000 a year to have their prejudices confirmed and their triggers avoided.
The founders would have recognized Charlie immediately. Franklin with his junto, Hamilton with his newspapers, Jefferson with his correspondence, they all understood that democracy is an argument, not an answer. Madison wrote in Federalist 10 about the dangers of faction, but he never imagined we would solve the problem of faction with assassination.
Here is another unconventional thought: The problem is not that our universities are too political. They are not political in the classical sense of "political" that Aristotle meant when he called man a political animal. The university problem is that they are factories of indoctrination, especially in the liberal arts. Real politics requires engagement with difference, the ability to live alongside those you disagree with, the skill of persuasion rather than coercion. Our campuses have replaced politics with theology, and a particularly intolerant theology at that.
My son concluded his reflection with words that haunt me: "In those moments, having made the wrong choice at that juncture many times before, I hope I have the conviction and bravery to live it like Charlie and live it like Bill." He meant Charlie Kirk, of course. The other Bill he referenced was his father — me. I am humbled by the comparison but troubled by his confession. While he admittedly tossed his hat out of the ring, and entered the non-political world of finance, he has found his comfort and happiness. But at what cost to our society?
This is what we have done to our young people. We have made the cost of conviction so high that capable, principled people retreat from public engagement entirely. We have created a world where it is safer to be silent than to speak, safer to conform than to question, safer to hide than to stand. There is a certain relief in that. But it does not come without a cost.
The question before us is not whether we will have more Charlie Kirks—young people willing to brave hostility for their beliefs. We will. The question is whether we will have more like my son—capable people who retreat from public engagement because the cost has become too high. Few of the brightest people I know dream of entering politics—they dream of venture capital, private equity, the places where talent can still flourish without ideological inquisition. It makes brutal sense: Make enough money, and perhaps you can affect the change you want to see in society, safely insulated from the mob.
If we cannot make America safe for argument again—not just civil argument, but vigorous, passionate, even angry argument—then we should stop pretending we live in a democracy. In its literal etymological sense, democracy means "power of the people"—today it feels more like power of the perpetually aggrieved. If you are not consumed with rage, you are at home raising your family and going to work. So radical political movements naturally attract the angriest among us, not necessarily the wisest.
Charlie Kirk is dead at 31, but the idea he represented—that Americans can argue their way to truth rather than shoot their way to silence—must not die with him. My son's generation deserves better than the choice between silence and death. They deserve what Charlie Kirk tried to give them: a place at the table, a voice in the conversation, and the right to speak without being murdered for it. Our children and grandchildren deserve it.
“The founders would have recognized Charlie immediately.”
which part would the founders have recognized? The trolling? The election fraud lies? The culture war mongering? The evangelicalism? Replacement theory?
people are turned off by politics because of the very things Kirk engaged in.
Kirk wasn’t perfect. I think he held some whacky beliefs.
But if you can’t understand why Kirk was going about it in the right way within a democracy, you either don’t understand democracy or can’t get past your own ideological blinders.
So, the message was divisive, often dishonest, sometimes harsh, but it was disseminated democratically? Even the provably false parts about our democracy?
what does any of that even mean?
It means that just because you disagree with his ideas, it doesn't make him "divisive." If that were true, you'd have to say people who go on campus and argue for abortion to be legal are "divisive."
Charlie Kirk believed the way to advance his ideas was through persuasion, and not violence. He believed in talking to people, even/especially people who didn't agree with him. He had to fight for that right quite a few times at universities that tried to keep him off campus. If you want a democracy and free speech, that's what you have to have.
Really not trying to be difficult, but many of those characteristics seem like a low-bar for a respectable political org. Are some advocating for violence, jokes re: the DNC and RNC aside? Non-engagement? The format and/ or campus focus make it uniquely democratic?
I don't disagree with his more mainstream ideas but who amongst us actually thinks our views are undemocratic and anti-expression? It's the weird moving parts of his doctrine that make him polarizing. Single-issue stuff like abortion at least have some clarity.
Hey, I'm with Kirk, let the Kirks of the world on campuses. If that is his tie to the Founders (the point of the OP), God bless. Not sure if he invented it, but if he perfected it, great. Sadly, a lot of the young man's energy went into some pretty dark and twisted culture war stuff. That's a shame.
I have zero patience for people that never listened to Charlie Kirk, that now want to attack his legacy.
They will seize upon out of context quotes or even straight up poorly worded and wrong statements to paint him as some sort of divisive and hateful figure.
He talked for a living, thousands of hours, and you grasp for the worst straws.
The body of work evidences exactly the opposite. He was a kind and good person. If you can’t see that, it’s because you’re hateful.
Some of those "worst straws" were beyond the pale. They were brand, not misquotes.
We’d probably disagree about what qualifies as “beyond the pale”.
In death, we tend to distill influential people into what they were most known for.
For Charlie Kirk that is open dialogue and purveying Christianity.
For MLK it was “I have a dream” and not the more nefarious Marxist beliefs he espoused and back room rapes.
he could come across as arrogant at times but his main thing was talking....civilly
no hysteria, violence, name calling (yeah trump is a guilty as anyone)
Bennet is spot on imo
Absolutely Bennett is, but MapleTom is a player in the game of considering someone engaging in nothing more than civil debate to be a troll, & that it’s not ok to acknowledge election fraud & advocate change that improves election security, & that those of us that don’t want the ideology of the left crammed down our childrens’ throats are starting a culture war, & discussing & questioning that we have allowed tens of millions of illegals into the country to “replace” voters from the right are all things that he/they want to continue to suppress. This is why Charlie’s a modern day MLK & cannot be forgotten!
@mapletom are all of the people that went to the mic to debate Charlie trolls as well?
acknowledge election fraud? we’re still trotting that one out?
modern day MLK? Again, he was more Al Sharpton than MLK. Played only to one side, used lies and conspiracies to “rescue” stupid kids from the other band of idiots.
Just because the left is an unelectable clusterfk doesn’t make it smart to elevate really mediocre people to national hero status.
lol. Is this another lame Jimmy Kimmel attempt at a joke. Poor Jimmy.
Nobody cared about whether that day was a holiday or not except those that couldn't just vote no and move on. Instead that side must platform the lame reasons why the guy who was assassinated was evil and hated by their side. Thanks for more enlightenment on how the unleadable/unelectable clusterF left thinks.
I'll make plans not to work on Charlie Kirk day ever again. What day was that going to be? I don't want miss taking it off.
Better yet, I'll be attending work on MLK day going forward. It will be good recognition for being a dedicated worker on a holiday.
Seems like a fair trade to me.
It took a lot of willpower and disillusionment to become politically agnostic. I resent having that effort diminished on an anonymous IU sports discussion board. lol. Seriously, I'm not quite an Ivegotwinners level of broken but I'm close. I'm 51 and feel more Gen-Xer now than I did in my 20s. We're absolutely being duped by lunatics. Neither side has any moral high-ground, all pigs, all catering to corporatists or oligarchs. We swing from open borders/ Global cop & nanny to Fortress America. No logical middle ground argued for or agreed upon. One side is cool with riots and mass destruction and the other is okay with people taking over the capitol to stop a fair election. both only agreeing upon unfathomable amounts of debt. stupidity, all around.
it's in that light, not a political one, that I am awfully wary of the Charlie Kirks of the world. extremists scare me.
It took a lot of willpower and disillusionment to become politically agnostic. I resent having that effort diminished on an anonymous IU sports discussion board. lol. Seriously, I’m not quite an Ivegotwinners level of broken but I’m close. I’m 51 and feel more Gen-Xer now than I did in my 20s. We’re absolutely being duped by lunatics. Neither side has any moral high-ground, all pigs, all catering to corporatists or oligarchs. We swing from open borders/ Global cop & nanny to Fortress America. No logical middle ground argued for or agreed upon. One side is cool with riots and mass destruction and the other is okay with people taking over the capitol to stop a fair election. both only agreeing upon unfathomable amounts of debt. stupidity, all around.
it’s in that light, not a political one, that I am awfully wary of the Charlie Kirks for the world. extremists scare me.
On this board, I used to argue a major difference between Democrats and Republicans (in my view): Democrats (especially the left) seemed to think we Republicans weren't just wrong, we were evil and to be treated like enemies and; we Republicans mostly thought of Democrats as just wrong on the issues, but fellow Americans and not enemies, and Democrats needed to be pushed in the right direction.
Those days are gone because the left and the right (MAGA) believe the other side are evil enemies.
I'm in Republican limbo these days with the same conservative principles I've always had, but times are truly different in my party. I still don't like Democratic policies though, so there's that. 😉
This post was modified 9 months ago by Aloha Hoosier
On this board, I used to argue a major difference between Democrats and Republicans (in my view): Democrats (especially the left) seemed to think we Republicans weren’t just wrong, we were evil and to be treated like enemies and; we Republicans mostly thought of Democrats as just wrong on the issues, but fellow Americans and not enemies, and Democrats needed to be pushed in the right direction.
Those days are gone because the left and the right (MAGA) believe the other side are evil enemies.
I’m in Republican limbo these days with the same conservative principles I’ve always had, but times are truly different in my party. I still don’t like Democratic policies though, so there’s that.
For better or for worse, I still think engaging with people still is the antidote to viewing the other side as evil. I disagree with a fair number of people here, but I don't think anyone is evil. It's harder to think of people as evil when you know at least a little bit about them.
Having said that, someone did call me 'malevolent' on here a week or so ago. So there's that...
So, the message was divisive, often dishonest, sometimes harsh, but it was disseminated democratically? Even the provably false parts about our democracy?
what does any of that even mean?
It means that he was charming, a smooth operator, with a winning style that appealed to many. Much like David Duke or Bernie Sanders in that regard. As always, it's style over substance.
Here's another one who doesn't get the point:
“I Hate My Opponents & I Don’t Want The Best For Them”
It took a lot of willpower and disillusionment to become politically agnostic. I resent having that effort diminished on an anonymous IU sports discussion board. lol. Seriously, I’m not quite an Ivegotwinners level of broken but I’m close. I’m 51 and feel more Gen-Xer now than I did in my 20s. We’re absolutely being duped by lunatics. Neither side has any moral high-ground, all pigs, all catering to corporatists or oligarchs. We swing from open borders/ Global cop & nanny to Fortress America. No logical middle ground argued for or agreed upon. One side is cool with riots and mass destruction and the other is okay with people taking over the capitol to stop a fair election. both only agreeing upon unfathomable amounts of debt. stupidity, all around.
it’s in that light, not a political one, that I am awfully wary of the Charlie Kirks for the world. extremists scare me.
On this board, I used to argue a major difference between Democrats and Republicans (in my view): Democrats (especially the left) seemed to think we Republicans weren't just wrong, we were evil and to be treated like enemies and; we Republicans mostly thought of Democrats as just wrong on the issues, but fellow Americans and not enemies, and Democrats needed to be pushed in the right direction.
Those days are gone because the left and the right (MAGA) believe the other side are evil enemies.
I'm in Republican limbo these days with the same conservative principles I've always had, but times are truly different in my party. I still don't like Democratic policies though, so there's that. 😉
Yes, this is what I remember. Trickle Down was starving kids per my mom.
So, the message was divisive, often dishonest, sometimes harsh, but it was disseminated democratically? Even the provably false parts about our democracy?
what does any of that even mean?
It means that he was charming, a smooth operator, with a winning style that appealed to many. Much like David Duke or Bernie Sanders in that regard. As always, it's style over substance.
Here's another one who doesn't get the point:
“I Hate My Opponents & I Don’t Want The Best For Them”
In this context, UncleMark knows exactly what it means. Here, it means hyper-partisan, posts without reference to the actual issues, just trying to score political points.
In other contexts, it could mean something different. Dbm has many qualities, and you won't like to hear this, but some of Dbm's qualities are good. Ditto UncleMark, of course.
People aren't all one thing, Bulk. They have many facets. For example, one of my facets clearly rubs you the wrong way. I'm sure if we met in person or talked face to face, you'd see I'm not a bad person; you might even like me. If you ever want to meet up when you're in town visiting your daughter, let me know.
@shooter Kirk isn’t a lawyer. But make no mistake Biden’s actions were clearly planned etc with zero regard for how he would imperil the lives of others. Reckless af
This might end up a tough position to take when you currently have a Federal Court ruling that it's Trump's asylum ban that is illegal.
Even Biden ended up putting in an asylum ban in 2023, which was already shot down by the courts.
@hurryinghoosiers do you ever post content or just this hickory? you have zero education. zero understanding of politics, law and administration. So why are you here? just to be a gadfly? i'm not certain why owners put with you here. They shouldn't.
