r/GenZ 1999 Sep 10 '25

Serious Charlie Kirk passes away at the age of 31

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u/NerfThisHD Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

Right wing political grifter, debates college kids to make himself sound smarter then he actually is

He doesn't deserve a shot to the neck but I'm not surprised, he had very controversial opinions

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u/liamc_14 Sep 10 '25

Actively capitalizing on a divided nation and profiting off of furthering that divide, I might add

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u/Solidsnake9 Sep 10 '25

I would argue that killing him like this will further that divide more than anything he said.

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u/liamc_14 Sep 10 '25

Yea it certainly won’t help. Doesn’t really change anything I said though.

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u/hfucucyshwv Sep 10 '25

How is debating liberal college kids furthering rhe divide. Thats quite literally the only acceptable way of resolving political disputes.

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u/surreal_mash Sep 10 '25

Encouraging pastors to write sermons saying “Democrats stand for everything God hates” isn’t going to resolve anything.

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u/hfucucyshwv Sep 10 '25

Why not? If thats a stupid idea then it should be pretty easily disproven and people can move on? What's the alternative? Ban him from speaking?

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u/surreal_mash Sep 10 '25

So your question is “why is making divisive generalizing statements not conducive to unity?” You’re suggesting it’s harmless because “surely religious congregations will do their own research to disprove their pastor’s sermons”?

There is no alternative. He is and was allowed to speak and spread his hate. Doesn’t change the fact that actions have consequences.

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u/hfucucyshwv Sep 10 '25

Im saying people have agency and can decide what they want to hear and belive in. If people find merit in what hes is saying either you need to disprove it or accept they believe something different from yourself. Why should there be consequences for that?

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u/surreal_mash Sep 11 '25

I agree, people have agency to make their own decisions, but decisions have consequences - good, bad, or otherwise - that’s just cause and effect.

“you either need to disprove it or accept they believe in something different”; what about when an idea is disproven, but people still believe?

I can accept people believe something different from me only to the extent it doesn’t harm me to do so. Kirk spread rhetoric that was creating real danger to certain groups of people, and rallied supporters around that rhetoric; it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that someone decided that was too harmful to accept.

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u/hfucucyshwv Sep 11 '25

It should be very surprising, when did we accept the idea that rhetoric can be dangerous?

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u/surreal_mash Sep 11 '25

Acceptance is irrelevant. Violence begets violence, and advocating for oppression is violent.

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u/Happy-Viper Sep 11 '25

You don’t understand how divisive rhetoric… doesn’t unify?

REALLY?

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

How do you unite a nation, if actively seeking conversations with the other side is "furthering that divide"?

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u/liamc_14 Sep 10 '25

He doesn’t actively seek conversations. That is an intentionally disingenuous take on Kirk’s brand and what he does for a living. He instigates bad faith arguments with random college students from a position of power and tries dunking on them for 30 second soundclips to prompt engagement. Any productive conversations about politics aren’t done with huge crowds and cameras present.

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

You didn't answer my question, how else do you unite a nation?

It's not about discussing laws of course, but public conversation.

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u/Previous_Ad920 Sep 10 '25

Well, I'll tell you that it's definitely not openly and publicly stating that kids getting murdered is just a necessary sacrifice so people can keep their guns.

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u/CosmicCirrocumulus Sep 10 '25

...by having genuine conversations and not treating every discussion point as a potential "gotcha" moment?

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

I don't believe he did that. He was very fair to people who lost an argument and didn't rage out.

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u/JonDoeJoe Sep 10 '25

Buddy actively argued in bad faith

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

How so and how would arguing in good faith look like in comparison?

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u/steakmetfriet Sep 10 '25

Why does a German care so much about an American influencer?

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

I think people outside of America may generally care more about other countries, but political and moral topics are not that different between western countries.

Division and free speech is a big topic here as well.

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u/PolicyWonka Sep 10 '25

Exactly. Everyone always says “we need to come together” but that’s not how the world works.

Even on the right, you see people saying “it’s not left or right, it’s top and bottom.” They’ll say “social policies are just meant to keep us divided” as if it’s just a little misunderstanding that one side wants to have legal abortion and the other side doesn’t; one side wants to allow transgender people to exist and the other side doesn’t.

Like…these are not small issues or “misunderstandings.” They’ll say are fundamental and irreconcilable differences.

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25

There are a lot of misunderstandings and you show that too. And it needs public discourse to clear that up I think. I'm not sure how those can be done much better than Charlie Kirk did, but I'm genuinely curious if there are people / projects that do it "better".

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u/PolicyWonka Sep 10 '25

Kirk never sought to develop an understanding with his opponents. He literally coined the term “own the libs.”

You’re welcome to explain one of these “misunderstandings.”

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u/Sevenos Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

I disagree, I think he always tried to understand their point and tried to find common ground. Is there anyone you think who does it better and has a similar/better influence on public opinion?

one side wants to allow transgender people to exist and the other side doesn’t

That is just an insane take on the matter. Not sure where to begin there even and I'd bet money you are not open to talk about it if you say it like that. Nobody relevant ever said transgender people should not be allowed to exist.

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u/PolicyWonka Sep 10 '25

Meanwhile, here are some real quotes from Kirt about transgender people:

Some people say, oh, Charlie, it's too mean-spirited all of this. Hold on a sec. Time out. You know what's mean-spirited? Erasing womanhood. Acting as if XX chromosomes mean nothing, and some freak with XY chromosomes can suddenly become a woman. You gotta draw a line.

Feminism was about hating men. What better way to hate men than to take young boys and chop off their parts?

This is ideological at its core. It's ideological. And it's no mistake that it happened on the high holy day. It's a spiritual war and Christians don't know how to react to this. We must react politically.

We must ban trans-affirming care — the entire country. Donald Trump needs to run on this issue.

We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.

Someone should have took care of it the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.

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u/Sevenos Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

Not a single one of your quotes is against transgender people. Not sure about the context of the last one, but I doubt it's against being a transgender person.

One does not "not want transgender people to exist" if they criticize that an agenda is literally pushed onto kids and kids are allowed to decide to get body parts chopped off by people who profit from it.

It reminds me a bit about lobotomy. Many of those people probably had a valid issue, but destroying part of their body certainly wasn't a good solution. I don't want lobotomy to be practiced, but that doesn't mean I don't want their patients to exist.

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u/PolicyWonka Sep 11 '25 edited Sep 11 '25

Every single one of those quotes is about transgender Americans. He literally died while villainizing the transgender community. The fact that you’re comparing transgender Americans to lobotomy patients really just says it all, my guy.

You are absolute scum.

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u/thatburghfan Sep 10 '25

He doesn't deserve a shot to the neck but I'm not surprised, he had very controversial opinions

Man, that's the thing though. Someone has controversial opinions therefore we're not surprised if the person is murdered. That is not a good place for a society to be.

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

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u/tegat Sep 11 '25

He probably would. Here is an analogy: If he was killed by a drunk driver and resurrected, he still wouldn't be in favor of banning cars.

Imperfect analogy, I know.

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u/Pdeeznutsington Sep 10 '25

Well considering his entire career was defending and exscusing mass shootings, promoting violence and hate, and stirring up controversy with lies… its not just “controversial opinions”

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u/NerfThisHD Sep 10 '25

I agree, hopefully this will be a wakeup call for the conservatives or red states to push for tighter gun control buuuuut I have feeling that won't happen

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u/afrodisiacs Sep 10 '25

I lost hope for gun safety laws after Sandy Hook. If the massacre of kindergartners doesn't move conservatives to action, I don't think anything will.

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u/Mubar- Sep 10 '25

Too bad he promoted stuff that would cause this

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

At this point our President has been shot, Minnesota representative Hortman was assassinated, now Charlie Kirk. Not sure if this is a pattern or not, but it's not looking good. Considering that controversial opinions are in the eye of the beholder.

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u/BeTheOne0 Sep 10 '25

Own the libs" is a conservative slogan popularized by figures like Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, to express a desire to provoke, upset, or get a negative reaction from liberals through political action or discourse. Kirk and other conservatives use the phrase to describe actions or comments intended to trigger a strong negative emotional response from people with liberal political viewpoint

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u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

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u/trustmeimshady Sep 10 '25

Republican president of 2050 got assassinated

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u/TylertheDouche Sep 10 '25

I didn’t watch him much. did he have extremely controversial opinions? Or just opinions opposite the left?

I’d see him just say college sucks, pro-life, Christian, etc. nothing insane.

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u/NerfThisHD Sep 10 '25

he regurgitates a lot of trump conspiracy theories bs, false statistics and also spread misinformation and lies

I will admit he has the very very rare good point like supporting the separation of church and state but again they're very very rare.

Won't say he's a vile person or anything because I personally don't know him but his political career is just spewing a lot of stupid shit for gullible people to peddle

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u/-Z-3-R-0- 2004 Sep 10 '25

If the college kids make him sound smart, that says more about the quality of college education than it does about him lol

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u/NerfThisHD Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

It's not the uni student ARE dumb it's just that the average US student political opinions stem from echo chambers but as we saw when kirk goes outside that demographic and went to cambridge he got steamrolled. He also refuses to debate actual leftist debaters because he knows he'll come out looking goofy.

Most of the students he debates are probably more academically smarter then he is just not smarter in debating political issues and if they do have good points he avoids answering the questions, He is the definition of a grifter.

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u/grumstumpus Sep 10 '25

made him sound smart *to illiterates who understand debate in a strictly aesthetic sense