Shots fired on my campus today. Charlie Kirk TPUSA leader dead

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Raingirl said:

Kirk was a multi-millionaire, and a GoFundMe has been established.   The family is not lacking for money. If this report is true, why this family, and not a family who is struggling financially? Were they friends?

added:  Looks like this is fake news….my very bad, leaving this here as a reminder to myself I am not that skeptical when something comforts me and how easy it is to find justifications.  It even occurred to me it was odd there weren’t any stories popping up discussing possible connections at all when ChatGPT couldn’t find anything where DO had supported or referred to Kirk.  My mind just filed that under ‘that makes it better, not as likely it’s politically motivated’.

——

I asked ChatGPT to see if there was any connection and if there is, it couldn’t find it.  My memory is that Donny stays out of politics for the most part. He has been quoted saying he chooses candidates, not parties.

I am assuming because Donny lived in Utah Valley and still has family there, there was an instinct to step in and protect the family (maybe I am projecting because this was one of my first reactions) and this is how he chose to express it.  It may not be very logical, but something he needs to do emotionally.

 

Edited September 13, 2025 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Is that because he thought they were more malleable? Or changeable?

Whether he thought they were more changeable or not, his intent was to influence them to change.

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I'm may not be reading enough of the replies or posts, what's upsetting about that? EDIT: Sorry Calm, I now get it. It's because Patel or the FBI kept getting it wrong and saying they caught the suspect and they didn't. EDIT: Here's a good reason why Patel, shouldn't be running the FBI, no way, no how. 

https://youtu.be/iXahcpaiNf8?si=QT4X7gUa62UkfAzp

 

And he didn’t make it clear he had made a mistake and the individual was being released because they had no connection to the murder.  Patel turned the kid into a target and didn’t do anything to remove the target.

[ZealouslyStriving]

28 minutes ago, Duncan said:

see, worthless

Indoctrinate U - Wikipedia https://share.google/wdqwdVwxFmPaDnWV1

 

[Calm]

4 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

DONNY OSMOND  is absolutely not paying for those kids. 
 

This is fake news. 
 

I have gotten several headlines indicating that all these celebrities are paying for the children’s education. 
 

I have noticed a significant increase in AI and completely false information. We have to be very careful.

Wow…okay, that’s a good lesson to be learned.  That was way too easy for me to believe.

[Calm]

4 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Charlie went to simply debate them

Debate doesn’t establish truth, it establishes who the better debater is.  Hopefully those who listened went home and did their own research and used credible resources.  If that was the majority of responses, I would be happy. 

l wonder how many minds he actually changed from liberal to conservative or at least moved them more towards the center as opposed to giving more conservative students reason to speak up (not a bad thing, though how it’s done matters).  I wonder how many liberals he helped solidify their views….because debate can do that too.

Anyone know if there were credible polls of before and after?  And longterm after though so many confounding variables, it would be almost impossible to show a direct influence it seems to me.

Edited September 13, 2025 by Calm

[Duncan]

19 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Indoctrinate U - Wikipedia https://share.google/wdqwdVwxFmPaDnWV1

 

seriously? a documentary no one has ever heard of from almost 20 years ago from an unknown filmmaker, who went to University I might add, he's sawing off the branch that allowed him to think for himself and make such a film and so it's not surprising "Since 2013, Maloney has not been active in politics or filmmaking and his whereabouts and activities are unknown."

[Calm]

37 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Indoctrinate U - Wikipedia https://share.google/wdqwdVwxFmPaDnWV1

 

Interesting discussion between a critic of the film and the maker of it:

https://www.mindingthecampus.org/2008/03/04/indoctrinate_u_was_it_fair_an/

[ZealouslyStriving]

17 minutes ago, Duncan said:

seriously? a documentary no one has ever heard of from almost 20 years ago from an unknown filmmaker, who went to University I might add, he's sawing off the branch that allowed him to think for himself and make such a film and so it's not surprising "Since 2013, Maloney has not been active in politics or filmmaking and his whereabouts and activities are unknown."

You are seriously going to sit here and say that there isn't an aggressive liberal bias on American University and College campuses???

No point even interacting with you. 

[ZealouslyStriving]

31 minutes ago, Calm said:

Debate doesn’t establish truth, it establishes who the better debater is.  Hopefully those who listened went home and did their own research and used credible resources.  If that was the majority of responses, I would be happy. 

l wonder how many minds he actually changed from liberal to conservative or at least moved them more towards the center as opposed to giving more conservative students reason to speak up (not a bad thing, though how it’s done matters).  I wonder how many liberals he helped solidify their views….because debate can do that too.

Anyone know if there were credible polls of before and after?  And longterm after though so many confounding variables, it would be almost impossible to show a direct influence it seems to me.

This place is impossible!

Are you seriously not seeing the reactions happening about his assassination? He was making a huge impact with the youth.

Calm, I am truly sorry, but in your efforts to satisfy both sides you have lost the plot.

I think I need a break from this place for awhile.

 

[Duncan]

12 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You are seriously going to sit here and say that there isn't an aggressive liberal bias on American University and College campuses???

No point even interacting with you. 

yes, I am and your opinion is totally worthless of anything to do with universities and colleges, it's sad

 

 

[ZealouslyStriving]

Final post

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19uwUtEPdd/

 

[Tacenda]

42 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

This place is impossible!

Are you seriously not seeing the reactions happening about his assassination? He was making a huge impact with the youth.

Calm, I am truly sorry, but in your efforts to satisfy both sides you have lost the plot.

I think I need a break from this place for awhile.

 

But that wasn't why the killer did it was it? He seems pretty far right but something different from anything imaginable. 

[InCognitus]

18 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

But that wasn't why the killer did it was it? He seems pretty far right but something different from anything imaginable. 

His actual motive alludes me.  I haven't been able to find anything on that other than the rather mundane statements in several news articles reporting that he had talked about Kirk at the family dinner table, indicating that he didn't like Kirk and the viewpoints that he had.  If not liking someone is a motive for murder, we're all in trouble.

ETA:  I am purposely not using the killer's name because sometimes notoriety can be part of a motive.  And if trying to silence Charlie Kirk's ideology was his motive, making him a martyr is certainly not the way to do it.  Prior to this week I had never heard of Charlie Kirk (I guess I live in a cave), but I can't be the only one.  Now everyone knows who he is and I'm sure curiosity will make his ideology more well known.  What a dumb way to handle the situation.

Edited September 13, 2025 by InCognitus

[Calm]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

He was making a huge impact with the youth.

Just to be clear, I never said he had no impact or even implied it.  It was pretty obvious from my first exposure to him he had.  My grandson and his friends, my neighbour’s kids, and my RS ministering sister’s kids went to see him, for goodness sake!  Every adult I talked to that evening had near and dear attending.  It was totally bizarre since I was only vaguely aware of the name and if asked point blank, would probably have said “don’t know about him”.  Are you ignoring that part of my comments?  I was focusing in that particular post on the impact of changing minds though from liberal to more conservative views and not other kinds of impact and I haven’t seen more than anecdotal info on that yet.  Wondering if it is out there because I couldn’t find it.  Btw, no other political or nonpolitical figure has drawn that kind of attention from my circle of friends ever outside of church leaders.  So in no way am I discounting his influence.

I would agree that he and his organization have made it easier for conservative youth to organize and this created or at least added to a movement that has energized conservative college age kids.  I believe there is solid evidence for this even from my brief scan.  And that is a major impact.  His organization appears to have really helped mobilized the conservative student population.

Quote

Calm, I am truly sorry, but in your efforts to satisfy both sides you have lost the plot.

You missed the point of my posts if you think this is what I am doing.  I am not trying to satisfy anyone but myself with my comments.  I am way too self centered to put effort into trying to satisfy others.  I do research for others when asked or not asked because I like to do research and it’s more satisfying when it’s not random.   Here I am trying to understand multiple viewpoints, so of course I will post info and ideas from more than one angle.

Whether or not Charlie Kirk changed minds as opposed to just increasing the voice of conservative youth is what I am wondering about though.  I have known a lot of conservative youth/students over the years, probably more of them than liberal students because of living in university wards as well as areas dense in students and professors so our wards had quite a few even if not university wards (LDS typically running more conservative).  Plus my husband’s students were often business students and business students typically lean more conservative (though since his topic was Entrepreneurship he had a lot of non major students taking his classes to learn how to start businesses)…and quite a few of these students and professors were politically active.  

The most politically active professor I know is Canadian who is probably also the most conservative person I know offline (he’s been my husband’s best friend since we lived in Canada as they worked together in the business school); he was very, very involved in the political scene in Calgary.  So my own experience of campus life has shown me the conservative students and professors were already there and at least some were speaking up (and while I have now lived in Utah 22 years, we lived in Kansas and Canada for 16 years prior to that and I did not grow up in the Mormon corridor, but in the Bay Area and a Chicago suburb…where Kirk was born actually, just 20 years earlier).  Not saying the conservatives were the most common where I lived…only in Utah, but they weren’t allowing themselves to be shouted down as a group and I never heard of the administration going after any of them individually over political ideology (husband had a run in due to religion, but that was a result of a rather cutthroat professor wanting his more prestigious and financially beneficial positions according to people who worked with my husband).  There were definitely conflicts with individual professors unfortunately.

Wait, there was one case of a student running into problems with her department head likely over ideology on the head’s end, though not on hers, she was just doing the science.  She had all but gotten the official stamp on her master’s thesis examining day care (results were day care kids did not do as well by certain standards; I visit taught her so got the whole story, but early 90s so details are vague now) and somehow a MP back in Ottawa got a hold of her study and mentioned it in Parliament.  At which point she was called in and told the work was not sufficient and it would not be accepted.  Unfortunately she moved out of the ward and I never found out if she won her appeal.  Don’t know if this counts as individual professor or administration though.  Can’t remember if more than one prof was involved.

With the evidence of my own eyes and ears, it is hard for me to believe conservative students have had little to no voice on campus (doesn’t mean it came easy for them), though there are likely some campuses they are pretty absent from, just as there are others the liberals have struggled (BYU when I attended was not a liberal haven, lol)  and I suspect it varies with department and university.  There are strongly conservative universities out there, all are religious based as far as I am aware though.  I would never claim there was equality of numbers, conservatives do seem to be a minority on the majority of college campuses, so there are probably more universities where conservatives have little support from administration than the reverse.

I came across this awhile back, examining conservative and liberal numbers in more “elite universities”:

https://www.cspicenter.com/p/diverse-and-divided-a-political-demography

Quote

America’s elite university students are more demographically diverse than the general population, but more politically divided along lines of race, gender, sexuality, and religion.

Minority and female students are far more liberal on campus than in the general population, whereas straight white Christian men are somewhat more conservative on campus than in the general population. Current trends portend a politics in which elite women, minorities, gays, and the nonreligious are more left-leaning while elite whites, males, and Christians remain relatively conservative.

White Christians tend to cluster in red state flagship universities, which are the most politically balanced in the country and have similar shares of liberal and conservative students. Yet many flagship universities in flyover states with conservative reputations actually have more liberal than conservative students.

A quarter of students are LGBT, and there are roughly equal shares of Christian and nonreligious students. LGBT, Nonreligious, and Christians are set to become more important political groups among America’s future leaders.

Liberal arts colleges are the least politically diverse. Many have almost no conservatives, and thus very low viewpoint diversity. But they have high sexual diversity, at nearly 40 percent LGBT.

Ivy League schools average 10-15 percent conservative and 60-75 percent liberal. Across 150 leading schools, there are nearly 2.5 liberals for every conservative.

Democrats outnumber Republicans by a 55-23 margin on campus, and liberals outnumber conservatives 53-21. Elite students are thus two-thirds more Democratic and twice as liberal as the American population.

Among elite students, there is a 15-point gender gap in political ideology and party identification between men and women. This is 3 to 5 times larger than the gender gap in the general population. It is also 2 to 3 times larger than the gender gap among either the 18-25 or college-educated general population. The campus gender gap has grown steadily since 2004.

The university with the highest viewpoint diversity ranking is the University of Arkansas, whose students are 35% conservative, 37% liberal, 36% Republican, and 41% Democratic. The least diverse is Smith College, at 81% liberal, 1% conservative, 78% Democratic, and 2% Republican….

 

Edited September 13, 2025 by Calm

[Tacenda]

42 minutes ago, Calm said:

Liberal arts colleges are the least politically diverse.

Calm, I recently listened to this radiowest podcast about the colleges getting rid of some of these vital humanity classes. It sickens me actually, because humans aren't born to be a machine and only worry about their pay. But should develop in many ways, that enrich their lives and others too.

https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2025-09-02/what-are-the-humanities-good-for-anyway

 

Edited September 13, 2025 by Tacenda

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

Calm, I recently listened to this radiowest podcast about the colleges getting rid of some of these vital humanity classes. It sickens me actually, because humans aren't born to be a machine and only worry about their pay. But should develop in many ways, that enrich their lives and others too.

https://radiowest.kuer.org/show/radiowest/2025-09-02/what-are-the-humanities-good-for-anyway

I wish trade/tech schools had a better reputation so those who weren’t interested (not everyone likes school) or can’t afford devoting that much time, money, or effort to education could go that route and still be able to compete for better jobs or being seen as promotable as university trained.

Universities have to figure out how to drop the costs.  I would love to see more state funding (and not tied to political ideology, either conservative or liberal), but the state is so screwed up in other ways financially. I have no idea how it could be managed well without harm in other areas.

Quote

because humans aren't born to be a machine and only worry about their pay

Historically speaking, it’s a recent development though to have this many have this much money and not have to be scraping for survival.  I hope the trend continues and more people get broader educations that develop their minds and interests outside of work and even their home community culture as well as skills (because knowledge is fun and fulfilling), but it’s not going to be easy.

Edited September 14, 2025 by Calm

[Raingirl]

8 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I'm may not be reading enough of the replies or posts, what's upsetting about that? EDIT: Sorry Calm, I now get it. It's because Patel or the FBI kept getting it wrong and saying they caught the suspect and they didn't. EDIT: Here's a good reason why Patel, shouldn't be running the FBI, no way, no how. 

https://youtu.be/iXahcpaiNf8?si=QT4X7gUa62UkfAzp

 

Patel bragged that they caught the shooter quickly.   What a joke.  They “caught” two wrong people, then the dad turned him in.  

[Raingirl]

7 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

DONNY OSMOND  is absolutely not paying for those kids. 
 

This is fake news. 
 

I have gotten several headlines indicating that all these celebrities are paying for the children’s education. 
 

I have noticed a significant increase in AI and completely false information. We have to be very careful.

I suspected this.  It doesn’t surprise me at all that it was fake.  Probably the only Mormon celebrity they could think of. 🙄

[Raingirl]

7 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You really don't get it do you?

Many of these college aged young adults, the malleable "kids" you speak of had been molded by liberals filling the ranks of our collegiate educational system, after leaving their home environments and then kept on campuses that told them to keep any contrary opinions to themselves.

Charlie went to simply debate them and show them that maybe what their professors were telling them wasn't the truth and that it is OK to express a contrary opinion and do so with facts. And he allowed professors come to the mic and debate him also, so they could try to prove to their students that Charlie was wrong. The outcome wasn't different, because they were the ones giving those "kids" the ideas Charlie was countering.

So it was OK that liberal professors have a captive audience to shape malleable minds, but when a Conservative invites people, of their freewill, to debate him, and tries to show them that maybe what they're being taught isn't correct, that is somehow an issue?

I don't get you.

What Charlie Kirk was doing was not a true debate.  He rarely had facts to back up his opinions.   His “debates” were simply a gimmicky way to push an agenda that made him millions. 

[Raingirl]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

You are seriously going to sit here and say that there isn't an aggressive liberal bias on American University and College campuses???

No point even interacting with you. 

You cannot make a blanket statement and apply it to all universities. I have spent decades working at universities.   They varied wildly in their ideology.  The most liberal university I worked at was the most accepting of diverse people and opinions.  The conservative one very much othered anyone who wasn’t in lockstep with their narrow beliefs. 

[Calm]

 

27 minutes ago, Raingirl said:

You cannot make a blanket statement and apply it to all universities. I have spent decades working at universities.   They varied wildly in their ideology.  The most liberal university I worked at was the most accepting of diverse people and opinions.  The conservative one very much othered anyone who wasn’t in lockstep with their narrow beliefs. 

University cultures are very different, even in the same state, and not just over sports rivalries.

[longview]

2 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Final post

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19uwUtEPdd/

 

This is a slam dunk. Charlie Kirk is VERY widely and deeply appreciated in this country and AROUND the world. His work was profound in a gracious way. Duncan is simply being absolutist ridiculous.

[Raingirl]

41 minutes ago, longview said:

This is a slam dunk. Charlie Kirk is VERY widely and deeply appreciated in this country and AROUND the world. His work was profound in a gracious way. Duncan is simply being absolutist ridiculous.

How is being racist, homophobic, and misogynistic being “gracious”?

[rodheadlee]

On 9/11/2025 at 12:56 AM, The Nehor said:

No, part of the problem is you referring to it as “the problem” so your statement comes across as declarative and sounds like it means something. If you think about it though your statement is meaningless. You didn’t even define at all what the problem is. Gun violence? Some cultural issue about violence? My insinuating that an immoral grifter with heinous opinions is an immoral grifter with heinous opinions? My irrational obsession with finding comfortable hoodies? You won’t define it. You will only refer to it with vague euphemisms and a broad umbrella term. That is definitely part of “THE PROBLEM”.

Oh well. It will probably be forgotten in a few weeks anyways. Either that or the President will send troops to Utah to ‘stop all the violent crime’ or whatever justification they pick this time. That could be fun/horrifying to watch.

The problem is in America if we don't like what somebody says or if they don't perform up to our expectations we drag that person down like a lame elk by a pack of wolves. As a nation we have lost our compassion. 

Isaiah 6:5 woe is me! For I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips

Edited September 14, 2025 by rodheadlee