Throughout his short life, Charlie Kirk enraged many by exposing the hate and hypocrisy of the left in higher education. What is astonishing is that he continues to do it even in death.
As millions mourn his murder around the world, any expressions of sorrow or respect for Kirk are triggering some on the left. Liberals have been arrested for stomping on or burning memorials to Kirk and others have taken to social media to denounce or mock people expressing regrets over the loss. A courthouse memorial was vandalized while a mural to Kirk had to be restored after an attack.
Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers wrote an essay for Nation under the headline: “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning.”
Some of the loudest voices have come from academia.
University of California Irvine lecturer Larry Tenney went on the liberal safe space site, BlueSky, to rave in all caps: “WE KNOW WHO CHARLIE KIRK WAS…”F**k off America” “F**k off Trump” and “F**k all you motherfuckers, idgag about any of you.” (For the non-profane literate, “idgag” means “I don’t give a f**k”).
What is clear from the diatribe is that Kirk also knew exactly who people like Tenney are. He knew that even his appearance or that of his group on campus would trigger many in academia.
For the speech-intolerant, any invitation to debate issues like abortion or transgender policies is intolerable. You are expected to accept their positions as righteous or face their rage. What was even more annoying was the fact that Kirk was winning the debate, young people trapped in the academic echo chamber were showing up en masse as they did at the rally where he died.
Faculty converted higher education into the current echo chamber and then treated students as a captive audience. When given a choice, many rushed to hear alternative views.
Fordham School of Law Professor John Pfaff joined the chorus of those objecting to expressions of respect or regret. Most tellingly, the sin that disqualified Kirk was that he implemented Professor Watchlist, a list of professors deemed the most intolerant and partisan on campuses, so that students could avoid their classes. Pfaff posted:
“Just a reminder Kirk’s organization established the Professor Watchlist, which even the NYT framed as a threat to academic freedom. I don’t get why ppl keep describing him as a good-faith debater. One can say ‘Kirk should not have been murdered’ (which is true!) without engaging in hagiography.”
In Pfaff’s siloed world, the New York Times is apparently so conservative that it is remarkable that “even the NYT” criticized the list. The comment only served to confirm that the relevant scale of comparison for academics today runs exclusively from the left to the far left.
At the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Anthropology professor Tamar Shirinian. Tamar Shirinian wrote:
“The world is better off without him in it. Even those who are claiming to be sad for his wife and kids….like, his kids are better off living in a world without a disgusting psychopath like him and his wife, well, she’s a sick fuck for marrying him so I dont care about her feelings.”
Syracuse University political science assistant professor Jenn M. Jackson announced “him dying this ways seems both ironic and in line with his own politics.”
Others warned that anyone expressing sorrow was only self-identifying for future lists of fascists.
Martin Pfeiffer, PH.D candidate at the University of New Mexico, warned, “Charlie Kirk was a vicious, hateful fascist and white supremacist. To say anything else is a lie and, quite frankly, fascist collaboration.”
Across the country, efforts by a few professors to get their colleagues to sign letters expressing condolences or concerns over the murder were derailed by some of the same passive-aggressive ideologues who engaged in pearl-clutching objections over divisive positions.
What is most striking about these academics is the total lack of self-awareness, even as they adopt the very intolerance of historical villains in their classes.
The response of these professors is reminiscent of the Greek tragedy Antigone by Sophocles in 441 BCE. In the story, the two sons of Oedipus fight to the death for the throne of Thebes. The tyrant ruler Creon ordered that his favorite of the brothers, Eteocles, be buried with honors while banning anyone from mourning or burying the other brother, Polynices.
To be left on the ground unburied and unmourned was considered a great dishonor and sacrilege. It was too much for his sister, Antigone, who defied the tyrant and buried her brother. For that, Antigone was walled up in a cave and committed suicide.
Kirk’s critics will allow him to be buried, of course, but some cannot tolerate mourning his passing any more than they could tolerate his speaking.
I have opposed calls for firing academics making hateful comments outside of their official duties or accounts. Charlie spent his life opposing cancel campaigns and censorship.
However, it is crushingly ironic to see media and faculty suddenly outraged about cancel campaigns after years of ignoring the purging of conservatives from campuses. Most faculty crying foul today have been entirely silent when conservatives, including Kirk, were targeted in the past.
Faculty have spent decades purging conservatives and libertarians from departments, leaving higher education mired in orthodoxy and intolerance. It is the education version of what Sophocles wrote in Antigone: “A city which belongs to just one man is no true city.” In the same way, a university which belongs to only liberal idelogy is no true university.
Matthew 5: 11-12
Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Please, take a hike. No place for religious zealots expounding inanities here, or anywhere. Go ahead respond…
How is this zealotry?
Anonymous 8:07AM- Amen to that, Brother.
Whew … senility hits hard at 80 huh?
Amen! Great way to start the day.
Yesterday a lot of conservatives or righties lost their minds when Professor Turley dared to lay some blame on the right for vaguely admitting some on the right share some blame for the current state of hysteria regarding Charlie Kirk.
Trump is now embracing attacks on free speech and directing his AG to prosecute those who mock, celebrate, and disrespect Charlie Kirk’s demise. Professor Turley seems to find himself at odds with conservatives who are clamoring for punishing those who express an opposing view. He can barely muster proper criticism without inciting the wrath of MAGA and the President. Even mild criticism is seen as blasphemous to the right.
This will soon pass like every other shooting in the country. By the end of the year, it will be just another statistic and sad chapter in our country’s history.
I found it odd that Professor Turley spent quite a bit of column space pointing out the desecration of Charlie Kirk memorials and monuments as an example of the left’s intolerance. What is amusing is that he never once brought up the right’s intolerance regarding memorials and monuments to figures like George Floyd, Black Lives Matter, rainbow street artwork, etc. It seems very convenient to forget that the right is also a very intolerant bunch.
The conservative “purging” angle is odd since it’s mostly about ideas most students are not interested in than actively pushing out conservatives. Have conservatives made convincing arguments to support more conservative views in Universities and Colleges? Because all I see is complaining and laying blame rather than making a reasonable argument. Charlie Kirk certainly made his argument on college campuses, but he wasn’t “winning” most of his debates. He also lost a lot of them. The Oxford debates were particularly bad for Kirk, but at least he engaged in the thing he loved most. Debate. And conservatives are abusing his legacy to attack and denigrate the left.
Is it just me or does anyone else ignore X’s comments. I stopped reading them a few days ago and the grass is greener, the sky is bluer and I think I lost a few pounds.
HullBobby,
Right! Just scroll past. Nothing he writes is worth reading.
Seriously, Who TF do you think you are, you and others here mob and attack, just like a school yard full of bullies. You sit here 12 hours a day attacking what you can’t grasp and won’t interact with. And you dare use Charlie Kirks’ words. Hypocrites you two.
Anonymous, female “health products” can be found in any supermarket or CVS, pick some up and do it soon.
At least X has the conviction of its opinions. You just mock and attack, every day, every hour.
Because george/X lies all the time.
😁 Whenever I see X, Svelaz or George, I’m reminded of a resident at the County Home, when I worked their farm in Iowa. He would come outside every day, at the same time, and walk the same path around the same tree…every day, rain or shine…Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter.
Just like I could walk the exact same path as that resident, I could write exactly like X.
Hullbobby, I know you read my post. Everyone reads them then claim they “scrolled past.” It’s amusing how every time that claim is made after reading the comment. I guess opposing viewpoints are toxic to the right but they just can’t help reading them anyway.
X who? Never saw a post by X.
George/X copied and pasted the exact same post he has put up here every day for years:
BBBUUUTTTTT…. MUH TURLEY! BBBBBUUUTTTTT…. MUH TRUMP!
It is crystal clear today that all sane people that the Academic Indoctrination program was the target of TPUSA and they know the game is coming to an end. Any sane parent that sends their children to these schools at great costs needs a Mental Health evaluation……..These folks are just Insane.
Insane you say? No they are not. They believe what the want to believe, just like you. Look in a mirror and tell yourself you are sane.
Anthropology professor Tamar Shirinian seems nice.
She is now unemployed after an investigation, termination procedures, and statement by the University.
“The tyrant ruler Creon . . .” (JT)
Your analogy to Creon and the Left’s reaction to Kirk’s death, while fascinating, is a grave error. And it is a fundamental misunderstanding of what motivates the Left’s death cult.
Creon, while wrong, was motivated by *values* — by a firm conviction that civil law (which he as king embodied) was supreme. Antigone placed a higher value on honoring her brother’s death. Thus the dramatic conflict between the two.
Today’s Left, by contrast, does not value anything. It is nihilistic. Its supreme desire is to destroy anything considered innocent, pure, good, righteous.
Sam, very interesting comment. As someone that enjoys the ancient world I must say it is great seeing the professor’s analogy as well as your improvement on it.
Sam-Antigone basically voted for “Inalienable rights from her creator”, rather than the state’s claim to supremacy. She paid the price as so many do but she did what she had to do.
Saying one is “triggered” is equivalent to saying that “S/he made me do it.” This, as well as name-calling, is age-appropriate language for a five year old, but not for an adult.
Expletives and name-calling are not a substitute for cogent arguments; rather, such language suggests a deficiency of vocabulary and/or a paucity of productive ideas.
Rational discussion is currently being sacrificed on the alter of impotent rage.
A teacher/professor posts this progressive stupidity. A parent sees what the progressively stupid teacher/professor posted. The parent is conservative. The parent has to send their child off to school the next day to to the progressively stupid teacher/professor’s classroom.
sorry, they should be fired. public trust and all. Conservatives are part of the public
Have you spoken to any liberals for their thoughts on the rash of incivility? Didn’t think so. Do you know any liberals personally? You’re all whipped-up by the MSM and you millions of others fell for their propaganda. When ones looks around on the blog, you think these hypocrites are civil?
Not all conservatives are fair and decent people. This blog proves it. What would Charlie Kirk say?
I live in Boston, all the people I speak with are progressively stupid. Everyday. Everywhere.
As I have stated before, my sister is a liberal Democrat. She thinks the Democrat party hard left movement is stupid and crazy. She even wrote to the DNC and the Biden campaign that if they did not move more back to traditional, moderate Democrat policies she would not vote for them.
My neighbors have No Kings signs. All have pride flags – the neighbor to my right, left, across, across diagonal left, across diagonal right,… Many have have additional signs BLM, In this house…, Immigrants welcome here,…
In Boston, your sister would be right wing.
“Not all conservatives are fair and decent people. This blog proves it. What would Charlie Kirk say?”
Charlie Kirk would destroy in open debate anyone who attempted your vage and feeble Whataboutism used as a sophomoric attempt to establish a false moral equivalency.
You couldn’t come up with a list of conservatives as examples that are no different than Spiers, Tenney, Pfaff, in hate, smearing a murder victim, and gloating at a political opponents death.
So you threw out a vague claim some of the posters here are conservatives whose posts are exactly the same in tone?
You actually have some sort of belief you can sell that? Or did you post that hoping your friends would give you some street cred after you told them to come here and read it?
So these progressively stupid people are debating Charlie death?
You are progressively stupid.
You “think” these progressively stupid people are “debating” Charlie’s death? That’s cute.
Excuse me Turley, you forgot to plug your latest book.
Grow up child
Crawl back under your rock you reptile.
Ano
Reptiles have a use, you not so much
Bemoaned Professor Pfaff: “. . . Kirk’s organization established the Professor Watchlist . . .”
When a restaurant serves slop, people tell their neighbors.
Welcome to the real world.
Professor Turley,
You write yet another Kirk article without discussing the real anti-free speech issue relating to his murder.
Pam Bondi wants to criminalize “hate speech”:
Attorney General Pam Bondi: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society…We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
You have routinely (and rightly) called out liberal attempts to criminalize hate speech, yet you turn a blind eye to conservative attempts to do the same?
If you say kill someone that IS not protected.
Jezzz
Not necessarily. You are making the same mistake that Walz made during the campaign. And this common mistake is the reason a self-proclaimed free speech advocate like Prof Turley should not ignore the growing conservative anti-free speech movement.
Incitement is not protected, but saying, “I’m glad someone’s dead” is absolutely protected.
Either way, Bondi went further and said that employers have an obligation to fire employees who don’t print out pro Kirk posters at Office Depot. That is the definition of compelled speech.
https://www.aol.com/articles/pam-bondi-threatened-prosecute-private-133442554.html
They can use their free will to choose not to kill someone, and thus, no killing.
It’s already criminal, incitement. Bondi is just threatening to enforce it.
I’d love to hear how refusing an employer’s directive to print out pro Kirk signage is “incitement”?
That’s not what she’s saying and that’s a private matter between an employer and an employee.
Calling for death, harassment or physical harm to others in a public forum or on a public platform, explicitly intended to enrage others to harmful action would be considered hate speech. It is speech or actions intended to promote harm through INCITEMENT to action by another.
Actually, you can call for someone’s murder as long as you are not inciting it. That can include doing so in a public forum, even if it is explicitly intended to enrage others. It also must be likely to incite or produce such action.
Brandenburg v. Ohio: the Supreme Court established that there is a difference between speech promoting unlawful action and the unlawful action itself. That speech only loses First Amendment protection when it is “directed to and likely to produce imminent lawless action.” The reason for this is to protect our ability to engage in sharp, critical, and even incendiary language — because political speech, as the Supreme Court noted in 1969’s Watts v. United States, “is often vituperative, abusive, and inexact,” and we don’t want a particular politician or administration deciding for everyone when it’s too hateful or offensive.
And going after employers is ABSOLUTELY what she meant:
“And employers, you have an obligation to get rid of people. You need to look at people who are saying horrible things, and they shouldn’t be working with you.”
Professor Turley has a knack for inflaming the right with the right trigger words and half-truths. Riling them up into a frenzy of hate and indignation.
Ignoring the Pam Bondi claim and Trump’s constant attacks on free speech makes him a hypocrite. I believe he knows if he went ahead and criticized Bondi or Trump and equated their behavior to that of the left MAGA would have a meltdown.
That seems to be a defining characteristic of MAGA. Any criticism of President Trump or the right elicits a level of tantrums and hysterics that would make a 4 year old look tame by comparison. The white knuckle pearl clutching by the right over any slight however benign is reason to go to 11 on the tantrum scale.
“Professor Turley has a knack for inflaming the right with the right trigger words and half-truths.”
And here’s George!: BBBBUUTTTT…. MUH TURLEY!!!! BBBBBUUUTTTT…. MUH TRUMP!
George: do you know any 12 year old school kid could show you how to create your own blog? On a platform that wouldn’t charge you a penny?
I have noticed Professor Turley has a knack for overdramatizing and exaggerating the grievances of conservatives and those on the right. The Charlie Kirk assassination seems to have brought the worst of the right’s pearl-clutching and feigned outrage.
In his column, he spends a lot of time exaggerating incidents of vandalism and people expressing their opposing views of who Charlie Kirk really was against those on the right demanding Kirk be honored and lionized as a hero. Conservatives are getting upset about others not respecting Kirk or joining in on laying effusive accolades and admiration for Kirk’s, I guess, heroic stances and debates. Thinned skin seems to be the common theme among conservatives because even the Attorney General Pam Bondi has threatened to prosecute anyone who expresses hate speech and those who mock or disrespect Charlie Kirk. Secretary Rubio has threatened to revoke visas if foreign students mock, celebrate, or badmouth Charlie Kirk. Never mind that it’s protected speech.
I find it amusing how Professor Turley spends an inordinate amount of column space bashing the left or liberals for not respecting Charlie Kirk or dismissing his “contribution” to the ideals debate and discussion and in the middle of his diatribe denounces, sort of, the right’s efforts to silence the opposing view of the left with a short paragraph,
“ I have opposed calls for firing academics making hateful comments outside of their official duties or accounts. Charlie spent his life opposing cancel campaigns and censorship.”
His “opposition” is fleeting and meek. Conservatives are engaging in the same behavior that he spends a lot of time admonishing the left for. Yet when the right gets all emotional and upset about others not joining in on the victimhood bandwagon it’s cancel culture all the way.
Charlie Kirk was no saint. He did espouse controversial views, racist views, and even bigoted views. Conservatives have been spending an enormous amount of effort to clean up his reputation and demanding that everyone else accept it. Those who don’t should be fired, prosecuted, and jailed.
Conservatives are going to find themselves overplaying their need to martyr Charlie Kirk. The more they complain the more they cheapen his remaining legacy.
Kirk was a hero for the faith. Be sure to compare apples to apples here.
No, you are quite wrong. Conservatives do not demand anyone accept Kirk’s reputation. No firing or jail for those who don’t accept his reputation. But please do not glory in his murder. Don’t say his words justify our killing.
Joe, oh but they do. Pam Bondi just ticked off MAGA for proclaiming she will prosecute those who engage in hate speech and celebrate Kirk’s death. Governor Gregg Abbott is demanding that a student be expelled because he mocked the assassination of Kirk. Sec. of State Rubio declared he will revoke the visas of those who celebrate Kirk’s death. Republicans complain that not enough democrats attended Kirk’s memorial service at the Capitol.
His words are fair game when mocking or pointing out the ridiculousness of the right’s attempt to idolize Kirk as some sort of hero. It’s the reaction from those on the right to demand punishment, firing, jail, and prosecution of those who express no sympathy for him or mock his demise. They do a disservice to Kirk when they do that and they are doing exactly what Professor Turley often talks about, rage rhetoric. There is plenty of it coming from the right for all the wrong reasons.
Nope george
The LEFT has over-played MR Kirk murder..
But please keep it up, the 2026 elections are going to hurt
TS:DR
” I have noticed Professor Turley has a knack for overdramatizing and exaggerating the grievances of conservatives.”
And here’s George! Today’s two-fer: BBBBUUTTTT…. MUH TURLEY!!!! BBBBBUUUTTTT…. MUH TRUMP!
You’ve spent YEARS watching the DAILY rejection and mocking of your grievences, lies and dishonesty. You change nobody’s opinion with your daily assaults on your host, Professor Turley.
Yet you faithfully come here every day to be pointed out as a worse liar than Biden, mocked, and ridiculed. Are you one of the designated martyrs for the communist Democrat cause? Or do you get sexual gratification as a masochist from getting verbally ridiculed and beaten each day?
For obvious reasons, I find prof. Shirinian’s comments particularly offensive.
Saw online that she had been suspended for her comments and that termination proceedings had been initiated (if so, then she likely does not have tenure). Perhaps the Professor can enlighten, but I don’t see her comments are not protected by the concept of academic freedom. UT is a state institution, however, and I think that any action taken would be seen as a violation of her1A rights.
UT would be better to just terminate the entire program (one site said she was “a cultural anthropologist focusing on vast areas of queer theory and studies, transnational feminisms, political economy, the processes of post-socialism, psychoanalysis, and, more recently, medical and psychological anthropology.”)
As for Mr. Pfeiffer, his future in the national Security apparatus should be seriously damaged by his impolitic remarks
On point, as usual.
The Professor Watchlist?….that’s a pretty backhanded tactic for someone who champions direct f2f, civil dialog with those you disagree with. To me, it’s not much different than trying to get someone fired, or boycotting their business just because you hold different political views. I still hold great respect for Charlie’s example of courageous engagement. My hope is that other young folks will follow that example, and put aside cowardly, impersonal, alienated tactics like blacklisting, cancelling, and doxxing.
Really? The only way to expose most of these ultra left idiots is with a tactic like his watchlist. It draws the attention of members of the Board of Regents or other administrative boards and agencies who fund the rot that poisons those ‘young minds full of mush’ (Rush).
You you use the term “cancelling” when the left does it, and “drawing attention” when the right does it? The language usage betrays a double standard. Both are doing the exact same thing, the only difference is who’s doing it….us vs. them.
You are wrong. A watchlist is tantamount to having a review site for businesses. If you review restaurants and you pan a place that serves lousy food with bad service you are providing a service yourself. You are NOT banning the restaurant you are just letting people know what is going on in side the place.
If there is a teacher saying that left wingers should be murdered or it is ok if they are murdered wouldn’t you want to know?
HullBobby,
Well said and spot on! They have their 1stA rights. I have the right to not associate with them or to pay to take a class with them teaching.
Exactly Upstate!
A watchlist is cancel culture.
Turley himself has said that sites which rate media based on accuracy for example is anti-free speech.
“A watchlist is cancel culture.”
Said the person who is clueless about the meaning and motivations of “cancel culture.”
“The Professor Watchlist?….that’s a pretty backhanded tactic”
You claim conservative/Republican professors who engage in political brainwashing won’t be similar evaluated by their overwhelmingly left wing young students??? It’s a pretty backhanded tactic to claim a consumer evaluation website of the service providers – educators – is a form of blacklisting, cancelling, and doxxing.
A platform to post students evaluations of their professors – the customers whose student dues paid the salaries of those professors aren’t allowed to provide an evaluation of what the professor gave them in exchange for what they paid? As though there aren’t other similar websites that existed long before that for doctors and other professions?
I’m amused that you are enraged because you want college professors to be treated as a protected species, where the customers who fork over the student dues which pay their salaries, cannot be allowed to post evaluations of the services these professors rendered in exchange for the money they paid.
WOW…
New poll from YouGov
Agree it’s okay to be happy about death of political figure they oppose:
Very Liberal: 24%
Liberal: 10%
Moderate: 7%
Conservative: 4%
Very Conservative: 3%
How interesting. Among conservatives, 4%, which is the exact fraction of persons on the psychopathic spectrum, meaning miswired from birth to not feel empathy, or being amused at others’ suffering.
The liberal group is going to contain that same %, but also a larger sociopathic (learned hatred) component.
The bad news is that these hard-edged types are not going to mellow out (according to cognitive science research). The best we can do is have them age out and prevent their indoctrination of youth.
That’s where conservatives need to focus….on how youth are being socialized. We’ve made a huge mistake for 15 years giving over youth culture to progressive educators, influencers and blind technophilia.
If we want to prepare and induct youngsters into a free market economy, give them responsibilities as young as they can handle it, and reward them with $, social opportunity, and other privileges. Sell them on becoming contributors and earners with smaller size bodies.
The Left/Left Wing Woke Radical DEMS/Radical Professors/Left Main Street Media are ALL NUTS but also dangerous. Anyone who cheers death of another are SICK. Main Street Media soft sell on the Assassin and his Trans boy/girl friend are Sick. This is your Dem Party, they are dangerous.
Observing the left, particularly in universities, is not unlike watching a Chinese miliary parade. All players march in perfect formation, with strides of equal measure, with heads and eyes focusing straight ahead, and with no thought other than maintaining structural unity. In this academic parade, no individuals are permitted.
That’s perfect! You just described a faculty lounge.
Very apt analogy!
How nice. So a Senator from Hawaii is complaining that women FBI agents should not have to do pull ups for a fitness test.
I guessing that she has some-how figured out. Men & women are different. I know, shocking admission from a liberal.
Quick someone tell the newest Supreme court judge. (female)
Stoopid comment. As usual.
Hate the truth… Sting doesn’t it
Dustoff, this is the same moron, Mirono, that says men have no advantage while playing women’s sports. She is one of the dumbest people in the Senate. How doe someone like her get elected? It is very odd.
Hullbobby
Have you listened to her. Sorry buy this women has a 4th grade level IQ. She can’t even read from a paper put in front of her. Do better Hawaii.
Why are you shocked? This is what the loony left does.
All they have is hate!
Just ask BLM & Antifa
Stoopid comment. As usual. You bleeping loony rightist.
Hate huh? What do you think you’re doing? Just ask yourself.
Explain exactly what in this or any other post by Professor Turley is “hate”?
“Just ask BLM & Antifa”
Don’t forget “Armed Queers”, which we might dub “Transtifa”…
PROOFREADER: FIX THE TITLE!!!
One of the saddest parts of all this online mess is that I don’t really believe that most of these people really believe their own words. They’re just trying to get likes and views. And that just means “Biden” did his job by brainwashing Americans and the world with the belief that Trump et al are somehow less than. Charlie wasn’t human, (at least to these people), he was a buzzing fly, and buzzing flies are eliminated as a matter of course.
The entire DNC and the left wing propaganda team known as the media are accessories before the fact.
J’accuse.