General News Thread

[ClaphamFox]

5 minutes ago, Bilo said:

Being honest, the far-right in the US hated him. If anyone thinks Kirk was the far-right, I'd suggest they look at the likes of 4chan, the Groyper movement, Nick Fuentes, the Proud Boys and some of those who were at Charlottesville. Kirk was a pretty mainstream conservative by American standards because their Overton Window is some way to the right of ours; in being so vocal about this, he'd made dangerous enemies on the left but just as many further right. Very premature and frankly dangerous to blame Democrats or 'the left' until we're in full possession of the facts.

Yep. It wouldn’t be surprising if it turns out that his assassin was a right-wing nut job who hated Kirk because of some perceived ‘betrayal’ of ultra-conservative values. But of course a left-wing extremist motivated by Kirk’s views on Israel, for example, cannot be ruled out either. 

Edited 11 September 2025 by ClaphamFox

[Mike Oxlong]

It's a shame that Trump's comments on this are inappropriately political and stir the pot even more 

 

He lays the blame for political related violence firmly at the the door of the "radical left" naming a list of republicans who were subject to attacks whilst omitting his own incitement in january 6th, the murders of Melissa Hortman and her husband, the shootings of John Hoffman and his wife and the attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband 

 

All of this violence is wrong but ever more predictable in the increasingly toxic environment of American politics 

 

 

[foxfanazer]

Those type of College Campus debates might be a thing of the past now too. Is anybody gonna risk being sat there in the open exposed to people who potentially want to do them harm?

 

Candice Owens and Ben Shapiro etc would be wise to obtain a little more security 

[lcfc sheff]

Those in the public eye will always be at risk, a sad reality whether you agree/disagree/ partly agree with his views. 
 

 

[RobHawk]

So they still don't know who killed him and they don't know why. Yet the potus, one of the most powerful men in the world has already turned it into a political football and it's the left who are bonkers. 

 

I'd never heard of this guy before if I'm honest and whilst it's sad, he's just one of around 12000 Americans who will be shot to death in 2025. That country has a problem and it seems he was a part of it. Didn't deserve to die for it, but you reap what you sow. 

[Bert]

And this is why I just can’t stand politics.
 

A man has lost his life and his wife and kids have not only got to live the rest of their lives without him, but have had to see it. You’ve got people celebrating his death, people arguing about right and left nonsense. Then you’ve got the conspiracy theorists coming out with all other kinds of stuff. It’s absolutely wild. 
 

 

[ARTY_FOX]

45 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

 

 

I'm kind of curious as to where all of this morally injured outrage towards apparent indifference (as opposed to condonement) regarding the violent shooting death of a human being was the last time there was a school shooting in the US. Or the time before that, and so on. 

 

I'll say again: the death of this man was tragic and in all likelihood pointless violence. But it is also simply the latest death in a litany of such violence, the names of which everyone on here (including me) and Kirk himself likely never even heard of, let alone brought themselves to care about. They aren't any less special because they occupy less rarefied political air than he did. 

 

So please, the self righteous pontificating (and I know what that is and if I need a reminder I'll look in a mirror) rings hollow. It's grim that Kirk is dead, but such violence is just another day in that country. 

 

NB. The two posts I picked above are examples of a theme, rather than singling out, for the record. 

I think its quite clear why I posted what I did to be honest. It was neither a left or right sided post. It was a human one. People need to do better. 

Edited 11 September 2025 by ARTY_FOX

[ALC Fox]

8 hours ago, StanSP said:

I have sympathy for his family who are left without a husband/father. They're the real victims here. 

 

I don't agree with Kirk's views or comments and don't ever believe anyone should be shot or killed for their opinions, not how it should be. Hatred and killing isn't the answer. 

 

Just like hatred and killing and threatening to burn asylum seekers' places of accommodation or homes isn't the way to go either. I fully get that the right side of politics will be absolutely fuming at what has happened today. And while it is tragic in some regards, they should probably look inwards at how their words and actions can have knock on effects to what people do. And that their own actions or stoking of violence isn't really the way to go about getting what you want...

 

Whoever has shot Kirk today is just as bad. It gains absolutely nothing taking the life of another just because they may hold opposing opinions to you. They've solved nothing. 

 

(I know there's been references to keeping politics out of it all, but it's nigh on impossible at the end of the day) 

100%.

 

Plenty of right-wing people may be radicalised by this because they now just assume the entire 'left' is a violent, murderous mob.

 

Plenty of left-wing people may have been radicalised by the riots after the Southport stabbing or the murders of Jo Cox and Melissa Hortman.

 

But in reality, your right-wing or left-wing friend or neighbour, the asylum seekers down the road or the people down the Conservative club are all likely to be decent people.

 

Let's stop being pulled further to the extremes by these incidents and our initial reactions.

[foxfanazer]

Anybody celebrating a person's murder as some sort of political victory loses any moral high ground imo

[bmt]

54 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

I think his point is that the right to bear arms means that  innocent people will die. He considered that a price worth paying for the safety aspect he believed that provided plus its free speech connections (which I don’t get).  The irony in that is obvious but having seen a few of his videos (I get a very wide algorithmic delivery before you ask) I’d be pretty sure that if you could ask him today at the pearly gates, he wouldn’t change his view. 

I agree with you, though I dont think he will be at the pearly gates. 

 

This is going to be so bad for USA, I was following it on the cesspit that is twitter yesterday and the statements from people on both sides were abhorrent.

 

So sad for his family, nobody deserves to go like that.

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, ARTY_FOX said:

I think its quite clear why I posted what I did to be honest. It was neither a left or right sided post. It was a human one. People need to do better. 

Indeed they do. As the post below yours states, as well. 

[leicsmac]

On topic, I think this column resonates some:

 

Today's fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University comes just three months after Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman was assassinated in her home -- two leaders from different parties and opposing ideological perspectives, both silenced by acts of political violence. Kirk, the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed while speaking at an event in Orem, Utah, while Hortman, a 55-year-old Democratic leader of the Minnesota House, was assassinated alongside her husband Mark in a politically motivated attack by a far-right extremist on June 14. The fatal shootings of Hortman and Kirk, a legislative leader and a political activist, are a stark reminder of how dangerous extremism and political animosity can become when left unchecked. 

Kirk was addressing a crowd at his "American Comeback Tour" event when he was killed. The right-wing political activist, whose organization promoted conservative politics on college campuses, had become one of the most prominent voices in the conservative youth movement. Three months earlier, Vance Boelter, a far-right extremist disguised as a law enforcement officer, killed Representative Hortman and her husband, and seriously wounded State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette. Authorities found a list in Boelter's vehicle containing nearly 70 potential targets, including abortion providers and Democratic lawmakers across multiple states. Both victims, Kirk and Hortman, represented the diverse range of political leaders now under threat.

The scope of this crisis cannot be ignored. According to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, between 2016 and 2025, there were 25 attacks and threats targeting elected officials, political candidates, judges and government employees that were motivated by partisan beliefs. For comparison, only two such incidents were reported in the two previous decades. The increase in partisan attacks spans the ideological spectrum but has done little to lower the temperature in political rhetoric. 

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, a Democrat whose home was attacked and set ablaze in April while his family slept inside, condemned today's tragedy in unequivocal terms: "Political violence has no place in our country. We must speak with moral clarity. The attack on Charlie Kirk is horrifying and this growing type of unconscionable violence cannot be allowed in our society".

The words and actions of our political leaders in the coming days will prove consequential. Lilliana Mason, Professor of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and co-author of "Radical American Partisanship: Mapping Violent Hostility, Its Causes, and the Consequences for Democracy," warns that how leaders respond to these attacks will determine whether violence escalates or subsides. 

"It really does depend on how leadership frames it for their supporters," Mason said. "To the extent that leaders are framing this as something that needs to be retaliated against, I think that creates a huge opportunity for really bad things to happen. If the cycle of retaliatory violence gets started, it's really hard to stop it."

Yet even as leaders call for unity, the challenge remains addressing the rhetoric that experts say fuels such violence. In a speech after Kirk's shooting today, Trump declared that Americans and the media need to “confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree.” However, to many Americans, Trump's words ring hollow. 

Trump has referred to political opponents as "vermin" that needed to be "[rooted] out"; called judges "monsters"; and, in a Memorial Day social media post, described those Americans who oppose his policies as "scum" and accused them of "trying to destroy our country." Trump's highly charged language explicitly demonizes his political opponents such as when he described them last October as an "enemy from within" that is "more dangerous than China, Russia, and all those countries." 

His aggressive, divisive, and dehumanizing rhetoric toward those who disagree with him -- often labelling them as "enemies" and "traitors" -- is viewed by many experts as inflaming such extremism and contributing to the normalization of political violence. An analysis of Trump's speeches over the past ten years by UCLA political scientists found that not only has his use of violent language increased over time but that it surpassed that of nearly all other politicians studied from democratic countries.

In addition to his often extremist rhetoric, Trump has demonstrated a willingness to absolve acts of physical violence to advance his political interests. In a deeply troubling indication of his priorities, Trump made pardoning the January 6 attackers one of his very first acts upon returning to office. On his first day in office, Trump granted full pardons to all those convicted in the January 6 attack, over 1,500 rioters in total, including the 123 individuals charged with using a deadly or dangerous weapon or causing serious bodily injury to a police officer.

Equally concerning is how political violence, once unleashed, can become a pretext for authoritarian overreach. History shows that leaders with autocratic tendencies often exploit acts of political violence to justify crackdowns on civil liberties, suppress dissent, and consolidate power. From the Reichstag Fire that enabled Hitler's rise to emergency powers, to modern strongmen who use security threats to silence opposition and restrict press freedoms, political violence creates a cycle where democratic norms erode from both ends.

A recent study by political scientist James Piazza found that countries where politicians used hate speech 'often' or 'extremely often' experienced an average of 107.9 domestic terrorist attacks compared to just 12.5 attacks in countries where politicians rarely used such language. Republican lawmakers have largely remained silent about or defended such rhetoric, despite warnings from security experts about its potential to inspire violence.

There is no question of whether politicians across the spectrum will condemn today's violence; the question remains, however, if they will take steps to end such harmful rhetoric, especially the flames of discord emanating from the nation's highest office, that is helping to drive such violent extremism.

As individuals and as a nation, our "task now is to not let the people at the extremes pull the rest of us over the edge with them," Dr. Garen Wintemute, the director of the Violence Prevention Research Program at UC Davis, urged in an interview today. "We need to make our rejection of political violence clear."

We wish strength and healing for Charlie Kirk's widow and his two children, as we do for Representative Melissa Hortman's two children who lost both parents just three months ago.

[RobHawk]

1 minute ago, ARTY_FOX said:

I think its quite clear why I posted what I did to be honest. It was a left or right sided post. It was a human one. People need to do better. 

People doing better in these situations fixes nothing. America needs to do better but it's broken and worst of all doesn't even realise it. Civil war is a real possibility over there in the next few years. 

 

I don't know about this guy, but trump et al use politics to divide, not bring together and that's the disgrace here not some random reaction on the internet. 

 

I said in my last post, around 12k gun deaths in America this year, what makes this one guy different when he himself said those deaths were worth it to protect second amendment rights. 

 

[leicsmac]

And yes, at the end of the day, we're all human, we have more in common than not, and more than enough problems without making up ugly and ultimately pointless ideological divides based on petty reasons. 

[RobHawk]

5 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

Anybody celebrating a person's murder as some sort of political victory loses any moral high ground imo

Who's celebrating? I've seen nothing of the sort...

[foxfanazer]

1 minute ago, RobHawk said:

Who's celebrating? I've seen nothing of the sort...

I don't mean on here. The cesspit that is X

[Samilktray]

The amount of extreme right wing nonsense I'm seeing on twitter seems to have ramped massively up over night. I only go on there for boobs and opta stats 

[bmt]

8 minutes ago, RobHawk said:

Who's celebrating? I've seen nothing of the sort...

Sorry but I've seen absolutely loads of this and I am very left leaning and strongly dislike Charlie Kirk.

[RobHawk]

7 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

I don't mean on here. The cesspit that is X

I don't do social media, foxestalk is all I've seen. Agree if it's happening on there 👍

[foxfanazer]

3 minutes ago, RobHawk said:

I don't do social media, foxestalk is all I've seen. Agree if it's happening on there 👍

I mean there was a certain poster on here leaving laughing emojis on every post including one about him being killed with his children in attendance but best not to give those sort of people attention I suppose 

[Tommy G]

6 minutes ago, bmt said:

Sorry but I've seen absolutely loads of this and I am very left leaning and strongly dislike Charlie Kirk.

Some people on here reacted positively last night but then fully retracted when called out on it - posts and reactions have been deleted but plenty of people saw.

[leicsmac]

And seeing as we're on the topic of political violence and people demanding grief and decorum about it:

 

Remember Heather Heyer.

[ARTY_FOX]

15 minutes ago, Tommy G said:

Some people on here reacted positively last night but then fully retracted when called out on it - posts and reactions have been deleted but plenty of people saw.

There's also posts where it doesn't take a genius to read between the lines. It's quite depressing tbh. 

[AKCJ]

9 hours ago, RonnieTodger said:

Insane that you can just scroll Twitter and that pops up on your feed. Incredibly grim viewing. 

Some of the stuff I have read on twitter this morning and last night is insane.

 

Thousands laughing at the situation, thousands calling for a "war against the libs", thousands sharing graphic videos of the situation etc...

[fox_up_north]

Considering several of their Presidents have been assassinated, even before social media, I'm amazed this doesn't happen more. 

 

The thing that really struck me from some of the aftermath footage was not the people running around in panic but those just casually sauntering, maybe even taking a video. 

 

It's just so normalised over there.