Frames of reference have all changed - for some of us

I don't have much of a "theme" for today's thread. I have been reading from some sources that normally do not catch my attention, but I have had a hard time bringing my thoughts together.

However, I have noticed that lefties on my social media have found it easy to maintain the position that Charlie Kirk was a "hater". For example, this article from The Guardian was framed by some of them as a POSITIVE piece about Charlie Kirk: Virulent debater and clickbait savant: how Charlie Kirk pushed a new generation to the right

What is a virulent debater????

The far-right activist, who was fatally shot this week in Utah, galvanized young conservatives through online antics and inflammatory views

Of course, none of his ideological opponents' views were inflammatory. Nor their debating techniques.

Fortunately, some on the left have been coming around.

Being Inflammatory on Campus

Stephen Green:

WE HAVE A PROBLEM: Student support for violence, bans on ‘controversial’ speech hits ‘record highs’ in annual survey. “More than a third of students would ‘at least rarely’ accept the use of violence to stop a campus speech (34%), 10 percentage points higher than its 2021 survey, while majorities would block other students from attending such a speech (54% versus 41% in 2021) and shout down a speaker (71% from 66%), all ‘record highs.'”

The problem is that the universities accept and teach these attitudes.

Are we allowing kids to think that they could become legends for killing people designated as oppressors?

What killed Charlie Kirk… pic.twitter.com/0yWbR6YDtA

— Elica Le Bon الیکا‌ ل بن (@elicalebon) September 11, 2025

From the comment thread:

They told us that words are violence. That silence is violence. That speech must be policed, feelings must be protected, and disagreement is a form of oppression. But somehow, actual violence? Stabbings, riots, threats, mobs, glorifying terrorism - that gets a free pass. Or worse, a blue check and a book deal. We’re watching the collapse of moral clarity in real time. The same people who light candles every September 11 and post “never forget” are now cheering for movements that chant “globalize the intifada” - a phrase that, in practice, means suicide bombings, knife attacks, and rockets fired at kindergartens. We saw it on October 7. We’ve seen it for 20 years. And yet, those who say “free Palestine” with no qualifiers are treated like moral leaders, while those who raise concerns about Hamas, radical Islam, or jihadist slogans are treated like bigots. Look at who gets promoted. You’ve got an openly radical academic like Mohamed Mamdani - who supported Hamas “resistance,” called the NYPD a terrorist organization, and praised violent uprisings -running for mayor of New York. The city that buried thousands after 9/11 is now seriously entertaining putting a pro-intifada ideologue in charge of its police and schools. This isn’t progress. It’s surrender. And now? We have people getting murdered for the crime of being conservative and for holding the wrong views.

Quotes

Charlie Kirk seemed to be keeping his priorities in mind. Do you remember the few moments when it was thought that he might survive, but be paralyzed, sort of like Dennis Prager? This is Dennis, with some thoughts about Charlie:

As an American, we have lost the most articulate spokesman for America and its unique value system—a country founded to be free, based on Jerusalem and Athens, the Judeo-Christian value system and the Greek emphasis on logic and reason. Charlie was a uniquely gifted individual who, in his teens, created the largest movement of young Americans committed to preserving and growing America and its ideals. He tirelessly went from campus to campus, from Oxford to Utah, dialoging with any student who wished to debate him. Using his vast reservoir of facts and his exceptionally speedy and articulate mind, he gave them what seemed to be unlimited amounts of time, and then calmy eviscerated all their anti-American, anti-Western, and anti-Judeo-Christian positions. I watched an inordinate number of these exchanges and thanked God that Charlie Kirk was there to do this work. America’s youth in particular have lost a moral and intellectual leader, one who would, perhaps, have one day become their president.

As a committed Jew, I thank God regularly that a non-Jew, a committed Christian, became one of the few great public spokesmen on behalf of Israel and the Jewish communities outside of Israel. Few Jews could match Charlie’s knowledge and eloquent arguments on behalf of those two entities.

As Dennis, I have lost a very close friend. Charlie repeatedly visited me in the various hospitals that I have been in since November 12 of last year, when I suffered a catastrophic fall which has left me paralyzed. When members of the nursing staff heard that Charlie Kirk was visiting me, my room became the most popular one in the hospital. Charlie brought me the manuscript of his forthcoming book arguing that everyone—Christians as well as Jews—should observe Shabbat, the Jewish Sabbath, just as he and his family had begun to do from Friday sundown to Saturday sundown. It is a measure of our close relationship that he dedicated the book to me. His brilliant exposition of these arguments provide clear evidence for the non-necessity of a college education for most young Americans.

My heart breaks for his young widow, Erika, and for his two children, who have lost as great a man and a father as children can have. And for Charlie, who did not live to see them grow up. For one of the first times in my 20 years with my wife, Sue, I have seen her sob uncontrollably. The Prager home is in deep mourning, as are the homes of countless Americans. The loss to us personally and to the country generally is immeasurable.

Dennis Prager

Hard for me to see how employers can bear the liability now of keeping on board anyone who expresses deadly wishes for another or celebrates the death of another.

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) September 11, 2025

And what about tenured professors?

Music

Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing

Hope you have something nice planned for this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, September 6, The Charge of the CIA and the Storytellers

Heard anything new about Ukraine this week?

Comments are closed so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

posted by K.T. at 11:17 AM

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