Yesterday, the United States entered a new and chilling stage of what I have called the “age of rage.” After two attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump, leading conservative leader Charlie Kirk, father of two, was gunned down at a campus event at Utah Valley University. I learned the news while I was in Prague to speak on my book,“The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” and the growing attacks on free speech around the world. I never imagined that I would be speaking about Charlie’s murder and what it represents for free speech.
I cannot claim to have been a close friend of Charlie Kirk, but I knew him and respected him. In his relatively short life, Charlie energized a generation of conservative college students at a time of intense liberal orthodoxy and intolerance.
Kirk came up with the brilliant idea of challenging liberals to simply debate issues from abortion to immigration. His group would go to campuses and invite debate with signs reading “prove me wrong” and encourage liberals to engage in dialogue rather than violence.
The left had particular reason to hate Kirk. Campuses have long been the bastions of the left, reinforced by faculties which now have few, if any, conservatives or Republicans. Higher education has long been an incubator for intolerance; shaping a generation of speech phobics who shout down or attack those with opposing views.
Kirk struck at the heart of that power base. Polls show that most students do not feel comfortable speaking about their values in our universities and many conservatives hide their views to avoid retaliation from faculty and students.
Kirk was changing that but showing students that they could be open and bold about their views. He told them that they did not have to yield to orthodoxy and the groupthink. Now he’s dead.
What is most chilling about the murder of Charlie Kirk is that it was not in the least surprising. Not anymore.
The response to TPUSA was all too often rage and violence. Liberals and anti-free speech groups like Antifa would trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently, at UC Davis, police simply watched as a TPUSA tent was torn apart and the tent carried off.
Violent speech has long been acceptable on campuses so long as it targets conservatives. Teachers have called for others to “take out” Trump supporters and for the Secret Service to assassinate him.
University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, “The time for this is over!”
At universities, professors have called for “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters, and supporting the attempted assassination of President Trump. One professor who declared that there is “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez trashed a pro-life display of students, telling the students that “This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
When the students tried to engage the professor and apologized for upsetting her, Rodríguez yelled, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.
Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack on students to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez. It only fired her after she later chased reporters with a machete. She was then hired by another college. She was shown in a later rally exciting the group with references to “slitting the master’s throat.”
At the University of California Santa Barbara, they did not even bother to fire a professor who pleaded guilty to assaulting pro-life students on campus. Professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young. She was later honored as a model for women advocates at the University of Oregon.
In my book, I detail prior “ages of rage,” including periods of political violence by anarchists, socialists, and other groups. I previously warned that we were not only following this same trajectory, but it was accelerating. The reason is the curious nature of rage:
“What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts; flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths.
Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. The difference between rage and reason is often one’s own views. If one agrees with the underlying grievance, rage is viewed as passion or justified fury at injustice. If one disagrees with those views, it takes on a more threatening and unhinged quality. We seem to spend much of our time today raging at each other. Despite the amplification of views on both sides, there is also an increasing intolerance for opposing views. Those views are treated as simply harmful and offensive—and, therefore, intolerable. Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”
That addiction to rage has now claimed another victim who had the audacity to speak boldly and openly about his conservative views. What will follow will be the usual perfunctory expressions of sympathy and denouncing of violence by the very politicians who have fueled the rage.
In recent months, some of us have warned Democratic politicians about their violent rhetoric. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) has called for people to take to the streets to save democracy and posted a picture brandishing a baseball bat.
Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. Liberal sites sell Antifa items to celebrate the violent group.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.” It follows other violent rhetoric from Democratic leaders.
One House member explained to Axios, “Some of [our supporters] have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Yet another admitted that constituents have told them to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.” Others reported that liberals are talking about the need “to storm the White House and stuff like that.”
In one encounter, a lawmaker recounted that “I actually said in a meeting, ‘When they light a fire, my thought is to grab an extinguisher’. And someone at the table said, ‘Have you tried gasoline?’”
Some have. Protesters are burning cars, dealerships, and even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police. We have also seen a massive increase in attacks on ICE officers, who are now covering their faces to avoid doxxing or retaliation against themselves or their families. The left has rolled out guillotines and chanted “We got the guillotine, you better run.”
Just before he was shot at Utah Valley University, Kirk rallied the group with its signature chant of “prove me wrong.” The response was to kill Charlie Kirk.
His death could succeed in forcing the thousands of conservative and libertarian students back into the shadows of our campuses and classrooms. We cannot allow that to happen. Charlie Kirk challenged not just the left to debate but the right to be heard in higher education.
Yes, this is an age of rage. However, amidst the rage and the violence, there are a special few who have defied the threats and the attacks. The writer George Bernard Shaw once said that unreasonable people expect the world to conform to them. He then added that that was why all history is made by unreasonable people.
Kirk was one of those wonderfully unreasonable people who refused to yield; refused to be silenced. Despite unrelenting attacks by the media and the establishment, he remained undeterred and unbowed. Students need to remember not how Kirk died, but why he died. His loss is Charlie’s final challenge to all those today wringing their hands and muttering the usual expressions of shocked regret. Kirk would likely say, “prove it.” Speak. Defy those who spend their time silencing others rather than speaking themselves. If you want to honor Charlie Kirk, speak out, speak boldly on both the right and the left. Prove them wrong.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
The irony of the cowardly leftist bullshit and fascist name-calling is you don’t understand the political spectrum. It’s not what you unthinkingly believe because liberal historians created it to hide themselves and disassociate themselves from some of the worst humans to ever exist. Just liberal psychologists buried liberal authoritarianism and totalitarianism until a decade ago when it became so obvious they finally had to address it.
The political spectrum is about CONTROL. It’s goes like this:
Anarchy
Libertarianism
Classic Liberalism
Republicanism
Moderate Democrats
Leftist Democrats
Socialists/Fascists/Communists/Totalitarians
Fascists, Commies, etc. do things like:
Reeducation camps (like Hillary Clinton and other leftists have called for) and Castro, Stalin & Mao created.
Ministries of Truth (that Obama set up and Biden further implanted) like the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda set up by the Nazis.
Propaganda Ministries and controlled publications (like Pravda (USSR), Ministry of Truth in China, Bidens’ Disinformation Governance Board in the US.
Jailing, execution or assassination of political opponents (like Charlie Kirk) as done by Stalin, Putin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro.
Censorship (Biden Administration, much of leftist America and every tin-pot Socialist and Fascist out there) such is as in the USSR, Fascist Italy, Communist Cuba, etc.
Disarming the Population (all of them, including American liberals).
Centralization of Power (the ultimate control mechanism).
The Utility of Violence (riots such as BLM, Antifa, the Nazis, the Proletariats in Russia, the Chinese Peasants, etc.) to accomplish their ends.
Single Party aspirations of accomplishment (CCP, the Nazis, the desire to flood the US with illegals so they will become pro-Democrat, also they pad the census rolls giving Dems more power).
Permanent war.
Permanent revolution and struggle against the ‘internal enemy.’
The Politics of ENVY and DEMONIZATION.
Lot of Democrat of stuff in there. Every single factor you see in that list is a factor of socialist,/nazi/totalitarian behavior. And the Democrats dip into that way, far more than any Republican or Charlie Kirk ever has.
Soooooo the murderer shot Mr. Kirk because he wasn’t far-right enough and was frustrated with Mr. Kirk for wanting to debate with the left, for not being fully anti-Israel. He wasn’t a leftie, or a Dem, or a trans-kid….the assassin followed Laura Loomer and liked her recent tweet that Kirk wasn’t a true Trump supporter. He was a groyper. There weren’t pro-trans messages on his bullets, but game-associated memes. He was an extremely online kid, indoctrinated by extreme far-right rhetoric. And yet Mr. Turley spent a good portion of his essay blaming Democrats for this – and in the same breath criticizes those who fan the flames of partisan rage? Will he have the courage to retract his insinuations? It’s screed like this – written before anybody knew anything – that only poured gasoline on a horrific fire that was Mr. Kirks tragic murder.
What? His bullets had leftist antifa slogans written on them. Just like the tranced shooter in the Catholic school a few weeks ago in my state. He’s also photographed at pride marches with the pride and trans flag. He wore a costume dragging Trump with a gunman next to him. You Marx ideology of trying to project onto the opposition what you do is failing. You people opened a can of worms. Your rhetoric and that of the Democrat party, and the propaganda from their media labeling anyone that disagrees with them fascist, and your assault on free speech is finished. You cant defend your positions in open debate because your ideology of leftism is garbage.
Did we read the same article?
Soooooo the murderer shot Mr. Kirk because he wasn’t far-right enough… He wasn’t a leftie, or a Dem, or a trans-kid….
You discovered his motives and ideology before the FBI and Utah law enforcement could even get started!
Convince us the murderer isn’t your fellow radicalized Bolshevik Biden Birthing Boy, who bought into the now retired Oval Office House Plant’s lies and hatred, telling him and you that Trump and MAGA supporters were racists and fascists?
One of the unfired casings said: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.” The lyrics reference the anthem of the antifascist Italian resistance during World War II. Another read, “Hey fascist! Catch!”
So what does Occam’s Razor tell you, commie?
That proves he’s associated with MAGA or Loomer and yet decided to murder Kirk?
Or more likely: he’s your fellow hate and rage filled Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot that also bought into the YEARS of Biden, Antifa, The View, Hollywood stars, etc, declaring Trump and Kirk are racists and fascists.
I appreciate the honesty expressed by the many posts of those whose highest rhetorical abilities approach threatening and dehumanizing others, eloquently demonstrating the consumptive power of the fire of inhuman hate ravaging their soul, as fat crackling with joy in the fire of evil.
The revelation of their all-consuming irrationality creates an obligation to take them as a serious threat to themselves and others; there is no difference betwixt them and the assassin, the man on the subway stabbing the Ukrainian woman.
The slaying of discourse is not diplomacy by different means; it is the religion of nihilism, in which they are true believers; their co-travellers in the political and media spheres, are not so honest, merely cynical manipulators seeking the power to implement under color of law nightmare visions of democratic socialism given form on Solovkii, the killing fields of Cambodia, and in the Democratic Socialist Republic of Korea.
Mr. Turley, you endeavor to reason, yet your interlocutors have less capacity to reason than a rock. They are not enraged, not mentally ill in any conventional sense. They are dark combatants in spiritual warfare, a warfare produced by a culture in tatters, one that has abandoned life and liberty, as Tim Kane said, to the whims of pure political force and nothing else. This kind of convulsive, mute insanity can only be cured by a cultural restoration brought about by piety, by prayer and fasting. Direct your discourse to the sane, to those with ears to hear, that was Mr Kirk’s understanding of the mission at hand, darkness being merely the absence of anything that is light, sanity the authentically natural ordering of the mind, the mind all the “institutions of culture” would extinguish with sophistical, empty word games.
Magats got their panties all twisted today just because some Utah kid did what they”ve been threatening to for years. Pussies.
Your rude and vitriolic spew provides strong forensic evidence for the INhuman and UNnatural mind-virus of the LEFT; you DEMONstrate this well.
….You’re in dire need of an exorcism. Seek help, immediately.
Yeah, somebody’s a pussy. Find us. You won’t like the outcome.
Your vitriolic and murderous spew provides proof of the INHUMAN and UNNATURAL mind-virus of the LEFT; you DEMONstrate this well.
….You’re in dire need of an exorcism.
I know right where you are…., you’re on this blog, spanking the kid and drinking all day.
This shows the violence Charlie Kirk tried to prevent but the liberal even kids are violent. This last person that made a comment will see what Karma really is. Charlie was trying to help all the misguided moron teens most would not even care. Infact as we found out today the murders own father turned his son it and wished for the death penalty.
Anonymous. Coward.
You prove nothing. You offer no logic or wisdom.
Magats got their panties all twisted today just because some Utah kid did what they”ve been threatening to for years. Pussies.
Well, you’ve certainly done a great job of assuring us of your Biden/Antifa street cred.
Anything else you’d like to bring up, little Bolshevik Biden Birthing Boy?
A comment on the kinds of “students” Charlie encountered, for whom he modeled critical thinking, brilliantly….Without critical thinking, the moral compass cannot be accessed, thus his work on college campuses was integral to affecting weak-minds and turning this country around.
To understand one critical factor in how poor education reveals the weak minds and basic immorality of the average-incoming student or liberal college-aged itinerant, see this article from Turning Point USA:
https://tpusa.com/live/nations-report-card-reveals-new-lows-in-reading-math-scores/
I am both very liberal on some issues (e.g.,abortion) and very conservative on others (e.g., Separation of Powers). So I really am surprised to see such leftist condemnation of Charlie Kirk for “hate speech” via his obviously-true claim that he believed abortion was a murder of someone God intended to give life to, in the face of people like myself who believe no such thing.
The concept of “hate-speech” appears to be nothing more than a statement of something that someone else does not believe.
Ciao Constitution, free speech, and equal protection!
We never have a free speech discussion on when an ELECTIVE birth control abortion is the killing of a human being, versus “it’s just a clump of cells”.
When the unborn child has both unique DNA, unique fingerprints, it’s own brainwaves and heart beat, etc?
Where do you think that change from “a clump of cells” to human being occurs in respect to elective birth control abortions?
Anonymous,
Regarding your comments about elective birth control abortions, here’s something to ponder:
It’s believed, in he Nazi concentration camps, HItler killed at least 6 million Jews, and I have no idea how many other “undesirables”. Since Roe, back in ’73, there have been something on the order of 65 million abortions. If one does the math, that means we’ve snuffed out 10.5 times more lives, through abortions, than Hitler did during the Holocaust.
We’ve done this all in the name of healthcare, convenience, it’s my body my choice, etc. HItler did what he did because he was trying to create the master, Arian race — incidentally, a race he wouldn’t have fit into himself.
Since FDR, government has been the breadwinner and solution to all our problems, in the early 60s we banished God from schools, and in the early 70s we decided it was OK to terminate unborn life. We’ve been on a downhill slide ever since. Is it any wonder?
Tragically, Charlie Kirk died, as I understand it, in front of his wife and children, advocating for values which, a mere 30 to 50 years ago, weren’t in the least controversial.
I didn’t know you, Charlie, but RIP!
Get back to Base People:
“LOVE YOUR NEIGHBORS’
1. Figure out the true meaning on Love.
(You do that through contemplative
Self- Reflection, and identifying who
Loves you, [perhaps your mom & dad].)
2. Then define the presence of God and
His significance in your life. If you
determine God has none, then learn
more about God through others,
by seeking a greater understanding
through them. If you deny the need for
God to exist within you, then join the
ranks of others, such as the one who
took Charlie Kirk away from this world.
God gives us Love through Life. If we
take a life through evil intent. We will
eternally suffer. Forgiveness, only
comes through God’s Grace. Just
as authentic Love is God’s reward.
You must offer repentance, to seek
forgiveness through God.
No one is forced to believe, but ALL
are invited. That means ALL, not
restrictive by identity or race or religion
or lack of religion…
God Loves all humans from conception
and forever. He only asks all of us, to
do likewise.
He created us and this ‘world.’ Earth is a
grain of sand relative to what we have.
Observed through Astronomy and other
human findings. We are told though by
God, through Jesus, to believe. So far,
no one with any doubt has disproven.
Our proof comes from God’s gift, our
Faith.
Think of Faith as being the oxygen in
the air you breathe. We all accept that
it is present, but no one has ever seen it
while thaking in a breath.
BELIEVE or Don’t, God gives all of us
a choice.
Thank you God, for sharing Charlie w/us
Tyler Robinson, Charlie’s confessed killer, will now face justice. He has been shown to be a trans-activist. If my count is correct there are now 10 murders that have been committed by these creatures. I hope he hangs.
Seems team fascist hate speech might be facing some blow back.
Put ICE and the Guard on Utah. Crime hot bed.
I wanted to say this yesterday but chose not to, just in case someone whom I would not want to see it…read it. What I wanted to say was that the IMAGE of an American flag over the chest area of the ‘person-of-interest’ in the long-sleeved black t-shirt–seemed to be covering a DIFFERENT message underneath. I wanted to know what was covered underneath the superimposed flag.
^^^ (from lin.)
Never mind! Ignore the above comment, (it now appears to be a defect in the image as such a shirt may exist on some merchandise sites. the words are superimposed on the edge of the flag image, but the suspect photo looks like the flag is superimposed over the words.)
that can happen with poor resolution photos.
subject not suspect photo
The President on Fox and Friends- SUSPECT IN CUSTODY!
“House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) has called for people to take to the streets to save democracy and posted a picture brandishing a baseball bat.”
And yet yesterday we saw him at the podium denouncing violence. What a hypocrite and a bunch of other pejoratives.
All the murderous commies are holding back their voices of violence,
stopping short of detailing their obvious celebration.
They now are stifling their OWN speech out of fear of public shaming and repercussions.
They KNOW they are not made for the freedoms our constitution offers.
And here I am, using that right to show everyone that their hearts are devoid of honor.
That’s right libs YOU DON”T HAVE THAT RIGHT ANYMORE!
If you think you do, go ahead and celebrate. Let’s hear it!
You WON’T because your hearts are filled with fear and hate. Cower.
The late great Republican – John McCain – should be a role model to follow.
When a voter was spreading lies and defaming Barack Obama, John McCain corrected the voter saying “Obama is a good man, but I just happen to disagree with him.
Since 2000, the Republican Party purged its civil and moderate Republicans – letting extremist take over the Party of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan.
Bush violated Ronald Reagan’s torture treaty and exceeded his constitutional authority. Trump told his supporters to “beat the hell out of them” physically assaulting anyone that disagreed with him at political rallies. Trump recently carried out an extrajudicial (illegal & disloyal act) death penalty on a boat near Venezuela – without indictment, without judge or jury and without an official guilty verdict.
Today’s Republican Party brought extremism to America and now the chickens have come home to roost. This week MAGA extremists are calling this “war” against Democrats, even though we know nothing about the cowardly assassin. Even if it were a Democrat is guilt-by-association ever justified in a civilized society.
Republicans were virtually silent when Nancy Pelosi’s husband was attacked due to Trump inciting violence, so what changed?
Republicans should follow the John McCain example and take their party back from unpatriotic extremists.
🎱
Senator John McCain is chased off Navajo Reservation
Senator John McCain is chased off the Navajo Reservation
The late great Republican – John McCain – should be a role model to follow
Because he eagerly helped Obama spread his fraudulent and felonious package of lies, his ‘Trump-Russia Dossier’ in hopes it would emsurevClinton beat Trump in the 2016 election? Doing so as an “anonymous leaker”, rather than addressing it through the committees of the Senate?
Other than McCain being a vicious underhanded liar who would attempt to destroy other Republican senators long before that, and a Senator that continually sold out the voters of his state on Illegal Aliens, any other reason you Democrates want Americans to worship him as your image of the perfect Republican?
Maybe because Obama called him his favorite Republican and he voted to save Obama’s Obamacare – despite getting reelected on vows to kill it?
Not hard to see why McCain was your wet dream, Democrate.
Like Obama and you, an moral deceitful liar.
There have been extremists in the US for over 100 years.
Sad for you not to notice how pervasive it has been.
How can you forget the left-wing extremists in the 1960s with their campaign of bombing and killing police officers?
It’s not a happy sight seeing liberals corrupt their own souls by celebrating a righteous man’s death. It’s all over the internet. They may be celebrating now but they won’t be at some point in the near future when they have to answer to the Almighty for their words and actions. On that day they will reap misery while the righteous man’s they hate triumphs over them in the great assembly of the saints.
Jon, try posting over on NEWSWEEK if you want to be banned. You remember NW, surely. They used to be a bastion of free speech. Now, their trolls, Nazi lovers, r in charge. You must begin your comments with Heil Hitler
The only thing that has been constant these past two days has been the ire and anger from the right about wanting, needing, and demanding that left be held accountable for Charlie Kirk’s death. The constant assumptions and speculation and conspiracy theories all stem from the fact that nobody, not the left, the right, even the president knows who did it and why. To those on the right that void needs to be filled with speculation, rage, assumptions and blame of the left.
I have condemned the killing of Charlie Kirk and so have plenty of those on the left. But the right wants to keep escalating the rhetoric and wanting revenge. Why? What did the left do? Charlie Kirk is now being treated like a martyr and honestly it’s going way overboard. We had a shooting at a school in Colorado and that story barely got any traction because the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk is more important. It’s truly a sad spectacle in my opinion. The speaker of the house is the only one on the right who recognizes the need to calm things down, lower the temperature. He is doing what real leaders do in times like these. President Trump should be leading the way, but he is doing the opposite of what he should be doing. The President who doesn’t encite violence just did that today. Further fueling the animosity and rage rhetoric, are you paying attention Professor Turley? Trump just said and I quote,
“we just have to beat the hell” out of “radical left lunatics.”
We don’t know who the shooter is. We don’t know what motive he had and here we have President Trump calling for violence against the left because he’s implying they are at fault for Charlie Kirks death. Without a shred of evidence. He’s just spewing out calls to beat the hell out of radical leftists. With all the anger and rage of MAGA’s going on now. It’s very likely one of their nut jobs will take that to heart and feel duty bound to do what the president wants. President Trump just called for violence against “radical leftists” let that sink in.
Trump wants to distract from the growing Epstein scandal and this is what he chose to use. Never let a tragedy go to waste.
The Epstein scandal is of Democratic conception, where discrimination of sexual orientation (e.g. pedophilia) is illegal under the law. #NoJudgment #NoLabels
And abortive ideation is entertained to relieve “burdens”. Redistributive and retributive change are deeply held beliefs.
Did you even read Professor Turley’s column? He plainly stated many examples of the left’s insane fear of free speech….
Notice how Kam’s V.P. lied thru his teeth and you kept silent? That’s typical of a reason the right cannot tolerate you
Hey X
We had a shooting at a school in Colorado and that story barely got any traction.
************************
Use your pea brain. That shooting was in gun control Colorado, if it been a kid on the right. You fools who be screaming 7/24.
Try some common sense.
George/X posted The only thing that has been constant these past two days has been…
…you smearing and defaming Mr. Kirk, lying that none of your fellow propagandists and Democrats are celebrating his murder, and your sophomoric attempts to claim a moral equivalency in defense of Democrat hate speech
Got anything else for us this morning George, as you parade around driving the Democrat clown car?
How’s that crow taste? We got your guy. Not Sorry for your sorry cause. justice prevails.
Might want to edit this now that the killer has confessed and has been shown to be a trans-activist. he joins a number of trans-activist killers.
Free Speech Advocates have been a Target for some time now.
Charlie Kirk execution is reminiscent of Larry Flynt’s assassination attempt.
Both being Free Speech Advocates.
Larry Flynt was paralyzed from the waist down after being shot by a sniper in Lawrenceville, Georgia, in 1978 (47yrs ago). The shooter was Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist who objected to a photo spread in Flynt’s Hustler magazine. The bullet caused permanent spinal cord damage, leaving Flynt a wheelchair user for the rest of his life.
The Assassination Attempt:
When: March 1978
Where: On the steps of a courthouse in Lawrenceville, Georgia
By Whom: Joseph Paul Franklin, a white supremacist
Why: Franklin shot Flynt because he was offended by a photo in Hustler that featured a Black man and a white woman.
The Aftermath:
Flynt’s legs were permanently paralyzed.
He used a wheelchair for the remainder of his life, sometimes a gold-plated one, reports.
Franklin was later executed in 2013, though Flynt had publicly asked for his life to be spared.
Larry Flynt (dec. February 10, 2021 (aged 78))
-Be Careful out there.
Rabid DEIst (e.g. color supremacist). Feminist, too? Go hand in hand under the Diversity umbrella.
My BAD, ain’t no Black Peoples in Utah, sure enough they caught another White Guy just like YOU who done it. My oh My dem Honkeys be Crazy.
Flynt was nothing more than a filthy disgusting pornographer. He was a low lifePOS that ushered in the era of sexual exploitation of women and the eventual demise of normal sexuality through the normalization of the porn industry. If you think a Beaver shot displayed on the magazine shelf is what the founders envisioned as free speech you’re sadly mistaken.
OT
Apparently district court judges are contemptuous of the Supreme Court.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-09-10/lisa-cook-judge-not-persuaded-by-supreme-court-on-trump-firings
The judge in the Cook case isn’t persuaded by the Court’s decisions.
The Court says the lower courts don’t have any choice but with Roberts who knows how this will play out.
We are witnessing a judicial insurrection.
Young – I’d note that she said she’s not persuaded by the Scotus decisions on Trump’s firing of other officials. If Scotus had already ruled on this firing, the court’s being persuaded or not would be irrelevant. It would have to obey.
But this does remind me of a situation in the 1990s where the 9th Circus was having trouble complying with Scotus on a death penalty case. The 9th kept delaying and delaying finding excuse after excuse every time Scotus knocked them down. Finally Scotus had had enough and said, basically, “No more delays absent further order of this Court.” If they get fed up with the lower court judges on the Trump firings, they could potentially do something similar.
Liberals support Planned Parenthood (PP), and oppose Planned Perphood (PP). It’s a queer fetus… feature of their religion, reconciled under Pro-Choice (i.e. selective, opportunistic).
Oldman– True, the Court hasn’t ruled yet in the Cook case but the precedents in similar cases recently decided strongly support the administration’s position. She knows that or she wouldn’t go out of her way to say she is not persuaded by the Supreme Court’s decisions. It borders on open defiance.
Scotus might finally get fed up with the lower courts after episodes like this:
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/09/11/supreme-court-emergency-rulings-judges-00558058
Judges serve during “good behavior.” I wonder what happens if the Court decides continuing and open defiance of its authority constitutes “bad behavior?” What can be done other than impeachment? I suppose the Court could simply sideline them with pay but no judicial authority. The Democrats are guilty of appointing these obvious radical and, frankly, stupid people and the Republicans are guilty of not fighting these appointments.
oldman
they could potentially do something similar.
___________________________
Lets hope it’s soon, the left is out of control.
Imagine the moment when you (They) realize that your reasoning is wrong. It was sown into an Opinion, and set out to sea with no recourse.
It’s like eating one’s words that of your own.
There’s a lot of that going around. Seems as though many have lost their direction. Those whom stay the course are targets.
Pray
Charlie Kirk is a now a martyr. He gave his life for the ideals of free speech, for the demonstration of logic and reason, and for the cause of good and right.
He was murdered by the IDEOLOGY of a mind-virus that refuses to allow dialogue.
Rest in the peace Charlie Kirk, bold intellectual, most-able speaker, and brave leader of our times.
For Charlie and those who loved him: “Have courage for the great sorrows of life and patience for the small ones; and when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace.” Victor Hugo
Dianna
The left has succeeded in Making Charlie and his issues more important – not less.
There are idiots here saying that this will result in MAGA seeking revenge – and that is likely correct.
But not by assassinating left Wing nuts. But by Doubling down on efforts to remove this cancer from out culture.
“The left has succeeded in making Charlie and his issues more important – not less.”
In time those issues fade away. Remember this is 9/11. The day we were never supposed to forget. The right’s hysterics and obsession with assumptions and conclusions when nobody knows who the shooter is or what motivated him somehow makes it proof that it’s the left’s fault. What did the left do? How is it their fault? Because Trump. said so? There was a school shooting in Colorado and that story barely got any attention. Charlie Kirk being martyred because he was a “visionary” or some pioneering individual is way over the top. There’s already talk of building statues and having him lie at rest at the Capitol. President Trump is already calling for “beating the hell out of radical left lunatics”. The President is encouraging violence against the left without any evidence that the left was involved. It’s incredibly stupid and very much in line with what he did back on Jan 6, 2021. He is stoking his supporters’ rage into committing violence down the line.
Another of George Svelaz’s ignorant posts.
“what motivated him somehow makes it proof that it’s the left’s fault. What did the left do? How is it their fault?”
All a fool has to do to see if what was said above is smart is to watch the leftist media. That proves George Svelaz has less intelligence than a fool.
“Charlie Kirk being martyred because he was a “visionary” or some pioneering individual is way over the top.”
You don’t know what Charlie Kirk has accomplished. He created an army of future leaders of the conservative cause. Unlike you and the left they are dignified and intelligent. That is what the left hated.
He is indeed a martyr for the cause of everything good and right. Meanwhile, the left has blood on its hands. If there’s anyone left who denies the MSM is biased, here is Scott Kyser, content coordinator for ABC News in Cincinnati: he and his wife celebrating Charlie’s murder with confetti emojis, within hours of his death:
https://x.com/camhigby/status/1966229589610606804
A very well thought out celebration of Charlie Kirk’s thought, as I understand it. Thank You.