I think it's something to do with how much one centralises political opinions in one's life. In other words, to what degree do one's political opinions define one's self worth? With genuinely religious people, that is unlikely to be high, but it's not just religion that militates against it, but, even if one is atheist, having a strong family, good friends, hobbies, even just enjoying getting outdoors and seeing the sunset from the mountains.
I broadly disapprove of political assassination, although I'm sure there are cases when it's the lesser evil; without wishing to go the ad Hitleriam route, a lot of people would think the assassination of the Austrian painter would have been something to celebrate. Even in the case of someone assassinating a US President, although I wouldn't applaud, I could see how some people might. However, Kirk was in no office, but was simply expressing opinions. Why not murder that annoying professor at college?
In the case of Luigi Mangione, although I don't actually approve his murder, I think the world would be a better place if sociopathic CEOs walked in constant mortal dread. I think the murder of Hamas members and their families using explosive pagers was evil, and presents a horrendous precedent, but, if one accepts the evil ideology of Zionism, I can see the logic. I don't see mere opinions in that category.
Does anyone else on these comment pages just skim through Rombald's comments to see how he's going to get in his anti-Jewish point this time? Never fails.
I gave two examples of recent, politically motivated murders. They were the two that came to mind. If you were to suggest any others, I would try to slot them into my argument.
Well, I actually thought I was tentatively defending the action, in the sense that the Hezbollah (sorry I forgot that) members were actual actors, so if one defends Israeli actions at all, they follow from that. An actual politician, military figure, or even business executive, involved in actions, is in a different position from someone merely expressing an opinion.
Yeah & he’s not the only one. Candace Owens is blaming “da Jooooz” for Charlie’s murder. Joined by morons in her comments saying the Joooz did it so Ben Shapiro could take over TPUSA. Must be tiring to be obsessed with people who are .2% of the world’s population.
I'm happy to give you a like, Ataraxis, but it's a conditional like: anti - Semitism is a virus of the soul, and I think its origin renders it outside the category of a mental illness. It's an evil. Have you ever known a mild anti - Semite? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think it's generally true that one can be a little anti - Semitic the way a man can be a little gay.
Indeed. The Jews are a small minority and have been treated like garbage for centuries but are somehow secretly controlling everything. It's one of the stupidest conspiracy theories out there.
Well, maybe it does. Maybe it's insane. Who knows? However, on this particular occasion, I don't think you or the other commenters followed my argument.
I consider Israel's cause to be unjust. However, if one accepts the justice of its cause, the murder of the Hezbollah operatives can be justified.
I consider US actions against al-Qaida to be have been just (although not the wider "war on terror", invasion of Iraq, etc.), on which grounds the murder of bin Laden was just.
Even in a just cause, such murders are to be regretted. It would have been better for bin Laden to be captured and tried. The murder of Hezbollah operatives sets a nightmarish precedent (think of the mobile phone in your pocket). Nevertheless, justification can be offered.
Re: a lot of people would think the assassination of the Austrian painter would have been something to celebrate.
I may be making too much of your words but I don't think killing is ever something to celebrate. I criticized the jubilation in the streets over Bin Laden's killing by our military. He was absolutely someone of whom we may truthfully say "He needed killing", but do we have to party over it?
We murdered Bin Laden. That's what it's called when you kill somebody without a trial, as when the Bolsheviks brought the imperial family down into that cellar. The silver lining of course is that anybody who suborned or excused that act is now stripped of protesting on moral grounds anything The Managerial State gets up to.
Well, as someone pointed out above with respect to the Hezbollah members, it was an ongoing war, possibly providing justification, although capture and trial would certainly have been preferable.
Its a pretty good argument than bin Laden had engaged in war against the United States, and hence it was a legitimate military operation to kill him. The Bolsheviks were actually bringing the Czar to Moscow for trial. It was a local cell of Socialist-Revolutionaries (ironically, Alexander Kerensky's party) who intercepted the train, interned the family, and demanded that the entire family be summarily killed.
Yes, we did. And heads of states at war with each other don't murder each other either. At least they didn't. Bin Laden wasn't even a head of state. The execution of Louis XVI was a put-up job that nearly got voted down. But it was a trial. Lenin's denial of a trial to the Romanovs was meant to give his fans in the West a chubby.
Yamamoto was a serving military officer, in a declared war, and flying in a military aircraft on a military assignment. His flight was intercepted by military forces of the opposing nation. If a spy had set a bomb in his living room while he was home on leave, that could be a very different argument. Or, if we went back to traditional European sensibilities, that opposing armies should shoot the enlisted personnel all they want, but by tacit agreement refrain from taking aim at officers above the rank of captain, they we would have yet another debate. But, American forces ditched that particular courtesy throughout our War of Independence -- which the British bitterly resented.
In some ways of course it's not politics at all. Peter Hitchens is especially good on this. For Marxists, who now call themselves progressives, they don't have opinions, they have The Truth, and the truth hath made them free. You're not just wrong, you're evil. I would say this began with the French Revolution, but last week was the anniversary of the massacre at Drogheda, which Oliver Cromwell called the judgement of God. And guess who got to carry out the sentence?
Cromwell, the ultra-Calvinist Joshua smiting the Catholic Amalekites and their dupes.
"Ultra-Calvinist" in that the sense of his own election dominated his entire religious and political life (even though at the end of his life he seems to have been weighed down by the thought that England had missed its opportunity to embrace its chance to become an elect people, and died in a malarial melancholy).
I thought the linked article might get to something I saw on a FB post giving context to Kirk's comment on deaths as the price of the Second Amendment, but it didn't. But I found the context quite enlightening. Without reproducing it in full, Kirk first said that the Second Amendment is not about hunting, then that it is not about personal protection, although both are important to him. Historically, he is correct on both counts. Then he says that the Second Amendment recognizes that governments tend to become tyrannical, and it is important for citizens to be armed as a safeguard against tyranny. Again, he is correct. Now, the part about, unfortunately, the price of the Second Amendment is that we have some deaths due to use of guns... He offered an analogy that driving automobiles results in 50,000 deaths a year -- we could avoid those 50,000 deaths if we banned automobiles.
In all the rage and grief I've seen posted anywhere, this is the first time I saw anyone affirmatively giving some substance of what Kirk said that they found admirable. Not laudatory adjectives, substance. There are various arguments to be pursued. One is that without automobiles, far more people would die because they couldn't get to the hospital on time, we would have renewed famine deaths due to lack of transport to get large quantities of food across long distances... the list could go on and on. Can the same be said of gun ownership? Well, someone would tote up the number of people who would be murdered and/or raped if someone at the scene hadn't been armed, and then we could quibble over the veracity of the statistics.
Its also worth noting that tyranny is not deterred merely because atomized individuals or local clubs run out into the street and enter into combat with each other or the police or army. Its more in the fabric of the nation that an armed citizenry is not easily cowed. During our Civil War, both the United States and the abortive confederacy benefited from having large numbers familiar with the use of arms, before they ever got to boot camp. The original reason for the NRA, in the 20th century, was to get an increasingly urbanized population that didn't all go hunting familiar with the use of arms in a way that could transfer to military preparation as needed.
Anyway, the context was helpful. What Kirk put forward was a reasoned and reasonable argument. It could be contested, amplified, modified, in many ways on many grounds. Perhaps that is what the last many to ask him a question was starting to do, but the conversation will never be finished. (I don't know yet exactly what he did say about gays).
"There are various arguments to be pursued. One is that without automobiles, far more people would die because they couldn't get to the hospital on time, we would have renewed famine deaths due to lack of transport to get large quantities of food across long distances... the list could go on and on. Can the same be said of gun ownership? Well, someone would tote up the number of people who would be murdered and/or raped if someone at the scene hadn't been armed, and then we could quibble over the veracity of the statistics."
If you compare like with like, it's between private gun ownership and private car ownership. I don't think anyone is denying that the police should own guns. Equally, I don't think anyone is arguing that there should be no ambulances, fire engines, food-transport trucks, etc. It's whether me here, an ordinary individual, should be able to go and buy a gun as easily as I can a car.
I actually sympathise with the US arguments for the right to bear arms. It's treated as idiocy even by pro-US media in both Britain and Japan, so I suppose my sympathy is partly just contrarianism.
I also think it should be made more difficult to own a car. I would need to think a lot more about the specific policies. I certainly think a driving licence should be seen as a privilege not a right, and should be confiscated for dangerous behaviour, with huge fines or imprisonment for driving without a licence. I think state funding should be in public transport rather than things benefiting private cars.
Kirk is fundamentally correct that the Second Amendment is not about the right to hunt, or self-defense, although both of these are legitimate, but about the tendency of governments to become tyrannical, and the counter-weight posed by an armed citizenry. I have argued for some years that the Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, can and should be subject to viewpoint-neutral time, place and manner regulation. The First Amendment does not give you the right to blare your message at 80 decibels at midnight in a quiet residential neighborhood, no matter who you are or what your message is. As long as citizens can own and possess firearms, it could still be reasonable to prohibit carrying them in densely populated areas, while perhaps leaving the rifle on the rack over the pick up truck alone in rural areas where the police would need 45 minutes to respond to an emergency. Things along that line. Or to require completion of a gun safety course. What exactly we should do is open to political debate and majority sentiment, but the Second Amendment does not ipso facto mean no regulation whatsoever. I also favor tighter control of driving privileges. Someone who drives with a suspended or revoked license should be taken into custody for five years, or maybe one year for the first offense. But not general prison population -- they should be required to live in a secured, supervised apartment building, where a van will take them to work, shop, etc., they can receive unrestricted family visits, and they can pay out of their ordinary earnings for the costs. They just can't be trusted on the street without supervision where they might drive again. But, if we cut back on the number of people driving, we have to improve the other transit options. Probably a quarter of the jerks behind the wheel shouldn't be driving at all -- but our whole culture is oriented to the notion that everyone can drive a car. (When we rode horses, if a man was drunk the horse could still find its way home).
Who are you to say that Mangione's CEO victim was "sociopathic," and that "the world would be a better place" if men like him "walked in constant mortal dread" of self-appointed messiahs like you? Are we supposed to regard your disclaimer that you "don't actually approve of his murder" as a sign of civility? Sick.
Three men arrived at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter asked each of them to give a short presentation on why they should be admitted. A doctor had done a lot of voluntary work for impoverished patients, and got in easily. A lawyer had done a great deal of pro bono work, much of it of no political significance, just helping people in a jam who had little discretionary income. The last was an insurance CEO, who explained how he had rationalized health care delivery in ways that saved a great deal of money for his shareholders and for employers. St. Peter said, OK, you can come in too, but you can only stay for three days.
During the era of anti-Vietnam War protests, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was sometimes denounced as a "baby-killer" because he oversaw and advocated for a program of intensive bombing and on-the-ground operations that inevitably killed a lot of civilians. I vaguely remember at least one half-baked attempt to plant a bomb at his home, easily detected and foiled. I know I admire the assassination of Reynhard Heydrich by the Czech resistance -- although that was badly bungled and barely succeeded. I know I don't admire killing a traveling speechifier on a college campus. If I try to set forth a principled dividing line, I would say that those who actively engage in actual killing as a matter of policy, are fair targets, particularly in time of war. McNamara doesn't quite cross that line. One could employ Hannah Arendt's argument about the banality of evil, or Malvina Reynolds "The man at the desk who deals in death, his hands are white and clean" ... to argue that McNamara was as guilty as anyone. But something doesn't feel quite right about that. A legitimate assassination should border on the acknowledged right to kill to protect oneself or others from imminent danger to life or limb. If McNamara were killed, it wouldn't have change the course of history one bit. Therefore, the caution that shooting someone in their official capacity is also shooting someone's husband, wife, father, mother, sister, brother, cousin, etc. becomes paramount.
Had McNamara been assassinated, would the Vietnam War have ended sooner? I'm sure you know more about that particular history than me. Perhaps the reaction would have prolonged the war?
For that matter, would the assassination of Hitler have improved anything?
Perhaps when something depends on one charismatic individual, such as Hitler or bin Laden, assassination is more justifiable?
I think I would prefer to err on the side of not assassinating!
It might represent those who disliked Kirk's views, and those who didn't actually know his views but hated what they heard about what his views are (a lot of lies going around - I never listened to him for more than a minute at a time until his martyrdom, when I became curious.) A lot of the views falsely imputed to him are pretty awful, not that they would justify murder, but they could justify hatred.
So, Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Albigensian, Moravian or Hussite, Calvinist, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Unitarian Baptist... I could name others if I took time to look it up. You can summarize direct quotes from Kirk and show that these were held in common by all of them for most of the last 2000 years? Amish, Mennonite... Now don't start arguing that some of those aren't "mainstream," because they all had significant numbers. So did Arian Christianity for a few centuries. I have no doubt, of course, that you listened to him regularly, and that you found his views consistent with your sense of what mainstream Christianity should be.
I suspect the same could be said of Charlie Kirk, of any elected political office holder today, and of most people on the lecture circuit. Most of them have a few million followers out of 330 million citizens, and they cater to those they can get a rise out of.
If true, only because he appeals to such a wide base. But someone who sees Maher the way you do, but is a bit unhinged, might indeed take a potshot at Maher. Is he really all that different from Kirk? To a visitor from Mars who has no skin in the game?
I have listened to Charlie Kirk quite a bit. I didn’t agree with everything he said, so understand that I’m not a slavish follower of his when I say he did not say things for ratings. He had a well thought out worldview and did his dead level best to persuade people because he wanted the best for them.
I don't think he made it all up just to get ratings. But, having something to say, he certainly developed a following, also some detractors, and made a good deal of money. Conversely, everything you are saying could be reasonably said about Maher.
Oh, now you “don’t think he made it all up” but a few hours ago you “suspect the same could be said about Charlie Kirk.”
See the difference?
I’m done with you. I only commented because your ignorance of Charlie Kirk did not stop you from commenting about him, even after his violent death. Unreal.
There’s an important third category, I suspect by far the largest, which is “not obsessively online, largely ignorant of who Charlie Kirk was until he got shot, and not broadcasting their opinions about it either way”.
The other two categories represent, respectively, conciliatory left wing people and confrontational ones. The former are generally wonkish, well intentioned, sincere, and do not hate their opponents, believing them for the most part to be merely wrong. The latter are unhinged zealots who have mistaken politics for religion and believe with terrible sincerity that error has no rights. These people would cheer the idea of sending all Republicans to gulags to be “reeducated”.
Sadly, I think we can see this on the right as well. I’d like to think most of us fall into your first category. But I know for a fact many of us don’t.
Imagine the reaction on the right if someone like Gavin Newsom was killed by someone let out of jail too many times through liberal policies. How many of us would point to karma, “he deserved it,” etc.? I’d like to think none of us would, but I know better.
I should have been more precise. Is there good and evil in all men? Absolutely. He's right about that. But that doesn't preclude the evil from being dominant in some people and at some times. I can distinguish between Mother Theresa and Pol Pot while still acknowledging that both are sinners in need of God's grace.
The Left is currently cultivating the worst tendencies in man to wage a jihad against Western Civilization. When I call that "evil" and deal with it and those who practice it accordingly, I'm not saying their unredeemable, only dangerous zealots who must be prevented from harming civilization.
A fair and reasoned response, so I'll respond in the same spirit. I too have a hard time with imagining Adolf Hitler being admitted to heaven by God's infinite mercy -- especially since there was absolutely no evidence of remorse. But perhaps we need a bit of Madeleine L'Engel's perspective. Certain portions of the universe were dominated by the forces of evil, but, the individual minds, although controlled by those forces, could be liberated. They weren't at fault. When people are condemned for being MAGA, or Leftists, or whatever, I always push back that these are trends, organizations, currents of thought, fads, forces... but individuals do shift. In fact, political change almost always involves people, not so much changing sides, as abandoning old formations to move into a new pattern. I find more occasion to push back on the line "Trump voters are to blame for all this..." No, the DNC is to blame. I have never voted for Trump, but I understand holding your nose and voting for whoever is not the one you fear most. The so-called, self-styled, "left" is not so much individuals who are each firmly and irrevocably committed to this or that obsession, but people who grew up in a certain context of information flow and socialization that makes a rather putrid set of assumptions seem axiomatic.
I just finished reading many Waters from L'Engle. I'd read Wrinkle as a kid but then tried the sequel and gave up on the series. She suggested Many Waters and I loved it. I can see the attitude you're talking about in that book. Also in Lewis' Space Trilogy.
I have no words for that statement by Erika Kirk last night. I watched it live and it may have been the most raw and powerful thing I've ever seen...on television or anywhere else.
No Kumbaya BS...just love for her family, faith in her Savior, and defiance in the face of the forces that murdered her husband. Tyler Robinson was only their instrument after all.
I also watched the press conference yesterday morning where Kash and the Utah Governor announced Robinson's arrest. Thank God they got the guy. But the Governor's sermon appealing to the better angels of our nature fell flat with me.
Our side doesn't need to hear it. The other side doesn't want to hear it. In fact, the other side has contempt for it. We'd better get that through our heads. This is a zero-sum game now. We win...or we lose. And if we lose, we lose everything.
Cox has been preaching civility and dialogue for years. He is very much a lightweight in a state largely run by consensus with the biggest division is between fans of the University of Utah and BYU.
The Left is too far gone. Gender ideology broke their minds, aiding by pot legalization. The only way to fix it is for all the violent groups: BLM, antifa, anti-ICE, trans, to be pushed down like the KKK and neo-Nazis have been for 70 years. The feds know who the violent types are, so they can push them down, go after their funders (NGOs funded by billionaires and formerly gov funds), and hold them all accountable. RICO them all, seize their assets, etc.
And stop the foreign-funded actors stirring things up.
The biggest fear of GOP politicians is their base demanding they actually do something. Like investigate the radicalism of federally-funded universities, or left-wing terrorism. Most of the incumbent GOP class needs to be voted out - not necessarily for MAGA politicians who have shown their own set of problems, but from people ready to do the serious work of rebuilding our institutions rather than just cash checks.
Remove Boasberg, our most active unelected District Court judge.,and all other out-of-control wanna-be dictator judges like him. Why can't the Soros family be stopped? The fact that Soros father and son are still free to destabilize the world (among other bad actors) tells me that a lot of money is being pushed around through NGOs (our tax dollars at work) to keep our politicians rolling in ill-gotten money. AOC is worth $17 million. How did that happen? Rep. Ilhan Omar is worth $30 million. Pelosi is off-the-charts wealthy (and seems drunk most of the time) through her one-off insider-trading license (and hot tips) which is legal for her to do, illegal for us to do. We have best government money can buy. This is all likely to come to a head soon. Can we have a normal mid-term election with the 700 district court judges ready to issue TROs as fast as the "truth-the-vote" forces can move to "true the vote" and ensure "free and fair elections." If Trump says "only citizens can vote", Boasberg (or a similar district-court unelected de facto unelected, would-be president) can say "nope." If Trump says "voter id required to vote," nope, some other (or just use Boasberg, he's so quick and reliably perverse) will shoot that down in a NY minute.
Which is why I'm through with "norms", Anne. Something snapped with Iryna. Even Andy McCarthy, a true conservative, says that while he thinks Trump is wrong on tariffs, the case is no slam dunk. Then foul the power guard.
Agreed. We're in civil war - like conditions. You know American history, that in the contretemps between 1861 - 1865, Lincoln did some "extraconstitutional" things, and got away with it.
This is why Trump is such a problem: he's as inarticulate as a standard issue Bush Republican and has a temperament which seems to forbid his being anything other than glowering, vulgar, and disagreeable at a time when we need a president who can talk, and whom the country knows is not an ass. The irony is that Charlie Kirk could have been such a president.
For me, the question is whether Francisco Trump can get away with doing the tough things. I think possibly he can, by outsourcing as much of it as possible, or maintaining that he has, to Vance, Patel, Bongino, Bondi, Harmeet Dhillon, Tom Homan, and associates.
Yes., and I've heard acquaintances who smoke pot complain about that. The answer is to regulate that the way we do alcohol. If every cocktail were made with Everclear we'd have an awful problem with booze too (and of course we have plenty of problems even with weaker proof liquor).
It is much stronger nowadays. I hardly ever indulge these days (not that I ever indulged more than once in a long while). The THC content is couple orders of magnitude higher than the stuff in the ‘70s and ‘80s I remember from my misspent youth. In the old days you could have several puffs, perhaps a quarter of a joint, over a period of five or ten minutes and get to a fun trippy place. But nowadays a tiny fraction of a hit might hit your brain like a sledgehammer and get you much more messed up and for longer than you wanted to be. Besides strength I strongly suspect that the ratios of cannabinoids is different. Modern stuff gives a much higher ratio of messeduppedness to happy trippiness. I don’t trust the stuff. There is an old meme that for people who are more or less mentally OK and who indulge only infrequently, weed is harmless. Whatever truth there is to that, it may be a thing of the past that doesn’t apply to modern cannabis products.
It occurs to me that modern science and marketing will probably ruin the wonderful mushrooms. When shrooms are legal everywhere and a commercial market for shrooms develops, probably they will figure out to develop strains of Psilocybe mushrooms with an order of magnitude more psilocybin and psilocin. And probably they will tinker with the levels of the accompanying tryptamines that contribute to the entourage effect until they achieve a product that causes much more cognitive and sanity issues and much less of the gentle blissful trippiness. They will produce a powerful product that scarcely resembles any natural Psilocybe mushrooms. Perhaps they will figure out how to make psychedelic mushrooms more harmful and dangerous than outrageous overdoses of LSD were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
I'm scared walking through pot puffs in Greenwich Village that I'll get a second-hand stoned if the pot is so strong. I find it incongruent that there's such revulsion at tobacco smokers, but such tolerance of pot smokers imposing their second-hand pot smoke on us bystanders and passers-through.
Your concern is not completely excessive and unreasonable. Understand that you would not ingest much THC no matter how strong the smoke, but a small noticeable effect can happen. It has happened to me and others.
Yeah, NYC and its suburbs is enveloped with the stench of it. Even driving on parkways, you smell it strongly. I heard from people in Colombia that they stay away from NYC because of the weed smell. My cousin from Philadelphia was struck by the cloud of weed and its strong smell as soon as he arrived on LI. Although I’m not thrilled with Trump, if he outlaws weed again and helps roll back the same-sex marriage ruling, I’d be happy. I can dream.
I was in Phoenix, reading a freebie local weekly newspaper. The ads for weed all featured descriptions of the type of high one could get from a particular brand (mellow, etc). Then I thought of ads for beer, wine, and liquor where you don’t see its consumption so closely associated with intoxication. More often those ads were about the taste or its relation to eating. I’m not saying that the promise of intoxication isn’t a big part of alcohol consumption. Yet it’s not always foremost in people’s use of it in the way that smoking (or eating) weed is.
Every time I go up to Michigan I am annoyed by the billboards just over the state line advertising pot shops. I have never yet seen a billboard advertising a liquor store anywhere except right on the store premises. The closest thing would be the tasteless ads for strip clubs we have here along the Florida freeways.
Shouldn’t modern science and a legal market result at least in theory in a lot of Goldilocks product that gives just the right amount of happy trippiness?
In theory the market should accommodate everyone including lightweights like me. But mostly the market is driven by the people who smoke strong stuff all the time as well as consuming the absurdly strong cannabis gummies. Since I indulge rarely, I don’t personally go to a well equipped smoke shop that would probably have something mild for me. I just occasionally join others when they offer me a puff and the stuff is always way stronger and less trippy than I want.
Comparing a 1980 person who smoked a daily joint or two with a 2025 person who has a daily joint or two is like comparing a person who drinks a daily pint or two of ale with the person who drinks a daily liter or two of vodka.
You are exaggerating on pot's effects. Due to some occasional pain issues I have tried to use pot as an analgesic (Hey, better than opiods). I only smoked a couple of hits and I certainly did not become spaced out to the max. I was only mildly buzzed. Yes, modern pot appears to be stronger than the stuff was forty years ago, though that's partly due to the disappearance of "ragweed" (THC-defective pot that wouldn't get you high no matter how much you smoked). I gave up on my experiment with pot because smoking anything is bad for my asthma. But I know people who still do take an occasional hit (but not smoke down whole joints as we did in my misspent youth) and it does not send them in Loony Tunes Land. It's rather like taking a shot-- just one-- of tequila. It will give you a kick, but you won't be falling down drunk.
So true. China doesn't allow the rotting of the youthful mind (or mutilating of their bodies). How can we compete with China if the young are too stoned to study?
Well, I knew people in high school who smoked (er, um, I was one of them) and most turned out OK. I'm mostly talking about guys who got high at parties, not those who smoked daily before breakfast.
Some of my friends tried it. The one who smoked the most became a doctor. My best friend in college used to take a bong hit about 9 PM. He got married out of college and had a kid a year later and stopped. Responsibility will cause changes in one's social life.
Huh? How does that figure into it-- or even into the ideological divide? There are plenty of people on the Right who like their pot too. It's no more assorted by politics than boozing is.
There are crazy people everywhere, not just on the Left
Have you ever heard of Alcoholic Psychosis? Ever known a major alcoholic going down the tubes? Any drug used to excess is bad. Even caffeine can make people nuts
I'm The Occasional Vaper, but for medical reasons only. It can accomplish marvelous things for people with all sorts of medical conditions. I would keep it illegal otherwise, but with all which is going on, how would we get the manpower to enforce such laws?
As for the cultivars, they went out of their effing minds over the last fifty years, jacking up the THC content to levels which are terrifying. A counter to this is that people like me, and those who just like being a little high, can get the effects we need by using much less. I suppose it's a selling point that it's never been cheaper to use cannabis. The problem there is that the stuff is addictive.
As has often been pointed out, J. Edgar Hoover put the Weather Underground, etc., etc., ouf of business very effectively post 1970. They can do it again. Of course that's also why we've heard so much about Hoover's alleged taste in frocks, etc.
Your post about J. Edgar Hoover reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit where Richard and Julie Nixon(Dan Akroyd and Gilda Radner) sneak into Hoover's (Broderick Crawford) apartment where he is sleeping. SNL was funny in those days.
Gender ideology demands literal denial of reality, a break from it. But the nuttiness that existed before it built up to that and made it possible. Leftism has never been healthy or sane, once it disconnected from Christ or actual concern for working Americans and American principles (Western principles.)
It has absolutely nothing to do with working Americans. That's why its not left. I recently saw one of those recurrent posts, "Why do poor white people vote against their own interests?" Well, for starters, because liberalism is NOT in their own interests, and the only alternative right now is, drum roll please, Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes. A working class left-wing platform shorn of all the identity politics would win in a landslide, pulling half the Trump voters. (I know you don't agree, and there isn't one on offer, so we won't have a test in the next year or two.) As it happened the friend who posted the question was African American, well educated, probably lives in a prosperous neighborhood, so I asked "Why do educated prosperous blacks vote against their best interests?" That elicited a "Hmmm" -- which I considered a good start. Either way, there is a patronizing assumption that "I know what your best interests are better than you do, because if you understood you would vote the way I want you to."
More cope. There will be no rise of the Left, Chuck. That's more weed smoking. Embracing the working, competent, earn your worth in the system is now anathema to the Left.
Andrew left a comment asking me to define what I mean by left. I would be happy to, but I can't get his original question to come up, and I want to be sure the reply reaches him.
I agree. I have always hated hearing that such and such people vote against their own interests. It's arrogant and seems to not understand that people vote the way they do because we only have two major parties.
Did you know that Soros was convicted of insider trading in France, and doesn't dare set foot in that country? And now sonny boy is married to Hillary's right hand girl.
You know your history! I suppose Lenin might say "But he's OUR speculator." Taking a closer look though, Helphand was more in bed with the German empire than the Russian empire. In principle, its not so different from conducting a war of independence with the invaluable aid of two of the world's most entrenched absolute monarchies.
I think we should never say "God is on our side" That's hubristic. History is littered with atrocities committed by those who thought they wore the mantle of divine favor. Like Lincoln we should say "I hope we are on God's side."
I'm convinced God is on our side. "America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea." Let's stay in His favor. Go to church, people, on our knees. Take the kids. Remind the kin. Preach to the kin (I know, it reduces contact, but someone has to speak a word of encouragement to them). Catholics, grab the beads. It's St. John Chrysostom's feast day. Let us pray.
To me that's definitely hubristic (and remember Pride is the sin of Satan), and it borders on blasphemy by subjecting God to our own limited and ignorant (in the large scale of things) understanding.
Oh well. Our nation was formed on a set of precepts informed by principles of the Lord. Western Civ has Him at its base.
Maybe the phrasing should be, "Are we on the Lord's side," than the other way around. But actively running from Him sure does not get anyone anywhere, be it individuals or nations.
And thinking you can, that you are enough, you don't need God, that's where the pride is and where we get what we get.
Ever listen to the song by Bob Dylan titled, ‘With God on our side’ ? It was one of his early songs. My intent is not to be antagonistic. I believe he became a Christian in the early 80’s but renounced his faith. His so called Christian albums are good, he lost some followers. Not sure why he renounced his faith. I believe he’s Jewish, just interesting. I pray our churches become less divided. Every member in their church thinks they’re in the right church or the right denomination. It’s where we are today. I do think things are breaking down because we (as a society)have forgotten God. Nietzsche was right.
I'll try to give "With God on our side" up on youtube. I'm not such of a Dylan fan, though I think he was a type of music genius. Maybe Dylan will come back to the fold. I liked his songe a "Rollin' Stone" and "She Breaks Like a Little Girl"or whatever that latter song's title was, which was his his tribute to Eddie Sedgwick.
Listen to the song ‘Precious Angel’. It is on one of his songs from his Christian albums. Thanks for your reply. I’ll give ‘She breaks like a little good’ a listen.
Re: Thank God they got the guy. But the Governor's sermon appealing to the better angels of our nature fell flat with me.
No, he's doing exactly what a good leader should in response to such a dangerously charged event. For another example consider George W Bush after 9-11 who, yes, made some colossal policy mistakes over that, but he did have the great good sense to reject the "Hate all Muslims" line. Good leaders defuse emotional storms so that matters may be considered with cold reason according to the law.
Re: This is a zero-sum game now.
No it isn't. And that type of thinking is the first step on the path to abattoir whose depths defy measurement.
You want to play by the old rules, Jon. Unfortunately, the other side has chucked them. Sorry, I wish it were otherwise too.
After 9/11, the enemy was based on foreign shores. Now the enemy is inside the city gates. That's the brutal reality and taking refuge in comforting bromides won't change it.
Did you ever see the 1950's science fiction classic The Thing? You remind me of the scientist at the remote arctic station where the space visitor has been terrorizing and butchering the occupants of the outpost but who is convinced that the beast must be super-intelligent and can therefore be reasoned with, which it was his duty as a scientist to attempt. It didn't end well for the gentleman. Sometimes when people tell you who they are, you should believe them.
Erika Kirk took a different tack last night. I'm on her team.
I would urge you to consider that insult slinging is not behavior worthy of a Christian. And also Rod takes a dim view of personal attacks in his space. We all get heated up and say things we shouldn't occasionally. But you should tone it down-- and maybe put me on Ignore for a while as I do sometimes with posters I've grown too frustrated with. (I don't think Subtack offers that as a formal choice, but you can just skip over things when you see the author)
Calling things by their proper name and believing people when they tell you who they are is not "giving in to demons." In fact, it's the opposite.
To be clear, I'm not advocating violence outside the law. I'm saying we need to speak the truth about the nature of the forces arrayed against us and we need to use the lawful power at our disposal -- I mean we're (theoretically) running the federal government now after all -- to fight them.
The enemy is an evil ideology now dominant in one of our major political parties and in the powerful interlocking network of cross-institutional ruling elites that I shorthand as the Regime.
The ideology in question is alien to American history and tradition. It is hostile to religion. It is profoundly anti-Christian and ultimately anti-human. And it is not interested in compromise nor will it be reasoned with.
We either continue to pretend that the equation has not radically changed...or we recognize the reality and respond accordingly. Amid her terrible heartbreak, Erika Kirk made clear last night which of those two roads she intends to take. I'm joining her on it.
Nowhere have I argued for "hatred" or "fear" in the sense you appear to use the words.
Righteous anger is very much in order, however. Erika spoke in grief last night...but also in anger. Righteous anger at this point is justified and necessary.
God hates, Jon. And He demands that we hate sin. No, virtue does not reside totally with any faction, but do you think we'd have a better chance to survive as a nation with 435 Charlie Kirks in Congress or 435 Ilhan Omars?
A lot of people found out that they live around others who want them dead because of ideas.
That’s very sobering and real to many people, who never saw this for what it is.
I want to be kind and nice and all these good things too, but I also don’t see holding people to account for awful behavior as unloving.
Many in our society need their behavior corrected and I’m done pretending they don’t.
It’s unloving to force the rest of us to tolerate the intolerable because of fear of the consequences of doing so.
For the past 30 years, I’ve been frustrated with the ‘why can’t we all just get along’ Mitt Romney kind of Republicanism. I felt and saw firsthand that something was off with some on our society even in the 2000’s, but all we got was ‘oh, they’ll outgrow it when they get real jobs’. (talk about naive)
This has always rankled me because I expected adults who were more grownup than I was in my 20’s to call this stuff out and say ‘no, you can’t behave like a retard’. But they always got a pass, even as the behavior and words got worse and worse. All I ever wanted was to live as a normie Christian lady and get on with things, but things have gotten steadily worse and the ‘grown ups’ kept making excuses.
I may have grown up in a trailer park, but my dad made sure I didn’t grow up to be a trashy person. I’ve always been a ‘straight and narrow’ kind of person, so he didn’t have to work that hard at it, but still - he always pushed me to be in a better environment than he found himself in. He wanted better for me.
I guess the point is that I’m so sick of this idea that we have to bend over backwards to be tolerant of others when many aren’t tolerant of us. We have basic human dignity and God created us too. Why don’t we get to protect ourselves and stand up for ourselves? Why do we have to keep putting up and shutting up when everyone can spew their nastiness at us?
Sure, I don’t wanna give in to ‘the darkness’, but I don’t think living this way is how God wants us to live either?
Love isn’t just acceptance. As any parent knows, you have to correct your kids so they don’t turn out to be heathens.
Anyway, love your posts today. Thanks for your wisdom. I need that right now.
Well said. Romans 12:18 says “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” That doesn’t mean that we have to permit godless people to have free rein and allow the darkness to triumph. I grew up believing in being slow to anger and turning the other cheek; but even our Lord (through St. Paul) recognized that there are some people who can’t be lived with peaceably, no matter how hard we try. That’s why I don’t believe in pacifism. And why I believe in vigorously prosecuting people who do such horrific acts, plus their financial enablers. And in lawful defense of self and my loved ones. The time is long past for the scales to fall off people’s eyes and to see the situation clearly.
You're going to fall flat, and so is she. This is not a game-changer in world or American history. This is one controversial talking head shot down in a felonious murder of a human being. It is not a matter of Great Social And Political Importance. It is, unfortunately, not a great contrast to the last few decades, with periodic individual and mass killings. But life, and political development, in the USA are not going to be greatly shifted. Don't delude yourself.
That kind of thinking...the failure to put the assassination in its larger context or to understand the choices we're facing...is a formula for losing our country.
Well, that's what a lot of people said about George Floyd. The larger context is that no talking head is all that to the nation as a whole, although each is quite stimulating to those who take an interest and follow them. For that matter, there was no particular reason for George Floyd to become a national cause celebre, and in the end, not much changed in the fabric of daily life or governance because of all the hullaballoo.
Not much changed? The elevation and embracing of BLM following the exaltation of a drug-addled felon has created cultural racism that has been utterly malignant--promoted DEI that has resulted in an explosion of meritless advancement in every arena, affecting society in deleterious ways across the board. Hopefully this assasination will wake enough people up and promote courage to speak unpopular truths such that the Gramscian March through the institutions will be upended. As RD and Erika in her address point out, it is foremost spiritual and frankly needs a Goliath effort to topple the pillars that have been erected. Holy Spirit come and renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Now I’m hearing that the killer was influenced by the “far right” and the groypers or whatever the name is. But this is Heather Cox Richardson reporting, so I have my doubts.
I'm seeing that too. The evidence is tissue thin-- he sued some Groyper stuff on the bullet cases. He seems to have been an Very Online Guy and maybe borrowed dribs and drabs of things he found extremist and cool.
As a general rule of thumb, Heather Cox Richardson is a hack when it comes to weighing in on contemporary politics. In fact, she's so egregious in this regard that it makes me start to be suspicious (without evidence) of her historical scholarship.
Well, let's check back in a year. About single event tragedies/murders that are still in the cultural air, after years and years, names like George Floyd and Matthew Shepard come to mind.
But for all the volumes of rhetoric, hurt feelings, and even a burned police station and a few murders in a half-assed "liberated zone," how things function in America really has NOT changed all that much. Likewise when commentators called 9/11/2001 "the day our world changed forever." It was a tragedy worthy of continued commemoration, but, no, our world really didn't change all that much.
Apparently Tyler Robinson, assassin of Charlie Kirk, was radicalized via extreme online, gaming, etc. He lived (until his arrest) with a transgender "furry" (WTH!).
These folks are so far gone that we can't, imho, "love them into the Kingdom' absent major correction and in Robinson's case, incarceration and likely execution.
We need to be direct. Young people crave a more orderly and healthy society. Charlie Kirk and his team (and others around him in what I'd call the conservative lane) advocated for that. And the traditional values that have worked for society for hundreds of years.
Destruction and chaos are the solutions of Leftists.
On another note, one has to admire Tyler Robinson's father's courage in confronting his son and bringing him to police. Tough love.
May God protect those with the courage to preach the gospel and to speak the truth.
Regardless of where he was when arrested, there have now been multiple reports with solid sourcing that he had lived with a transgender partner.
The Regime propaganda machine will no doubt continue its customary campaign of obfuscation, gaslighting, and lies, but it's clear as a bell now that there is an LGBTQ...and specifically transgender...angle to Robinson's identity and motivations. The scrawling on the ammo clips, reported by the Wall Street Journal before the killer was found, is indicative of the same thing.
The effort over the last 24 hours to manufacture from whole cloth a theory that Robinson was a "right-wing radical," which flies in the face of every fact and piece of evidence that have come to light so far, is obscenely mendacious in character even by Regime standards.
I agree that the "rightwing radical" is nonsense. At most he used some lingo from the Groypers which he could have found in online gaming forums. (But most of the symbols were not ideological and derive from the game Helldriver2-- a pretty violent shoot-em-up)
I am curious how "trans roommate" has now morphed into "trans partner".
Jon you are wrong. Look online and you will see MANY sources that admit this. The roommate helped LE to "decode" the bizarre markings on the ammo. And others living in Robinson and his "partner"'s complex testified likewise.
I agree with your post, Jerry, except for your denigration of Cox. I liked his spot-on reminder that in the wake of Kirk's premeditated, plotted, planned, and absolutely gruesome political murder, there were no BurningLootingMobs out rioting and destroying buildings, businesses, courthouses, and police precincts -- in other words, no attacks on the rule of law that applies to all of us. He could've added that neither were there any "No Justice, No Peace" thugs taking over roads, tunnels, and bridges to prevent access to emergency services. Those distinctions can't be highlighted too often.
Thanks, I didn't hear him draw that distinction between the BLM riots of the Left and the very different response of the other side at this terrible moment.
What I heard was a noble-sounding sermon that seemed to be delivered to both sides. The problem is that the side needing to hear it isn't interested and will not listen.
"Tyler Robinson was only their instrument after all... this is a zero-sum game now. We win...or we lose. And if we lose, we lose everything."
What the hell does that even mean? A 'zero-sum game' because of the violent act of some Gen Z loser (with Trumper parents, by the way) who got f---ed up by living his life online. Stop acting like isolated acts of violence are part of some larger plot by the opposing side. You know you'd (rightfully) reject this nonsense if some lefty tried to say something similar to the above about the larger meaning of the MAGA nut who shot those Democrat lawmakers up in Minnesota.
You guys who get aroused by the notion of civil war definitely do need to hear lectures about 'better angels'. Take a breath, Jerry.
Perfectly written, Rod. Love the link to "Armour of God." St. Paul, one of God's foremost "pen-heads"--and so are YOU. But what does MTD stand for (I googled it, not getting anywhere). You say "(find) pastoral leadership (that) is not mealy-mouthed and MTD. " I hope Erika doesn't completely take Charlie's place as prominently, because she is first and foremost a mother, and now a mother to semi-orphaned children who are no doubt traumatized. Her first responsibility is to them. There are wackos out there who (as you noted) would gleefully orphan the children fully (and some, even kill the children for good measure, as we saw in Minnesota, "suffer the little children").
The Left is reprehensible, we're revolted. According to the polls, the Dems have in the mid-20's approval ratings (maybe a tad more, give or take 10%). But they still seem to anomalously win every contested off-season election and every contested election, because they cheat when the opportunity presents itself (e.g., create and release CV, rig the 2020 election under the cover of Covid). Look at the damage that rigged election did. For one thing, the taxpayer piggy bank was raided at levels that will take DECADES to pay off. That stolen money (Biden made a lot of loans to things like "green causes" after Trump won in Nov 2024), and given to Dark Money pools stowed away in the Canary Isles and Switzerland to fund Soros' father and son projects (and fund the continued WEF efforts to have us "own nothing and be happy"). The most effective resistance on a political level (which is where power is attained and wielded) is to true the vote (require voter id, proof of citizenship and signature vertification, although cursive is becoming extinct, which makes that last safeguard harder to implement). But the most effective of all strategies as Erika says is in the spiritual sphere (as the history of the Church has shown) and is to repent, pray and fast, en masse. Let us persevere in the faith, under mortal threat from the infidels and possessed. Let's win souls for Jesus, like Charlie. He led by example. Then God will relent, as He did at Nineveh, and not let our nation (and the entirety of Western Civ) be trashed by the infidels and haters. We're going to win some of them over, too, to "live not by lies" as they are now. Let's stay close to Our Lord, and build up in our trust and love (and wonder) for Him and His creation. Let's become more obedient to Him. We're in a 50-50 situation now--half the country is insane and/or bedeviled. May the sane and saintly increase (we're all called to sainthood, even though our reach seems to exceed our grasp), through love, prayer, sacrifice, fasting and setting a good example. Carry on, God is with us. God is listening, God is watching. He does not sleep or lose track of us. Charlie (and many forebears--including the founding fathers and saints and angels) are pulling for us from the other side of Eternity.
A silly term made up by a supercilious sociologist who wanted to pack a variety of human experiences and behaviors into a neat little box one could write a dissertation about.
Christian Smith was setting up an “ideal type” with that term. I don’t think he was trying to box people in, but rather used it as a way of comparison. Think of it the way Max Weber created the ideal type of bureaucracy and cited some of its characteristics (hierarchical leadership, etc.). He didn’t mean that all bureaucratic organizations have those traits.
I am questioning the value of such an "ideal type," perhaps particularly when it comes to religion. Slapping labels on things obscures more than it elucidates and illuminates. People habitually using terms like that are losing themselves in a fog of their own creation. Bureaucracy does have a few identifying traits, which are present regardless of the purpose, leadership, principles, etc. Large numbers of people, organized in some sort of division of labor with centralized supervision. It can be good or bad, depending on how it is organized, deployed, and what duties are assigned to it. The Nazis kept card files, that doesn't mean the Library of Congress is a Nazi institution.
Unnecessary and incorrect. As a longtime director of religious education programs for a RC diocese I’m here to say that MTD is a frequent topic for professional formators. It sums up a constellation of attitudes that recent generations have adopted in place of actual Christian faith, and which substitutes “niceness” for the demands of discipleship.
Thank you. Charlie is merely a comment machine with no filters. He just can’t help himself. A thinking individual would only comment when he has something to add to a conversation, but this is what happens when you can’t read a room and have zero self awareness.
Would the decent Democrats take the likes of Ilhan Omar and Jasmine Crockett in a room and say, “Your political career is over. Do not think you will run for election again. And for the rest of your term we are putting masking tape over your evil spewing mouths”. Would Hakeem Jeffries stop saying, “Hey there are bad guys on the right too”. Would Nancy Pelosi, who herself incited violence and professes to be a good Catholic, say, “We have been wrong. We need to rehabilitate ourselves. Would she kneel, like she kneeled over BLM, and say that? Cuz until we see some signs of remorse, self reflection and rehabilitation, I don’t think the Democrats are sincere. They are cosplaying.
Pelosi has already gone on record that she is not to blame for the way unbalanced minds hear her rhetoric and act on it. She is not responsible for people's minds. So no. Not a lot of dependence there.
Well, no, because no Democratic Party leadership has the power to do that. We have laws in this country, and some of them are state laws, and they generally provide for people who want a party nomination to run in a primary. Whatever you might call "the decent Democrats" -- I probably don't consider most of them particularly decent -- could pile a lot of money into financing a primary opponent, but sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
She chose not to run for re-election. Whether voters in her district would have supported her is conjectural. She didn't line up with Trump until late 2024. Until then, she was offering herself as the candidate who could beat Trump -- which I suspect she could have done.
I heard Tulsi interviewed. She said the DNC saw her as a rising star until she had the audacity to stray from the orthodoxy. Pelosi told her she would never survive in the DNC. Withholding campaign money is the kiss of death.
If Gabbard had built support and trust with constituents in her district, she could have defied the national party. Russ Feingold was an underfinanced underdog (his campaign literally used the "Have no fear, Underdog is here" line as a campaign theme.) But, if that's what Pelosi was saying, she might not have thought it worth bothering.
"pro-trans and Antifa messaging scrawled on them": Did they actually have pro-trans messaging? I've been seeing conflicting reports about this. At first this was reported, then denied, now stated again.
Look -- the point at which I'm most solidly and assertively onboard with Charlie Kirk's opinions is his anti-trans positions, so it's really convenient for me if part of the motivation for the murder was pro-trans, but I'm just not certain that's the case.
Yes, he read them-- but what he read was not trans-related. So far there's nothing at all linking Robinson to the LGBT movement. The guy apparently had no girlfriend, but more likely he's some video game addicted incel than a gay radical.
One or two of the shell casings had "furry" lingo on it and something about "noticing a bulge" which is some sort of meme about discovering a paramour is a man and getting turned on by it. This doesn't mean that Robinson himself was a "furry" or gay, but he clearly had stewed in the language and culture of the "Q+" wing of the Alphabet People.
According to Fox, one casing said “If you read this you are gay LMAO.” Two casings had anti-fascist sentiments, and one had the “bulge” phrase you mention.
I mentioned the first comment above. It sounds like a sarcasm not something sincere.
The "furry" stuff is disputed, just as the odd looking arrows have been-- and those had nothing to do with trans anything, but were decor from a violent video game.
My feeling from what I've read and seen relayed from the press conferences is that the shooter was motivated by more general radical leftist views than by transgender issues specifically the way the Nashville or Minneapolis shooters were. He wasn't a tranny himself although there are reports that he was a "Furry." So a rather vanilla form of sexual deviant, at least by leftist standards.
So, yeah, the pro- transgender stuff was in there because of course it would be. It's The Current Thing for radical leftists, edging out anti- racism on top of the victim totem pole for the moment. But I think his motivation was radical anti- fascism (which means anybody with an opinion to the right of AOC to these hard-core leftists) generally, which is actually more frightening and concerning to me.
Let me get this straight. Tyler is gay, living with a trans boyfriend, who has the body of a woman? I know this goes with the territory, but it can be hard to keep track of. I still question, when someone says "trans-woman," are they talking about a woman who thinks she's a man or a man who thinks he's a woman?
I read in the New York Post, but I don't if it's true, that his roommate was in the process of transitioning. Whatever his actual beliefs were, he was radicalized online. The big fear I have, and since you're a former cop you've likely thought about this, is how do we stop it. Kids are getting radicalized online and killing people. Take away the guns and they will use knives, bombs, cars, etc. I'm not sure what can be done other than to find the perpetrators who commit crimes and punish them.
Fox News is reporting now that Tyler Robinson was living with a transgender roommate, who is now cooperating with authorities. I haven't read that anywhere else, so be cautious with that information.
It took fifty some years for the left to finally destroy the message of Martin Luther King and replace his ideas with trash like BLM. He was a thought leader, like Charlie Kirk.
That’s the thing that struck me the other day, that the left has no thought leaders, no North Star to guide them. I imagine most in the right could point to one or several conservatives who have had an influence on their thinking and viewpoints, but I am not sure anyone on the left can. Who do they really have? Online echo chambers full of people who are ignorant but make a lot of noise? Vapid television personalities whose primary talking point is to call people racist and other pejoratives? Octogenarian politicians who make glib speeches that aren’t much more than dog whistles for this kind of violence?
I would say that the lack of thought leaders on the left is why the right will ultimately win, but I am not so sure. History takes odd turns.
One personal point. There was a family member, a cousin, who became radicalized in college by the left. He cut himself off from everyone because of politics. Things like that can’t help but put me in the mind of a cult.
There's Coleman Hughes, who seems to be a thoughtful liberal influencer. He's not a leader, but maybe he'll become a leader later. There's John McWhorter and Glenn Loury in academia and the media. They're probably considered "conservatives" by the Left though.
It's rather ironic that you're raising the specter of MLK in the context of Charlie Kirk's murder, considering that one of Charlie's contrarian takes over the past few years was crapping on MLK.
I have just two words: Freeze the Soros Family's Assets, and then start to unravel the 501(c)(3) and Holding Companies, like Arabella Advisors, that they use to finance the spread of death and disorder throughout the country. OK, that was twenty nine words, but you get the point.
Agreed. And a few more words . . . Federal Government needs to start arresting and prosecuting Antifa domestic terrorists and remove them from the streets of Portland, Seattle, etc. Enough is enough.
Off the top of my head, arson, assault, stalking, vandalism, trespassing, and you can probably make a RICO case against them.
The problem with antifa is that they are routinely not prosecuted for the crimes they commit (for a small sample of which, consult Andy Ngo). The police on the west coast just ignore them until they can’t, at which point prosecutors coddle them.
Many of these Antifa people seem to be schooled carefully in just how far to take things. I’ve seen examples of manuals and instruction sheets that educate young activists on just how to comport oneself both for maximum effect and for slipping just under the legal radar. That instruction is not cheap and is funded by those with means.
No, my friend. You are wrong. Antifa doesn’t exist. It’s just an idea. We were reassured of this years ago by nadler and others. You’re just hallucinating when you see direct action.
They’re basically a left wing version of the Klan, but with a looser (and therefore more resilient) organizational structure. These people are filled with hate and violent ideation, and are vanguardists for the radical left. They threaten and occasionally assault political opponents, deplatform speakers, attack opposing political rallies, and provide the sparks that turn protests into riots. On the rare occasions when one of them actually winds up in court, they’ve also been known to resort to witness intimidation.
A healthy society wouldn’t tolerate people like these.
"The problem with antifa is that they are routinely not prosecuted for the crimes they commit (for a small sample of which, consult Andy Ngo). The police on the west coast just ignore them until they can’t, at which point prosecutors coddle them."
This is mostly bs, a ton of people have been prosecuted for the Portland riots with quite heavy fines/prison time (I think I gave you the list of them a couple years ago). The problem the police have with antifa is that 1) they are disorganized with no real hierarchy to target with a RICO charge, and 2) you actually have to have hard evidence to convict and cell phone cameras of masked people at night are not great for that. Just having evidence that somebody was at a protest where something bad happened isn't good enough. People in Portland have the same complaints about Andy Ngo's friends Patriot Prayer getting let off and ignored or assisted by the police. They are both much more like street gangs than the Klan fwiw.
Sure, for the BLM 2020 riots specifically. Although back then as I recall the list you had was only of people who were arrested and charged. I don’t recall that it included the outcomes after the inevitable plea bargaining (but it was a few years back, so I might be wrong). And a lot of those people were likely not antifa, if only because there aren’t a huge number of them, and there were a lot of other general rabble involved in those riots.
For the more prosaic trouble they get up to I feel like they usually get away with it. Assaulting or intimidating political opponents, stalking and harassing people like Andy Ngo (or anyone else they deem a fascist), ginning up mobs to deplatform people like Riley Gaines (who was once trapped in a room for hours by an angry mob at San Francisco State U; no one was charged), etc. Ngo himself has been put into the hospital at least once, and his mother (who still lives in Portland after he moved away for his own safety) has been routinely harassed at home and at work.
"For the more prosaic trouble they get up to I feel like they usually get away with it."
This is sadly true, but this is just as true for the right wing groups that showed up with guns and shut down an ER and come to intimidate and assault people throughout the state. In Portland there's been lots of complaints about the cops communicating with Patriot Prayer in how to avoid prosecution, I can't imagine the cops would have much sympathies for antifa.
I've been happy that Ngo was documenting some of antifa's actions, but he shouldn't be surprised that doing that to what is basically a street gang caused them to come after him. Trying to work with the FBI or the cops would have been better than trying help Patriot Prayer attack antifa in Portland. I would love for both those groups to go off into the desert and have a show down to settle their midlife crises induced grievances rather than coming to Portland to break things and pretending they have any actual political convictions.
One video I found credible showed a peaceful protest march in which some Antifa objected to one marcher carrying an American flat, ultimately resulting in an Antifa in a costume that vaguely reminded me of Trump's shaman hitting the man carrying the flat over the head with a club, dropping him to the ground. Prosecute them for incidents like that.
Protest marches these days are poorly organized. During the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war eras, there were dozens or hundreds of trained marshals, not US marshals but trained volunteers who were part of organizing the march, who fulfilled the roles of keeping the march on message, in a reasonably coherent formation, and protecting marchers from interference, all without carrying any weapons. Today most people calling for protest haven't a clue.
I love the MAGA-bots who scream about lawfare and then also demand the prosecution of all perceived enemies whether there be evidence or not. They sound like Lefty extremists.
Jon, at least up here in the Pacific NW, there’s plenty of charges that the Feds could throw at Antifa and Trantifa, based on real evidence. Ask Andy Ngo what it’s like to be assaulted and repeatedly threatened with death by those goons.
The problem is there's no organization called "Antifa" in the same sense there is (or was) an American Communist Party and a KKK. It's a lower case adjective used to describe certain people's extremist views not a proper noun for a formal group. Sure we can and should prosecute people for assault and battery, terrorism and the like. We do not need more laws, only to be sure that laws are being enforced for egregious wrongdoing-- but being careful not to criminalize free speech, even when we think the speech is blitheringly idiotic.
Jon, you’re endearingy concrete. Sure there may be no card-issuing org called “Antifa,” but plenty of far-left goons up where I live claim adherence to “anti-fascism” or Antifa. And a growing number of unhinged trans activists who bleat about persecution and trans genocide advertise their Trantifa creds. Maybe Florida mercifully doesn’t have this sickness, but it’s here in places like Portland and Seattle, and it embraces violence to further its agenda. Please, wake up and join the 21st century.
What I am pointing out, without some sort of formal organization you can't invoke RICO laws. They were created to use against the Mafia and drug gangs, which are organizations. They can't be invoked to fight some vague, disorganized ideology.
And I am deeply suspicious of any call to criminalize speech or belief-- as oppsoed to concrete real world actions. As I said, we have all the legal tools we need to go after violent actions, and conspiracy to commit them. But I absolutely do not want to haul people into court for believing the wrong things. That could go disastrously bad, as we are seeing in the UK.
Is there any trace the George Soros had anything to do with this business? Come on, the Bill of Rights is still the law of the land, and the government cannot just seize property without due process of law.
Jon, a lot of US Aid went to outfits that purported to be one thing (like a green energy initiatives) but were really another (Dark Money pools for Left-wing causes like funding Politico). We spent billions to get 7 charging stations in one of Biden's boondoggle Green Energy bills? I read things like that. Trump is trying to see if Soros bros can be RICO'd. I wish. Boasberg (and company) would put the kabosh on that. Of course, all we have to do is follow the US Aid money, and it would unfortunately turn out that some of it got funneled to politicians in the form of (probably legal, but maybe some illegal) campaign contributions. That's why congress was voting for more money for Ukraine right up until the end nearly; when they stopped, Biden gave Ukraine a big loan. Follow the Ukraine money--rots of ruck. How much did we give to Ukraine total, including a loan near the end of Biden's term? My guestimate: $200 to $250 billion. My children's children's children's children's children's will be paying that off, if we don't go belly up. There are only so many taxpayer dollars (or printed money) to go around before we bankrupt and inflate (devaluation of the dollar) into 3rd world status. Do you notice we're being herded into some form of new currency? I'd argue cryptos and stock (especially tech stocks) are becoming the new currency, or precious metals. I feel betrayed. I don't want to have to buy cryptos to afford to live.
Back in the day, we all understood that AID was a front for the CIA. I find it sardonically amusing that Donald Trump shut down AID, and people who should have longer memories reflexively came to its defense. Of course it could be just an aid agency now, maybe the CIA has moved on.
I think there’s likely a great deal of evidence that the Soros groups have been involved in funding a lot of chaos. For one thing, the chaos is generally skillfully targeted so as to avoid obvious legal issues, but just disruptive enough to demoralize the opposition.
Trump's rambling accusatory posts on Truth Social supersede the Bill of Rights, Jon! You clearly haven't been properly catechized in the Gospel of MAGA.
Expropriate the expropriators! (This is the second time I've said that -- but there is no occasion when it is more fun to make sardonic use of classical Marxist rhetoric than in a conversation about George Soros.)
And cut off funding for those universities that have become leftist madrassas. I don't want my tax dollars going to them any more than to Planned Parenthood or to NPR.
We oldies don’t understand the positive influence Charlie Kirk had on our children. My kids are college-aged. All they’ve ever known is corny theater, bluster, and mouthiness from politicians. (Remember how normal Elizabeth Warren used to be?—but to fit in in 2025, she has turned into a shrieking, histrionic reality-show character.)
Charlie Kirk came along and discussed things with people, and delivered a message of normalcy—but with positivity. His organizational skills were also incredible.
Yes, and he was a serious student of the Bible, which served him well often.
As he himself said, he wanted to be remembered for his faith. Seems like he accomplished that--well done good and faithful servant. A fine example for all of us.
Being old myself, I knew more about Russell Kirk than Charlie Kirk. It seems to me that Charlie was a great organizer with a rapid, focused mind and had great energy. His loss to the conservative political world is tremendous. He is irreplaceable.
I think dukeboy put it in perspective for me. He said something like think about how many fans Rush had. Now realize that Charlie is even bigger for Gen Z.
I was banging on about the need for a national divorce for years around here, back in Rod's TAC days, so for well over a decade. I sounded like a lunatic but this is why I advocated for it and still do. Peaceful separation is better than murder.
We should have realized after the razor- thin 2000 election that we needed to split up, but then 9/11 happened and we were (mostly) pulled back together against the Muslim hordes. The divisions became magnified with each election, the rhetoric became sharper and more heated, and the internet amplified it all. And now here we are.
It's (probably) too late for a peaceful partition of the country. It would have been incredibly difficult and economically devastating, but it would have been worth it.
Now we have to play for all the marbles. It's going to mean terrible things in the next few years. Dark deeds, however justifiable and necessary, will be done and we'll have to live with ourselves afterwards.
I fear that in the coming years you won't have to seek trouble. Trouble will come for you. Pray that you will recognize it when it nears. Pray that you will have the strength to do what is necessary, however horrible to whoever is bringing it to your door, and that you will be victorious.
And then pray for forgiveness for what you've done.
I'm for national unity. Why should we split? There's always Marshall Law if the varmin start openly making secession declarations and shooting up the place. Riots? Drones. Burning and looting? Call in the troops, make mass arrests. Put them on islands (where do we have some empty islands we can park Antifas on)? Put them on Hilton Head, SC. Oh, the south would love that ha ha. Under Marshall Law, Boasberg is no longer in charge of Trump. Follow the money to head off the whole thing. Armies march on their bellies and rioters march on funding by Soros and other NGOs. I'd say prep up before the mid-terms for sure (I always review the supplies before an election ever since Obama got elected). That's my plan. Could it come sooner than the midterms? Yes, it could come sooner if China or Russia decides to get feisty or the "sleeper cells" are activated.
I may want national unity, but we need to be careful about who we unite with.
That’s the crux of the problem.
Many of us really have no idea how to live with people who want to see us dead because of our political ideas.
Now is the time to be super real about who these monsters really are.
How do we unite when the cultural control levers (major media, university) skew towards intolerance of anyone right of a Marxist? And too many people have been brainwashed to think these organizations are 100% right all the time?
Praying is good, but maybe it’s not God’s will for us to stay united? That’s an awfully big assumption to make.
Yes, it is terrifying to think about but now is the time to start thinking about worst-case scenarios and how to be prepared for anything.
The people who dominate my X feed are *highly motivated* to punish people for their sick behavior in the aftermath of Charlie’s death right now and I can’t blame them in the least. Every few hours people post a new number of people they’ve personally worked to get fired. It’s quite disturbing, but a behavioral correction is needed on these people for celebrating the fact that someone died.
A lot of us are done being nice to monsters and pretending we can live in peace with them w/out a major change in attitude on their part.
Sure, we can pray for their conversion , but we are done tolerating the monsters in our midst.
This is an example of a nice version of the rhetoric.
Some of it is quite chilling and frightening. A lot of people have had enough and ‘give zero f-cks’ (in their own words) about going psycho on the monsters now.
Nobody wants to hear about unity. Nobody wants to calm down. (We’ve done that before and things only get worse!)
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but things can’t stay the same anymore.
We're not enforcing our laws. Let's start enforcing our laws, then we don't have to split. Let's get indictments and trials for those involved in the Russia hoax, for instance, which was sedition. Prosecute those that helped arranged the J6 "fedsurrection" (here's looking at you, Nancy Pelosi and Christopher Wray). Declare Marshall Law if the Left starts rioting, looting, burning, murdering and assaulting the Christians and those who don't agree with them. Declare Antifa and BLM domestic terrorist organization--and the SPLC as well. That would probably be enough to take down 50 people in the government, with some familiar names (and big fish) at the top of the list for the Russia hoax sedition alone. Let's true the vote. That would stop the madness, because the majority of people in the USA don't want criminals roaming free to attack them viciously, for no reason, on public conveyances. The majority of people don't want the country to be overrun by third world immigrant or the Chinese. How long after we split do you think it would take China to invade Taiwan (the the USA)? How long before Blue States of America form a strategic alliance with China and/or Russia and start assassinating Red State leaders and influencers? How long after we split do you think that the Blue States of America would try to utterly destroy the Red States of America? It would happen immediately. Soros would be celebrating, he broke the West, he broke the last, best hope on earth. Are the sacrifices of Abraham Lincoln and US Grant to be wasted by breaking up the greatest nation on earth? Then who will lead the free world? Not Europe. Wars are easy to start and hard to stop. Look at the Ukraine war. That war should have never started, and would not have if Trump hadn't been robbed of re-election by Fauci, China, the Deep State, and Obama and company. We have to get serious. Take down "Discord" for instance if it can be proven that that outfit aided in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Arrest all the "accomplices." Take Tyler's computer, cell phone, all his Discord records, and then start sweeps of anyone who aided in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I have studied the Civil War for years. I do not want a replay of the Civil War. We're meant to be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Funnel your righteous anger into Turning Point USA or other outreadh programs. The young people today are like sheep without a shephard. Go shephard them, as Charlie Kirk tried to do, by listening to them and reasoning with them and witnessing Christ to them.
No national divorce. National purge and cleanse. It was never going to split peacefully because Progressuves want to control people. If we had split, then Bulwark type losers would somehow have become the leaders of the "Right" country, and then we lose that as well.
I think we might just need to wait until the Second Coming to fix things.
I’ve long felt that the split really began with the older cohorts of the Baby Boomers—the Clintons’ peers. The “liberals” among them were very often actually Leftists. The conservatives, of course, tended to be equally ideological Reaganauts or Wall Street yuppies. With that age group, the older, more genial differences between, say, Eisenhower Republicans and Stevenson Democrats was elided. The bipartisanship that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act was shattered after Watergate, the first time Hillary’s and John Kerry’s mugs appeared on the scene.
Correct. The split is really the conflict of the '60s continued with various transmutations. I.e. the hippie agrarians were a tiny minority and in general their compatriots went into "the system" and did well at it, while retaining important pieces of their essential leftism.
It’s the same long conflict. The roots were established in the late 19th century and began to sprout in the period of the First World War under Wilson and the emergence of professional managerial thinking. Only a series of crises allowed the managerial progressives their route into the body politic. Rahm Emmanuel spoke truer than he knew, no doubt. The radicals took advantage of the American people’s fundamental decency and good will both during the Civil Rights era and during Obama’s presidency. Honest desires for improvements in race relations were derailed in both periods by Leftist maximalism. The first ushered in a long era of GOP conservatism. Let’s see what happens after Trump.
We just have to trust the good sense of the people. Many will continue to espouse rancid, resentful political views, but many more, one hopes, will recoil at obvious indications of pathology.
My own view is that by quirks of electoral fate, it’s taken 15 years for voters to express—in Trump’s 2024 popular majority—a truer account of where the American people really stand with all this stuff.
Obama’s terms muddled things, partly because many voters voted for him in an attempt to put to rest the idea that this was a fundamentally racist country. When that didn’t quiet down the Left, Trump was chosen. The 2020 election was in a plague year, and any incumbent would have had trouble. And Trump’s achievements weren’t sold easily. That he roared back into office in 2024 with all the erosion of Democratic Party popularity suggests to me that the voters’ fatigue with leftist politics and the cultural manifestations of leftist thinking in HR departments, schools, the symbol-heavy professions, etc. is now obvious.
Yes a national divorce would jsut mean multiple nations with the same cultural split.
I think you said you were travelingtoday but Dan Wooten on GPN's Youtube channel streamed unite the UK. Lot of good (and the ocasional bad) stuff there today.
Yes, Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades are bascially an extension of the Upper South culture. I spent quite a bit of time on both sides of the mountains.
Let me put it to you this way: What is the alternative that doesn't result in continual bloodshed?
You lament constantly that liberal democracy is insufficient for the present situation. I agree. You are upset that it is so while I could genuinely care less if liberal democracy as currently practiced is dead and buried at this point. But let us at least stipulate that we're not going to be able to vote our way out of this.
Our election cycles are just turning into a tug a war in which one side is up and punishes their enemies as much as they can get away with until the other side takes over and tries to undo everything the other side did. In some cases one side's policy preferences seem to have been chosen simply because they are the opposite of what the other side would have done. Both sides have, up until now, used and abused the court system to try to cement their preferences long term.
To what end? To keep the dream of Manifest Destiny alive? Why do we want to force ourselves, our neighbors, our family members to go through 4 year cycles of depression when your side is down followed by four year cycles of dunking on your opponents when your side is up? How is that good for any of our souls, no matter which part of the cycle we happen to be in?
The question that each of us needs to be asking ourselves is do we think that our side can ever truly dominate the other side? Do you believe that your worldview and political preferences can become so widely accepted that those who don't share them will be so rare as to be practically non- existent and therefore no physical force or coercion will be required to keep them at bay?
If you believe that we have become too factionalized and attached to our own worldviews to unite for a common good, then figuring out how to keep enough distance between each other to stay away from each other's throats. National divorce would not be easy by any means, but it wouldn't be impossible.
And the pen is mightier than the sword. God has his "pen heads." Rod is one, but there are many others in the US and Europe, the part of Europe where one can write an article without being arrested (i.e., avoid UK until Keir Starmer is shown the door). Other fav US "pen heads": Victor Davis Hanson, Roger Kimball, R.R. Reno, Michael Douglas Dougherty, Roger Simon--too many others to list. I like Ross Douthat, but he's a little too politically squishy for me at times--still, he has written some incredibly insightful pieces on the faith--I remember one essay in which he talks about Jesus being unafraid to get down in the mud with us. I attach an illistration of a woman hiker who encountered a mud-swamped sheep that was sort of stunned and lethargic and had to be pulled as a deadweight from the swamp by a very strong and determined woman hiker. That's Jesus encountering a meth head (or other addict) who is so stunned or lethargic he/she cannot aid in its own rescue. So Ross wrote about God being unafraid to get down and dirty in the rescue of sinners (as we saw on the cross). Brit penhead, ah, Mike Benz, Douglas Murray, the Triggernometry bros (Kisin and Foster), and Brendan O'Neill, editor of online "Spiked", who is absolutely brilliant. In the meantime, watch a Jesus-like character determined to save a mud-caked-and-swamped sheep--she takes it to the river, washes it the water. So, Lord, "Take me to the river; wash me in the water" ( (Talking Head's funky song attached as a second treat for Saturday):
I believe at least one former poster, a woman from England, has discontinued using this site because she was afraid of being charged for a crime by the Starmer police.
Sethu has stopped because he thought he was spending too much time on this site. He's a writer. Eve stopped over a year ago because she had to take care of an ailing husband. Laura M said she was taking too much time and wanted to spend more time doing family things. All good people.
Yes, I think a lot of us spend far too much time on this site ... mostly in the comments section. I don't know where folks find the time.
I read almost every word Rod writes as well as the links he posts to other sources. For me, he is an invaluable source for understanding where our society is headed. The comments section? ... not as much.
I do think the discourse at Dreher's site is much more intelligent than any others that I am acquainted. I'd have a beer or two with dozens of the posters at this site.
Hopefully all of them will come back. With Sethu gone, that leaves me and Hiroyuki as the youngest two people that I know of to post here. Hopefully, other younger people will read Rod and post so we have the benefit of multiple generations talking.
The NATION- "Charlie Kirk was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe and misogynist....."
In their collective hearts, that's what the modern left thinks of conservatives. Kirk believed in the common American morality of 1950 shared by Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Dwight Eisenhower. The modern left has left that old morality far behind.
I can’t believe that any (formerly) respectable publication would broadcast such an unhinged opinion. I’ll never treat them as a serious publication again and everyone associated with their masthead should be ashamed.
Yes. I can't imagine conservative magazines being gleeful if Michael Moore or Bill Maher or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Stephen Colbert were assassinated.
Then you are not dealing with reality. People on the right do not wish for the death of their opponents. We just want to see them change their minds and hearts.
Oh, please. Listen to yourself. I am quite certain that YOU do not wish for the death of perceived opponents. Neither do I. A lot of liberals don't either. (That's at least three different perspectives). But, among the rather vaguely referenced categories "people on the right" and "people on the left," there are some nut jobs, or ruthlessly sane fanatics, who do wish for the death of their opponents, and an even smaller number who occasionally try to kill. Every time someone is killed, people who fancy themselves in one category intone "We don't do that, they do." Its part true and part false. And no, you don't have control over those "on the right" who do wish for the death of their (or perhaps sometimes your) opponents. So you are not responsible for them.
If it were the occasional nutjob, I would agree (and yes, nutjobs come in all flavors). But the last few days have shown a disturbingly sizeable percentage of leftists not only celebrated Kirk’s death, but started suggesting a next target. Not liberals - leftists. The liberals are standing up in droves to condemn his murder, thank God.
The more I think about Kirk, to whom I paid zero attention before Wednesday, the more convincing it becomes that this or something like it was inevitable. Steve Scalise, Brett Kavanaugh, Trump himself (twice). When the speaker of the House, then a grandmother in her '70s, tears up her copy of the State of the Union address in a completely phony act of performative rage, it was inevitable that somebody was going to get hurt.
Well, Nancy Pelosi's husband was injured on a politically motivated home invasion. You can say "Yeah, but he wasn't a REAL right-winger and these others were done by REAL leftists." But I don't see much difference. Its generally some nut-job who grabbed hold of some political rhetoric, or, more often, its someone nobody ever heard of, whose neighbors invariably tell newshounds "I never would have expected it of him/her."
A string of adjectives like that is precisely what is wrong with a good deal of political discourse. Not having taken much interest in Kirk, pro or con, I would want to know, what precisely has he said or done that is racist, and why or how is it racist? As for transphobe, they'd say that about me too -- and I always say, is that word about the carbon filament tower connecting Phobos to the Martian surface? Misogynist, again, I would want to know details -- in what manner does he show what kind of disrespect for woman, generally, as women. (I've known some very energetic, employed, self-confident women who take seriously the duty to "submit to my husband.") Homophobe... that's another tiring one... ain't nobody afraid of your ass, what are you talking about? But a string of labels is a sign that there is no thought process at work, only a knee-jerk reflex.
Forgive me brothers and sisters, for I have sinned. For decades I was a child of the Internet. I would sprawl through forum after forum spreading demons of hate disguised as reasonable argument. I used pornography countless times with myself and others - summoning demons into this world one mouse click at a time in my heart and the hearts of others.
I didn't pull the trigger, but my sins contributed to the death of Charlie Kirk. It is only by God's grace I haven't done even worse things. I cannot cast a stone, because the blood of my brothers and sisters is on my hands through every breaking of God's Holy and perfect law.
This assassin immersed himself in the internet and got totally radicalized even though it looks like he came from a nice family. Think about the fact our kids or, in my case, grandkids will never know a world without AI and robots. If people are having emotional, even erotic, relationships with AI personalities now , robots will take over parenting. I cringe when I see parents hand a device to a little child in a restaurant to shut him up so the parents can stare at their iPhones.
I blame the violent gaming world more than anything political. Maybe it only happens to one in a million gamers but games like Helldriver2 hammer home a horrible lesson: assert yourself with bloodshed.
I thought about that too yesterday when I saw the leftists cheering for Charlie’s death. To them, the video of him being killed is just another death scene in a world where entertainment is dominated by gore. And like video game players, they immediately start planning their next conquest. They do not conceive of him as a real human being.
Sigh, As I just said elsewhere, assigning guilt for Robinson's crime to anyone other than him and perhaps potential acomplice(s) is as wrong as when 30 years ago fingers of blame were pointed at the entire conservative body public for McVeigh's atrocity in OKC.
I think a massive problem with these young people who have lived on their screens their whole lives is that they have little to no imagination. Their brains are actually missing those neural pathways. I see it in my students, even the academically gifted ones. Their brains have been spoonfed (or bombarded) with sensory input, and they never learned how to imagine, contemplate, and sit with their own thoughts. Take away the constant stimulation, and most of their eyes glaze over into a 1,000 yard stare.
What does this have to do with Kirk's assassination? These young people (say, under 30) don't have the capacity to imagine what Kirk was experiencing for the few seconds he had consciousness after being shot. They can't imagine how his wife is feeling, or the confusion and fear of his children, or the people in the crowd who thought they could get shot as they ran away with their heads down.
In short, screen addiction causes various degrees of sociopathy. Someone may have said this once before, but I think smart phones and the internet, particularly social media, were Uncle Screwtape's greatest invention in Hell's R&D Dept.
I have not read this article nor have I read another article that appeared this morning. Just the headlines and the initial paragraphs. The reading will come later. I know what is in them.
Re: The bullets police found with his discarded rifle had pro-trans and Antifa messaging scrawled on them
This is false. There's not a trace of anything trans-related, unless the message "If you're reading this you're gay" is somehow interpreted along those lines. "Eat this fascists" can probably be seen as "Antifa-ish" I suppose. However the odd symbols have been identified as belonging to the online game Helldriver2 - a very violent game in which players direct armies bent on world conquest. I would suggest that what we have with Robinson is a young man conditioned for violence in real life by a game that features its extreme use. Robinson is also known to have participated in forums frequented by other players of the game. Perhaps he let fantasy pollute his reality. When you consider how many people are part of that world the possibilities are rather grim.
Reports this morning suggest he was a Redditor (as in a user of the site Reddit). There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
He was clearly a gamer, and gaming may have played a role in desensitizing him to violence (though in fairness millions of boys plays violent games with ever becoming violent IRL), but it would ultimately be other people who radicalized him, most likely through social media.
Re: There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
Agree. I do visit Reddit regularly but fairly sane and clean places (e..g, a forum for people learning Russian). And Reddit is better policed than it used to be. I was even banned from one forum for posting something a moderator deemed too political.
Some of the other messages on the unfired cartridges appear more politically straightforward, including one that says, “Hey fascist! Catch!” The latter message, Mr. Cox said, most clearly showed the gunman’s intent. “I think that speaks for itself,” he said.
Another featured the words “Bella ciao,” an apparent reference to an Italian song adopted by the antifascist resistance during World War II. It is still sung by the Italian left and in other countries to commemorate the fight against fascism, and it also appears in a recent Netflix series.
Re: There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
Agree. I do visit Reddit regularly but fairly sane and clean places (e.g., a forum for people learning Russian). And Reddit is better policed than it used to be. I was even banned from one forum for posting something a moderator deemed too political.
"Eat this fascists" can probably be seen as "Antifa-ish" I suppose.
Seriously, Jon? Actual scrawling was "“hey fascist! CATCH!" How many ways are there to interpret that on a bullet casing belonging to a man charged with murdering a political opponent he describes as a 'fascist'?
Jon, your skepticism pedantically parses everything for an alternate causality. One pictures you at the gates of heaven arguing the case with St Peter why you should actually be assigned elsewhere.
There's considerable speculation going around right now that the guy also had Groyper connection. I never encountered the word "groyper" until I saw it yesterday. Apparently they are radical right bunch followers of Nick Fuentes who had a big feud going with Kirk. I am certainly not going to endorse something that is presented as pure speculation (but a lot stuff here is too,m link a link to George Soros) but I think we should let the authorities dig into anything and everything and not pollute the scene with rumors. Two answers I would like to see:
1. Where did the guy learn his marksmanship skills?
2. Did he have an accomplice? There's a claim (so far just hearsay) that he received instruction via a Discord forum on where to pick up the rifle and what to do with it afterward.
Robinson's father was a cop. Young Robinson probably knew his way around a shooting range. My middle son's a hunter with a collection of firearms. I asked him yesterday whether Robinson's shot was difficult. He said 200 yards for any decent hunter wasn't difficult, especially with a scope which I believe Robinson had.
Before she scrubbed them, Robinson's mother had lots of pics of young Robinson holding high-powered firearms. It was apparently a shooting family. Nothing wrong with that.
So it seems that was true. I wasn't sure if it was a real screenshot of his mother's FB, or an AI deepfake, or Russian hackers, or an infantile disorder promoting a false flag. But it was certainly plausible. As Salvor Hardin said, "A blaster is a good weapon, but it points both ways."
Do you know about "Bella Ciao"? It was a song of the Resistance, which was almost completely controlled by the Communist Party, in Italy during the Second World War. I lived in Italy during the "years of lead" (Red Brigades, Aldo Moro) and you heard that song effing everywhere. My suggestion to Dreher yesterday was to replace it with this, a little ditty popular during the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
It is also a song used in Helldivers2 and one of the other bullets had a code from that game, so I'd lean towards that being the source rather than the shooters knowledge of Italian antifacist history. All of the stuff on the casing seems to be video game memes.
I came close to losing a friend of fifty years over this because, while he would never applaud the senseless murder of anyone, he was convinced that Kirk was a racist, homophobic yadda yadda. I presented copious evidence to the contrary; his ignorance was invincible. I finally let it drop, as it was going nowhere. A few hours later, he texted me with a link to a NYT opinion piece where six conservatives were saying what Kirk had meant to them and how his death was hitting them. That piece finally struck a nerve with him, thanks be to God.
Long after that peddler of drug store horror, Stephen King, apologized for spreading the lie that Kirk called for the stoning of gays the charge was circulating from other hands all yesterday afternoon.
Given the profusion of his apologies, I assume King woke up to the legal implications of his false allegations, but hopefully he experienced genuine regret. It was strange to see him speaking with humility!
You cannot libel the dead. That's the law in America. King could have said anything he wanted to about Charlie Kirk, and he would have been legally untouchable. He repented because he genuinely realized he was wrong.
Among non-right Americans, there do seem to be two sharply distinguished categories:
1.) People who have enough sense to denounce political violence and give their condolences to Charlie Kirk and his family
2.) People who don't and either don't apologize, celebrate the assassination or inappropriately use it as a platform for left-wing self-righteousness
One could see this as a type of litmus test. What do you guys think the two categories represent?
I think it's something to do with how much one centralises political opinions in one's life. In other words, to what degree do one's political opinions define one's self worth? With genuinely religious people, that is unlikely to be high, but it's not just religion that militates against it, but, even if one is atheist, having a strong family, good friends, hobbies, even just enjoying getting outdoors and seeing the sunset from the mountains.
I broadly disapprove of political assassination, although I'm sure there are cases when it's the lesser evil; without wishing to go the ad Hitleriam route, a lot of people would think the assassination of the Austrian painter would have been something to celebrate. Even in the case of someone assassinating a US President, although I wouldn't applaud, I could see how some people might. However, Kirk was in no office, but was simply expressing opinions. Why not murder that annoying professor at college?
In the case of Luigi Mangione, although I don't actually approve his murder, I think the world would be a better place if sociopathic CEOs walked in constant mortal dread. I think the murder of Hamas members and their families using explosive pagers was evil, and presents a horrendous precedent, but, if one accepts the evil ideology of Zionism, I can see the logic. I don't see mere opinions in that category.
Does anyone else on these comment pages just skim through Rombald's comments to see how he's going to get in his anti-Jewish point this time? Never fails.
I gave two examples of recent, politically motivated murders. They were the two that came to mind. If you were to suggest any others, I would try to slot them into my argument.
I would remind you that killing Hezbollah -- not Hamas -- members was part of an ongoing war, but what's the point?
Well, I actually thought I was tentatively defending the action, in the sense that the Hezbollah (sorry I forgot that) members were actual actors, so if one defends Israeli actions at all, they follow from that. An actual politician, military figure, or even business executive, involved in actions, is in a different position from someone merely expressing an opinion.
https://douglasfarrow.substack.com/p/reaping-the-whirlwind
Yes. I thought he was going to make it this time, but he couldn't help himself at the end.
As reliable as an appearance of the groundhog on Groundhog Day.
Yeah & he’s not the only one. Candace Owens is blaming “da Jooooz” for Charlie’s murder. Joined by morons in her comments saying the Joooz did it so Ben Shapiro could take over TPUSA. Must be tiring to be obsessed with people who are .2% of the world’s population.
Anti-Semitism is a clear sign of mental illness.
If someone was blaming red headed people for all the ills in their life and the world, we would rightly think they were nuts.
But I love when people expose who they are. It’s a public service.
I'm happy to give you a like, Ataraxis, but it's a conditional like: anti - Semitism is a virus of the soul, and I think its origin renders it outside the category of a mental illness. It's an evil. Have you ever known a mild anti - Semite? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I think it's generally true that one can be a little anti - Semitic the way a man can be a little gay.
I endorse your more detailed description.
Very sad.
Indeed. The Jews are a small minority and have been treated like garbage for centuries but are somehow secretly controlling everything. It's one of the stupidest conspiracy theories out there.
Never fails.
Rombald's lunatic obsessive hatred of Israel is like the groundhog on Groundhog Day: it always puts in an appearance.
Well, maybe it does. Maybe it's insane. Who knows? However, on this particular occasion, I don't think you or the other commenters followed my argument.
I consider Israel's cause to be unjust. However, if one accepts the justice of its cause, the murder of the Hezbollah operatives can be justified.
I consider US actions against al-Qaida to be have been just (although not the wider "war on terror", invasion of Iraq, etc.), on which grounds the murder of bin Laden was just.
Even in a just cause, such murders are to be regretted. It would have been better for bin Laden to be captured and tried. The murder of Hezbollah operatives sets a nightmarish precedent (think of the mobile phone in your pocket). Nevertheless, justification can be offered.
Gotta get over the Zionism thing, Rombald. Everything else you say is solid.
We know your argument: ascribe all conflicts and injustices to the one country in the world where the Jews are in the minority.
Majority?
Re: a lot of people would think the assassination of the Austrian painter would have been something to celebrate.
I may be making too much of your words but I don't think killing is ever something to celebrate. I criticized the jubilation in the streets over Bin Laden's killing by our military. He was absolutely someone of whom we may truthfully say "He needed killing", but do we have to party over it?
I suppose I'm more or less with you. Perhaps "celebrate" was not the right word; "applaud" or "approve" might have been better.
We murdered Bin Laden. That's what it's called when you kill somebody without a trial, as when the Bolsheviks brought the imperial family down into that cellar. The silver lining of course is that anybody who suborned or excused that act is now stripped of protesting on moral grounds anything The Managerial State gets up to.
Well, as someone pointed out above with respect to the Hezbollah members, it was an ongoing war, possibly providing justification, although capture and trial would certainly have been preferable.
Its a pretty good argument than bin Laden had engaged in war against the United States, and hence it was a legitimate military operation to kill him. The Bolsheviks were actually bringing the Czar to Moscow for trial. It was a local cell of Socialist-Revolutionaries (ironically, Alexander Kerensky's party) who intercepted the train, interned the family, and demanded that the entire family be summarily killed.
Theodore, did we murder Yamamoto? I can't see that we did.
Yes, we did. And heads of states at war with each other don't murder each other either. At least they didn't. Bin Laden wasn't even a head of state. The execution of Louis XVI was a put-up job that nearly got voted down. But it was a trial. Lenin's denial of a trial to the Romanovs was meant to give his fans in the West a chubby.
Yamamoto was a serving military officer, in a declared war, and flying in a military aircraft on a military assignment. His flight was intercepted by military forces of the opposing nation. If a spy had set a bomb in his living room while he was home on leave, that could be a very different argument. Or, if we went back to traditional European sensibilities, that opposing armies should shoot the enlisted personnel all they want, but by tacit agreement refrain from taking aim at officers above the rank of captain, they we would have yet another debate. But, American forces ditched that particular courtesy throughout our War of Independence -- which the British bitterly resented.
In some ways of course it's not politics at all. Peter Hitchens is especially good on this. For Marxists, who now call themselves progressives, they don't have opinions, they have The Truth, and the truth hath made them free. You're not just wrong, you're evil. I would say this began with the French Revolution, but last week was the anniversary of the massacre at Drogheda, which Oliver Cromwell called the judgement of God. And guess who got to carry out the sentence?
That’s an excellent point. I’m glad you mention Cromwell, who I tend to view as the forefather of modern progressivism (I don’t call it Marxism).
Cromwell, the ultra-Calvinist Joshua smiting the Catholic Amalekites and their dupes.
"Ultra-Calvinist" in that the sense of his own election dominated his entire religious and political life (even though at the end of his life he seems to have been weighed down by the thought that England had missed its opportunity to embrace its chance to become an elect people, and died in a malarial melancholy).
Got a suggestion for a good, that is, balanced, biography of Cromwell? The more colorful, the better, I just want something fair.
https://www.google.com/books/edition/Oliver_Cromwell/VcZyEAAAQBAJ?hl=en
https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/oliver-cromwell-9781408186244/
or (very short and very good, by the same author)
https://www.amazon.com/Oliver-Cromwell-Very-Interesting-People-ebook/dp/B008B395X6
The author, a Cambridge History professor, in retirement ordained a Catholic priest, is a great but not uncritical admirer of Cromwell:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Morrill_(historian)
Up the Levellers! (And the Agitators... who Cromwell executed, and then sent the troops who had elected them to do the fighting and dying in Ireland).
"sent the troops"
"Led the troops" would be more accurate.
https://douglasfarrow.substack.com/p/reaping-the-whirlwind
I thought the linked article might get to something I saw on a FB post giving context to Kirk's comment on deaths as the price of the Second Amendment, but it didn't. But I found the context quite enlightening. Without reproducing it in full, Kirk first said that the Second Amendment is not about hunting, then that it is not about personal protection, although both are important to him. Historically, he is correct on both counts. Then he says that the Second Amendment recognizes that governments tend to become tyrannical, and it is important for citizens to be armed as a safeguard against tyranny. Again, he is correct. Now, the part about, unfortunately, the price of the Second Amendment is that we have some deaths due to use of guns... He offered an analogy that driving automobiles results in 50,000 deaths a year -- we could avoid those 50,000 deaths if we banned automobiles.
In all the rage and grief I've seen posted anywhere, this is the first time I saw anyone affirmatively giving some substance of what Kirk said that they found admirable. Not laudatory adjectives, substance. There are various arguments to be pursued. One is that without automobiles, far more people would die because they couldn't get to the hospital on time, we would have renewed famine deaths due to lack of transport to get large quantities of food across long distances... the list could go on and on. Can the same be said of gun ownership? Well, someone would tote up the number of people who would be murdered and/or raped if someone at the scene hadn't been armed, and then we could quibble over the veracity of the statistics.
Its also worth noting that tyranny is not deterred merely because atomized individuals or local clubs run out into the street and enter into combat with each other or the police or army. Its more in the fabric of the nation that an armed citizenry is not easily cowed. During our Civil War, both the United States and the abortive confederacy benefited from having large numbers familiar with the use of arms, before they ever got to boot camp. The original reason for the NRA, in the 20th century, was to get an increasingly urbanized population that didn't all go hunting familiar with the use of arms in a way that could transfer to military preparation as needed.
Anyway, the context was helpful. What Kirk put forward was a reasoned and reasonable argument. It could be contested, amplified, modified, in many ways on many grounds. Perhaps that is what the last many to ask him a question was starting to do, but the conversation will never be finished. (I don't know yet exactly what he did say about gays).
Further,
"There are various arguments to be pursued. One is that without automobiles, far more people would die because they couldn't get to the hospital on time, we would have renewed famine deaths due to lack of transport to get large quantities of food across long distances... the list could go on and on. Can the same be said of gun ownership? Well, someone would tote up the number of people who would be murdered and/or raped if someone at the scene hadn't been armed, and then we could quibble over the veracity of the statistics."
If you compare like with like, it's between private gun ownership and private car ownership. I don't think anyone is denying that the police should own guns. Equally, I don't think anyone is arguing that there should be no ambulances, fire engines, food-transport trucks, etc. It's whether me here, an ordinary individual, should be able to go and buy a gun as easily as I can a car.
I actually sympathise with the US arguments for the right to bear arms. It's treated as idiocy even by pro-US media in both Britain and Japan, so I suppose my sympathy is partly just contrarianism.
I also think it should be made more difficult to own a car. I would need to think a lot more about the specific policies. I certainly think a driving licence should be seen as a privilege not a right, and should be confiscated for dangerous behaviour, with huge fines or imprisonment for driving without a licence. I think state funding should be in public transport rather than things benefiting private cars.
Kirk is fundamentally correct that the Second Amendment is not about the right to hunt, or self-defense, although both of these are legitimate, but about the tendency of governments to become tyrannical, and the counter-weight posed by an armed citizenry. I have argued for some years that the Second Amendment, like the First Amendment, can and should be subject to viewpoint-neutral time, place and manner regulation. The First Amendment does not give you the right to blare your message at 80 decibels at midnight in a quiet residential neighborhood, no matter who you are or what your message is. As long as citizens can own and possess firearms, it could still be reasonable to prohibit carrying them in densely populated areas, while perhaps leaving the rifle on the rack over the pick up truck alone in rural areas where the police would need 45 minutes to respond to an emergency. Things along that line. Or to require completion of a gun safety course. What exactly we should do is open to political debate and majority sentiment, but the Second Amendment does not ipso facto mean no regulation whatsoever. I also favor tighter control of driving privileges. Someone who drives with a suspended or revoked license should be taken into custody for five years, or maybe one year for the first offense. But not general prison population -- they should be required to live in a secured, supervised apartment building, where a van will take them to work, shop, etc., they can receive unrestricted family visits, and they can pay out of their ordinary earnings for the costs. They just can't be trusted on the street without supervision where they might drive again. But, if we cut back on the number of people driving, we have to improve the other transit options. Probably a quarter of the jerks behind the wheel shouldn't be driving at all -- but our whole culture is oriented to the notion that everyone can drive a car. (When we rode horses, if a man was drunk the horse could still find its way home).
All over the internet, they are reproducing only part of his argument to make it sound like he didn't care how many gun deaths there were.
Who are you to say that Mangione's CEO victim was "sociopathic," and that "the world would be a better place" if men like him "walked in constant mortal dread" of self-appointed messiahs like you? Are we supposed to regard your disclaimer that you "don't actually approve of his murder" as a sign of civility? Sick.
Three men arrived at the Pearly Gates. St. Peter asked each of them to give a short presentation on why they should be admitted. A doctor had done a lot of voluntary work for impoverished patients, and got in easily. A lawyer had done a great deal of pro bono work, much of it of no political significance, just helping people in a jam who had little discretionary income. The last was an insurance CEO, who explained how he had rationalized health care delivery in ways that saved a great deal of money for his shareholders and for employers. St. Peter said, OK, you can come in too, but you can only stay for three days.
During the era of anti-Vietnam War protests, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara was sometimes denounced as a "baby-killer" because he oversaw and advocated for a program of intensive bombing and on-the-ground operations that inevitably killed a lot of civilians. I vaguely remember at least one half-baked attempt to plant a bomb at his home, easily detected and foiled. I know I admire the assassination of Reynhard Heydrich by the Czech resistance -- although that was badly bungled and barely succeeded. I know I don't admire killing a traveling speechifier on a college campus. If I try to set forth a principled dividing line, I would say that those who actively engage in actual killing as a matter of policy, are fair targets, particularly in time of war. McNamara doesn't quite cross that line. One could employ Hannah Arendt's argument about the banality of evil, or Malvina Reynolds "The man at the desk who deals in death, his hands are white and clean" ... to argue that McNamara was as guilty as anyone. But something doesn't feel quite right about that. A legitimate assassination should border on the acknowledged right to kill to protect oneself or others from imminent danger to life or limb. If McNamara were killed, it wouldn't have change the course of history one bit. Therefore, the caution that shooting someone in their official capacity is also shooting someone's husband, wife, father, mother, sister, brother, cousin, etc. becomes paramount.
I suppose I broadly agree with that.
Had McNamara been assassinated, would the Vietnam War have ended sooner? I'm sure you know more about that particular history than me. Perhaps the reaction would have prolonged the war?
For that matter, would the assassination of Hitler have improved anything?
Perhaps when something depends on one charismatic individual, such as Hitler or bin Laden, assassination is more justifiable?
I think I would prefer to err on the side of not assassinating!
It might represent those who disliked Kirk's views, and those who didn't actually know his views but hated what they heard about what his views are (a lot of lies going around - I never listened to him for more than a minute at a time until his martyrdom, when I became curious.) A lot of the views falsely imputed to him are pretty awful, not that they would justify murder, but they could justify hatred.
Kirk liked being provocative, which is only permitted to Nikole Hannah-Jones.
Kirk's views were mainstream Christian views for most of Western civilization. I listened to him regularly.
Your notion of "mainstream Christian" is narrow and self-serving. A large portion of Christians would disagree, based on the written record.
I said mainstream Christian views for most of Western civilization. I still think that's accurate.
So, Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Albigensian, Moravian or Hussite, Calvinist, Lutheran, Reformed, Anglican, Unitarian Baptist... I could name others if I took time to look it up. You can summarize direct quotes from Kirk and show that these were held in common by all of them for most of the last 2000 years? Amish, Mennonite... Now don't start arguing that some of those aren't "mainstream," because they all had significant numbers. So did Arian Christianity for a few centuries. I have no doubt, of course, that you listened to him regularly, and that you found his views consistent with your sense of what mainstream Christianity should be.
Your view of what isn't mainstream Christianity is narrow and self serving.
Actually, my view of what IS mainstream Christianity is quite open and expansive. That's why people with a narrower view disagree.
You are correct. The truth is not provocative.
Her personal fantasies about history do not even rise to the level of provocation.
Some good responses:
1.) Bernie Sanders https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlIvH6ozvv4
2.) Bill Maher and Ben Shapiro https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kt34Du-2cWY
I would toss anything Bill Maher says. Everything he does is done for ratings.
I suspect the same could be said of Charlie Kirk, of any elected political office holder today, and of most people on the lecture circuit. Most of them have a few million followers out of 330 million citizens, and they cater to those they can get a rise out of.
Charlie, I disagree. Nobody's going to take a potshot at Bill Maher.
If true, only because he appeals to such a wide base. But someone who sees Maher the way you do, but is a bit unhinged, might indeed take a potshot at Maher. Is he really all that different from Kirk? To a visitor from Mars who has no skin in the game?
I have listened to Charlie Kirk quite a bit. I didn’t agree with everything he said, so understand that I’m not a slavish follower of his when I say he did not say things for ratings. He had a well thought out worldview and did his dead level best to persuade people because he wanted the best for them.
That's very likely. Even people who do well by themselves are saying something they sincerely mean.
Sure Charlie. You suspect, meaning you don’t know, but you comment anyway.
Charlie Kirk knew he could be a target of violence, but in your mind he did it for the ratings.
Did the early Christian martyrs risk death to be well thought of, for the ratings, or for some deeper reason?
I don't think he made it all up just to get ratings. But, having something to say, he certainly developed a following, also some detractors, and made a good deal of money. Conversely, everything you are saying could be reasonably said about Maher.
Oh, now you “don’t think he made it all up” but a few hours ago you “suspect the same could be said about Charlie Kirk.”
See the difference?
I’m done with you. I only commented because your ignorance of Charlie Kirk did not stop you from commenting about him, even after his violent death. Unreal.
Shapiro is going to pick up the mantle? The Turning Point audience will tune out.
What, exactly, are you saying? Are you saying they'll tune out because Shapiro is Jewish?
That's Paul and his Jewish 'thing'. Never fails...
He and Rombald should get married.
The youngsters have rejected Zionism. Brining in Shapiro to right the ship is like Obama's periodic troop surges in Afghanistan -- absolutely useless.
Israel will never disappear. Anti Semites who do not repent and believe in The Lord Jesus Christ will go to Hell.
Category 1- people who haven’t completely lost it and jumped into an ideological rabbit hole
Category 2- people who totally lost it and live in an ideological rabbit hole
There’s an important third category, I suspect by far the largest, which is “not obsessively online, largely ignorant of who Charlie Kirk was until he got shot, and not broadcasting their opinions about it either way”.
The other two categories represent, respectively, conciliatory left wing people and confrontational ones. The former are generally wonkish, well intentioned, sincere, and do not hate their opponents, believing them for the most part to be merely wrong. The latter are unhinged zealots who have mistaken politics for religion and believe with terrible sincerity that error has no rights. These people would cheer the idea of sending all Republicans to gulags to be “reeducated”.
"The latter are unhinged zealots who have mistaken politics for religion and believe with terrible sincerity that error has no rights...."
Well said.
Sadly, I think we can see this on the right as well. I’d like to think most of us fall into your first category. But I know for a fact many of us don’t.
Imagine the reaction on the right if someone like Gavin Newsom was killed by someone let out of jail too many times through liberal policies. How many of us would point to karma, “he deserved it,” etc.? I’d like to think none of us would, but I know better.
Good and evil.
I respect Solzhenitsyn's adage, but sometimes, the line does divide man from man.
The you deny Solzhenitsyn's adage.
I should have been more precise. Is there good and evil in all men? Absolutely. He's right about that. But that doesn't preclude the evil from being dominant in some people and at some times. I can distinguish between Mother Theresa and Pol Pot while still acknowledging that both are sinners in need of God's grace.
The Left is currently cultivating the worst tendencies in man to wage a jihad against Western Civilization. When I call that "evil" and deal with it and those who practice it accordingly, I'm not saying their unredeemable, only dangerous zealots who must be prevented from harming civilization.
A fair and reasoned response, so I'll respond in the same spirit. I too have a hard time with imagining Adolf Hitler being admitted to heaven by God's infinite mercy -- especially since there was absolutely no evidence of remorse. But perhaps we need a bit of Madeleine L'Engel's perspective. Certain portions of the universe were dominated by the forces of evil, but, the individual minds, although controlled by those forces, could be liberated. They weren't at fault. When people are condemned for being MAGA, or Leftists, or whatever, I always push back that these are trends, organizations, currents of thought, fads, forces... but individuals do shift. In fact, political change almost always involves people, not so much changing sides, as abandoning old formations to move into a new pattern. I find more occasion to push back on the line "Trump voters are to blame for all this..." No, the DNC is to blame. I have never voted for Trump, but I understand holding your nose and voting for whoever is not the one you fear most. The so-called, self-styled, "left" is not so much individuals who are each firmly and irrevocably committed to this or that obsession, but people who grew up in a certain context of information flow and socialization that makes a rather putrid set of assumptions seem axiomatic.
I just finished reading many Waters from L'Engle. I'd read Wrinkle as a kid but then tried the sequel and gave up on the series. She suggested Many Waters and I loved it. I can see the attitude you're talking about in that book. Also in Lewis' Space Trilogy.
I have no words for that statement by Erika Kirk last night. I watched it live and it may have been the most raw and powerful thing I've ever seen...on television or anywhere else.
No Kumbaya BS...just love for her family, faith in her Savior, and defiance in the face of the forces that murdered her husband. Tyler Robinson was only their instrument after all.
I also watched the press conference yesterday morning where Kash and the Utah Governor announced Robinson's arrest. Thank God they got the guy. But the Governor's sermon appealing to the better angels of our nature fell flat with me.
Our side doesn't need to hear it. The other side doesn't want to hear it. In fact, the other side has contempt for it. We'd better get that through our heads. This is a zero-sum game now. We win...or we lose. And if we lose, we lose everything.
Cox has been preaching civility and dialogue for years. He is very much a lightweight in a state largely run by consensus with the biggest division is between fans of the University of Utah and BYU.
The Left is too far gone. Gender ideology broke their minds, aiding by pot legalization. The only way to fix it is for all the violent groups: BLM, antifa, anti-ICE, trans, to be pushed down like the KKK and neo-Nazis have been for 70 years. The feds know who the violent types are, so they can push them down, go after their funders (NGOs funded by billionaires and formerly gov funds), and hold them all accountable. RICO them all, seize their assets, etc.
And stop the foreign-funded actors stirring things up.
The biggest fear of GOP politicians is their base demanding they actually do something. Like investigate the radicalism of federally-funded universities, or left-wing terrorism. Most of the incumbent GOP class needs to be voted out - not necessarily for MAGA politicians who have shown their own set of problems, but from people ready to do the serious work of rebuilding our institutions rather than just cash checks.
Remove Boasberg, our most active unelected District Court judge.,and all other out-of-control wanna-be dictator judges like him. Why can't the Soros family be stopped? The fact that Soros father and son are still free to destabilize the world (among other bad actors) tells me that a lot of money is being pushed around through NGOs (our tax dollars at work) to keep our politicians rolling in ill-gotten money. AOC is worth $17 million. How did that happen? Rep. Ilhan Omar is worth $30 million. Pelosi is off-the-charts wealthy (and seems drunk most of the time) through her one-off insider-trading license (and hot tips) which is legal for her to do, illegal for us to do. We have best government money can buy. This is all likely to come to a head soon. Can we have a normal mid-term election with the 700 district court judges ready to issue TROs as fast as the "truth-the-vote" forces can move to "true the vote" and ensure "free and fair elections." If Trump says "only citizens can vote", Boasberg (or a similar district-court unelected de facto unelected, would-be president) can say "nope." If Trump says "voter id required to vote," nope, some other (or just use Boasberg, he's so quick and reliably perverse) will shoot that down in a NY minute.
Which is why I'm through with "norms", Anne. Something snapped with Iryna. Even Andy McCarthy, a true conservative, says that while he thinks Trump is wrong on tariffs, the case is no slam dunk. Then foul the power guard.
Agreed. We're in civil war - like conditions. You know American history, that in the contretemps between 1861 - 1865, Lincoln did some "extraconstitutional" things, and got away with it.
This is why Trump is such a problem: he's as inarticulate as a standard issue Bush Republican and has a temperament which seems to forbid his being anything other than glowering, vulgar, and disagreeable at a time when we need a president who can talk, and whom the country knows is not an ass. The irony is that Charlie Kirk could have been such a president.
For me, the question is whether Francisco Trump can get away with doing the tough things. I think possibly he can, by outsourcing as much of it as possible, or maintaining that he has, to Vance, Patel, Bongino, Bondi, Harmeet Dhillon, Tom Homan, and associates.
Only citizens can vote. That's not Trump, that's settled law. Don't talk nonsense.
The pot legalization has really been underestimated as a force of chaos
I have been told that today's marijuana is much stronger than the marijuana of the golden age of pot.
Yes., and I've heard acquaintances who smoke pot complain about that. The answer is to regulate that the way we do alcohol. If every cocktail were made with Everclear we'd have an awful problem with booze too (and of course we have plenty of problems even with weaker proof liquor).
That is not due to government regulation, Jon, the fact that Everclear is not in all cocktails. Have you even been in a bar and ordered a cocktail?
LOL. Just last night.
And if the liquor industry were only producing Everclear and similar proof stuff I rather do think we'd put a stop to that.
No Jon , pot should not ever be legal. Sorry.
Well. We disagree
It is much stronger nowadays. I hardly ever indulge these days (not that I ever indulged more than once in a long while). The THC content is couple orders of magnitude higher than the stuff in the ‘70s and ‘80s I remember from my misspent youth. In the old days you could have several puffs, perhaps a quarter of a joint, over a period of five or ten minutes and get to a fun trippy place. But nowadays a tiny fraction of a hit might hit your brain like a sledgehammer and get you much more messed up and for longer than you wanted to be. Besides strength I strongly suspect that the ratios of cannabinoids is different. Modern stuff gives a much higher ratio of messeduppedness to happy trippiness. I don’t trust the stuff. There is an old meme that for people who are more or less mentally OK and who indulge only infrequently, weed is harmless. Whatever truth there is to that, it may be a thing of the past that doesn’t apply to modern cannabis products.
It occurs to me that modern science and marketing will probably ruin the wonderful mushrooms. When shrooms are legal everywhere and a commercial market for shrooms develops, probably they will figure out to develop strains of Psilocybe mushrooms with an order of magnitude more psilocybin and psilocin. And probably they will tinker with the levels of the accompanying tryptamines that contribute to the entourage effect until they achieve a product that causes much more cognitive and sanity issues and much less of the gentle blissful trippiness. They will produce a powerful product that scarcely resembles any natural Psilocybe mushrooms. Perhaps they will figure out how to make psychedelic mushrooms more harmful and dangerous than outrageous overdoses of LSD were in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
I'm scared walking through pot puffs in Greenwich Village that I'll get a second-hand stoned if the pot is so strong. I find it incongruent that there's such revulsion at tobacco smokers, but such tolerance of pot smokers imposing their second-hand pot smoke on us bystanders and passers-through.
Your concern is not completely excessive and unreasonable. Understand that you would not ingest much THC no matter how strong the smoke, but a small noticeable effect can happen. It has happened to me and others.
Yeah, NYC and its suburbs is enveloped with the stench of it. Even driving on parkways, you smell it strongly. I heard from people in Colombia that they stay away from NYC because of the weed smell. My cousin from Philadelphia was struck by the cloud of weed and its strong smell as soon as he arrived on LI. Although I’m not thrilled with Trump, if he outlaws weed again and helps roll back the same-sex marriage ruling, I’d be happy. I can dream.
I was in Phoenix, reading a freebie local weekly newspaper. The ads for weed all featured descriptions of the type of high one could get from a particular brand (mellow, etc). Then I thought of ads for beer, wine, and liquor where you don’t see its consumption so closely associated with intoxication. More often those ads were about the taste or its relation to eating. I’m not saying that the promise of intoxication isn’t a big part of alcohol consumption. Yet it’s not always foremost in people’s use of it in the way that smoking (or eating) weed is.
Every time I go up to Michigan I am annoyed by the billboards just over the state line advertising pot shops. I have never yet seen a billboard advertising a liquor store anywhere except right on the store premises. The closest thing would be the tasteless ads for strip clubs we have here along the Florida freeways.
Shouldn’t modern science and a legal market result at least in theory in a lot of Goldilocks product that gives just the right amount of happy trippiness?
In theory the market should accommodate everyone including lightweights like me. But mostly the market is driven by the people who smoke strong stuff all the time as well as consuming the absurdly strong cannabis gummies. Since I indulge rarely, I don’t personally go to a well equipped smoke shop that would probably have something mild for me. I just occasionally join others when they offer me a puff and the stuff is always way stronger and less trippy than I want.
Comparing a 1980 person who smoked a daily joint or two with a 2025 person who has a daily joint or two is like comparing a person who drinks a daily pint or two of ale with the person who drinks a daily liter or two of vodka.
You are exaggerating on pot's effects. Due to some occasional pain issues I have tried to use pot as an analgesic (Hey, better than opiods). I only smoked a couple of hits and I certainly did not become spaced out to the max. I was only mildly buzzed. Yes, modern pot appears to be stronger than the stuff was forty years ago, though that's partly due to the disappearance of "ragweed" (THC-defective pot that wouldn't get you high no matter how much you smoked). I gave up on my experiment with pot because smoking anything is bad for my asthma. But I know people who still do take an occasional hit (but not smoke down whole joints as we did in my misspent youth) and it does not send them in Loony Tunes Land. It's rather like taking a shot-- just one-- of tequila. It will give you a kick, but you won't be falling down drunk.
So true. China doesn't allow the rotting of the youthful mind (or mutilating of their bodies). How can we compete with China if the young are too stoned to study?
When I grew up in the 70s we called the potheads "burnouts." I'm sure most turned out pretty badly but all societies have its share of losers.
We called em burnouts, pits, heads
Well, I knew people in high school who smoked (er, um, I was one of them) and most turned out OK. I'm mostly talking about guys who got high at parties, not those who smoked daily before breakfast.
Some of my friends tried it. The one who smoked the most became a doctor. My best friend in college used to take a bong hit about 9 PM. He got married out of college and had a kid a year later and stopped. Responsibility will cause changes in one's social life.
Re: aiding by pot legalization.
Huh? How does that figure into it-- or even into the ideological divide? There are plenty of people on the Right who like their pot too. It's no more assorted by politics than boozing is.
I'd guess there are many fewer potheads on the right than on the left but I'm sure they exist.
Pot was always the darling child of the Libertarian Right.
Maybe visit some run down trailer parks where people have Trump signs in their windows and the odor of marijuana wafts on the breeze.
Pot doubles the risk of schizophrenia and increases mental illness. As demonstrated by TikTok videos, the Left is full of crazies.
Pot legalization was pushed by a small handful of billionaires. Dems used pot ballot measures like Karl Rove used anti gay marriage.
Too many people use pot (about 3x the prior usage), users use it more often, and they use more.
Plus the entire edibles industry is extremely dangerous, because over consumption.
Alex Berenson's book on pot published in 2019. I was pretty unconcerned about pot legaluzation until that.
There are crazy people everywhere, not just on the Left
Have you ever heard of Alcoholic Psychosis? Ever known a major alcoholic going down the tubes? Any drug used to excess is bad. Even caffeine can make people nuts
I'm The Occasional Vaper, but for medical reasons only. It can accomplish marvelous things for people with all sorts of medical conditions. I would keep it illegal otherwise, but with all which is going on, how would we get the manpower to enforce such laws?
As for the cultivars, they went out of their effing minds over the last fifty years, jacking up the THC content to levels which are terrifying. A counter to this is that people like me, and those who just like being a little high, can get the effects we need by using much less. I suppose it's a selling point that it's never been cheaper to use cannabis. The problem there is that the stuff is addictive.
As has often been pointed out, J. Edgar Hoover put the Weather Underground, etc., etc., ouf of business very effectively post 1970. They can do it again. Of course that's also why we've heard so much about Hoover's alleged taste in frocks, etc.
Your post about J. Edgar Hoover reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live skit where Richard and Julie Nixon(Dan Akroyd and Gilda Radner) sneak into Hoover's (Broderick Crawford) apartment where he is sleeping. SNL was funny in those days.
It was. After the original cast left, I never watched it again.
That's not a problem these days.
Gender ideology demands literal denial of reality, a break from it. But the nuttiness that existed before it built up to that and made it possible. Leftism has never been healthy or sane, once it disconnected from Christ or actual concern for working Americans and American principles (Western principles.)
It has absolutely nothing to do with working Americans. That's why its not left. I recently saw one of those recurrent posts, "Why do poor white people vote against their own interests?" Well, for starters, because liberalism is NOT in their own interests, and the only alternative right now is, drum roll please, Donald Trump and his Republican acolytes. A working class left-wing platform shorn of all the identity politics would win in a landslide, pulling half the Trump voters. (I know you don't agree, and there isn't one on offer, so we won't have a test in the next year or two.) As it happened the friend who posted the question was African American, well educated, probably lives in a prosperous neighborhood, so I asked "Why do educated prosperous blacks vote against their best interests?" That elicited a "Hmmm" -- which I considered a good start. Either way, there is a patronizing assumption that "I know what your best interests are better than you do, because if you understood you would vote the way I want you to."
More cope. There will be no rise of the Left, Chuck. That's more weed smoking. Embracing the working, competent, earn your worth in the system is now anathema to the Left.
What left?
For future reference would you mind explaining who actually is on the left for you and why? I'm serious.
Andrew left a comment asking me to define what I mean by left. I would be happy to, but I can't get his original question to come up, and I want to be sure the reply reaches him.
I agree. I have always hated hearing that such and such people vote against their own interests. It's arrogant and seems to not understand that people vote the way they do because we only have two major parties.
Did you know that Soros was convicted of insider trading in France, and doesn't dare set foot in that country? And now sonny boy is married to Hillary's right hand girl.
Soros shouldn't be allowed in most countries. If anyone is prue evil (instead of just stupid, greedy, or short-sighted) it is Soros.
Again, Grassley should subpoena him and leave the questioning up to Kennedy.
Expropriate the expropriators!
Soros is a speculator. The Bolsheviks knew what to do with speculators.
Like Alexander Helphand?
You know your history! I suppose Lenin might say "But he's OUR speculator." Taking a closer look though, Helphand was more in bed with the German empire than the Russian empire. In principle, its not so different from conducting a war of independence with the invaluable aid of two of the world's most entrenched absolute monarchies.
God is on our side. We aren't going to lose if we stay faithful and increase our side (the collective "good guys").
I think we should never say "God is on our side" That's hubristic. History is littered with atrocities committed by those who thought they wore the mantle of divine favor. Like Lincoln we should say "I hope we are on God's side."
I'm convinced God is on our side. "America, America, God shed His grace on thee, and crowned thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea." Let's stay in His favor. Go to church, people, on our knees. Take the kids. Remind the kin. Preach to the kin (I know, it reduces contact, but someone has to speak a word of encouragement to them). Catholics, grab the beads. It's St. John Chrysostom's feast day. Let us pray.
Re: I'm convinced God is on our side.
To me that's definitely hubristic (and remember Pride is the sin of Satan), and it borders on blasphemy by subjecting God to our own limited and ignorant (in the large scale of things) understanding.
Oh well. Our nation was formed on a set of precepts informed by principles of the Lord. Western Civ has Him at its base.
Maybe the phrasing should be, "Are we on the Lord's side," than the other way around. But actively running from Him sure does not get anyone anywhere, be it individuals or nations.
And thinking you can, that you are enough, you don't need God, that's where the pride is and where we get what we get.
Abraham Lincoln is perhaps the only president who clearly understood his relationship to God, and what it meant for his conduct in office.
There's this guy, Bob Dylan...
Yes, Bob immediately popped in my mind too.
Even the president of the United States must sometimes have to stand naked.
I'm convinced I understand what God is calling us to better than you do.
I'm also quite certain that God is having a good laugh at our self-indulgence. "My ways are not your way" saith the Lord.
Why should you, a Catholic, spout American Protestant American quasi-Zionism?
It is pretty strange for a Catholic to come out with stuff like that.
Yes, listen to Bob Dylan’s song, ‘With God on our Side’
Jon, you don't have to be a controversialist about everything, and sometimes you make yourself look ridiculous by doing it.
It's not controversial that God is against murder, the destruction of the family, transing.
Ever listen to the song by Bob Dylan titled, ‘With God on our side’ ? It was one of his early songs. My intent is not to be antagonistic. I believe he became a Christian in the early 80’s but renounced his faith. His so called Christian albums are good, he lost some followers. Not sure why he renounced his faith. I believe he’s Jewish, just interesting. I pray our churches become less divided. Every member in their church thinks they’re in the right church or the right denomination. It’s where we are today. I do think things are breaking down because we (as a society)have forgotten God. Nietzsche was right.
I'll try to give "With God on our side" up on youtube. I'm not such of a Dylan fan, though I think he was a type of music genius. Maybe Dylan will come back to the fold. I liked his songe a "Rollin' Stone" and "She Breaks Like a Little Girl"or whatever that latter song's title was, which was his his tribute to Eddie Sedgwick.
Listen to the song ‘Precious Angel’. It is on one of his songs from his Christian albums. Thanks for your reply. I’ll give ‘She breaks like a little good’ a listen.
"Just Like A Woman"
Governor Cox was not speaking to conservatives. He was admonishing the leftist haters.
And you know this, how? Maybe he was doing both? Or had other intentions not so narrow as your own expectations?
Inference obviously but he did praise the temperate response of the people of Utah.
As well he should.
Re: Thank God they got the guy. But the Governor's sermon appealing to the better angels of our nature fell flat with me.
No, he's doing exactly what a good leader should in response to such a dangerously charged event. For another example consider George W Bush after 9-11 who, yes, made some colossal policy mistakes over that, but he did have the great good sense to reject the "Hate all Muslims" line. Good leaders defuse emotional storms so that matters may be considered with cold reason according to the law.
Re: This is a zero-sum game now.
No it isn't. And that type of thinking is the first step on the path to abattoir whose depths defy measurement.
You want to play by the old rules, Jon. Unfortunately, the other side has chucked them. Sorry, I wish it were otherwise too.
After 9/11, the enemy was based on foreign shores. Now the enemy is inside the city gates. That's the brutal reality and taking refuge in comforting bromides won't change it.
Did you ever see the 1950's science fiction classic The Thing? You remind me of the scientist at the remote arctic station where the space visitor has been terrorizing and butchering the occupants of the outpost but who is convinced that the beast must be super-intelligent and can therefore be reasoned with, which it was his duty as a scientist to attempt. It didn't end well for the gentleman. Sometimes when people tell you who they are, you should believe them.
Erika Kirk took a different tack last night. I'm on her team.
I would urge you to consider that insult slinging is not behavior worthy of a Christian. And also Rod takes a dim view of personal attacks in his space. We all get heated up and say things we shouldn't occasionally. But you should tone it down-- and maybe put me on Ignore for a while as I do sometimes with posters I've grown too frustrated with. (I don't think Subtack offers that as a formal choice, but you can just skip over things when you see the author)
This.
F*** the other side. We don;t have to give in to demons (literal or figurative).
Calling things by their proper name and believing people when they tell you who they are is not "giving in to demons." In fact, it's the opposite.
To be clear, I'm not advocating violence outside the law. I'm saying we need to speak the truth about the nature of the forces arrayed against us and we need to use the lawful power at our disposal -- I mean we're (theoretically) running the federal government now after all -- to fight them.
The enemy is an evil ideology now dominant in one of our major political parties and in the powerful interlocking network of cross-institutional ruling elites that I shorthand as the Regime.
The ideology in question is alien to American history and tradition. It is hostile to religion. It is profoundly anti-Christian and ultimately anti-human. And it is not interested in compromise nor will it be reasoned with.
We either continue to pretend that the equation has not radically changed...or we recognize the reality and respond accordingly. Amid her terrible heartbreak, Erika Kirk made clear last night which of those two roads she intends to take. I'm joining her on it.
What is hatred if not a tool of Hell? What is fear if not a temptation to do evil?
Nowhere have I argued for "hatred" or "fear" in the sense you appear to use the words.
Righteous anger is very much in order, however. Erika spoke in grief last night...but also in anger. Righteous anger at this point is justified and necessary.
God hates, Jon. And He demands that we hate sin. No, virtue does not reside totally with any faction, but do you think we'd have a better chance to survive as a nation with 435 Charlie Kirks in Congress or 435 Ilhan Omars?
Don't be childish.
A lot of people found out that they live around others who want them dead because of ideas.
That’s very sobering and real to many people, who never saw this for what it is.
I want to be kind and nice and all these good things too, but I also don’t see holding people to account for awful behavior as unloving.
Many in our society need their behavior corrected and I’m done pretending they don’t.
It’s unloving to force the rest of us to tolerate the intolerable because of fear of the consequences of doing so.
For the past 30 years, I’ve been frustrated with the ‘why can’t we all just get along’ Mitt Romney kind of Republicanism. I felt and saw firsthand that something was off with some on our society even in the 2000’s, but all we got was ‘oh, they’ll outgrow it when they get real jobs’. (talk about naive)
This has always rankled me because I expected adults who were more grownup than I was in my 20’s to call this stuff out and say ‘no, you can’t behave like a retard’. But they always got a pass, even as the behavior and words got worse and worse. All I ever wanted was to live as a normie Christian lady and get on with things, but things have gotten steadily worse and the ‘grown ups’ kept making excuses.
I may have grown up in a trailer park, but my dad made sure I didn’t grow up to be a trashy person. I’ve always been a ‘straight and narrow’ kind of person, so he didn’t have to work that hard at it, but still - he always pushed me to be in a better environment than he found himself in. He wanted better for me.
I guess the point is that I’m so sick of this idea that we have to bend over backwards to be tolerant of others when many aren’t tolerant of us. We have basic human dignity and God created us too. Why don’t we get to protect ourselves and stand up for ourselves? Why do we have to keep putting up and shutting up when everyone can spew their nastiness at us?
Sure, I don’t wanna give in to ‘the darkness’, but I don’t think living this way is how God wants us to live either?
Love isn’t just acceptance. As any parent knows, you have to correct your kids so they don’t turn out to be heathens.
Anyway, love your posts today. Thanks for your wisdom. I need that right now.
Thank you. God bless your dad. And God bless you.
Very well said.
Well said. Romans 12:18 says “If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.” That doesn’t mean that we have to permit godless people to have free rein and allow the darkness to triumph. I grew up believing in being slow to anger and turning the other cheek; but even our Lord (through St. Paul) recognized that there are some people who can’t be lived with peaceably, no matter how hard we try. That’s why I don’t believe in pacifism. And why I believe in vigorously prosecuting people who do such horrific acts, plus their financial enablers. And in lawful defense of self and my loved ones. The time is long past for the scales to fall off people’s eyes and to see the situation clearly.
You're going to fall flat, and so is she. This is not a game-changer in world or American history. This is one controversial talking head shot down in a felonious murder of a human being. It is not a matter of Great Social And Political Importance. It is, unfortunately, not a great contrast to the last few decades, with periodic individual and mass killings. But life, and political development, in the USA are not going to be greatly shifted. Don't delude yourself.
That kind of thinking...the failure to put the assassination in its larger context or to understand the choices we're facing...is a formula for losing our country.
Do you ever get the feeling that Charlie and Jon are the same guy?
We argue all the time... plus, you and I agree on points Jon vigorously disputes.
Well, that's what a lot of people said about George Floyd. The larger context is that no talking head is all that to the nation as a whole, although each is quite stimulating to those who take an interest and follow them. For that matter, there was no particular reason for George Floyd to become a national cause celebre, and in the end, not much changed in the fabric of daily life or governance because of all the hullaballoo.
Not much changed? The elevation and embracing of BLM following the exaltation of a drug-addled felon has created cultural racism that has been utterly malignant--promoted DEI that has resulted in an explosion of meritless advancement in every arena, affecting society in deleterious ways across the board. Hopefully this assasination will wake enough people up and promote courage to speak unpopular truths such that the Gramscian March through the institutions will be upended. As RD and Erika in her address point out, it is foremost spiritual and frankly needs a Goliath effort to topple the pillars that have been erected. Holy Spirit come and renew the face of the earth. Amen.
Now I’m hearing that the killer was influenced by the “far right” and the groypers or whatever the name is. But this is Heather Cox Richardson reporting, so I have my doubts.
Total nonsense and brazen lies directly contradicting every fact and bit of evidence that has been made available to this point.
But as we know, Dem-Mediacrats never let minor considerations like truth and reality get in the way of their ideological narratives.
I doubt that very much. We all know that all kinds of people are saying all kinds of things, much of which will prove to be false. This doesn't fly.
I'm seeing that too. The evidence is tissue thin-- he sued some Groyper stuff on the bullet cases. He seems to have been an Very Online Guy and maybe borrowed dribs and drabs of things he found extremist and cool.
As a general rule of thumb, Heather Cox Richardson is a hack when it comes to weighing in on contemporary politics. In fact, she's so egregious in this regard that it makes me start to be suspicious (without evidence) of her historical scholarship.
Well, let's check back in a year. About single event tragedies/murders that are still in the cultural air, after years and years, names like George Floyd and Matthew Shepard come to mind.
But for all the volumes of rhetoric, hurt feelings, and even a burned police station and a few murders in a half-assed "liberated zone," how things function in America really has NOT changed all that much. Likewise when commentators called 9/11/2001 "the day our world changed forever." It was a tragedy worthy of continued commemoration, but, no, our world really didn't change all that much.
Well, the US got into some Forever Wars which damaged us in multiple ways.
Amen, Jerry.
Apparently Tyler Robinson, assassin of Charlie Kirk, was radicalized via extreme online, gaming, etc. He lived (until his arrest) with a transgender "furry" (WTH!).
These folks are so far gone that we can't, imho, "love them into the Kingdom' absent major correction and in Robinson's case, incarceration and likely execution.
We need to be direct. Young people crave a more orderly and healthy society. Charlie Kirk and his team (and others around him in what I'd call the conservative lane) advocated for that. And the traditional values that have worked for society for hundreds of years.
Destruction and chaos are the solutions of Leftists.
On another note, one has to admire Tyler Robinson's father's courage in confronting his son and bringing him to police. Tough love.
May God protect those with the courage to preach the gospel and to speak the truth.
Re: He lived (until his arrest) with a transgender "furry"
This is an unsourced rumor. In fact he was with his family when arrested.
Regardless of where he was when arrested, there have now been multiple reports with solid sourcing that he had lived with a transgender partner.
The Regime propaganda machine will no doubt continue its customary campaign of obfuscation, gaslighting, and lies, but it's clear as a bell now that there is an LGBTQ...and specifically transgender...angle to Robinson's identity and motivations. The scrawling on the ammo clips, reported by the Wall Street Journal before the killer was found, is indicative of the same thing.
The effort over the last 24 hours to manufacture from whole cloth a theory that Robinson was a "right-wing radical," which flies in the face of every fact and piece of evidence that have come to light so far, is obscenely mendacious in character even by Regime standards.
I agree that the "rightwing radical" is nonsense. At most he used some lingo from the Groypers which he could have found in online gaming forums. (But most of the symbols were not ideological and derive from the game Helldriver2-- a pretty violent shoot-em-up)
I am curious how "trans roommate" has now morphed into "trans partner".
Jon you are wrong. Look online and you will see MANY sources that admit this. The roommate helped LE to "decode" the bizarre markings on the ammo. And others living in Robinson and his "partner"'s complex testified likewise.
Rod Dreher channels Maximilian Robespierre?
I agree with your post, Jerry, except for your denigration of Cox. I liked his spot-on reminder that in the wake of Kirk's premeditated, plotted, planned, and absolutely gruesome political murder, there were no BurningLootingMobs out rioting and destroying buildings, businesses, courthouses, and police precincts -- in other words, no attacks on the rule of law that applies to all of us. He could've added that neither were there any "No Justice, No Peace" thugs taking over roads, tunnels, and bridges to prevent access to emergency services. Those distinctions can't be highlighted too often.
Thanks, I didn't hear him draw that distinction between the BLM riots of the Left and the very different response of the other side at this terrible moment.
What I heard was a noble-sounding sermon that seemed to be delivered to both sides. The problem is that the side needing to hear it isn't interested and will not listen.
"Tyler Robinson was only their instrument after all... this is a zero-sum game now. We win...or we lose. And if we lose, we lose everything."
What the hell does that even mean? A 'zero-sum game' because of the violent act of some Gen Z loser (with Trumper parents, by the way) who got f---ed up by living his life online. Stop acting like isolated acts of violence are part of some larger plot by the opposing side. You know you'd (rightfully) reject this nonsense if some lefty tried to say something similar to the above about the larger meaning of the MAGA nut who shot those Democrat lawmakers up in Minnesota.
You guys who get aroused by the notion of civil war definitely do need to hear lectures about 'better angels'. Take a breath, Jerry.
Perfectly written, Rod. Love the link to "Armour of God." St. Paul, one of God's foremost "pen-heads"--and so are YOU. But what does MTD stand for (I googled it, not getting anywhere). You say "(find) pastoral leadership (that) is not mealy-mouthed and MTD. " I hope Erika doesn't completely take Charlie's place as prominently, because she is first and foremost a mother, and now a mother to semi-orphaned children who are no doubt traumatized. Her first responsibility is to them. There are wackos out there who (as you noted) would gleefully orphan the children fully (and some, even kill the children for good measure, as we saw in Minnesota, "suffer the little children").
The Left is reprehensible, we're revolted. According to the polls, the Dems have in the mid-20's approval ratings (maybe a tad more, give or take 10%). But they still seem to anomalously win every contested off-season election and every contested election, because they cheat when the opportunity presents itself (e.g., create and release CV, rig the 2020 election under the cover of Covid). Look at the damage that rigged election did. For one thing, the taxpayer piggy bank was raided at levels that will take DECADES to pay off. That stolen money (Biden made a lot of loans to things like "green causes" after Trump won in Nov 2024), and given to Dark Money pools stowed away in the Canary Isles and Switzerland to fund Soros' father and son projects (and fund the continued WEF efforts to have us "own nothing and be happy"). The most effective resistance on a political level (which is where power is attained and wielded) is to true the vote (require voter id, proof of citizenship and signature vertification, although cursive is becoming extinct, which makes that last safeguard harder to implement). But the most effective of all strategies as Erika says is in the spiritual sphere (as the history of the Church has shown) and is to repent, pray and fast, en masse. Let us persevere in the faith, under mortal threat from the infidels and possessed. Let's win souls for Jesus, like Charlie. He led by example. Then God will relent, as He did at Nineveh, and not let our nation (and the entirety of Western Civ) be trashed by the infidels and haters. We're going to win some of them over, too, to "live not by lies" as they are now. Let's stay close to Our Lord, and build up in our trust and love (and wonder) for Him and His creation. Let's become more obedient to Him. We're in a 50-50 situation now--half the country is insane and/or bedeviled. May the sane and saintly increase (we're all called to sainthood, even though our reach seems to exceed our grasp), through love, prayer, sacrifice, fasting and setting a good example. Carry on, God is with us. God is listening, God is watching. He does not sleep or lose track of us. Charlie (and many forebears--including the founding fathers and saints and angels) are pulling for us from the other side of Eternity.
MTD - Moralistic Therapeutic Deism
Got it. Gracias.
A silly term made up by a supercilious sociologist who wanted to pack a variety of human experiences and behaviors into a neat little box one could write a dissertation about.
Christian Smith was setting up an “ideal type” with that term. I don’t think he was trying to box people in, but rather used it as a way of comparison. Think of it the way Max Weber created the ideal type of bureaucracy and cited some of its characteristics (hierarchical leadership, etc.). He didn’t mean that all bureaucratic organizations have those traits.
I am questioning the value of such an "ideal type," perhaps particularly when it comes to religion. Slapping labels on things obscures more than it elucidates and illuminates. People habitually using terms like that are losing themselves in a fog of their own creation. Bureaucracy does have a few identifying traits, which are present regardless of the purpose, leadership, principles, etc. Large numbers of people, organized in some sort of division of labor with centralized supervision. It can be good or bad, depending on how it is organized, deployed, and what duties are assigned to it. The Nazis kept card files, that doesn't mean the Library of Congress is a Nazi institution.
Unnecessary and incorrect. As a longtime director of religious education programs for a RC diocese I’m here to say that MTD is a frequent topic for professional formators. It sums up a constellation of attitudes that recent generations have adopted in place of actual Christian faith, and which substitutes “niceness” for the demands of discipleship.
Thank you. Charlie is merely a comment machine with no filters. He just can’t help himself. A thinking individual would only comment when he has something to add to a conversation, but this is what happens when you can’t read a room and have zero self awareness.
He doesn’t know what he doesn’t know.
Is this you talking, or your AI pet?
Thank you for the perfect response after I said “Charlie is merely a comment machine with no filters” and that you have “zero self awareness.”
You’re the best!
Substack definitely needs an “ignore” function.
Yeah, its become a popular common buzzword. The fact that you admit its "a constellation of attitudes" betrays what sloppy terminology it is.
Would the decent Democrats take the likes of Ilhan Omar and Jasmine Crockett in a room and say, “Your political career is over. Do not think you will run for election again. And for the rest of your term we are putting masking tape over your evil spewing mouths”. Would Hakeem Jeffries stop saying, “Hey there are bad guys on the right too”. Would Nancy Pelosi, who herself incited violence and professes to be a good Catholic, say, “We have been wrong. We need to rehabilitate ourselves. Would she kneel, like she kneeled over BLM, and say that? Cuz until we see some signs of remorse, self reflection and rehabilitation, I don’t think the Democrats are sincere. They are cosplaying.
Pelosi has already gone on record that she is not to blame for the way unbalanced minds hear her rhetoric and act on it. She is not responsible for people's minds. So no. Not a lot of dependence there.
Pelosi is senile and doesn’t know what she’s even saying.
I wouldn’t bet the farm on that. Plus, count on this to be the Democrat talking point soon. Pelosi is the trial balloon.
Well, no, because no Democratic Party leadership has the power to do that. We have laws in this country, and some of them are state laws, and they generally provide for people who want a party nomination to run in a primary. Whatever you might call "the decent Democrats" -- I probably don't consider most of them particularly decent -- could pile a lot of money into financing a primary opponent, but sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't.
Ask Tulsi Gabbard about that.
She chose not to run for re-election. Whether voters in her district would have supported her is conjectural. She didn't line up with Trump until late 2024. Until then, she was offering herself as the candidate who could beat Trump -- which I suspect she could have done.
I heard Tulsi interviewed. She said the DNC saw her as a rising star until she had the audacity to stray from the orthodoxy. Pelosi told her she would never survive in the DNC. Withholding campaign money is the kiss of death.
So she walked away.
If Gabbard had built support and trust with constituents in her district, she could have defied the national party. Russ Feingold was an underfinanced underdog (his campaign literally used the "Have no fear, Underdog is here" line as a campaign theme.) But, if that's what Pelosi was saying, she might not have thought it worth bothering.
"pro-trans and Antifa messaging scrawled on them": Did they actually have pro-trans messaging? I've been seeing conflicting reports about this. At first this was reported, then denied, now stated again.
Look -- the point at which I'm most solidly and assertively onboard with Charlie Kirk's opinions is his anti-trans positions, so it's really convenient for me if part of the motivation for the murder was pro-trans, but I'm just not certain that's the case.
The governor of Utah read the statements and he would have access to the actual evidence so I think they clearly did
Yes, he read them-- but what he read was not trans-related. So far there's nothing at all linking Robinson to the LGBT movement. The guy apparently had no girlfriend, but more likely he's some video game addicted incel than a gay radical.
One or two of the shell casings had "furry" lingo on it and something about "noticing a bulge" which is some sort of meme about discovering a paramour is a man and getting turned on by it. This doesn't mean that Robinson himself was a "furry" or gay, but he clearly had stewed in the language and culture of the "Q+" wing of the Alphabet People.
According to Fox, one casing said “If you read this you are gay LMAO.” Two casings had anti-fascist sentiments, and one had the “bulge” phrase you mention.
https://www.fox32chicago.com/news/messages-found-tyler-robinsons-bullet-casings-what-said
I mentioned the first comment above. It sounds like a sarcasm not something sincere.
The "furry" stuff is disputed, just as the odd looking arrows have been-- and those had nothing to do with trans anything, but were decor from a violent video game.
He doesn’t have to be linked to the LGBTQ+ movement itself. He seems to think of himself as an anti-fascist warrior.
My feeling from what I've read and seen relayed from the press conferences is that the shooter was motivated by more general radical leftist views than by transgender issues specifically the way the Nashville or Minneapolis shooters were. He wasn't a tranny himself although there are reports that he was a "Furry." So a rather vanilla form of sexual deviant, at least by leftist standards.
So, yeah, the pro- transgender stuff was in there because of course it would be. It's The Current Thing for radical leftists, edging out anti- racism on top of the victim totem pole for the moment. But I think his motivation was radical anti- fascism (which means anybody with an opinion to the right of AOC to these hard-core leftists) generally, which is actually more frightening and concerning to me.
Yep. I lost my bet. Trans was not part of it.
Well, citing law enforcement sources, Fox is reporting that Robinson was living with a trans roommate. Need to see that confirmed, though.
Wow. We turned off cable after Kabul. Thanks.
The Post is carrying it:
https://nypost.com/2025/09/13/us-news/charlie-kirk-shooter-tyler-robinson-lived-with-transgender-partner/
The Daily Mail, which does not get things wrong, has much fuller reporting:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15095195/tyler-robinson-roommate-text-messages-cops-arrest-utah.html
Just read that ten minutes ago.
Looks like we were both wrong-ish. Turns out he is a homosexual.
And his boyfriend is trans. My circuits are overloaded. But I wasn't off by much.
Let me get this straight. Tyler is gay, living with a trans boyfriend, who has the body of a woman? I know this goes with the territory, but it can be hard to keep track of. I still question, when someone says "trans-woman," are they talking about a woman who thinks she's a man or a man who thinks he's a woman?
Took me some time to figure this out too, so I had to simplify it logically in my engineering mind:
Trans = Not
Thus, trans woman == not woman == man. Hope that makes sense.
I read in the New York Post, but I don't if it's true, that his roommate was in the process of transitioning. Whatever his actual beliefs were, he was radicalized online. The big fear I have, and since you're a former cop you've likely thought about this, is how do we stop it. Kids are getting radicalized online and killing people. Take away the guns and they will use knives, bombs, cars, etc. I'm not sure what can be done other than to find the perpetrators who commit crimes and punish them.
Fox News is reporting now that Tyler Robinson was living with a transgender roommate, who is now cooperating with authorities. I haven't read that anywhere else, so be cautious with that information.
Andy Ngo posted something too on Tyler Robinson living with a transgender roommate.
It took fifty some years for the left to finally destroy the message of Martin Luther King and replace his ideas with trash like BLM. He was a thought leader, like Charlie Kirk.
That’s the thing that struck me the other day, that the left has no thought leaders, no North Star to guide them. I imagine most in the right could point to one or several conservatives who have had an influence on their thinking and viewpoints, but I am not sure anyone on the left can. Who do they really have? Online echo chambers full of people who are ignorant but make a lot of noise? Vapid television personalities whose primary talking point is to call people racist and other pejoratives? Octogenarian politicians who make glib speeches that aren’t much more than dog whistles for this kind of violence?
I would say that the lack of thought leaders on the left is why the right will ultimately win, but I am not so sure. History takes odd turns.
One personal point. There was a family member, a cousin, who became radicalized in college by the left. He cut himself off from everyone because of politics. Things like that can’t help but put me in the mind of a cult.
There's Coleman Hughes, who seems to be a thoughtful liberal influencer. He's not a leader, but maybe he'll become a leader later. There's John McWhorter and Glenn Loury in academia and the media. They're probably considered "conservatives" by the Left though.
Definitely. They’re very middle-ground, which few people in the public sphere are now.
It's rather ironic that you're raising the specter of MLK in the context of Charlie Kirk's murder, considering that one of Charlie's contrarian takes over the past few years was crapping on MLK.
I have just two words: Freeze the Soros Family's Assets, and then start to unravel the 501(c)(3) and Holding Companies, like Arabella Advisors, that they use to finance the spread of death and disorder throughout the country. OK, that was twenty nine words, but you get the point.
Agreed. And a few more words . . . Federal Government needs to start arresting and prosecuting Antifa domestic terrorists and remove them from the streets of Portland, Seattle, etc. Enough is enough.
Prosecute them for what? Holding the wrong political views?
For assaulting Federal agents.
If that's what they are doing and there's prosecutable evidence by all means we should.
Curious, Darrell, where come down on the punishment for those who assaulted the Capital police on J6?
Off the top of my head, arson, assault, stalking, vandalism, trespassing, and you can probably make a RICO case against them.
The problem with antifa is that they are routinely not prosecuted for the crimes they commit (for a small sample of which, consult Andy Ngo). The police on the west coast just ignore them until they can’t, at which point prosecutors coddle them.
Many of these Antifa people seem to be schooled carefully in just how far to take things. I’ve seen examples of manuals and instruction sheets that educate young activists on just how to comport oneself both for maximum effect and for slipping just under the legal radar. That instruction is not cheap and is funded by those with means.
No, my friend. You are wrong. Antifa doesn’t exist. It’s just an idea. We were reassured of this years ago by nadler and others. You’re just hallucinating when you see direct action.
They’re basically a left wing version of the Klan, but with a looser (and therefore more resilient) organizational structure. These people are filled with hate and violent ideation, and are vanguardists for the radical left. They threaten and occasionally assault political opponents, deplatform speakers, attack opposing political rallies, and provide the sparks that turn protests into riots. On the rare occasions when one of them actually winds up in court, they’ve also been known to resort to witness intimidation.
A healthy society wouldn’t tolerate people like these.
Trans groups are now the Dem’s militant arm just like the KKK was.
Dem leaders support militant Dems through their silence.
No Dem leader has called on their fellow travelers to tone down their hateful rhetoric because the Dem death cult wants more violence.
They cannot debate with words so violence is all they have left.
When Dems lost on slavery, they killed President Lincoln and formed the KKK.
The Dems have been violent since 1865.
"The problem with antifa is that they are routinely not prosecuted for the crimes they commit (for a small sample of which, consult Andy Ngo). The police on the west coast just ignore them until they can’t, at which point prosecutors coddle them."
This is mostly bs, a ton of people have been prosecuted for the Portland riots with quite heavy fines/prison time (I think I gave you the list of them a couple years ago). The problem the police have with antifa is that 1) they are disorganized with no real hierarchy to target with a RICO charge, and 2) you actually have to have hard evidence to convict and cell phone cameras of masked people at night are not great for that. Just having evidence that somebody was at a protest where something bad happened isn't good enough. People in Portland have the same complaints about Andy Ngo's friends Patriot Prayer getting let off and ignored or assisted by the police. They are both much more like street gangs than the Klan fwiw.
Sure, for the BLM 2020 riots specifically. Although back then as I recall the list you had was only of people who were arrested and charged. I don’t recall that it included the outcomes after the inevitable plea bargaining (but it was a few years back, so I might be wrong). And a lot of those people were likely not antifa, if only because there aren’t a huge number of them, and there were a lot of other general rabble involved in those riots.
For the more prosaic trouble they get up to I feel like they usually get away with it. Assaulting or intimidating political opponents, stalking and harassing people like Andy Ngo (or anyone else they deem a fascist), ginning up mobs to deplatform people like Riley Gaines (who was once trapped in a room for hours by an angry mob at San Francisco State U; no one was charged), etc. Ngo himself has been put into the hospital at least once, and his mother (who still lives in Portland after he moved away for his own safety) has been routinely harassed at home and at work.
"For the more prosaic trouble they get up to I feel like they usually get away with it."
This is sadly true, but this is just as true for the right wing groups that showed up with guns and shut down an ER and come to intimidate and assault people throughout the state. In Portland there's been lots of complaints about the cops communicating with Patriot Prayer in how to avoid prosecution, I can't imagine the cops would have much sympathies for antifa.
I've been happy that Ngo was documenting some of antifa's actions, but he shouldn't be surprised that doing that to what is basically a street gang caused them to come after him. Trying to work with the FBI or the cops would have been better than trying help Patriot Prayer attack antifa in Portland. I would love for both those groups to go off into the desert and have a show down to settle their midlife crises induced grievances rather than coming to Portland to break things and pretending they have any actual political convictions.
One video I found credible showed a peaceful protest march in which some Antifa objected to one marcher carrying an American flat, ultimately resulting in an Antifa in a costume that vaguely reminded me of Trump's shaman hitting the man carrying the flat over the head with a club, dropping him to the ground. Prosecute them for incidents like that.
Protest marches these days are poorly organized. During the civil rights and anti-Vietnam war eras, there were dozens or hundreds of trained marshals, not US marshals but trained volunteers who were part of organizing the march, who fulfilled the roles of keeping the march on message, in a reasonably coherent formation, and protecting marchers from interference, all without carrying any weapons. Today most people calling for protest haven't a clue.
I love the MAGA-bots who scream about lawfare and then also demand the prosecution of all perceived enemies whether there be evidence or not. They sound like Lefty extremists.
Jon, at least up here in the Pacific NW, there’s plenty of charges that the Feds could throw at Antifa and Trantifa, based on real evidence. Ask Andy Ngo what it’s like to be assaulted and repeatedly threatened with death by those goons.
The problem is there's no organization called "Antifa" in the same sense there is (or was) an American Communist Party and a KKK. It's a lower case adjective used to describe certain people's extremist views not a proper noun for a formal group. Sure we can and should prosecute people for assault and battery, terrorism and the like. We do not need more laws, only to be sure that laws are being enforced for egregious wrongdoing-- but being careful not to criminalize free speech, even when we think the speech is blitheringly idiotic.
Jon, you’re endearingy concrete. Sure there may be no card-issuing org called “Antifa,” but plenty of far-left goons up where I live claim adherence to “anti-fascism” or Antifa. And a growing number of unhinged trans activists who bleat about persecution and trans genocide advertise their Trantifa creds. Maybe Florida mercifully doesn’t have this sickness, but it’s here in places like Portland and Seattle, and it embraces violence to further its agenda. Please, wake up and join the 21st century.
What I am pointing out, without some sort of formal organization you can't invoke RICO laws. They were created to use against the Mafia and drug gangs, which are organizations. They can't be invoked to fight some vague, disorganized ideology.
And I am deeply suspicious of any call to criminalize speech or belief-- as oppsoed to concrete real world actions. As I said, we have all the legal tools we need to go after violent actions, and conspiracy to commit them. But I absolutely do not want to haul people into court for believing the wrong things. That could go disastrously bad, as we are seeing in the UK.
Is there any trace the George Soros had anything to do with this business? Come on, the Bill of Rights is still the law of the land, and the government cannot just seize property without due process of law.
Jon, a lot of US Aid went to outfits that purported to be one thing (like a green energy initiatives) but were really another (Dark Money pools for Left-wing causes like funding Politico). We spent billions to get 7 charging stations in one of Biden's boondoggle Green Energy bills? I read things like that. Trump is trying to see if Soros bros can be RICO'd. I wish. Boasberg (and company) would put the kabosh on that. Of course, all we have to do is follow the US Aid money, and it would unfortunately turn out that some of it got funneled to politicians in the form of (probably legal, but maybe some illegal) campaign contributions. That's why congress was voting for more money for Ukraine right up until the end nearly; when they stopped, Biden gave Ukraine a big loan. Follow the Ukraine money--rots of ruck. How much did we give to Ukraine total, including a loan near the end of Biden's term? My guestimate: $200 to $250 billion. My children's children's children's children's children's will be paying that off, if we don't go belly up. There are only so many taxpayer dollars (or printed money) to go around before we bankrupt and inflate (devaluation of the dollar) into 3rd world status. Do you notice we're being herded into some form of new currency? I'd argue cryptos and stock (especially tech stocks) are becoming the new currency, or precious metals. I feel betrayed. I don't want to have to buy cryptos to afford to live.
Back in the day, we all understood that AID was a front for the CIA. I find it sardonically amusing that Donald Trump shut down AID, and people who should have longer memories reflexively came to its defense. Of course it could be just an aid agency now, maybe the CIA has moved on.
If you believe that, I’ve got some bottom land to sell you.
If I believe which?
That USAID is just an aid agency now, and not associated with the intelligence world.
I think there’s likely a great deal of evidence that the Soros groups have been involved in funding a lot of chaos. For one thing, the chaos is generally skillfully targeted so as to avoid obvious legal issues, but just disruptive enough to demoralize the opposition.
Trump's rambling accusatory posts on Truth Social supersede the Bill of Rights, Jon! You clearly haven't been properly catechized in the Gospel of MAGA.
Why wouldn't Grassley subpoena Soros?
Expropriate the expropriators! (This is the second time I've said that -- but there is no occasion when it is more fun to make sardonic use of classical Marxist rhetoric than in a conversation about George Soros.)
And cut off funding for those universities that have become leftist madrassas. I don't want my tax dollars going to them any more than to Planned Parenthood or to NPR.
We oldies don’t understand the positive influence Charlie Kirk had on our children. My kids are college-aged. All they’ve ever known is corny theater, bluster, and mouthiness from politicians. (Remember how normal Elizabeth Warren used to be?—but to fit in in 2025, she has turned into a shrieking, histrionic reality-show character.)
Charlie Kirk came along and discussed things with people, and delivered a message of normalcy—but with positivity. His organizational skills were also incredible.
He also had good manners, an excellent temperament, was unflappable, had a high IQ and a steel-trap memory.
Yes, and he was a serious student of the Bible, which served him well often.
As he himself said, he wanted to be remembered for his faith. Seems like he accomplished that--well done good and faithful servant. A fine example for all of us.
Being old myself, I knew more about Russell Kirk than Charlie Kirk. It seems to me that Charlie was a great organizer with a rapid, focused mind and had great energy. His loss to the conservative political world is tremendous. He is irreplaceable.
I think dukeboy put it in perspective for me. He said something like think about how many fans Rush had. Now realize that Charlie is even bigger for Gen Z.
I was banging on about the need for a national divorce for years around here, back in Rod's TAC days, so for well over a decade. I sounded like a lunatic but this is why I advocated for it and still do. Peaceful separation is better than murder.
We should have realized after the razor- thin 2000 election that we needed to split up, but then 9/11 happened and we were (mostly) pulled back together against the Muslim hordes. The divisions became magnified with each election, the rhetoric became sharper and more heated, and the internet amplified it all. And now here we are.
It's (probably) too late for a peaceful partition of the country. It would have been incredibly difficult and economically devastating, but it would have been worth it.
Now we have to play for all the marbles. It's going to mean terrible things in the next few years. Dark deeds, however justifiable and necessary, will be done and we'll have to live with ourselves afterwards.
I fear that in the coming years you won't have to seek trouble. Trouble will come for you. Pray that you will recognize it when it nears. Pray that you will have the strength to do what is necessary, however horrible to whoever is bringing it to your door, and that you will be victorious.
And then pray for forgiveness for what you've done.
I'm for national unity. Why should we split? There's always Marshall Law if the varmin start openly making secession declarations and shooting up the place. Riots? Drones. Burning and looting? Call in the troops, make mass arrests. Put them on islands (where do we have some empty islands we can park Antifas on)? Put them on Hilton Head, SC. Oh, the south would love that ha ha. Under Marshall Law, Boasberg is no longer in charge of Trump. Follow the money to head off the whole thing. Armies march on their bellies and rioters march on funding by Soros and other NGOs. I'd say prep up before the mid-terms for sure (I always review the supplies before an election ever since Obama got elected). That's my plan. Could it come sooner than the midterms? Yes, it could come sooner if China or Russia decides to get feisty or the "sleeper cells" are activated.
We can’t unite with monsters.
I may want national unity, but we need to be careful about who we unite with.
That’s the crux of the problem.
Many of us really have no idea how to live with people who want to see us dead because of our political ideas.
Now is the time to be super real about who these monsters really are.
How do we unite when the cultural control levers (major media, university) skew towards intolerance of anyone right of a Marxist? And too many people have been brainwashed to think these organizations are 100% right all the time?
Praying is good, but maybe it’s not God’s will for us to stay united? That’s an awfully big assumption to make.
Yes, it is terrifying to think about but now is the time to start thinking about worst-case scenarios and how to be prepared for anything.
The people who dominate my X feed are *highly motivated* to punish people for their sick behavior in the aftermath of Charlie’s death right now and I can’t blame them in the least. Every few hours people post a new number of people they’ve personally worked to get fired. It’s quite disturbing, but a behavioral correction is needed on these people for celebrating the fact that someone died.
A lot of us are done being nice to monsters and pretending we can live in peace with them w/out a major change in attitude on their part.
Sure, we can pray for their conversion , but we are done tolerating the monsters in our midst.
This is an example of a nice version of the rhetoric.
Some of it is quite chilling and frightening. A lot of people have had enough and ‘give zero f-cks’ (in their own words) about going psycho on the monsters now.
Nobody wants to hear about unity. Nobody wants to calm down. (We’ve done that before and things only get worse!)
I don’t know what’s going to happen, but things can’t stay the same anymore.
We're not enforcing our laws. Let's start enforcing our laws, then we don't have to split. Let's get indictments and trials for those involved in the Russia hoax, for instance, which was sedition. Prosecute those that helped arranged the J6 "fedsurrection" (here's looking at you, Nancy Pelosi and Christopher Wray). Declare Marshall Law if the Left starts rioting, looting, burning, murdering and assaulting the Christians and those who don't agree with them. Declare Antifa and BLM domestic terrorist organization--and the SPLC as well. That would probably be enough to take down 50 people in the government, with some familiar names (and big fish) at the top of the list for the Russia hoax sedition alone. Let's true the vote. That would stop the madness, because the majority of people in the USA don't want criminals roaming free to attack them viciously, for no reason, on public conveyances. The majority of people don't want the country to be overrun by third world immigrant or the Chinese. How long after we split do you think it would take China to invade Taiwan (the the USA)? How long before Blue States of America form a strategic alliance with China and/or Russia and start assassinating Red State leaders and influencers? How long after we split do you think that the Blue States of America would try to utterly destroy the Red States of America? It would happen immediately. Soros would be celebrating, he broke the West, he broke the last, best hope on earth. Are the sacrifices of Abraham Lincoln and US Grant to be wasted by breaking up the greatest nation on earth? Then who will lead the free world? Not Europe. Wars are easy to start and hard to stop. Look at the Ukraine war. That war should have never started, and would not have if Trump hadn't been robbed of re-election by Fauci, China, the Deep State, and Obama and company. We have to get serious. Take down "Discord" for instance if it can be proven that that outfit aided in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Arrest all the "accomplices." Take Tyler's computer, cell phone, all his Discord records, and then start sweeps of anyone who aided in the assassination of Charlie Kirk. I have studied the Civil War for years. I do not want a replay of the Civil War. We're meant to be one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Funnel your righteous anger into Turning Point USA or other outreadh programs. The young people today are like sheep without a shephard. Go shephard them, as Charlie Kirk tried to do, by listening to them and reasoning with them and witnessing Christ to them.
No national divorce. National purge and cleanse. It was never going to split peacefully because Progressuves want to control people. If we had split, then Bulwark type losers would somehow have become the leaders of the "Right" country, and then we lose that as well.
I think we might just need to wait until the Second Coming to fix things.
I’ve long felt that the split really began with the older cohorts of the Baby Boomers—the Clintons’ peers. The “liberals” among them were very often actually Leftists. The conservatives, of course, tended to be equally ideological Reaganauts or Wall Street yuppies. With that age group, the older, more genial differences between, say, Eisenhower Republicans and Stevenson Democrats was elided. The bipartisanship that passed the 1964 Civil Rights Act was shattered after Watergate, the first time Hillary’s and John Kerry’s mugs appeared on the scene.
Correct. The split is really the conflict of the '60s continued with various transmutations. I.e. the hippie agrarians were a tiny minority and in general their compatriots went into "the system" and did well at it, while retaining important pieces of their essential leftism.
It’s the same long conflict. The roots were established in the late 19th century and began to sprout in the period of the First World War under Wilson and the emergence of professional managerial thinking. Only a series of crises allowed the managerial progressives their route into the body politic. Rahm Emmanuel spoke truer than he knew, no doubt. The radicals took advantage of the American people’s fundamental decency and good will both during the Civil Rights era and during Obama’s presidency. Honest desires for improvements in race relations were derailed in both periods by Leftist maximalism. The first ushered in a long era of GOP conservatism. Let’s see what happens after Trump.
There is no coherent boundary for a split. We're all each other's neighbors.
But how do we "divorce"? Big cities in red states are blue, and the countryside in many blue states is red.
We just have to trust the good sense of the people. Many will continue to espouse rancid, resentful political views, but many more, one hopes, will recoil at obvious indications of pathology.
My own view is that by quirks of electoral fate, it’s taken 15 years for voters to express—in Trump’s 2024 popular majority—a truer account of where the American people really stand with all this stuff.
Obama’s terms muddled things, partly because many voters voted for him in an attempt to put to rest the idea that this was a fundamentally racist country. When that didn’t quiet down the Left, Trump was chosen. The 2020 election was in a plague year, and any incumbent would have had trouble. And Trump’s achievements weren’t sold easily. That he roared back into office in 2024 with all the erosion of Democratic Party popularity suggests to me that the voters’ fatigue with leftist politics and the cultural manifestations of leftist thinking in HR departments, schools, the symbol-heavy professions, etc. is now obvious.
Yes a national divorce would jsut mean multiple nations with the same cultural split.
I think you said you were travelingtoday but Dan Wooten on GPN's Youtube channel streamed unite the UK. Lot of good (and the ocasional bad) stuff there today.
Even California has a vast hinterland that is culturally more like Wyoming or Arizona than like the coastal urban centers.
Yes, Washington and Oregon west of the Cascades are bascially an extension of the Upper South culture. I spent quite a bit of time on both sides of the mountains.
Much of upstate Maine is culturally conservative and Maryland's Eastern Shore is culturally conservative.
Let me put it to you this way: What is the alternative that doesn't result in continual bloodshed?
You lament constantly that liberal democracy is insufficient for the present situation. I agree. You are upset that it is so while I could genuinely care less if liberal democracy as currently practiced is dead and buried at this point. But let us at least stipulate that we're not going to be able to vote our way out of this.
Our election cycles are just turning into a tug a war in which one side is up and punishes their enemies as much as they can get away with until the other side takes over and tries to undo everything the other side did. In some cases one side's policy preferences seem to have been chosen simply because they are the opposite of what the other side would have done. Both sides have, up until now, used and abused the court system to try to cement their preferences long term.
To what end? To keep the dream of Manifest Destiny alive? Why do we want to force ourselves, our neighbors, our family members to go through 4 year cycles of depression when your side is down followed by four year cycles of dunking on your opponents when your side is up? How is that good for any of our souls, no matter which part of the cycle we happen to be in?
The question that each of us needs to be asking ourselves is do we think that our side can ever truly dominate the other side? Do you believe that your worldview and political preferences can become so widely accepted that those who don't share them will be so rare as to be practically non- existent and therefore no physical force or coercion will be required to keep them at bay?
If you believe that we have become too factionalized and attached to our own worldviews to unite for a common good, then figuring out how to keep enough distance between each other to stay away from each other's throats. National divorce would not be easy by any means, but it wouldn't be impossible.
A political divorce is impractical. Every state is tied to the federal government through Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the Defense Empire.
I will pray for the Kirk family today. Yes, religion is far more important than politics.
And the pen is mightier than the sword. God has his "pen heads." Rod is one, but there are many others in the US and Europe, the part of Europe where one can write an article without being arrested (i.e., avoid UK until Keir Starmer is shown the door). Other fav US "pen heads": Victor Davis Hanson, Roger Kimball, R.R. Reno, Michael Douglas Dougherty, Roger Simon--too many others to list. I like Ross Douthat, but he's a little too politically squishy for me at times--still, he has written some incredibly insightful pieces on the faith--I remember one essay in which he talks about Jesus being unafraid to get down in the mud with us. I attach an illistration of a woman hiker who encountered a mud-swamped sheep that was sort of stunned and lethargic and had to be pulled as a deadweight from the swamp by a very strong and determined woman hiker. That's Jesus encountering a meth head (or other addict) who is so stunned or lethargic he/she cannot aid in its own rescue. So Ross wrote about God being unafraid to get down and dirty in the rescue of sinners (as we saw on the cross). Brit penhead, ah, Mike Benz, Douglas Murray, the Triggernometry bros (Kisin and Foster), and Brendan O'Neill, editor of online "Spiked", who is absolutely brilliant. In the meantime, watch a Jesus-like character determined to save a mud-caked-and-swamped sheep--she takes it to the river, washes it the water. So, Lord, "Take me to the river; wash me in the water" ( (Talking Head's funky song attached as a second treat for Saturday):
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bw5rSvSmmdo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RHZEzVUBPk
I believe at least one former poster, a woman from England, has discontinued using this site because she was afraid of being charged for a crime by the Starmer police.
Wow. Chesterton, Lewis and Churchill are all rolling in their graves.
Simply reading Rod would be disqualifying for a lot of folks. Heck, I have conservative Catholic friends who are baffled why I do so.
I'm sure some 'social reputation' algorithm collects and correlates Substack/social media comments to actual posters.
Yes. There were a few, less-frequent posters who stopped subscribing also.
Sethu has stopped because he thought he was spending too much time on this site. He's a writer. Eve stopped over a year ago because she had to take care of an ailing husband. Laura M said she was taking too much time and wanted to spend more time doing family things. All good people.
Yes, I think a lot of us spend far too much time on this site ... mostly in the comments section. I don't know where folks find the time.
I read almost every word Rod writes as well as the links he posts to other sources. For me, he is an invaluable source for understanding where our society is headed. The comments section? ... not as much.
I do think the discourse at Dreher's site is much more intelligent than any others that I am acquainted. I'd have a beer or two with dozens of the posters at this site.
Hopefully all of them will come back. With Sethu gone, that leaves me and Hiroyuki as the youngest two people that I know of to post here. Hopefully, other younger people will read Rod and post so we have the benefit of multiple generations talking.
The NATION- "Charlie Kirk was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe and misogynist....."
In their collective hearts, that's what the modern left thinks of conservatives. Kirk believed in the common American morality of 1950 shared by Democrat Harry Truman and Republican Dwight Eisenhower. The modern left has left that old morality far behind.
I can’t believe that any (formerly) respectable publication would broadcast such an unhinged opinion. I’ll never treat them as a serious publication again and everyone associated with their masthead should be ashamed.
Yes. I can't imagine conservative magazines being gleeful if Michael Moore or Bill Maher or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Stephen Colbert were assassinated.
I could. It doesn't take much imagination at all.
Then you are not dealing with reality. People on the right do not wish for the death of their opponents. We just want to see them change their minds and hearts.
Oh, please. Listen to yourself. I am quite certain that YOU do not wish for the death of perceived opponents. Neither do I. A lot of liberals don't either. (That's at least three different perspectives). But, among the rather vaguely referenced categories "people on the right" and "people on the left," there are some nut jobs, or ruthlessly sane fanatics, who do wish for the death of their opponents, and an even smaller number who occasionally try to kill. Every time someone is killed, people who fancy themselves in one category intone "We don't do that, they do." Its part true and part false. And no, you don't have control over those "on the right" who do wish for the death of their (or perhaps sometimes your) opponents. So you are not responsible for them.
If it were the occasional nutjob, I would agree (and yes, nutjobs come in all flavors). But the last few days have shown a disturbingly sizeable percentage of leftists not only celebrated Kirk’s death, but started suggesting a next target. Not liberals - leftists. The liberals are standing up in droves to condemn his murder, thank God.
Brian Kilmede has some insights on what to do with homeless for you to ponder, Cathy.
The more I think about Kirk, to whom I paid zero attention before Wednesday, the more convincing it becomes that this or something like it was inevitable. Steve Scalise, Brett Kavanaugh, Trump himself (twice). When the speaker of the House, then a grandmother in her '70s, tears up her copy of the State of the Union address in a completely phony act of performative rage, it was inevitable that somebody was going to get hurt.
"When the speaker of the House, then a grandmother in her '70s, tears up her copy of the State of the Union address..."
Among the most childishness ever exhibited.
Well, Nancy Pelosi's husband was injured on a politically motivated home invasion. You can say "Yeah, but he wasn't a REAL right-winger and these others were done by REAL leftists." But I don't see much difference. Its generally some nut-job who grabbed hold of some political rhetoric, or, more often, its someone nobody ever heard of, whose neighbors invariably tell newshounds "I never would have expected it of him/her."
A string of adjectives like that is precisely what is wrong with a good deal of political discourse. Not having taken much interest in Kirk, pro or con, I would want to know, what precisely has he said or done that is racist, and why or how is it racist? As for transphobe, they'd say that about me too -- and I always say, is that word about the carbon filament tower connecting Phobos to the Martian surface? Misogynist, again, I would want to know details -- in what manner does he show what kind of disrespect for woman, generally, as women. (I've known some very energetic, employed, self-confident women who take seriously the duty to "submit to my husband.") Homophobe... that's another tiring one... ain't nobody afraid of your ass, what are you talking about? But a string of labels is a sign that there is no thought process at work, only a knee-jerk reflex.
Forgive me brothers and sisters, for I have sinned. For decades I was a child of the Internet. I would sprawl through forum after forum spreading demons of hate disguised as reasonable argument. I used pornography countless times with myself and others - summoning demons into this world one mouse click at a time in my heart and the hearts of others.
I didn't pull the trigger, but my sins contributed to the death of Charlie Kirk. It is only by God's grace I haven't done even worse things. I cannot cast a stone, because the blood of my brothers and sisters is on my hands through every breaking of God's Holy and perfect law.
Please forgive me, for I know not what I do.
This assassin immersed himself in the internet and got totally radicalized even though it looks like he came from a nice family. Think about the fact our kids or, in my case, grandkids will never know a world without AI and robots. If people are having emotional, even erotic, relationships with AI personalities now , robots will take over parenting. I cringe when I see parents hand a device to a little child in a restaurant to shut him up so the parents can stare at their iPhones.
I blame the violent gaming world more than anything political. Maybe it only happens to one in a million gamers but games like Helldriver2 hammer home a horrible lesson: assert yourself with bloodshed.
I thought about that too yesterday when I saw the leftists cheering for Charlie’s death. To them, the video of him being killed is just another death scene in a world where entertainment is dominated by gore. And like video game players, they immediately start planning their next conquest. They do not conceive of him as a real human being.
Sigh, As I just said elsewhere, assigning guilt for Robinson's crime to anyone other than him and perhaps potential acomplice(s) is as wrong as when 30 years ago fingers of blame were pointed at the entire conservative body public for McVeigh's atrocity in OKC.
I’m not assigning blame for Kirk’s death to these leftists. I am saying there is something seriously wrong with the way they react to his death.
I agree with this. No death, even ones deserved and necessary should be cause for celebration
I think a massive problem with these young people who have lived on their screens their whole lives is that they have little to no imagination. Their brains are actually missing those neural pathways. I see it in my students, even the academically gifted ones. Their brains have been spoonfed (or bombarded) with sensory input, and they never learned how to imagine, contemplate, and sit with their own thoughts. Take away the constant stimulation, and most of their eyes glaze over into a 1,000 yard stare.
What does this have to do with Kirk's assassination? These young people (say, under 30) don't have the capacity to imagine what Kirk was experiencing for the few seconds he had consciousness after being shot. They can't imagine how his wife is feeling, or the confusion and fear of his children, or the people in the crowd who thought they could get shot as they ran away with their heads down.
In short, screen addiction causes various degrees of sociopathy. Someone may have said this once before, but I think smart phones and the internet, particularly social media, were Uncle Screwtape's greatest invention in Hell's R&D Dept.
I have not read this article nor have I read another article that appeared this morning. Just the headlines and the initial paragraphs. The reading will come later. I know what is in them.
Other article: https://www.thefp.com/p/how-the-west-lost-its-soul-christendom-technology-progress
The cause:The modern world was built on Christianity and human freedom. Both are waning
The result: Deterioration then chaos. There will be no fix without understanding the truth or what has to be fixed.
Give Truth a Chance.
Re: The bullets police found with his discarded rifle had pro-trans and Antifa messaging scrawled on them
This is false. There's not a trace of anything trans-related, unless the message "If you're reading this you're gay" is somehow interpreted along those lines. "Eat this fascists" can probably be seen as "Antifa-ish" I suppose. However the odd symbols have been identified as belonging to the online game Helldriver2 - a very violent game in which players direct armies bent on world conquest. I would suggest that what we have with Robinson is a young man conditioned for violence in real life by a game that features its extreme use. Robinson is also known to have participated in forums frequented by other players of the game. Perhaps he let fantasy pollute his reality. When you consider how many people are part of that world the possibilities are rather grim.
Reports this morning suggest he was a Redditor (as in a user of the site Reddit). There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
He was clearly a gamer, and gaming may have played a role in desensitizing him to violence (though in fairness millions of boys plays violent games with ever becoming violent IRL), but it would ultimately be other people who radicalized him, most likely through social media.
Re: There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
Agree. I do visit Reddit regularly but fairly sane and clean places (e..g, a forum for people learning Russian). And Reddit is better policed than it used to be. I was even banned from one forum for posting something a moderator deemed too political.
From The New York Times:
Some of the other messages on the unfired cartridges appear more politically straightforward, including one that says, “Hey fascist! Catch!” The latter message, Mr. Cox said, most clearly showed the gunman’s intent. “I think that speaks for itself,” he said.
Another featured the words “Bella ciao,” an apparent reference to an Italian song adopted by the antifascist resistance during World War II. It is still sung by the Italian left and in other countries to commemorate the fight against fascism, and it also appears in a recent Netflix series.
Re: There is fuel enough there to radicalize anybody if you stumble into the wrong subreddits.
Agree. I do visit Reddit regularly but fairly sane and clean places (e.g., a forum for people learning Russian). And Reddit is better policed than it used to be. I was even banned from one forum for posting something a moderator deemed too political.
It's a Communist song. When I pointed this out on X yesterday I got more than a thousand hits for the first time ever.
I'm surprised Joan Baez didn't sing it.
"Eat this fascists" can probably be seen as "Antifa-ish" I suppose.
Seriously, Jon? Actual scrawling was "“hey fascist! CATCH!" How many ways are there to interpret that on a bullet casing belonging to a man charged with murdering a political opponent he describes as a 'fascist'?
Jon, your skepticism pedantically parses everything for an alternate causality. One pictures you at the gates of heaven arguing the case with St Peter why you should actually be assigned elsewhere.
There's considerable speculation going around right now that the guy also had Groyper connection. I never encountered the word "groyper" until I saw it yesterday. Apparently they are radical right bunch followers of Nick Fuentes who had a big feud going with Kirk. I am certainly not going to endorse something that is presented as pure speculation (but a lot stuff here is too,m link a link to George Soros) but I think we should let the authorities dig into anything and everything and not pollute the scene with rumors. Two answers I would like to see:
1. Where did the guy learn his marksmanship skills?
2. Did he have an accomplice? There's a claim (so far just hearsay) that he received instruction via a Discord forum on where to pick up the rifle and what to do with it afterward.
Robinson's father was a cop. Young Robinson probably knew his way around a shooting range. My middle son's a hunter with a collection of firearms. I asked him yesterday whether Robinson's shot was difficult. He said 200 yards for any decent hunter wasn't difficult, especially with a scope which I believe Robinson had.
Thanks for this. I've heard some people say the shot would have taken an expert.
I've shot my son's rifles with scopes. Even a mediocre shot like me can become more than adequate. Some scopes even have dots to train on your target.
I second Derek on this. With newer scopes these shots are a lot easier, especially when the target is sitting in a chair.
Before she scrubbed them, Robinson's mother had lots of pics of young Robinson holding high-powered firearms. It was apparently a shooting family. Nothing wrong with that.
My best friend from college owns a firearms shooting range and buys and sells firearms. Shooting is a fine hobby.
And long-range riflemanship is an artform.
So it seems that was true. I wasn't sure if it was a real screenshot of his mother's FB, or an AI deepfake, or Russian hackers, or an infantile disorder promoting a false flag. But it was certainly plausible. As Salvor Hardin said, "A blaster is a good weapon, but it points both ways."
Do you know about "Bella Ciao"? It was a song of the Resistance, which was almost completely controlled by the Communist Party, in Italy during the Second World War. I lived in Italy during the "years of lead" (Red Brigades, Aldo Moro) and you heard that song effing everywhere. My suggestion to Dreher yesterday was to replace it with this, a little ditty popular during the invasion of Ethiopia in 1935.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pm3eI4r3VcM
If they start singing "Ça Ira" get back me- it will be time to worry.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87a_Ira
It is also a song used in Helldivers2 and one of the other bullets had a code from that game, so I'd lean towards that being the source rather than the shooters knowledge of Italian antifacist history. All of the stuff on the casing seems to be video game memes.
I came close to losing a friend of fifty years over this because, while he would never applaud the senseless murder of anyone, he was convinced that Kirk was a racist, homophobic yadda yadda. I presented copious evidence to the contrary; his ignorance was invincible. I finally let it drop, as it was going nowhere. A few hours later, he texted me with a link to a NYT opinion piece where six conservatives were saying what Kirk had meant to them and how his death was hitting them. That piece finally struck a nerve with him, thanks be to God.
Long after that peddler of drug store horror, Stephen King, apologized for spreading the lie that Kirk called for the stoning of gays the charge was circulating from other hands all yesterday afternoon.
Given the profusion of his apologies, I assume King woke up to the legal implications of his false allegations, but hopefully he experienced genuine regret. It was strange to see him speaking with humility!
You cannot libel the dead. That's the law in America. King could have said anything he wanted to about Charlie Kirk, and he would have been legally untouchable. He repented because he genuinely realized he was wrong.