Trump ally Charlie Kirk suggests children should watch public executions

vegeta@lemmy.world to politics @lemmy.world – 478 points – Trump ally Charlie Kirk suggests children should watch public executions
newsweek.com

"Death penalties should be public, should be quick, it should be televised. I think at a certain age, its an initiation...What age should you start to see public executions?" Kirk asked.

Kirk, along with his co-hosts Jack Posobiec, Tyler Bowyer and Blake Neff, continued to discuss at what age should children watch the public executions, with one co-host pointing out as young as 12 years old.

83

We can’t let kids see gay things! But watching someone get murdered is totally cool.

America is a country of violent prudes. There's a reason we rate violent movies lower than movies with "sexual content".

Yep. Beheading where the head flies all over the place? No problem, 12+.

Hint of a single tit? Freakout, 18+!

Pg13 has gone off the rails since I was a kid. Like on-camera gun suicides with chunks, among other things. Meanwhile half the R films I watch don't even have blood anymore blood. Basically pg13 means high violence and R means the tiniest hint that something sexual could maybe happen off screen. I don't get it at all

You're forgetting language. Cursing is treated nearly the same as sexual content. Throw a couple fucks in and the movie is rated R even without violence or sexual content.

I think it's gotten even more weird because there seems to be a certain brand of feminism (lost track of which wave is anti-porn, and not sure if this is the same group - but, honestly, it's hard to distinguish the outcome from conservative busybodies, if you are going to be honest) seem to go on and on about the "male gaze", so even things like slashers don't have bewbs in them. I guess so they get a PG-13 ratiing even though they may have quite a bit of violence in them (but no T&A, by god!)

These are the same people that harped on things like Game of Thrones, too, for showing bewbs and sometimes a bit of pubes - but apparently being ultraviolent was not a problem.

I wonder what a flying tit would be rated at.

A country founded by prudes... according to Eurotrip.

A country where a man is forced to make sex to only one woman at a time and one must learn the woman's name beforehand!

What? Polyamory is very popular here, especially among men in my area. They're just on the DL with it instead of living authentically.

It's a quote from Eurotrip which the person I was responding to referenced.

Rofl! I don't have TV or subscribe to services, hence my confusion. Thanks for the explanation, I am wearing a stupid-wide grin!

Well, they need to be shown the consequences of what happens if you do gay things, of course.

If Trump gets back in and they implement that “Project 2025” where they plan to fire 50k government workers and replace them with far right wingnuts, I can envision such a future.

Alito just signaled that they’re not satisfied with just overturning Roe, he’s gunning to overturn Obergefel. I wonder which states it’ll be unsafe to travel through for fear of not being able to see my SO if they get hurt and have to go to the hospital. I wonder if any states will try to ban people with gay marriages from entering.

They already do. It's called school shootings. They have drills and everything. It's quite fucked up.

let's desensitize them to violence as early as possible, WCGW.

/s

I would MUCH rather my Children watch a Public Execution then watch two MEN hold HANDS!

I guarantee this comment gets reported because Lemmy can’t sarcasmm

The conservatives want to constantly ramp up the fear factor to keep people in line and this idea of public executions as a spectacle is perfectly in line with their ethos. They are already starting to experiment with new execution methods at the expense of human lives. It is literally the nazi regime again, no hyperbole.

The "protect the children" group, pro doing nothing to stop school shootings, wants kids to watch people be murdered by the state, doesn't want to let schools feed kids or uplift impoverished families, leading to starving/malnourished children...

But God forbid someone who "looks funny" (to them) wants to read them a kids book.

More ideas from the Taliban playbook.

Remember kids, a boy is a boy and a girl is a girl, and three witnesses saw Katie get raped so we're going to stone her to death!

I mean, petty crime is almost non-existent in Saudi Arabia. Their system of punishment is horrible, but it seems to be effective in at least some manner. I wonder if regular and public reminders of the punishment for certain crimes would do more of a deterrent than just the threat of years of incarceration.

I wonder if regular and public reminders of the punishment for certain crimes would do more of a deterrent than just the threat of years of incarceration.

No. Studies show that basically the only thing that impacts whether a person who would otherwise want to commit a crime might be dissuaded is the chance of being caught.

They know they have to normalize public execution before they can openly hang the disobedient handmaids on the wall.

If your goal is to make everyone traumatized and live in fear of the government from a young age, then sure

The irony is that these people always talk about "small government" and go on and on about "freedom".

But yeah, let's have public executions and have children watch them.....SMH.

I have been privy to people's reactions to watching videos, even grainy distorted ones of executions or accidental death. While adults are generally fairly innocculated against depictions of death that are known to be fictional the same is not true of the real thing. There is good reason why even barely legible death caught on film is aired on news broadcasts with warnings and particularly graphic ones are not broadcast at all. While I think I sit somewhere on the less effected side (effected but very good at compartmentalization) a lot of the people I have personally witnessed veiw footage have been generally very perturbed to the point where the mental disquiet lingers for days after the fact.

Young children are generally perturbed by depictions of theatrical or even loosely conceptualized death in print. While some might seem brave in the face of fictional gore it's basically just playing brave and flouting their idea of being tough when what they are being tough against is a safe little fiction. People who like slasher movies aren't immune to being traumatically impacted when exposed to real death on film.

I find it very telling that there is this mental disconnect that children being "exposed" to the depictions of same sex relationships which are often depicted in the same chaste presentation heterosexual relationships are for age appropriate audiences is somehow "disturbing" while something legitimately traumatizing to the average adult is somehow something kids should be exposed to in the most graphic way possible.

I don't think this man should be permitted to be around children much less advocate for what constitutes an initiation into adulthood.

Stumbled across an execution on 4chan once in my early twenties. The moment I realized what was up I closed the browser and never returned to 4chan. It still pops up in my head every now and then as an intrusive thought.

If anyone ever tried to force one of my kids to watch an execution I'd lose my damn mind, regardless of their age.

In a way I'm glad to hear it affected you so much. I think that's generally healthy.

Simple - they want children to think two boys kissing is scary and taboo, but want children to think hanging a boy in the public square for kissing a boy is super cool and normal.

Yeah, the unvarnished answer is usually about that ugly isn't it?

I think this is a bad idea because American media tends to make everything absurd. There'd be top ten count downs and behind the scenes specials... They'd probably get a UFC style announcer... Maybe do a cribs show.... How to cook the final meals competition. "So I married a executioner" TV special. Real wives of prisoners and prison officers special.

Bro that’s what they want. These people are axe murders who want to find a way to do it without being shunned by society.

Think "what would ancient rome do?" that's what they really want, they are fascists.

They could do that knife-making show for guillotine blades. You really don't want to get the screw-up contestant when it's your turn on the block.

Yours first, bitch.

Hamas has a great deal of knowledge in the area of public executions.

As much as I believe there are some whut deserve it, and boy howdy, do I, I'm not a bloodthirsty revenge hobo.

I just want folks to not be traitors, not be opportunistic thugs, not be Nazis, and not kill/wish to kill innocents that just want to live.

It's really simple: don't do that shit to others, don't suck the dicks of those who want you to, stay the fuck off and out of people's bodies, don't use God or whom/whatever as an excuse to be a cunt, and mind your own fucking business.

They could make it a game show, and call it “The Running Man”.

“This is television, that's all it is. It has nothing to do with people, it's to do with ratings! For fifty years, we've told them what to eat, what to drink, what to wear... for Christ's sake, Ben, don't you understand? Americans love television. They wean their kids on it. Listen. They love game shows, they love wrestling, they love sports and violence. So what do we do? We give 'em what they want! We're number one, Ben, that's all that counts, believe me. I've been in the business for thirty years.”

Who are these primitive nut bags?

Conservatives straight up stealing notes from ISIS.

Wait,

his wiki says he's against the death penalty?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie\_Kirk

Did he say these things facetiously?

The foot note on that page links to this interview from 2019. The only comment in the interview about the death penalty is. "I don't agree with the president on the death penalty, I don't agree with him on marijuana, I don't agree with him on Saudi Arabia, there are things I don't agree with, but that doesn't mean I should be less enthused about what he's doing to revitalize the country." Trump is, and was at the time, very much pro-death penalty.

However, there is no detail at all or follow up question clarifying this. I can't find any other source suggesting that Kirk used to be anti-death penalty. Either this was a misstatement in this interview or he has completely reversed his position since giving it.

It's not something he is saying facetiously. You can see the clip here.

Edit to add, I did find another source. This tweet from 2017 states, "Death penalty is more expensive than life in prison. Far too often we kill the wrong person. Conservatives should oppose the death penalty." I gather he has since changed his mind.

Being on death row for years is torture, why would we seek to spare the condemned agony only at the last moment? The answer is that we don't. "Painless" or "humane" executions are meant to spare the State and capital punishment supporters of pain, not the condemned.

Tonight on the Execution Channel!

How should we execute this homosexual? Vote now. Calls charged at $5 a minute, minimum charge $5.

Dax Shepard is shitting and drinking a slurpie watching this on one of 40 screens including hits like ow my balls

It's always projection with GOP. They are only behaving morally because they believe they will be punished by God / society of they don't. Meaning they have little to no moral compass beyond potential punishment.

So naturally crime would go down as kids are scared into submission early on. Brazier everybody has the same moral behaviour as them....

I'd be open to him taking the first step and broadcasting his own so then we can decide how to move forward.

Why I made many a shiny shilling working as a Jack Ketch as a young whelp.

Tis a fine and noble profession.