To be fair, Charlie Kirk was probably much higher profile than Hortman. Charlie traveled the nation widely, visited other countries and had online influence outside of his in-person visits. You could say many entertainers and politicians do that too, so what makes him special?
I've heard Charlie's efforts changed the outcomes of elections. Despite some views being unpopular, the overall promotion of face to face debate is seen as generally healthy. He probably lost his temper or cool too much, and in that sense there have been more tactful or calm debaters, but at least he tried in very unwelcoming territory.
No disrespect to any school shooting victims or the Hortmans, but just objectively, Charlie both seems and is evidenced by the internet reaction to be higher profile and of higher concern for the national conversation in respect to the individual event.
That's without even mentioning just how public the footage of the killing was comparatively or that his wife and children watched it happen in person. It's also worth mentioning that he was fundamentally opposing the exact thing that killed him. He wanted to promote life and suppress death.
It's clear to me that he was an imperfect messenger, but he had the energy and the will which he did not waste.
> It's also worth mentioning that he was fundamentally opposing the exact thing that killed him. He wanted to promote life and suppress death
I'm no expert on him, but that doesn't ring true to me. Here's some things that he said that don't seem to agree with your view:
> We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty... We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment - Charlie Kirk
> Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it - Charlie Kirk
I got the impression that his "debates" were designed to be highly asymmetric with himself being thoroughly prepared and going up against young people who weren't experienced debaters. The format was also designed so that there would not be enough time for the audience to fact check the various untruths that Kirk would put forwards.
Despite people describing him as not endorsing violence, he did seem to call for violence against out-groups such as potential immigrants and he advocated for the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol - I think he arranged for a bus load of people to go to fight for Trump.
Personally, I find his racist and sexist views abhorrent and his twisting of Christianity into a hateful, cruel doctrine. His dislike of the word "empathy" is a clear red flag for being thoroughly evil.
(I've noticed that he had anti-gay views which he justified by using parts of the Old Testament, but in my view that is denying the sacrifice of Christ which was to put an end to the old beliefs of a vengeful God and instead usher in an empathic world view of welcoming and providing for the poor and homeless)
The quote about the second amendment seems consistent with promoting life, because the second amendment helps protect all the others. It would be fair to argue that this requires nuance, because if someone commits murder with a gun, they are treading on someone else's rights. On the other hand, if the government becomes corrupt and manages to establish some dictatorship, the government could decide to kill tens of millions of people which we have seen in history. Suddenly with that potentiality, taking away everyone's guns isn't promoting life anymore.
There have been some very unfortunate outcomes from governments taking guns away from the people. It would be wise to take this seriously and with an open mind if you are a person of character. Examples: Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda. Obviously, the founders were drawing on examples that long predated these, so this is not a new phenomena and it repeats through history.
People have made arguments about guns being useless against the all powerful government hardware, but if the armed population greatly outnumbers the government they can use many different tactics to impose inefficiencies on them.
> I got the impression that his "debates" were designed to be highly asymmetric with himself being thoroughly prepared and going up against young people who weren't experienced debaters. The format was also designed so that there would not be enough time for the audience to fact check the various untruths that Kirk would put forwards.
Only watched a few of his things, but I did see him offer multiple times for people to use their phones, ask ChatGPT, look things up. Someone who asks a question doesn't have to be ready for any question the way Charlie did, they only had to be ready for the questions related to the topic they were going to ask about. They had their own time to prepare either long before the event or while standing in line.
He also went to Cambridge Union, where people were more practiced at debate and well-read.
> Despite people describing him as not endorsing violence, he did seem to call for violence against out-groups such as potential immigrants and he advocated for the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol - I think he arranged for a bus load of people to go to fight for Trump.
Those sound like they need context to better understand, if there is anything to them. If you have an original source, I would look into it.
> Personally, I find his racist and sexist views abhorrent and his twisting of Christianity into a hateful, cruel doctrine. His dislike of the word "empathy" is a clear red flag for being thoroughly evil.
This also seems to lack a lot of context. I don't know if he's sexist or racist, only that I haven't seen anything which should obviously be labeled that. I have seen things which overly sensitive people might consider as sexist or racist, but with objectivity, they didn't appear that way to me. As for the empathy thing, I've seen that claim plastered over the internet, but when I looked it up I think he just said he preferred the word sympathy rather than empathy which makes it clear people are taking it out of context very disingenuously.
He does have some unpopular opinions, so there are people motivated to spread lies to push people away so they get turned off by all the claims about him such that they never even attempt to look at what he actually said or that when they DO hear what he said they are primed to interpret it the way they were told to interpret it. I disagree with him about some things, but the disinformation campaigns against him are atrocious all the same and are likely what got him killed.
> I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you've said
Well, it's good to disagree. I mean, if you're wrong, you could get millions and millions killed. Hopefully you would agree that if there was a real risk of that, other people would contest you logically and push back. Presumably you are a person who would care about that.
> “I'm sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified,” - Charlie Kirk
That wasn't racism, that was about the idea of pilots being hired under a system where there's a sort of race quota. He was talking about a system that is already race oriented, which he rejects. He was operating under the understanding that if there is a race quota, then merit based selection (which everyone who ever flies should want their pilot to be there on merits) might fall to the side.
I think people understand now that the pilots and air traffic controllers still have to pass rigorous tests and standards, but any sort of race based selection is bound to make some people feel uneasy.
When Affirmative Action was put in place, it was done with the understanding that it was double-sided, in that it could make people selected for their race feel less worthy and people of that race who got there fully on merits may feel like they're treated as if they didn't earn it when they did. It was never meant to last forever, because it's good for people of any race to feel happy and proud of their achievements and not like they were handed to them. To feel like they deserve the respect they get.
That issue stemmed from the relative lack of minority parents who had professional careers, which means they were less likely to pass on that inspiration and knowledge to their kids which could also make their kids less likely to pursue those kinds of things. By trying to smooth the pathway to certain education or career paths, it was about reducing the burden and difficulty of taking those life paths for people who weren't as integrated into them yet.
That makes a lot of sense to me and the choices were complicated, but it seems like people made the right choices so long as they're temporary.
The issue is more complicated in industries or careers that heavily involve public safety or national security. While it is possible to maintain standards and demand that everyone of any race rise up to those standards, if schooling opportunities weren't as good for some, there have been real risks of people lowering standards to meet quotas in various cases. That's a legitimate concern. So long as that doesn't happen in public safety or anything critical, it's probably fine.
After a generation or two it's less of a problem, especially with the internet, because there are so many ways and opportunities to learn now that a lot more people can get an early start on their learning and foster their talent so by the time they're moving into a career they don't have to grow into it as much.
Yesterday, Fox News advocated "involuntary lethal injection" for innocent homeless people (that post has been flagged and [dead] already). They certainly won't be fired.
The day Kirk died, Fox was quite literally calling for war. Then when we found out it was a conservative shooter, it's still the left's fault because them not mourning Kirk is worse than the killing and the President says he "couldn't care less" about bridging the divide between Americans.
It's just ridiculous how brazen it is at this point.
In his role as a spokesperson of the network, at a performance he has not yet been censured for, afaik. Until Fox puts out a response, he represents them.
> I legitimately have no idea what you're referring to.
Jesse Watters called for vengeance and retribution on The Five, said that liberals are “at war with us.” GP is a reasonable rephrasing.
> The political divide. And it's not clear what he could in principle do about it.
Use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency positively for once?
He’s the least powerless person in the country. No president before has ever wielded the power and authority he does.
Prior to being fired, was Dowd a "spokesperson of MSNBC"?
I don't think so, and I don't think this is a fair way to characterize Kilmeade either.
> GP is a reasonable rephrasing.
I'm not really convinced.
> Use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency positively for once?
It beggars belief that this would lead to de-escalation from Trump's opponents. In fact, I've seen him take a conciliatory tone before, only to get decontextualized and further vilified.
If the authors had bothered to read past the title of their own source, they would know his actual position was:
The Second Amendment is not even about personal defense. That is important. The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government. [..] I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.
I think it's lame to go after people livelihood over their comments regardless of where you stand from it, unless these comments are direct calls to violence or threats against someone.
The cherry on top is that it's being done in the name of someone who seemed to spend a great deal of time talking about children. Having someone's livelihood taken away disrupts lives, wrecks marriages and ruins childhoods. Why someone would feel good about doing that is beyond me.
I want you to understand the hell that a friend of mine went through after being targeted by TPUSA for being a trans professor. Harassment and hate speech in class. Attempts to have them fired. Death threats, hardcore pornography, and extreme gore regularly sent to their email.
Kirk advocated for people to be deported for their speech. Is that how we handle things in a liberal democracy?
Now the shoe is on the other foot, and hopefully folks on both sides of the aisle are finally understanding why the power to take someone's livelihood over their constitutionally protected speech is such a bad thing.
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/scholars-under-fire-a... "In 2021, 213 sanction attempts occurred, more than in any other year. This was partially due to Turning Point USA calling on parents and students to contact the institutions of 61 professors featured on their Professor Watchlist website." TPUSA was founded by Kirk.
How is "the power to take someone's livelihood over their constitutionally protected speech" distinct from "freedom of association"? Is freedom of association a bad thing? Or do you just want to limit it with respect to firing? How about hiring? Is it ok not to hire people who have values I deplore?
What does that bullshit non sequitur have to do with the post you responded to? Is there some reason you feel compelled to interact in such an abjectly dishonest way?
It's not a non-sequitur - people are calling for death [1] (somehow this doesn't get a mention in the NPR article - an honest oversight, I'm sure!), while the post claimed they were being fired for constitutionally protected speech. So it makes sense to ask if calls for death are protected.
To answer that question, I think it's close? It's not imminent lawless action or a true threat, which are the usual criteria for when the 1st Amendment doesn't shield speech. But it could be interpreted as instructing someone to commit a crime. But since it could be argued the posters have no reasonable expectation their instructions will be carried out [2], that means it's probably (speculating, I don't know of any precedent on this) protected. In the USA - most other countries are not nearly so permissive.
If a given action is ethical, then it shouldn't be done, even as a tit-for-tat. This merely exposed the hypocrisy of the self proclaimed free speech absoluists.
Charlie Kirk himself had a list of academics he was trying to hound out of their jobs as part of his career as a grifting propagandist. He is currently being praised as a champion of free speech.
The shoe is not on the other foot. Just the right foot is, as usual, projecting and being dishonest about their own well documented problems.
Just as they did before they found out that Kirk was shot by one of their own.
I just randomly clicked one of the professors in that list:
- "Shaviro has been suspended after he posted on Facebook that it would be better for people to kill their political opponents than to protest them. In a now-deleted post, Shaviro wrote:"
- “So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”
That's straight from the website, which may or may not be accurate or true. The way it looks, is still about the way it looks given the larger context of the rest of its post.
That seems worse than anything I have found a clip of Charlie Kirk actually saying yet. I didn't really follow him, just randomly came across a few clips of him over the years so most of what I've seen is over the past few days.
> Just as they did before they found out that Kirk was shot by one of their own.
I don't think this is true, based on the evidence. There are people spreading that idea around, but it may just be activism or ignorance.
The report from his “friend” (who didn’t actually know him at all) that was subsequently retracted as bullshit? Why continue to push things you know aren’t true?
Well I went to the updated Guardian article that is the original source [1], and it now states:
This article was updated on 12 September 2025 to remove quotes after the verified source who attended high school with Tyler Robinson said after publication that they could not accurately remember details of their relationship.
That reads more like "there's too much room for doubt for us to be willing to publish it", and not at all like "known-untrue bullshit". But it's a nice argument we're having - any uncertainty debunks my position, even when nobody has even disputed my strongest evidence, the shell casing messages, while the position I'm arguing against is simply taken as true without any evidence.
Hey why don't we flip things around? Why don't you give a source for "didn't know him at all", as well as for the "retracted as bullshit" (specifically the as bullshit part, not just "source was unreliable"). And if you can't find a reliable source, we'll assume the opposite is true. That's how you're making me argue, so it's only fair the same rules apply, isn't it?
Is this where you get your news from? Wikipedia says:
> Pamela Geller (born 1958) is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator.[1] Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya[4] and that he is a Muslim.[5]
The source they cite was retracted, just as the WSJ had to retract their similar reporting.
The shooter is a Groyper, a far right sect that has been "warring" with Kirk for a while and disrupting his appearances because they disagree about exactly how openly Fascist they should be.
A far right killer from a hardcore MAGA family.
The other school shooting that day was also far-right, btw.
> he shot someone on the right, which are both strong evidence of left-wing motivation on their own.
I think the idea that there are two sides is one of the most toxic ideas in our politics. We associate with teams and anyone on our side must be good, and ignore things like the tyranny of small differences - the far left hates the center left more than they do the right. And there are similar dynamics on the right. Especially in obscure conspiracy filled corners of the internet.
This doesn’t mean all people on the right are bad, or the right is inherently violent! But to ignore the complex breakdown of political ideologies is to ignore the crazy ways things actually happen, not to mention the fact that generally speaking, people who commit random acts of violence like this are not coming from a politically rational place.
I should clarify that I don't think there's much merit in the guilt-by-association smearing that happens after such events (or the stripped-of-context quote-mining character assassination the article engages in), and by "left-wing motivation" I did not mean to imply blame should fall on the left as a whole.
Unfortunately such smearing is very effective propaganda, so most people, including journalists, only take this position when it is their side getting smeared.
My specific point is there are people in this world with “right-wing” motivation to kill Charlie Kirk, social media has been full of it in just recent weeks, just like if a prominent left winger died there would probably be evidence of left-wing motivation to kill them. Or maybe it’s more complicated than that even!
It would be productive to our discourse if we didn’t automatically see it as two sides.
I was only vaguely aware of Kirk before this, and I could easily see most "normies" being even less aware, but according to reddit, he was practically Goebbels[1] or Himmler, and we collectively dodged a bullet by him taking one. Leftists would really do well here to just shut up. Normal people aren't going to be convinced by your quote mining that Kirk deserved what happened to him, especially in the presence of his wife and kids, and when he was offering dialog. Hasan Piker, for example, said America deserved 9/11--do you think he deserves to die for that?
To put it bluntly, the average terminally online reddit/bluesky leftist should realize that they're not normal, and that to a normal person, Kirk will come off as a decent, rightwing (but not overly so) Christian family man, even a bit boring. Meanwhile transgendered people (elated at his death) are generally perceived as "weird" and "gross"--a perception their grave-dancing isn't helping. The optics are really bad.
Your post validates the classic "Conservatives think liberals are stupid, and liberals think conservatives are evil" observation. You say Kirk was
> quite an awful, abnormal, un-christian man
based on what? From what I can see, he was devoted to his wife and kids, was law-abiding, and was generally well-liked by his colleagues, many of whom regarded him as a friend. Hasan Piker, Mr. "America deserved 9/11," takes good care of his dogs, and seems to have healthy friendships with other streamers and generally good relations with family (like Cenk). Neither of them are "awful," though both were and are flawed (e.g., Hasan's grossly hypocritical "Champaign socialism" and his occasionally extremist rhetoric).
Kirk believed that the civil rights act was a mistake. He advocated for people to be deported for their speech. He deliberately deadnamed trans people in public.
I'm sure he was devoted to his wife and kids. They are experiencing a trauma I cannot possibly imagine. But Kirk has said some remarkably horrible things as part of his political advocacy, which I don't believe is aligned with a path that follows Christ.
A lot of people make vague claims about this guy and then just let the various assumptions hang there as a form of decontextualized disinformation. What you're doing here is basically perpetuating the same kind of disinformation that got him killed. This is why Stephen King had to take down his tweet, because he was just repeating things which aren't true.
He responded about the civil rights act during his Cambridge Union debate here which I only encountered yesterday when searching more about the guy. It's far more nuanced than you presented it:
https://youtu.be/dkiM-z0Mzyg?t=1053
I don't know about your other claims, but if you don't know about them either, you should stop making them in the lazy way you make them. If you do know, then try harder to present more context.
It is more nuanced than "segregation good" but it is still ridiculous. Kirk is building off of the idea from people like Hanania that after Griggs v Duke the disparate impact theory took the interpretation of Title 7 off the rails. I'd like you to tell me if you think that Duke Power was doing something acceptable here. Just because Kirk isn't taking the most odious possible stance about the civil rights act does not mean that his opinion is above reproach. What I am saying is not disinformation.
I do know about the other claims. He specifically advocated for Ilhan Omar to be deported and deadnamed Lia Thomas in public. Do you want the specific events where he said these things?
At this time, the conversation about what he said has been going on for so long (nearly a decade) that nobody is under any obligation to present more context. His position on these topics was pretty clear.
I don't think he should have been shot for his beliefs. I do think his beliefs included the idea that it was important for people to be armed independently of the government, and if that means more people get shot than would otherwise, that's an acceptable price to pay. After all, "Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty. Driving comes with a price -- 50,000, 50,000, 50,000 people die on the road every year. That's a price. You get rid of driving, you'd have 50,000 less auto fatalities" (https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-w...). In context, it's clear that if his philosophy is consistent, his death should fit his own "with a price" criteria (same as if he'd died in a car accident on the way to the event).
... Incidentally, this is an interesting discourse because he goes on to suggest that the solution to school shootings is armed guards. Kirk had a five-member security detail and the support of six members of the campus police. If this appearance was consistent with past ones, he also had a bullet-proof vest under his shirt. So it appears Kirk was wrong about one hypothesis at least: not even armor and a security detail guarantees the safety of the first person in the crosshairs.
I think anyone who has the mental capacity to understand how something might be taken dangerously out of context and has any interest in being respectful should make some attempt to clarify these things. If they exclude critical information intentionally, it shows bad faith and disrespect.
Switzerland, Iceland and Finland all have high rates of gun ownership, yet have far less gun violence per capita. That said, gun violence and crime in general also trends higher in warmer weather, yet all of those countries are a little on the colder side. The US itself used to have far less gun violence too. What causes these problems has been known for a long time and it's not the guns. The solution is neither to take everyone's guns away or to put armed guards everywhere. The solution is known and it's possible that AI models will help reduce this particular problem along with some structural changes to social media platforms before any sort of careful legal changes can occur.
It's probably true that if you take everyone's guns away, you will get less gun related deaths and maybe even overall deaths for a while. Then if an authoritarian takeover happens, they can take your rights away and your citizenry is at a much larger disadvantage in protesting this. Then the government can silence all the media and kill 10-50 million people unopposed. In the US specifically, guns alone wouldn't necessarily save us, they are just a single pillar of the overall list of protective mechanisms for freedom.
I will add though, that gun suicides should be excluded from the data, because they significantly inflate the numbers even though they're high even without that.
The details around his death specifically and his security specifically aren't relevant, as he was a particularly high profile and high risk individual which is not 99% of deaths.
> The solution is neither to take everyone's guns away or to put armed guards everywhere. The solution is known and it's possible that AI models will help reduce this particular problem along with some structural changes to social media platforms before any sort of careful legal changes can occur.
Based on the things he said and the things he advocated for I consider him to have been a bad, unchristian man. I am not on the left, I am closer to a classical liberal.
I had created some comments on Charlie Kirk and I immediately deleted them because of this concern.
Mind you, I am in high school and am not even american but I just felt like this is such a high profile case that it might result in finally utilizing the spy machine that is social media. Everyone has kissed the ring.
As someone who comments on internet a lot. its disheartening because this type of thing can only be extended. Freedom of speech can sometimes be used to restrict other people's freedom of speech in some messy ways like making them lose jobs.
For all the america that boasts about its freedom of speech and freedom, frankly the option for most things becomes just this echo chamber esque X or Y and no agreement between anyone. Your freedom of speech on one topic makes you get a label that you then have to live through and that it can impact your lives.
I don't know what this phenomenon is called but I just feel like extremism is being spread in the name of freedom of speech from both sides of america in some sense. We have created a system where people have to agree to a political party on all of its opinions and you can't have disagreements and agreements at the same time.
So we've have had people just give up in the political process and felt as if the only thing that matters is competency. Frankly, competency is being curbed in the sense that things are being cherry picked now. Stock market is doing good when from what I know the job market is doing absolutely bad.
This is meta commentary on politics itself. If such polarization makes democracy give power to people who can look "competent", and the voting choices are limited and you are influenced 24x7 by algorithms you can't control.
I guess its not good. I feel as if nobody is commenting on the social issues except bernie and mamdani yet are talking about everything else.
What I like about mamdani is that his campaign was built on the idea of true competence in the sense that he shows how he would actually fix the issues instead of just wishy washing that he's going to do it.
Trump's epstein's files competence comes to my mind lmao.
I think you're being overly paranoid, but I do like the idea of someone in HS being prudent enough to NOT use their real name (or something that can be tied back to it) when trolling or edge-lording online, or just doing stuff online in general.
Dude, I dont know how related this is but I was on nofap and had made some post s in nofap
and then somehow I leaked it to my school
and then people called me edgelord for fuck's sake. I am not even kidding, wtf are you my fbi agent or something????????
HOLY FUCK DUDE, Literally the bullying was insane for something that was my past and it hurt me so much that i was near suicidal.
i still get hurt by bullying but I have someone on my side now so it feels better.
Never lose hope in life. Please look up suicidal helplines my friends. and please never bully, i see so many comments bullying because they want me to grow up when its a silly excuse for just being bs / trolling me / being sadist in taking joy out of me when i consistently told them that i consider it offensive in whatever i can say. holy fuck.
There seems to be a lot of hypocrisy in the different treatment of the killings of Melissa Hortman (and husband) and Charlie Kirk.
To be fair, Charlie Kirk was probably much higher profile than Hortman. Charlie traveled the nation widely, visited other countries and had online influence outside of his in-person visits. You could say many entertainers and politicians do that too, so what makes him special?
I've heard Charlie's efforts changed the outcomes of elections. Despite some views being unpopular, the overall promotion of face to face debate is seen as generally healthy. He probably lost his temper or cool too much, and in that sense there have been more tactful or calm debaters, but at least he tried in very unwelcoming territory.
No disrespect to any school shooting victims or the Hortmans, but just objectively, Charlie both seems and is evidenced by the internet reaction to be higher profile and of higher concern for the national conversation in respect to the individual event.
That's without even mentioning just how public the footage of the killing was comparatively or that his wife and children watched it happen in person. It's also worth mentioning that he was fundamentally opposing the exact thing that killed him. He wanted to promote life and suppress death.
It's clear to me that he was an imperfect messenger, but he had the energy and the will which he did not waste.
> It's also worth mentioning that he was fundamentally opposing the exact thing that killed him. He wanted to promote life and suppress death
I'm no expert on him, but that doesn't ring true to me. Here's some things that he said that don't seem to agree with your view:
> We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty... We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment - Charlie Kirk
> Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it - Charlie Kirk
I got the impression that his "debates" were designed to be highly asymmetric with himself being thoroughly prepared and going up against young people who weren't experienced debaters. The format was also designed so that there would not be enough time for the audience to fact check the various untruths that Kirk would put forwards.
Despite people describing him as not endorsing violence, he did seem to call for violence against out-groups such as potential immigrants and he advocated for the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol - I think he arranged for a bus load of people to go to fight for Trump.
Personally, I find his racist and sexist views abhorrent and his twisting of Christianity into a hateful, cruel doctrine. His dislike of the word "empathy" is a clear red flag for being thoroughly evil.
(I've noticed that he had anti-gay views which he justified by using parts of the Old Testament, but in my view that is denying the sacrifice of Christ which was to put an end to the old beliefs of a vengeful God and instead usher in an empathic world view of welcoming and providing for the poor and homeless)
The quote about the second amendment seems consistent with promoting life, because the second amendment helps protect all the others. It would be fair to argue that this requires nuance, because if someone commits murder with a gun, they are treading on someone else's rights. On the other hand, if the government becomes corrupt and manages to establish some dictatorship, the government could decide to kill tens of millions of people which we have seen in history. Suddenly with that potentiality, taking away everyone's guns isn't promoting life anymore.
There have been some very unfortunate outcomes from governments taking guns away from the people. It would be wise to take this seriously and with an open mind if you are a person of character. Examples: Nazi Germany, Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, Guatemala, Uganda. Obviously, the founders were drawing on examples that long predated these, so this is not a new phenomena and it repeats through history.
People have made arguments about guns being useless against the all powerful government hardware, but if the armed population greatly outnumbers the government they can use many different tactics to impose inefficiencies on them.
> I got the impression that his "debates" were designed to be highly asymmetric with himself being thoroughly prepared and going up against young people who weren't experienced debaters. The format was also designed so that there would not be enough time for the audience to fact check the various untruths that Kirk would put forwards.
Only watched a few of his things, but I did see him offer multiple times for people to use their phones, ask ChatGPT, look things up. Someone who asks a question doesn't have to be ready for any question the way Charlie did, they only had to be ready for the questions related to the topic they were going to ask about. They had their own time to prepare either long before the event or while standing in line.
He also went to Cambridge Union, where people were more practiced at debate and well-read.
> Despite people describing him as not endorsing violence, he did seem to call for violence against out-groups such as potential immigrants and he advocated for the January 6th violent attack on the Capitol - I think he arranged for a bus load of people to go to fight for Trump.
Those sound like they need context to better understand, if there is anything to them. If you have an original source, I would look into it.
> Personally, I find his racist and sexist views abhorrent and his twisting of Christianity into a hateful, cruel doctrine. His dislike of the word "empathy" is a clear red flag for being thoroughly evil.
This also seems to lack a lot of context. I don't know if he's sexist or racist, only that I haven't seen anything which should obviously be labeled that. I have seen things which overly sensitive people might consider as sexist or racist, but with objectivity, they didn't appear that way to me. As for the empathy thing, I've seen that claim plastered over the internet, but when I looked it up I think he just said he preferred the word sympathy rather than empathy which makes it clear people are taking it out of context very disingenuously.
He does have some unpopular opinions, so there are people motivated to spread lies to push people away so they get turned off by all the claims about him such that they never even attempt to look at what he actually said or that when they DO hear what he said they are primed to interpret it the way they were told to interpret it. I disagree with him about some things, but the disinformation campaigns against him are atrocious all the same and are likely what got him killed.
I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you've said, so I'll just focus on Charlie Kirk's obvious racism.
> “I'm sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified,” - Charlie Kirk
> I fundamentally disagree with just about everything you've said
Well, it's good to disagree. I mean, if you're wrong, you could get millions and millions killed. Hopefully you would agree that if there was a real risk of that, other people would contest you logically and push back. Presumably you are a person who would care about that.
> “I'm sorry. If I see a Black pilot, I'm going to be like, 'Boy, I hope he's qualified,” - Charlie Kirk
That wasn't racism, that was about the idea of pilots being hired under a system where there's a sort of race quota. He was talking about a system that is already race oriented, which he rejects. He was operating under the understanding that if there is a race quota, then merit based selection (which everyone who ever flies should want their pilot to be there on merits) might fall to the side.
I think people understand now that the pilots and air traffic controllers still have to pass rigorous tests and standards, but any sort of race based selection is bound to make some people feel uneasy.
When Affirmative Action was put in place, it was done with the understanding that it was double-sided, in that it could make people selected for their race feel less worthy and people of that race who got there fully on merits may feel like they're treated as if they didn't earn it when they did. It was never meant to last forever, because it's good for people of any race to feel happy and proud of their achievements and not like they were handed to them. To feel like they deserve the respect they get.
That issue stemmed from the relative lack of minority parents who had professional careers, which means they were less likely to pass on that inspiration and knowledge to their kids which could also make their kids less likely to pursue those kinds of things. By trying to smooth the pathway to certain education or career paths, it was about reducing the burden and difficulty of taking those life paths for people who weren't as integrated into them yet.
That makes a lot of sense to me and the choices were complicated, but it seems like people made the right choices so long as they're temporary.
The issue is more complicated in industries or careers that heavily involve public safety or national security. While it is possible to maintain standards and demand that everyone of any race rise up to those standards, if schooling opportunities weren't as good for some, there have been real risks of people lowering standards to meet quotas in various cases. That's a legitimate concern. So long as that doesn't happen in public safety or anything critical, it's probably fine.
After a generation or two it's less of a problem, especially with the internet, because there are so many ways and opportunities to learn now that a lot more people can get an early start on their learning and foster their talent so by the time they're moving into a career they don't have to grow into it as much.
Yesterday, Fox News advocated "involuntary lethal injection" for innocent homeless people (that post has been flagged and [dead] already). They certainly won't be fired.
The day Kirk died, Fox was quite literally calling for war. Then when we found out it was a conservative shooter, it's still the left's fault because them not mourning Kirk is worse than the killing and the President says he "couldn't care less" about bridging the divide between Americans.
It's just ridiculous how brazen it is at this point.
> Yesterday, Fox News
No, one specific show host.
> for innocent homeless people
No, specifically for those who are mentally ill, and only if they refuse help. Still abhorrent, but also unrelated.
> The day Kirk died, Fox was quite literally calling for war.
I legitimately have no idea what you're referring to.
> Then when we found out it was a conservative shooter, it's still the left's fault
Shootings are the fault of the shooter and no other person.
We did not find out that the shooter is conservative. This is speculation, and many of the initial bases for this speculation were quite spurious.
> because them not mourning Kirk is worse than the killing
As far as I can tell, nobody has said anything remotely like this.
> the President says he "couldn't care less" about bridging the divide between Americans.
The political divide. And it's not clear what he could in principle do about it.
> No, one specific show host.
In his role as a spokesperson of the network, at a performance he has not yet been censured for, afaik. Until Fox puts out a response, he represents them.
> I legitimately have no idea what you're referring to.
Jesse Watters called for vengeance and retribution on The Five, said that liberals are “at war with us.” GP is a reasonable rephrasing.
> The political divide. And it's not clear what he could in principle do about it.
Use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency positively for once?
He’s the least powerless person in the country. No president before has ever wielded the power and authority he does.
> In his role as a spokesperson of the network
Prior to being fired, was Dowd a "spokesperson of MSNBC"?
I don't think so, and I don't think this is a fair way to characterize Kilmeade either.
> GP is a reasonable rephrasing.
I'm not really convinced.
> Use the “bully pulpit” of the presidency positively for once?
It beggars belief that this would lead to de-escalation from Trump's opponents. In fact, I've seen him take a conciliatory tone before, only to get decontextualized and further vilified.
> Prior to being fired, was Dowd a "spokesperson of MSNBC"?
During the 24ish hours it took MSNBC to fire him and issue a public statement, yes. This isn’t rocket science.
> I'm not really convinced.
Your double standard in this matter is evident.
> During the 24ish hours it took MSNBC to fire him and issue a public statement, yes.
I disagree, and don't understand your basis for the claim.
> Your double standard in this matter is evident.
I don't know what you're talking about.
I appreciate you responding on my behalf, thank you.
> He [..] said that some gun deaths were worth it to have the Second Amendment (cites https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-w...)
If the authors had bothered to read past the title of their own source, they would know his actual position was:
The Second Amendment is not even about personal defense. That is important. The Second Amendment is there, God forbid, so that you can defend yourself against a tyrannical government. [..] I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.
Anyway, Rolling Stone has a different opinion: Why Cancel Culture Is Good For Democracy - https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-commentary/opin...
I think it's lame to go after people livelihood over their comments regardless of where you stand from it, unless these comments are direct calls to violence or threats against someone.
The cherry on top is that it's being done in the name of someone who seemed to spend a great deal of time talking about children. Having someone's livelihood taken away disrupts lives, wrecks marriages and ruins childhoods. Why someone would feel good about doing that is beyond me.
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> I disagree when it comes to people like teachers who are openly advocating for political violence.
Do you think that's a fair characterization of who's getting fired?
Was Matt Dowd advocating violence? How were his remarks so offensive that it merited his dismissal?
"You can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place."
I think any other mainstream media organization would fire him too for that.
Kirk did not deserve to be murdered.
I want you to understand the hell that a friend of mine went through after being targeted by TPUSA for being a trans professor. Harassment and hate speech in class. Attempts to have them fired. Death threats, hardcore pornography, and extreme gore regularly sent to their email.
Kirk advocated for people to be deported for their speech. Is that how we handle things in a liberal democracy?
And the reaction of a significant portion of the moderate right was to call for war against the left. We all need to calm the fuck down.
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Now the shoe is on the other foot, and hopefully folks on both sides of the aisle are finally understanding why the power to take someone's livelihood over their constitutionally protected speech is such a bad thing.
https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/scholars-under-fire-a... "In 2021, 213 sanction attempts occurred, more than in any other year. This was partially due to Turning Point USA calling on parents and students to contact the institutions of 61 professors featured on their Professor Watchlist website." TPUSA was founded by Kirk.
How is "the power to take someone's livelihood over their constitutionally protected speech" distinct from "freedom of association"? Is freedom of association a bad thing? Or do you just want to limit it with respect to firing? How about hiring? Is it ok not to hire people who have values I deplore?
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I think so? If it’s not a specific threat of imminent harm. (Just, to answer your question, I don’t advocate such behavior)
What does that bullshit non sequitur have to do with the post you responded to? Is there some reason you feel compelled to interact in such an abjectly dishonest way?
It's not a non-sequitur - people are calling for death [1] (somehow this doesn't get a mention in the NPR article - an honest oversight, I'm sure!), while the post claimed they were being fired for constitutionally protected speech. So it makes sense to ask if calls for death are protected.
To answer that question, I think it's close? It's not imminent lawless action or a true threat, which are the usual criteria for when the 1st Amendment doesn't shield speech. But it could be interpreted as instructing someone to commit a crime. But since it could be argued the posters have no reasonable expectation their instructions will be carried out [2], that means it's probably (speculating, I don't know of any precedent on this) protected. In the USA - most other countries are not nearly so permissive.
[1] https://thatparkplace.com/bluesky-users-call-for-death-of-do...
[2] Carried out specifically because they issued them, and not because someone was going to kill Rowling anyway.
Why would people learn that? Clearly what people are learning is it’s an effective tactic.
If a given action is ethical, then it shouldn't be done, even as a tit-for-tat. This merely exposed the hypocrisy of the self proclaimed free speech absoluists.
It's never about freedom; it's always about power - regardless of how people dress it up.
That's why a powerful and independent judiciary is so important.
Charlie Kirk himself had a list of academics he was trying to hound out of their jobs as part of his career as a grifting propagandist. He is currently being praised as a champion of free speech.
The shoe is not on the other foot. Just the right foot is, as usual, projecting and being dishonest about their own well documented problems.
Just as they did before they found out that Kirk was shot by one of their own.
I posted this in another thread too, but it seemed relevant to respond here too.
https://www.professorwatchlist.org/tags/anti-1st-amendment
I just randomly clicked one of the professors in that list:
- "Shaviro has been suspended after he posted on Facebook that it would be better for people to kill their political opponents than to protest them. In a now-deleted post, Shaviro wrote:"
- “So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.”
That's straight from the website, which may or may not be accurate or true. The way it looks, is still about the way it looks given the larger context of the rest of its post.
That seems worse than anything I have found a clip of Charlie Kirk actually saying yet. I didn't really follow him, just randomly came across a few clips of him over the years so most of what I've seen is over the past few days.
> Just as they did before they found out that Kirk was shot by one of their own.
I don't think this is true, based on the evidence. There are people spreading that idea around, but it may just be activism or ignorance.
> shot by one of their own
You are basing this on.. the shell casings with Antifa slogans? Or the high school friend who claims he was "pretty left on everything" [1]?
[1] https://gellerreport.com/2025/09/tyler-robinson-was-really-l...
The report from his “friend” (who didn’t actually know him at all) that was subsequently retracted as bullshit? Why continue to push things you know aren’t true?
Well I went to the updated Guardian article that is the original source [1], and it now states:
This article was updated on 12 September 2025 to remove quotes after the verified source who attended high school with Tyler Robinson said after publication that they could not accurately remember details of their relationship.
That reads more like "there's too much room for doubt for us to be willing to publish it", and not at all like "known-untrue bullshit". But it's a nice argument we're having - any uncertainty debunks my position, even when nobody has even disputed my strongest evidence, the shell casing messages, while the position I'm arguing against is simply taken as true without any evidence.
Hey why don't we flip things around? Why don't you give a source for "didn't know him at all", as well as for the "retracted as bullshit" (specifically the as bullshit part, not just "source was unreliable"). And if you can't find a reliable source, we'll assume the opposite is true. That's how you're making me argue, so it's only fair the same rules apply, isn't it?
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/sep/12/charlie...
Is this where you get your news from? Wikipedia says:
> Pamela Geller (born 1958) is an American anti-Muslim, far-right political activist, blogger and commentator.[1] Geller promoted birther conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama, saying that he was born in Kenya[4] and that he is a Muslim.[5]
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The source they cite was retracted, just as the WSJ had to retract their similar reporting.
The shooter is a Groyper, a far right sect that has been "warring" with Kirk for a while and disrupting his appearances because they disagree about exactly how openly Fascist they should be.
A far right killer from a hardcore MAGA family.
The other school shooting that day was also far-right, btw.
Your mendacious take is aging worse by the hour. And it’s really funny to suggest a leftist can’t have conservative parents
https://i.4cdn.org/pol/1757787226815828m.jpg
> he shot someone on the right, which are both strong evidence of left-wing motivation on their own.
I think the idea that there are two sides is one of the most toxic ideas in our politics. We associate with teams and anyone on our side must be good, and ignore things like the tyranny of small differences - the far left hates the center left more than they do the right. And there are similar dynamics on the right. Especially in obscure conspiracy filled corners of the internet.
This doesn’t mean all people on the right are bad, or the right is inherently violent! But to ignore the complex breakdown of political ideologies is to ignore the crazy ways things actually happen, not to mention the fact that generally speaking, people who commit random acts of violence like this are not coming from a politically rational place.
I should clarify that I don't think there's much merit in the guilt-by-association smearing that happens after such events (or the stripped-of-context quote-mining character assassination the article engages in), and by "left-wing motivation" I did not mean to imply blame should fall on the left as a whole.
Unfortunately such smearing is very effective propaganda, so most people, including journalists, only take this position when it is their side getting smeared.
My specific point is there are people in this world with “right-wing” motivation to kill Charlie Kirk, social media has been full of it in just recent weeks, just like if a prominent left winger died there would probably be evidence of left-wing motivation to kill them. Or maybe it’s more complicated than that even!
It would be productive to our discourse if we didn’t automatically see it as two sides.
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> Just as they did before they found out that Kirk was shot by one of their own.
This turned out to be 100% false btw
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I was only vaguely aware of Kirk before this, and I could easily see most "normies" being even less aware, but according to reddit, he was practically Goebbels[1] or Himmler, and we collectively dodged a bullet by him taking one. Leftists would really do well here to just shut up. Normal people aren't going to be convinced by your quote mining that Kirk deserved what happened to him, especially in the presence of his wife and kids, and when he was offering dialog. Hasan Piker, for example, said America deserved 9/11--do you think he deserves to die for that?
To put it bluntly, the average terminally online reddit/bluesky leftist should realize that they're not normal, and that to a normal person, Kirk will come off as a decent, rightwing (but not overly so) Christian family man, even a bit boring. Meanwhile transgendered people (elated at his death) are generally perceived as "weird" and "gross"--a perception their grave-dancing isn't helping. The optics are really bad.
[1] https://old.reddit.com/r/Music/comments/1nfv81d/coldplay_fan...
What I still can't understand, after all this time, is how views that extreme became so established on a site as large as Reddit.
Remarkably, they're still doubling down: https://old.reddit.com/r/therewasanattempt/comments/1ngl3qo/...
He didn't deserve to die; Charlie Kirk was quite an awful, abnormal, un-christian man. These are not conflicting ideas.
Your post validates the classic "Conservatives think liberals are stupid, and liberals think conservatives are evil" observation. You say Kirk was
> quite an awful, abnormal, un-christian man
based on what? From what I can see, he was devoted to his wife and kids, was law-abiding, and was generally well-liked by his colleagues, many of whom regarded him as a friend. Hasan Piker, Mr. "America deserved 9/11," takes good care of his dogs, and seems to have healthy friendships with other streamers and generally good relations with family (like Cenk). Neither of them are "awful," though both were and are flawed (e.g., Hasan's grossly hypocritical "Champaign socialism" and his occasionally extremist rhetoric).
Kirk believed that the civil rights act was a mistake. He advocated for people to be deported for their speech. He deliberately deadnamed trans people in public.
I'm sure he was devoted to his wife and kids. They are experiencing a trauma I cannot possibly imagine. But Kirk has said some remarkably horrible things as part of his political advocacy, which I don't believe is aligned with a path that follows Christ.
A lot of people make vague claims about this guy and then just let the various assumptions hang there as a form of decontextualized disinformation. What you're doing here is basically perpetuating the same kind of disinformation that got him killed. This is why Stephen King had to take down his tweet, because he was just repeating things which aren't true.
He responded about the civil rights act during his Cambridge Union debate here which I only encountered yesterday when searching more about the guy. It's far more nuanced than you presented it: https://youtu.be/dkiM-z0Mzyg?t=1053
I don't know about your other claims, but if you don't know about them either, you should stop making them in the lazy way you make them. If you do know, then try harder to present more context.
It is more nuanced than "segregation good" but it is still ridiculous. Kirk is building off of the idea from people like Hanania that after Griggs v Duke the disparate impact theory took the interpretation of Title 7 off the rails. I'd like you to tell me if you think that Duke Power was doing something acceptable here. Just because Kirk isn't taking the most odious possible stance about the civil rights act does not mean that his opinion is above reproach. What I am saying is not disinformation.
I do know about the other claims. He specifically advocated for Ilhan Omar to be deported and deadnamed Lia Thomas in public. Do you want the specific events where he said these things?
At this time, the conversation about what he said has been going on for so long (nearly a decade) that nobody is under any obligation to present more context. His position on these topics was pretty clear.
I don't think he should have been shot for his beliefs. I do think his beliefs included the idea that it was important for people to be armed independently of the government, and if that means more people get shot than would otherwise, that's an acceptable price to pay. After all, "Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty. Driving comes with a price -- 50,000, 50,000, 50,000 people die on the road every year. That's a price. You get rid of driving, you'd have 50,000 less auto fatalities" (https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-its-w...). In context, it's clear that if his philosophy is consistent, his death should fit his own "with a price" criteria (same as if he'd died in a car accident on the way to the event).
... Incidentally, this is an interesting discourse because he goes on to suggest that the solution to school shootings is armed guards. Kirk had a five-member security detail and the support of six members of the campus police. If this appearance was consistent with past ones, he also had a bullet-proof vest under his shirt. So it appears Kirk was wrong about one hypothesis at least: not even armor and a security detail guarantees the safety of the first person in the crosshairs.
I think anyone who has the mental capacity to understand how something might be taken dangerously out of context and has any interest in being respectful should make some attempt to clarify these things. If they exclude critical information intentionally, it shows bad faith and disrespect.
Switzerland, Iceland and Finland all have high rates of gun ownership, yet have far less gun violence per capita. That said, gun violence and crime in general also trends higher in warmer weather, yet all of those countries are a little on the colder side. The US itself used to have far less gun violence too. What causes these problems has been known for a long time and it's not the guns. The solution is neither to take everyone's guns away or to put armed guards everywhere. The solution is known and it's possible that AI models will help reduce this particular problem along with some structural changes to social media platforms before any sort of careful legal changes can occur.
It's probably true that if you take everyone's guns away, you will get less gun related deaths and maybe even overall deaths for a while. Then if an authoritarian takeover happens, they can take your rights away and your citizenry is at a much larger disadvantage in protesting this. Then the government can silence all the media and kill 10-50 million people unopposed. In the US specifically, guns alone wouldn't necessarily save us, they are just a single pillar of the overall list of protective mechanisms for freedom.
I will add though, that gun suicides should be excluded from the data, because they significantly inflate the numbers even though they're high even without that.
The details around his death specifically and his security specifically aren't relevant, as he was a particularly high profile and high risk individual which is not 99% of deaths.
> The solution is neither to take everyone's guns away or to put armed guards everywhere. The solution is known and it's possible that AI models will help reduce this particular problem along with some structural changes to social media platforms before any sort of careful legal changes can occur.
What is the solution?
Based on the things he said and the things he advocated for I consider him to have been a bad, unchristian man. I am not on the left, I am closer to a classical liberal.
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I had created some comments on Charlie Kirk and I immediately deleted them because of this concern.
Mind you, I am in high school and am not even american but I just felt like this is such a high profile case that it might result in finally utilizing the spy machine that is social media. Everyone has kissed the ring.
As someone who comments on internet a lot. its disheartening because this type of thing can only be extended. Freedom of speech can sometimes be used to restrict other people's freedom of speech in some messy ways like making them lose jobs.
For all the america that boasts about its freedom of speech and freedom, frankly the option for most things becomes just this echo chamber esque X or Y and no agreement between anyone. Your freedom of speech on one topic makes you get a label that you then have to live through and that it can impact your lives.
I don't know what this phenomenon is called but I just feel like extremism is being spread in the name of freedom of speech from both sides of america in some sense. We have created a system where people have to agree to a political party on all of its opinions and you can't have disagreements and agreements at the same time.
So we've have had people just give up in the political process and felt as if the only thing that matters is competency. Frankly, competency is being curbed in the sense that things are being cherry picked now. Stock market is doing good when from what I know the job market is doing absolutely bad.
This is meta commentary on politics itself. If such polarization makes democracy give power to people who can look "competent", and the voting choices are limited and you are influenced 24x7 by algorithms you can't control.
I guess its not good. I feel as if nobody is commenting on the social issues except bernie and mamdani yet are talking about everything else.
What I like about mamdani is that his campaign was built on the idea of true competence in the sense that he shows how he would actually fix the issues instead of just wishy washing that he's going to do it.
Trump's epstein's files competence comes to my mind lmao.
I think you're being overly paranoid, but I do like the idea of someone in HS being prudent enough to NOT use their real name (or something that can be tied back to it) when trolling or edge-lording online, or just doing stuff online in general.
jesus wtf. I feel almost targeted by this.
Dude, I dont know how related this is but I was on nofap and had made some post s in nofap
and then somehow I leaked it to my school
and then people called me edgelord for fuck's sake. I am not even kidding, wtf are you my fbi agent or something????????
HOLY FUCK DUDE, Literally the bullying was insane for something that was my past and it hurt me so much that i was near suicidal.
i still get hurt by bullying but I have someone on my side now so it feels better.
Never lose hope in life. Please look up suicidal helplines my friends. and please never bully, i see so many comments bullying because they want me to grow up when its a silly excuse for just being bs / trolling me / being sadist in taking joy out of me when i consistently told them that i consider it offensive in whatever i can say. holy fuck.
the nightmares.
I learnt it the hard way.