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Comment by iknownothow | Hacker News Reader

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How? Franz Ferdinand's assasination caused an international crisis, whereas this event is clearly US-internal. People outside of the US do not care about Charlie Kirk, nor did he greatly care about countries abroad.

Correct, nobody around me, including me, knows who he is.

Among young people (especially on TikTok, I’m told, not on that platform though) I would say he’s more well known that a figure like Stephen Colbert. Just trying to put this into perspective for those who aren’t familiar. Nobody can know every publix figure, especially these days.

I've only learned about this man's existence because I've returned to watching South Park when I've heard they are targeting Trump and his politics.

Franz Ferdinand's assassination could, from the perspective of the Austro-Hungarian empire (a surprisingly liberal center of intellectual cosmopolitanism) be viewed as a match lighting a "civil war" that only later become international.

The biggest risk is that the current US admin uses this event as a prop to justify increasingly fascistic policies. In fact Stephen Miller has already signaled that at least he probably has this in mind. America gone full fascist won't immediately be an international problem but it eventually may be.

It makes sense when you realize that the US has a similar scope and a larger number of states in it than Europe did at the time.

Analogies between the United States and specific states in Europe often done work as well as US <-> Europe do.

He's probably drawing a comparison to a civil war, not WW3.

The world goes where US goes

Not just lower the temperature. Talk to each other, and listen carefully, in a civilized manner. Prefer to listen carefully first, then speak. Bring, and stick to, facts as much as possible, and focus on policy and real-world outcomes rather than politics.

That's exactly what Kirk did. He was always polite and open to dialog. Many people didn't like what they heard, but it wasn't because it was mean or wrong -- it was because it challenged their ideologies.

I think Charlie Kirk thought he was safe because he was a good person. He didn't provoke political division, he tried to reconcile it.

R.I.P.

I wish this hadn't happened, but let's not rewrite history with our eulogies.

> Many people didn't like what they heard, but it wasn't because it was mean or wrong

He was often wrong, as most people are, and he often doubled down on it. For example, he repeatedly lied about the 2020 election being stolen.

> He didn't provoke political division, he tried to reconcile it.

He paid for people to attack the capitol on January 6 and advocated for Joe Biden to be given the death penalty[1]. He repeatedly tried to frame "the left" for things they didn't do or didn't even happen, and said things like "prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people" (verbatim quote from his podcast).

He was extremely, intentionally divisive.

1. https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-has-h...

You could benefit by doing further research on Charlie Kirk, and on the 2020 election. Citing Media Matters will not increase your credibility.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/media-matters/

There is much to question about the 2020 election, and much of the evidence is now gone.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1742670648433090764.html

What was divisive were the attacks and mockery of Kirk, not the man himself. I noticed that Comedy Central has now pulled their "Charlie Kirk" episode.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/entertainment/television/202...

The link I gave was just direct quotes with attribution. The publication's bias was just in choosing to write that article at all.

Also please skip the "there is much to question" nonsense. The conspiracy theorists had dozens of days in court and ended up with losses, fines, dismissal, and jail time because they couldn't provide proof.

It would also be very strange for people to partially steal an election, allowing their opponents to take statewide offices in states like Georgia where the vote split between parties.

The irony in this statement as it's exactly what Charlie Kirk himself tried to bring to the table. Even if you don't agree with his positions, he was always calm and rational even in opposition to pure appeals to emotion.

This is a sad, sad day.

Reply to dead comment below: (by nmz)

Keep trying. It's all you can do. Also, you can't expect everyone to accept your facts. A few % of the population are going to be nutjobs (specially when there are various propaganda networks around which compound it), and that's fine, thankfully I think they aren't majority.

Was he involved in any mutual defense pacts I am not aware of?

I seriously doubt this will have any kind of implications beyond a few tweets and headlines for a day or two.

This is just another form of belief in US exceptionalism.

No, a political activist largely unknown outside of the US is not going to be the catalyst of a world war. I live across the pond and never even heard of this individual until an hour ago.

You might be afraid that this could inflame political tensions in the US, and not even that is a given. The US has a long story of political violence, this is unlikely to result in any major changes.

If I was a betting man, I would bet that in two months time most will not even remember this. Too much spectacle in the news all the time for any subject to stick for too long.

Very US centric view. I doubt it. I didn’t know who the hell he was until 3 hours ago and will probably forget he existed within a week.

As for lowering the temperature, good luck. Anyone with above average influence is in a position to try and extract as much personal gain from this already.

It kills me inside because I would like to live in a world where this isn’t the case.

I can't really see the parallel there?

More of a krystallnacht. I expect there to be some kind of reprisals, through the legal system or otherwise.

Lowering the temperature does require cooperation. There's a prisoner's dilemma effect where the people with the most heated rhetoric tend to get what they want.

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