[bccdee]

A position like his doesn't really take well to steelmanning… It's not really the kind of viewpoint that's meant to be spelled out explicitly. You're supposed to shroud it in euphemisms.

I guess the steelmanned version of his beliefs would be something like, "racial and sexual minorities are an enemy to the white Americans who own this country; they threaten things we value about our culture and society, and we have no obligation to tolerate or accommodate them if we don't want to."

He spoke out against the Civil Rights act. He said the "Great Replacement" conspiracy theory (that immigration is a deliberate attempt to dilute and ultimately replace the white race) is "not a theory, it's a reality." He said the Levitican prescription to stone gay men is "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters." (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk#Social_policy)

Coverage of Kirk's killing has largely skirted around his views, because to describe them at all feels like speaking ill of the dead. If you bring up the fact that Kirk was a loathsome hatemonger, it somewhat tempers your message that political violence is never acceptable

[collingreen]

I'm comfortable saying both that charlie kirk was a loathsome hatemonger and that he also shouldn't have been murdered. This hurts everyone.

[TheCoelacanth]

He absolutely shouldn't have been murdered and the rise of political violence is terrifying for the country's future.

However, he has directly stated that empathy is bad and that shooting victims are an acceptable price to pay to avoid gun control.

I refuse to feel sympathy for someone who vigorously argued against doing anything to prevent what happened to him and who vigorously argued against caring about the people it happened to.

[daveidol]

He never once stated that “empathy is bad”. He had plenty of bad takes, but no need to misrepresent.

He was simply saying that the term empathy is overused vs sympathy

[dragonwriter]

The terms mean different things, and he is very clear that one is good and the other is bad in his eyes, and that’t the reason for his opposition to the use of the one term.

[diogenescynic]

His argument was that we shouldn't disarm just because evil exists and guns can be mis-used. Using that as a way to suggest his death is justified or whatever people are implying is just gross and disgusting. Dude was 31 years old and had 2 young kids and simply went and talked to people. He was assassinated in front of his family for nothing more than talking. Nothing that he ever did was even close to deserving violence. If people can't take someone politely debating their ideas, then they're a whiny entitled baby and they're the problem.

[soupbowl]

People that don't like Charlie don't need to have sympathy for him, but not having sympathy and being douche bags in mass is something totally different.

"I can't stand the word empathy, actually," he continued. "I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That's a separate topic for a different time."

[Yeul]

How can you not be a douche bag to someone who wants to kill you? How are homosexuals supposed to feel about this guy?

[soupbowl]

Ah yes... he wanted all homosexuals murdered[citation needed]. Good thing the good guys killed him eh?

[ratelimitsteve]

As one of the people against whom his hate was routinely monged, I agree wholeheartedly. I won't mourn him personally because he was proud to tell us all how thrilled he would be if me and my partner got what he got, but I'm also not gonna engage in the gloating and performative grossness that the more hideously online seem to enjoy whether they're left or right. The people I love aren't safer because of this. In fact, we've already been tried and found guilty.

[bccdee]

I agree wholeheartedly.

[diogenescynic]

He wasn't even a hate monger though? Just because he was a republican means he's a hate monger and racist? I don't get it. I haven't seen one person accusing him of this stuff actually cite a quote that seemed like hate speech or racism? They just don't like facts being used in a debate that hurt their feeling. It's ridiculous. People need to grow up. There is a complete lack of maturity on the part of his critics. They want to live in a censored thought bubble and don't value the first amendment (or seem to understand it).

[bccdee]

> I haven't seen one person accusing him of this stuff actually cite a quote that seemed like hate speech or racism?

You can peruse the "political views" section on his Wikipedia page if you want something comprehensive, but here's an example for you to chew on:

In one podcast interview, Kirk cited Leviticus 20:18 (he paraphrases as "if thou liest with another man, thou shalt be stoned") and called it "God's perfect law when it comes to sexual matters." That's a pretty explicit endorsement of the death penalty for sodomy. If that isn't hate speech, what is?

> They [...] don't value the first amendment (or seem to understand it).

I think you're the one misunderstanding it. The first amendment protects people from government censorship, not infamy and disgrace.

[zahlman]

> A position like his doesn't really take well to steelmanning… It's not really the kind of viewpoint that's meant to be spelled out explicitly. You're supposed to shroud it in euphemisms.

> I guess the steelmanned version of his beliefs would be something like, "racial and sexual minorities are an enemy to the white Americans who own this country; they threaten things we value about our culture and society, and we have no obligation to tolerate or accommodate them if we don't want to."

What you are doing here is quite literally the opposite of steelmanning.

[dnissley]

Here's an attempt to steelman just one of the things you bring up: the great replacement theory.

The United States, like many developed nations, is experiencing a fertility crisis: it doesn't produce enough families and resulting children to sustain it's current population.

The US could take steps to address the underlying problems that result in declining fertility for it's current population, but it's unlikely to do so for several reasons that all boil down to political realities where the people that are most incentivized to vote (retired people who earn social security) would probably bear the brunt of the (significant) costs of such solutions. See the idea of "concentrated benefits, diffuse costs".

So instead the US uses immigration to fill the gap left by declining fertility rates (an option not equally available to all developed countries), resulting in young US citizens continuing to struggle to form families, and producing a fraying of the social fabric that such an inability to form families is likely to have on a society.

So you can see why some people would be duped into such a conspiracy theory, which purports to explain what people are seeing with their very eyes.

[projektfu]

That's not really steelmanning. You can't steelman a position by saying it's not the real position but it dupes the rubes.

The great replacement theory is the theory that there is an intentional effort to dilute or replace the capital-W White, meaning the historical English/Scottish/Scotch Irish, population of the US, with immigrants and former slaves, and it usually involves a part that says that it is being done to weaken the country against its international competitors. A third part that is usually involved is that the process is being facilitated by and for the benefit of people like "international bankers", "cosmopolitans", "elites", etc., terms which have an antisemitic history.

To steelman it, you would have to steelman at least the intentional dilution part. Not just to say that it is hard to meet our demand for labor without immigration but that someone is coordinating it. Further, I don't think it has any meaning without the part that says it is being done to weaken the country, which you would have to show that not only would it weaken the country, but that is the intention of these coordinators.

Without that, you just have a demographic argument. If "Whites" do not have many children, and the population would otherwise shrink as a whole, while immigration is needed to satisfy demand for labor, then their proportion will shrink, but it is not "great replacement" without it being intentional/directed.

[dnissley]

It is what I consider steelmanning.

Not of the conspiracy itself (I'm not interested in that, since the literal version isn't even well agreed upon by most of its believers) but of the observable pressures that make the conspiracy attractive.

I think I could convince an average believer in the great replacement theory (who would be a casual believer that doesn't know many of the specific details you've listed at length of the "official" version) that my restatement of the issue is what they're actually concerned about. In fact, I have had productive conversations with right wingers who express such a casual belief in this theory by telling them what I've written here in the comment you're replying to.

[akimbostrawman]

>So instead the US uses immigration to fill the gap left by declining fertility rates

Because that is working so good for Europe? At some point you need to understand that replacing a population is not the solution for low fertility population.

[dnissley]

I think we agree, but in case I wasn't clear I will restate this more plainly: patching over the problem of fertility with immigration is toxic to the social fabric of a nation.

[johnnyanmac]

If anyone reads this and think it's not the fault of the politicians, or at least the boomers for "not wanting to help their children/grandchildren", it's pretty clear that their goal wasn't to solve the fertility crisis.

On top of that I don't even think most boomers need to be inconvininced. Increase capital taxes, remove the ceiling for SS taxes, give wokers a 4 day workweek, raise minimum wage, invest in 3rd places. A few steps give people the time and energy to meet and make families.

But it seems like we really will just go to civil war before we make sure rich people contribute to the nation.

[dnissley]

I disagree that the measures you're suggesting will move the needle on fertility, since they will be enjoyed by singles, dinks, and families alike.

If you want more children you have to reward mothers directly and significantly in line with their potential earnings. Not a paltry few thousand dollars, but more than enough to offset the price of daycare in hcol cities. I want to mimic social security but for families, and that means concentrated benefits (that directly incentivize voting turnout and interest group formation).

At the same time I want our country to continue to be competitive globally when it comes to business, and not turn into whatever Europe has become. We can't just add this as a line item to our budget. We are not that rich and we have financial problems that are looming.

[mostertoaster]

If a Baptist tells me I’m sinning because I smoke and drink whiskey, I don’t hate him, I just dismiss him. If Charlie Kirk said a male cannot be a woman, then the response was hate and was felt to be completely justified.

The hate mongering is from those who bow down to the zeitgeist of the age.

My hope is that Charlie Kirk bravely speaking the truth in the face of so much hate, even though it cost him his life, inspires many more to not fear for their lives to speak the truth, and raise their kids to be the same, until society turns and rejects what is false.