368
“THIS IS WAR”: Some right-wing figures call for retribution following Kirk killing
(www.motherjones.com)
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2025
368 points (96.2% liked)
News
32193 readers
2961 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
On one hand, I agree with the point. Political assassinations should be condemned by the right, and it shouldn't be acceptable to have people giving a pass on political grounds.
On the other hand, I was reading the comments on here after Kirk was shot, and almost without exception, people here were cheering. I saw one or two comments from people saying something like "political assassinations are bad", and people heavily downvoting them.
Now, okay. I can't prove that some of the users commenting and cheering on the assassination weren't, say, bots aimed at trying to create political division and polarization, though I doubt that the Threadiverse is likely the juciest of targets for that sort of thing; not a huge userbase. But my strong suspicion is that we are failing to meet the bar being asked of the right here.
I certainly see where you're coming from; there's a difference though.
Charlie Kirk was fighting to overturn the social contract; he didn't think the country has to accommodate LGB (and especially T) folks, atheists, Muslims, leftists, single women, et cetera. Hell, he loved political violence directed against Democrats.
People who break the social contract should not be surprised when they lose its protection.
Tolerance is not a paradox; it is a social construct. The difference between the assassination of the Minnesota state rep and the assassination of Charlie Kirk is that the Kirk was openly inciting violence against others. He rejected the social construct and was thus no longer protected by it.
And I'd bet if you read the comments in some fringe, right-leaning boards, you'd have heard people cheering for the governor being killed, or Pelosi being attacked, etc.
What matters is the response of those in charge. People are asking leadership to take action. No one gives a shit about random internet posters.
As an example, Biden put out a statement condemning the assassination attempt against Trump. Trump is calling for retribution against the Left here.
I'll celebrate the death if anyone who's entire existence is to being more pain, cruelty, and hatred into this world. CEO of an evil corporation? Spokesperson for a nazi propaganda network? Corrupt politician that has repeatedly voted against protecting minorities, rent control, of universal healthcare? They have all spread violence and misery to hundreds of millions of people because they thought they were untouchable.
You know Charlie Kirk repeatedly said dead children were a small price to pay for the second amendment?
Do you weep for dead Nazis? I don't.
Yeah, the problem I'm seeing now is that everyone on the right is seeing the left's reaction. And now they don't care if the shooter actually was someone from the left or not.
The response they see is all they need to justify any reaction. Of course they're conveniently forgetting their own response (and Charlie Kirk's response) to Pelosi's attacker.
Like they needed to justify it...
I’m of two minds about celebrating his death, in that I do, but I agree that people cheering vigilante killings is a sign of an unhealthy society. We definitely have an unhealthy society, and it seems like there’s not a functioning justice system for prosecuting people who foment hatred or commit societal murder, but this could lead to an American Reign of Terror, which would obviously be tragic.
That said, there’s a difference between being glad someone’s gone and declaring war on half of the political spectrum. I won’t say it definitely didn’t happen, but I didn’t see anyone suggesting that we take revenge for that senator, even on Lemmy. Certainly not in as widespread a manner as I’m now seeing it for Charlie Kirk.
Lemmykins are incredibly hypocritical.
And of course the right winger regurgitates the old moronic "So much for the tolerant left".
Read up on the paradox of tolerance.
Swing and a miss.
No right minded person is going to give empathy for a dead Nazi, but look at you go.
Stop feeding the troll. Block it and move on.
Strike two!
I hope you don't fall off all the way up there bud
And he's out. Never got close to being right, but he tried anyway.
Its good to know you care about the kind of people who advocate for child murder and child rape. You're totally the most moral person of them all.
You're just virtue signaling now.
And you should sdbiybt
Maybe, yeah. But I'm thinking more that it's that they're human, and maybe humans on both sides aren't all that great at holding themselves to that bar. Like, maybe it's not that Threadiverse users are particularly abnormal as people go, and more that the normal person isn't very good at refraining from giving "their side" a pass.
Oh, you're absolutely right. Both sides absolutely think "I'm going God's righteous work" and that the other side is simply "evil". The hyper-partisanship has been crazy for some time on both sides. And then along comes a sociopath authoritarian (Trump) to just kick it all up to 11...