by liberal japonicus
I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which took place at Utah Valley University, a public university. I had never heard of the university, but wikipedia tells me that it is the largest university by enrollment in Utah. The person who has been arrested for the assassination, Tyler Robinson, also was from Utah and attended Utah State during the COVID pandemic. While I’m not following all this closely, it looks like an internecine conflict between Kirk and a group known as the Groyper Army, which is focussed around Nick Fuentes. Unfortunately, initial reports linked markings on Robinson’s cartridges as indicating some trans agenda, pushed most notably by the Wall Street Journal, or an antifa agenda, suggested by AP. However, it is more likely that the markings are related to video games and other memes.
I have only seen the news stories pop up as I’ve been working on ObWi, but I thought it was unlikely that the person was trans or antifa. I’m not on Twitter/X and the main thing I saw was my facebook feed filled with posts related to Kirk. while I can’t be positive, the large number were expressing horror and feeling like this was some sort of tipping point. My facebook friends can be roughly put into 4 groups, family, people from my hometown in Mississippi, Japanese people here in Japan, usually connected to school or teaching, and foreigners here in Japan, similarly connected.
While the idea that the algorithm made him is not an argument I want to make, I am wondering if the stuff that facebook throws at me is connected. A couple of things that I click on from time to time are wuxia clips, which are historical kungfu drama, Korean film clips, which usually involve someone being bullied fighting back. From there, I get a lot of MMA and a genre of what I call payback videos, where someone does something and then gets karmic retribution. I also got a chunk of courtroom dramas, where some big denouement occurs. Also, some time ago, I was getting these AI slop posts highlighting someone’s bravery and heroism. It wasn’t necessarily confined to military episodes, though they were there. It was often how someone, often some Hollywood star or celebrity (Robin Williams seemed to have been a favorite) took time out of their schedule and ‘outside the glare of the spotlights’, carried out some profoundly charitable action. I can imagine that other people get other stuff, but I’m wondering if those paeans to humanity are part of a set up.
In judo, there is a concept called kuzushi, which is often translated as unbalancing, though is more that simply that. It is the action of making the opponent somehow over commit so that you can then throw them. While all the noise is about Charlie Kirk (and folks are welcome to talk about that), I’m wondering if all of these tributes to the humanity are just kuzushi to get us off balance. What that balance is, I’m not sure, but whatever it is, the algorithm seems to know.
Hollywood star or celebrity (Robin Williams seemed to have been a favorite) took time out of their schedule and ‘outside the glare of the spotlights’, carried out some profoundly charitable action.
I’ve encountered such “just so” stories on YouTube. Recently, there’s been a spate of AI-narrated videos on the Axis prisoners of war experiences in POW camps in the U.S. during and after WWII.
I hadn’t paid much attention to Charlie Kirk. While I didn’t agree with many of his ideas and policies, he seemed to be an open and honest advocate for them. He appeared to be all in on freedom of speech, unlike the many freedom of speech hypocrites on the Right.
I’m not so sure about that Charles. He got his start with a watchlist against university professors
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Professor_Watchlist
The watchlist is still up.
I just watched a video where the watchlist was referenced. Since I hadn’t paid much attention to him before, I may be influenced by some post-death whitewashing.
We really need to bring GIGO back into daily conversation and peoples’ general awareness.
Not just the concept that original premises shape the reliability of output from the very start, but a concept of being extremely skeptical about the reliability of any information that really turns your crank.
I am old enough to remember when your choice of Blogger or Typepad said something about you, but I don’t remember what that was … maybe 2003?
It is our duty today to remind everyone what the Bushes left us: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito. Oh, and hundreds of thousands of dead or broke (or both!) people.
Never forgive, never forget.
I knew barely anything about Charlie Kirk, but reading some of the absolutely appalling things he has said and advocated, I was truly revolted. This doesn’t of course mean that I rejoice in or welcome his assassination; the political and ideological polarisation in America is quite terrifying enough, without bringing murder into it. What really scares me is the moving of the Overton Window; because of Kirk and people like him it seems increasingly possible to insult people’s character and intelligence on the basis of their race and attract millions of fans and followers as a consequence. And, on the same Overton Window issue, normalising discussion of whether women should have the right to vote really scares me:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/14/opinion/douglas-wilson-evangelical-hegseth.html?unlocked_article_code=1.l08.9djO.hh9sD539663c&smid=url-share
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/13/womens-suffrage-week-in-patriarchy
My comment on this is apparently “awaiting moderation”. Maybe because it has links?
I have paid no attention to Kirk either, beyond what various liberal blogs would say about him, and now his canonization as a “free speech” advocate. Thos elevation has required everyone to ignore the content of his speech, which is a requirement for what I’d call free speech absolutism, exemplified by the Nazi march through Skokie IL back in the 70-s supported by the ACLU. There’s an assumption in absolutism that the answer to free hate speech is more speech, which rests on an assumption of relative equality of speech. Don’t like Kirk’s speech? Ask your dad and a few billionaires for money to start your own Turning Point, and see if you can get MSNBC (or whatever they’re called now) and the Democratic party to hype it.
Kirk’s speech is an example of how speech can be leveraged into power, which is where free speech absolutism gets very fuzzy. Now you’re defending Kirk’s right to weild power, not just speech, and Kirk, like Rush Limbaugh, was very good at his chosen profession of using speech, and weilded a lot of power within the Republican party.
Charlie Kirk organized a hate campaign against my sister’s Christian church for the “crime” of being woke. They were subjected to weeks of death threats and had to hold their events and services at a different church for a couple of months.
That was maybe five years ago? Charlie’s role in American politics is to popularize fascism by sticking a smiley face on it. He was an overt hater when younger, but more recently promoted a persona of the nice reasonable guy who talks about traditional values, patriotism, the importance of family blah blah to suck people in and then dishes up the openly racist stuff once they are inside a ways. He is heavily recruiting within the evangelical movement.
I am sure about him. He was a professional hate propagandist who organized campaigns of intimidation against individuals and groups. I posted about his attack on my sister’s church below, but my comment is in moderation.
Partly checking on how things work here.
the idea that the algorithm made him is not an argument I want to make,
I get really tired of the suggestions that people have no agency. Sure, if you immerse yourself in crazy, it may make you crazy (or crazier). But nobody forced you to go there. And nobody forced you to play out computer games in the real world on real people.
One could as well argue that Kavanaugh raped a girl while he was in college because he was immersed in a frat boy culture which encouraged that kind of behavior.
None of which is to suggest that the algorithms used by web browsers and search engines are not deeply problematic. But you’re still responsible for your own actions.
Kirk used his notions of civil discourse and open debate as cover for his bigotry. When I hear “Prove Me Wrong,” I can only wonder why a normal person would need someone to prove such horrible ideas wrong.
Free speech absolutism requires supporting someone’s “right” to, as the classic example has it, “falsely shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”. Because that’s what inciting violence, whether it is done explicitly or implicitly, amounts to.
Once you recognize how nonsensical that is, people like Kirk or Limbaugh are seen to be the sociopaths that they are.
I see from the Excelsior thread that posts with links do not automatically go into moderation. So maybe it’s to do with anything tagged “Charlie Kirk”, which wonkie’s 5.55 might suggest? Does anybody know how this works – maybe it’s because it’s a new blog site for us, or is it because Big Brother is watching?
After careful deliberation, I have concluded that my sympathy for Charlie Kirk is 1.42 times the sympathy He, Trump expressed for Melissa Hortman and her husband. MAGAts are invited to do the math.
I give Saint Charles of Kirk credit for one thing: unlike the gun fetishists we used to joust with on the old ObWi, he was willing to admit that an occasional massacre is the unavoidable cost of, and an acceptable price to pay for, our god-given 2nd Amendment.
–TP
I’m trying to guess how many of the people coming out of the woodwork to extol Kirk’s virtue on social media since the shooting had much of an idea who he was or what he had to say before he was killed. I know a number of politically “conservative” people who are quick to form opinions and spout them off, but who aren’t truly politically engaged or well informed. I could be underestimating how much he would have shown up on their feeds over the last few years, though, given their interests and clicking habits.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/15/nx-s1-5542239/charlie-kirks-chair-is-empty-can-maga-harness-his-movement
Vance hosting Kirk’s podcast seems a natural development. I also didn’t realize that Kirk’s wife’s speech was also ‘from’ the podcast, as a livestream.
What I believe the algorithm is doing – and by that, I mean what the media oligarchs are doing – is destroying real world communities (churches excepted) and then pushing hard to take over the para-social communities that exist on the Internet to replace those communities with hollowed out versions that are mostly propaganda. Kirk was very good at creating those para-social communities and attracting broken, lonely, powerless people to them, then giving them scapegoats to target with their outrage.
Approval. Sense of belonging. In-group prestige through symbolic action. Very heady brew for young minds.
Vance is aiming hard for that space at the moment. I don’t think he can hold it. I hope he can’t.
We’re going to get violence either way, but I’d rather it no have any direction or momentum. Better static than current.
Meanwhile, since the UC itself is too busy running scared as the Yam of Grievance and his cabal seek to destroy higher education, looks like all of us involved in the actual educational mandate of the schools will have to fight this bullshit ourselves.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-09-16/university-of-california-faculty-sue-trump-over-ucla-fine-research-cuts
Especially galling when so many of us have so few protections, employment or physical, in the first place. We are exposed while UCOP and the Regents dither and appease.
I’ll admit, I’m a bit nervous going back to teaching in a couple weeks while the right is this riled up and screaming bloody murder against universities as if we had a god damned thing to do with the escalating political violence. Campuses are not safe. And now the Vice President of the United States is personally advocating for a doxxing campaign against us.
And my doctor wonders why my blood pressure has gone up since last exam.
Look.
The fuck.
Around.
Don’t overlook the fact that Kirk supped deep from the financial side of the wingnut rage machine. He was very well connected with big time funding doners. The grift…it’s always there. Othewise Kirk would just be another wingnut hater with an insignificant following….a more polished turd, if you will.
Read page 8 for a load of self-incrimination.
Read the Charges Against Tyler Robinson
One youtube commenter succinctly put my thoughts on the current RW adulation of Kirk into just 5 words: “They found their Horst Wessel.”
And their renewed attempts to blame George Soros for everything conjured up another name: Emmanuel Goldstein. The Orbanization (pun unavoidable) of the US is rapidly succeeding.
Hartmut, great minds. I’m working on a post about this and it should be up soon.