PS: "Actually my recent post on Michelle Malkin's retirement: one of the key-most figures in getting her eliminated was Charlie Kirk himself, or, at the least, his Turning Point USA org, which worked hard to ban her and shame her in 2019-2020 for anti-Semitism and racism."

I remember some of this. I will go back and read that along with your '23 post on Mr. Kirk and Mr. Sailer.

PS

FWIW, on the Charlie Kirk audience supposedly being young people vs a Joe Rogan audience being older:

MediaMonitors.com, January 2020, has this:

___________

Podcast Survey

Audience Demographic Variations are Specific to Genre and Even Individual Podcasts

(...)

THE JOE ROGAN EXPERIENCE: Joe Rogan’s listeners are largely representative of the majority of podcast listenership, but his popularity blows away the competition.

According to our survey respondent demos, Joe’s listenership is 71% male and evenly split between high school and post-secondary graduates.

Fifty seven percent of his audience reports earning over $50k per year, with 19% making over $100k.

The average age of his listeners was 24.

The most likely additional podcast responses from his listeners were “Serial,” “The Daily,” “This American Life,” and “This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von.” Joe Rogan’s listeners varied only slightly from the survey average on number of podcasts listened to and exclusivity, but he received nearly 3x the number of responses compared to the next most-responded podcasts, “Phil in the Blanks” and “Crime Junkie.”

(end quote, MediaMonitors.com)

____________

Naturally I point to the finding of 24 as "average age of Joe Rogan listeners" in Jan 2020 (suggesting mean year of birth of his listeners in 2020 was: 1995).

If Rogan kept the exact same listeners by 2025, with no new ones at all, the average age would now about have reached thirty (still b.1995), eight years above the shooter's age (b.2003). I'm not sure whether Joe Rogan would have gotten relatively more younger or older listeners since 2020. The obvious bet would be he got more older listeners, there being a far-more open field on the older side than the younger. Nine-year-olds (I hope) are not listening to Joe Rogan. Forty-nine- and Fifty-nine-year-olds might.

I think the whole thing, the whole Joe Rogan podcast-listening thing, is in general quite a waste of time, along with most podcasts.

Is it possible the difference is that the b.2000s set were listening to BOTH CK and Rogan, but the b.1970s, b.1980s sets (etc.) were listening to Rogan along and not Charlie Kirk? So it only seems he has a "younger" audience by not having an older one. While in fact they might both have equal market-power among the b.2000s set. I don't know. One of the main ways I heard of Charlie Kirk was through his back-influence via promotion by the rest of the Trump and pro-Trump machines. CK benefitted a lot from that promotion, even while working to keep the image, into its 14th year, as a youth-thing. He long since lifted off the ground and cannot have claimed any contact with "grass-roots" since pre-2015 at latest.

And then there's the surprising news recently reported, that CK's own father had indirect ties to the Trump Organization via real-estate development. CK's father was a wealthy real-estate developer.

When I first heard of Charlie Kirk, in the mid-2010s, I recall dismissing him as a performance-artist gatekeeper, even as a kind of political clown, BUT an interesting one, a one in the cast of characters of the Trump-breakthrough moment of 2015-16. I didn't improve my view of him through the rest of the 2010s. Actually my recent post on Michelle Malkin's retirement: one of the key-most figures in getting her eliminated was Charlie Kirk himself, or, at the least, his Turning Point USA org, which worked hard to ban her and shame her in 2019-2020 for anti-Semitism and racism.

In other comments I've made here, I've pointed to how he'd possibly been drifting, by his early thirties, into more an ethnonationalist position. My own website is depressingly Google-suppressed (effectively I no longer get any Google-traffic but I do get steady amounts from Yandex, DuckDuckGo, and others) but I wonder what value my own post about Charlie Kirk and Steve Sailer, from 2023, will have to the world.

Mid-2010s Charlie Kirk also can be said to have glided along on the gains, then being made, by people were much more openly radical than CK was at the time. People have said the irony was, a decade of water under the bridge and CK was sounding more and more like the people who, all through the 2010s, he helped politically assassinate and dump their political bodies over a political bridge during the political night (e.g., Michelle Malkin). This is the basis for why some people believe a larger conspiracy was involved, because CK was steadily going off the reservation. But there are just as many who claim he was still on the reservation and was making plans to fight anti-Semitism.

(Steve Deace: "The truth is Charlie and I had several private conversations recently about how to push back on the rising tide of antisemitism on the Right." // Ted Cruz: "My last conversation with Charlie was on exactly this topic: he recognized how antisemitism has utterly devoured the Left and we were talking about how to stop this toxic garbage from spreading on the Right.")


Whatever the merits or my views (formed now a decade ago) may be, there's this: Assassinated Charlie Kirk transcends the real man. He instantly became a symbol, and predictably we see people struggle over his legacy.

__________

"Reaching out to young people," meaning high-school and college(-aged) White Americans (the race part was tacit), was something Charlie Kirk began touting over ten years ago. When he plugged into the Trump-MAGA machine he got huge, huge boosts, everything firing on all cylinders to promote CK's own natural talents. He got very lucky. But a funny thing happened: CK aged out of being one of those young people. Now, about to turn 32, CK was no longer college-aged young but he still carried on with the same "gimmick," which had become so lucrative an. He is said to have had a 100-million dollar media empire by 2025.

That's another reason people have said it's not an assassination (properly defined) and that he's not a hero as such: Because CK was making lots of money from this thing. An assassination would involve shooting a public figure who was either making a trivial civil-servant salary or making no money at all. "No one paid MLK to show up for the marches in Alabama," or something. Charlie Kirk got lots of money for his appearances, and his organization's coffers haven't come close to running dry since plugging into the Trump Train in 2015.

PS: Finally, regarding "hero". No. That term doesn't apply. Did he put himself in harm's way purposely to save others from harm or death, or even die doing so?

Nah, not unless (now, I guess) you consider just talking in front of a big crowd without 1 1/2" plexiglass is putting one's self in harm's way. That's what the ctrl-left is trying to make it come to.

PS: From Mr. Hail: "I agree with Adam Smith that the word subtly elevates the person killed to high status, like an honorific, normally almost absent in English. To use the term "assassinated" is to say Charlie Kirk was a major political leader.

Agreed in part. Was John Lennon "assassinated"? Dang! I wish I remembered from that book, and if I had it on me, I'd have to flip through a lot - the whole book was about the killer - a highly functional mental case - and the happenings there in NYC and The Dakota apartments on those few days. (There was a good background bio of John Lennon too, most of which I hadn't known.)

O/T there, I would say no. It doesn't sound right. Charlie Kirk WAS a political figure though, and for young people a pretty big one. He hadn't been elected to anything though. We need better dictionaries... but also words change in meaning...

PS: As I mashed [Submit], I realized I was getting to the point I wanted to make regarding your recent post on your blog, Alarmist. I will try to write there.

That is, I've also written right out that I am glad someone was dead, but to me the difference between Ted Kennedy/Juan McCain and Reagan is that the latter was not longer in charge of anything. The former 2 were going to be making destructive policies until they died, so, yeah, if that was the only way to get them out of the Senate, good they died. Were it an alt-universe Nancy Pelosi who retired at 95 already, OK, make it 70, and she was just a rich old lady in San Francisco, no I wouldn't feel the need to clink glasses together upon her death.

PS: Mr. Hail, I guess Trump and other big Conservatives did give extra points for a young guy like Charlie Kirk. Whatever you think of his ideas, you've gotta admit he was a hell of a go-getter.*

Then too, I talked to a 23 y/o about this. The young Conservatives think so much of Mr. Kirk. If a 40 -50 y/o, say some Joe Rogan level guy (in age but also in fame) was the one going to campuses, I guess he couldn't relate. At least they'd SAY he couldn't relate, not understanding that maybe some of us can. "OK, Boomer". (No, but not Joe Rogan exactly. I don't think he's very smart.)

* I should exclude the ctrl-left here. As we've been seeing, they are full of hate and will give no credit for this guy having been, ideas notwithstanding, a real go-getter, good speaker and debater, whatever.

PS: Oh, and the 30 y/o classic vehicle that I got her to practice driving, went to limp mode and worse. This had only happened once before, but we are pretty sure we know what it is, as my friend went through lots of things to fix this problem, and a new ECU fixed it. 3 months ago, when it happened, I did note that the car had been running in the heat (we hardly ever do this) for nearly an hour, as we waited around, thinking it'd be 5 minutes. That was extreme, so, as a one-time fluke, and it having not happened again, I figured all is well.

This box can be redone, but there are no new ones. The tough call is whether to send it in (they'll only do one re-do, WTH?) while it's working - will they find anything? Along with this, we're gonna get a cheap and easy R&R crank position sensor.

OK, I was going to quit about the cars.

"As for who actually killed Kirk, I tend to look at this as a calculated move to light off the fireworks that will justify a further clamping down of the surveillance state."

That's always the worry, Alarmist, at least for me since 9/11. Even with the ICE raids, what it the ulterior motive, if not of Trump but of others? It's not necessarily that I think these things are all planned out - I personally think the Deep State is not always that smart - but are events being taken well advantage of to advance the Orwellian Totalitarian Police State?

PS: As expected, I was really busy yesterday and didn't get much of a head start this morning. We've got a problem with the Korean-mobile that is the only car my wife can drive, and I'm not there to drive anything else.

It's damned dangerous, as the car was cutting off from idle at intersections, not very often, but just the same. Ha, as if it had that stupid start/stop bug, errr, feature, but it doesn't! Well, one can be careful and watch for this, but the wife is not mechanically savvy and ready to put up with that.

My 50-year experience car mechanic friend cleaned out the motor-driven throttle body - it's a really small sliver of space that is open at idle - otherwise I wouldn't have believed that little bit of soot/dust would matter! I thought that had fixed it, as the idle rpms were about 50-100 higher (closer to 700 than 600. (I suppose the next thing is the computer will come back with "Well, we'll just see about that! I say 600 rpms, and that's that!") Also, I could not reproduce the problem.. Now it's worse.

She told me that the car cut off in motion, while in slight motion too, in the middle of an intersection, as she let off the brake. Yes, this is getting dangerous. Next step is a replacement throttle body.

PS

Who would have thought the hot topic here would be an overly pedantic discussion of the term ‘assassination?’

Yes, Alex Jones murder would be an assassination in my view; but since you asked, do you mean Alex Jones, the “They’re turning the frogs gay” guy, or the prettier BBC host, Alex Jones?

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/8B14/production/_126540653_hi038301238.jpg

🕉

PS
It looks like the shift in definition for "assassination" came after the rise in killings and bombings in the late 1960s.

It is interesting that earlier waves of anarchist/communist killings and bombings didn't shift that definition.

It may be due to the instant media first widely available in that period and the perceived need to increase drama.

PS

Re: the word "assassination"

Steve Sailer, normally a stickler for correct usage, used the word "assassination" for Charlie Kirk in his latest Substack entry. That was well after the governor of Utah used the term.

- His first entry: "Charlie Kirk, 31, RIP: The fine young broadcaster was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley U."

- His most recent: "Charlie Kirk's Assassin: Don't jump to conclusions like the New York Times in 2011."

I agree with Adam Smith that the word subtly elevates the person killed to high status, like an honorific, normally almost absent in English. To use the term "assassinated" is to say Charlie Kirk was a major political leader.

Something online yields this:

___________

ASSASSINATION:

- Victim: A prominent, high-profile figure, such as a head of state, political leader, religious leader, or celebrity.

- Motive: Often politically, ideologically, religiously, or financially motivated, with the goal of making a public statement, seizing power, or destabilizing a government.

__________

Strictly speaking Charlie Kirk may squeeze into one of these definitions but not an automatic or obvious case. He is more like a political celebrity or an entertainer. Why was he even doing these round-the-country tours in an off-year time of the year that really ought to be a highly de-politicized time?

.

Q. If someone tried to kill Alex Jones, would it be an "assassination attempt"?

Q2. What about if those two Sailer commenters who were issuing mutual threats against each other a few years ago, if one showed up and tried to kill the other, would it be an "assassination attempt"?

Q3. If the former is a Yes and the latter a No, where is the line?

PS

-- Charlie Kirk killer's radicalization came in ca. mid-2018 to early 2019 period --

The Daily Mail got in contact with the shooter Tyler Robinson's high school classmates. The classmates said this:

They remember he entered high school as an ordinary type you'd find in White Red-State America, but that he became a leftist in his sophomore year. The classmates specified that it was the sophomore year specifically. They said he was from a family without any leftists so his political turn was notable as it made him stand out. He was really worked up with political grievances starting about that time, according to the classmates.

The shooter's sophomore year in high school was:

--- August 2018 to May 2019.

That's the critical period to his ideological turn, according to the classmates.

He was only 16 then. He seems to have kept in the same direction into his twenties. It's possible that the 2020-to-2022 Corona-Panic, with its lockdowns and disruptions, helped to freeze views in place. Views typical of many teenagers which tend to melt away with sustained contact with the outside world. The god of the Corona-Panic demanded digitalization of life, and so teenage Tyler Robinson out there in Utah, like others, became more online. The left-wing online subcultures were a source of solace during the two dreary lost years, including the latter part of his own senior year of high school and his single semester at 'regular' university in late 2021 (he later entered an election training school).

Think back to 2018-19: Events and ideological currents of the time, and the drumbeats coming from the wider culture, evidently "radicalized" the boy. In a less-ideological age -- had he been born in 1973 or 1983 rather than 2003 -- I cannot imagine he'd have gone this way. Remember that Tyler Robinson was a mid-teenager at the time, in 2018-19, at peak susceptibility to the siren-song of Wokeness.

The classmates' account can be compared with the family statements: His father and/or mother told police and the FBI that their son's leftist political views were more recent: as in, the early 2020s and after high school. (If they remembered their 22-year-old son as a hard-leftist back to 10th grade already, they wouldn't have said "it only began in recent years.") The shooter's father and mother were both Trump voters and supporters, probably each time, 2016-2020-2024. I interpret this to mean Tyler Robinson didn't make his views known to family until recently. If the classmates can be believed, Tyler actually became a Wokeness true-believer already some time in the period mid-2018 to mid-2019.

In the year 2018 the anti-Trump tenor of U.S. culture reached a fever-pitch. The Covid Lockdowns and Panic of helped push things over an edge in 2020, on hyped-up base already present in/by 2018. Steve Sailer, at the time, in 2018, gave ironic praise to Trump as the greatest thing for democracy since sliced bread, given that the mid-term election turnout soared to historic levels (and more with outraged Blue anti-Trump voters than pro-Trump voters).

PS: Good evening, Mr. Alarmist!

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/assassinate_v

𝑇𝑜 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 (𝑎 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛, 𝑒𝑠𝑝. 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑜𝑟 𝑓𝑎𝑚𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛) 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘, 𝑒𝑠𝑝. 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒. 𝐴𝑙𝑠𝑜: 𝑡𝑜 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 (𝑎 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛) 𝑜𝑛 𝑏𝑒ℎ𝑎𝑙𝑓 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟, 𝑒𝑠𝑝. 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟.

𝑇ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑚𝑠 𝑏𝑎𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑎𝑟𝑔𝑒𝑡.

Indeed it does. It expresses the contemporary definition while preserving the archaic. They also have this...

https://www.oed.com/dictionary/assassination_n

𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 (𝑒𝑠𝑝. 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑓𝑖𝑔𝑢𝑟𝑒) 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑝𝑙𝑎𝑛𝑛𝑒𝑑 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘, 𝑡𝑦𝑝𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑜𝑙𝑜𝑔𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑚𝑜𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒, 𝑠𝑜𝑚𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 𝑐𝑎𝑟𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑏𝑦 𝑎 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑑 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑓𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑘𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑟; 𝑎 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑎𝑐𝑘 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑑.


Thank you for your latest substack posts. I hadn't really thought about Charlie Kirk being killed by Israel (mossad) until I read your post about Netanyahu denying Israeli involvement. Perhaps they did.(?) I just can't imagine why. Why Charlie Kirk? Was he not pro-Israel enough?

I also had not heard of Göbekli Tepe. Sounds interesting. I'll have to check it our sometime. (Thanks)

And... I don't believe in the ‘Out of Africa’ hypothesis.
(I don't think it is factually correct.)

Happy Friday! ☮️

PS

Hi Mr. Smith.

I’m happy to go with the OED definition:

To murder (a person, esp. prominent or famous person) in a planned attack, esp. with a political or ideological motive. Also: to murder (a person) on behalf of another, esp. as a hired or professional killer.

That seems bang on target.

🕉

PS
.

(updated to remove a "less than" sign that cut-off most of comment)


What I've seen of the allegedly-confessed shooter's info:

___________________

TYLER ROBINSON

- full-White male. Born 2003 in Utah. (Cedar City?). Father a police officer; mother works with a disabled-people's care group. No left-wing tendencies evident in the family and to the contrary many right-wing-associated tendencies. It's unclear if tis Robinson family are active Mormons. A large majority of their community is.

- The shooter's home county is Iron County, supermajority-White even in the 2020s: in 2020, the Census count for the county was (LESS THAN) 1% Black, 1.5% American-Indian, 1.5% Asian & Pacific Islander (disproportionately Pacific-Islander Mormons), but had reached 10% Hispanic by the 2020 Census. Usual social-circles among Whites would tend to be well over 90% White;

- The shooter's home county has been 75-25 Republican for decades, BUT notably it also gave Trump relatively weaker margins in each of the the Trump elections (2016, 2020, 2024) for example:

--- 2000: 80-14 for Bush;
--- 2004: 83-15 for Bush;
--- 2008: 75-20 for McCain;
--- 2012: 85-13 for Romney, the strongest margin they county has ever delivered in %-gap terms (Romney was a Mormon);
--- 2016: 65-14 for Trump, with the other 21 going mostly to Mormon anti-Trump candidate Evan "McMuffin" McMullin;
--- 2020: 76-20 for Trump;
--- 2024: 77-20 for Trump.

- August 2014: The CK-shooter entered middle school (6th grade)

- August 2017: The CK-shooter entered high school (9th grade)

- May 2021: graduated from Cedar City High School

---> NOTE: ca. 1.4 of his 4 years of high school were majorly disrupted by the Covid-Panic of the early 2020s;

---> Fall 2021: attended one semester at a university but dropped out. All universities still subject to Covid-Panic restrictions, he may have formed no real passion or connection to the world of academia and drifted away.

- Activities 2022-2025: Unknown to me, but, per reports, in the early 2020s he increasingly embraced left-wing political views and anti-fascism, and developed a hatred for Charlie Kirk specifically. The early-reported Transgender political angle is looking less certain. At least there is zero indication he himself was an actual or aspiring Transgender.

- Sept 2025: Tyler Robinson fatally shoots Charlie Kirk

-

NOTE: Many strains of evidence suggest Tyler Robinson was highly into computer-gaming culture starting around mid-late-2010s adolescence and up to now. His left-wing political radicalization must be understood in the context of his late-2010s, early-2020s era. Choosing to shoot a figure (Kirk) who was describable, at least partially, a social-media personality is telling here.

PS

What I've seen of the allegedly-confessed shooter's info:

___________________

TYLER ROBINSON

- full-White male. Born 2003 in Utah. (Cedar City?). Father a police officer; mother works with a disabled-people's care group. No left-wing tendencies evident in the family and to the contrary many right-wing-associated tendencies. It's unclear if tis Robinson family are active Mormons. A large majority of their community is.

- The shooter's home county is Iron County, supermajority-White even in the 2020s: in 2020, the Census count for the county was

PS: Thanks for that tweet sequence, Mr. Hail. I guess there must be a good way to search and sort. The change since the last 5 years in Mr. Kirk's attitude says a lot.

Really, for his being in his late '20s, Charlie Kirk's coming around on some of the social issues is impressive too me. Perhaps this is because, he DID NOT go to college. (Ha, in my time, in a technical major, it was not a factor, but that was THEN, way back...) The 4 years of high-level indoctrination may stick for 1, 2 decades, depending on one's conformist tendencies.

I will check out your blog shortly, Alarmist. I know that I tried to comment, but I cannot remember why it didn't work. I'll get back to that and back to writing here, tonight, likely at the earliest. Busy day!

PS: Great comments here.

For Mr. Smith first, since that was the beginning of the post, I do agree that the meaning of "assassin" has changed over the years. I too, looking back to when I'd heard about it, don't remember "John Lennon being assassinated". (I just read a whole book on it too, BTW, but for the life of me can't remember if the author used that word at all. The book is fairly recent, at least nowhere near written at that time, 45 years ago.)

Then, when you think of the term "hired assassin" from spy movies, etc, to me it applies all manner of killings, done for hire by experts. Why doesn't that meaning jive with the word "assassination" completely. I don't know. I haven't pondered this offen enough. ;-}

PS: Good morning, everyone!

𝐼'𝑣𝑒 𝑠𝑒𝑒𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑡ℎ𝑎𝑡 𝐴𝑑𝑎𝑚 𝑆𝑚𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑑𝑜𝑒𝑠 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑎𝑔𝑟𝑒𝑒 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑚.

Well... I'm (mistakenly?) under the impression that the term 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 was (until recently) more commonly reserved for heads of state (a president, prime minister, taoiseach, king, queen, archduke, governor, etc.) or some other important person (pope, bishop, chief rabbi perhaps?) and wasn't used to describe a simple murder.

I've never heard of the term 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 being associated with Brian Thompson or John Lennon, for example. (A quick google search does reveal 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 being used for both Brian Thompson and John Lennon but I have never heard or seen it used in real life outside of this google search.) I feel like misusing this word 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 is a continuance of the dumbing down of society and the slow but steady bastardization of the language in the usual Orwellian way. I feel like there is something more to the term and its overuse is changing the essence of the word itself.

So... Black's Law Dictionary first edition (published 1891) says...

Assassination. 𝑀𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑.

𝐴 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑐ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑠𝑙𝑦, 𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑠𝑡𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑡ℎ 𝑜𝑟 𝑠𝑢𝑟𝑝𝑟𝑖𝑠𝑒, 𝑜𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑙𝑦𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑖𝑛 𝑤𝑎𝑖𝑡.

The second edition (1910), third edition (1933), and fourth edition (1968) all have the same simple definition.

The fifth edition (1979), and the sixth edition (1990), however, say...

𝑀𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑, 𝑢𝑠𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦, 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑛𝑜𝑡 𝑛𝑒𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑟𝑖𝑙𝑦, 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟­𝑒𝑟 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑢𝑝𝑜𝑛 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑; 𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑔ℎ 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎 𝑝𝑢𝑏𝑙𝑖𝑐 𝑓𝑖𝑔𝑢𝑟𝑒 𝑚𝑖𝑔ℎ𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑏𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑙𝑜𝑛𝑒 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙, 𝑠𝑜𝑐𝑖𝑎𝑙 𝑜𝑟 𝑝𝑜𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑠𝑜𝑛𝑠. 𝐼𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑓𝑒𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑙 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒, 𝑝𝑢𝑛𝑖𝑠ℎ𝑎𝑏𝑙𝑒 𝑎𝑠 𝑎 ℎ𝑜𝑚𝑖𝑐𝑖𝑑𝑒, 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑒 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡, 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖­𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑜𝑟 𝑖𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑛𝑜 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑛𝑒𝑥𝑡 𝑖𝑛 𝑜𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑢𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑡𝑜 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡, 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑉𝑖𝑐𝑒­ 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡-𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑐𝑡, 𝑜𝑟 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑖𝑛𝑑𝑖𝑣𝑖𝑑𝑢𝑎𝑙 𝑤ℎ𝑜 𝑖𝑠 𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑠 𝑃𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑖­𝑑𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑖𝑡𝑢𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛. 18 𝑈.𝑆.𝐶.𝐴. § 1751. 𝐼𝑛𝑎𝑑𝑑𝑖𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛, 𝑎𝑑𝑣𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑡ℎ𝑟𝑜𝑤 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑏𝑦 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑓 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑜𝑓𝑓𝑖𝑐𝑒𝑟 𝑜𝑓 𝑠𝑢𝑐ℎ 𝑔𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑛𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟 18 𝑈.𝑆.𝐶.𝐴. § 2385

For fun, I went and checked out the old Bouvier's sixth edition (1856)...

ASSASSINATION, crim. law. 𝐴 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑏𝑦 𝑎𝑛 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛. 𝐵𝑦 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑖𝑠 𝑢𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑡𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑎 𝑚𝑢𝑟𝑑𝑒𝑟 𝑐𝑜𝑚𝑚𝑖𝑡𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑓𝑜𝑟 ℎ𝑖𝑟𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑚𝑜𝑛𝑒𝑦, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ𝑜𝑢𝑡 𝑎𝑛𝑦 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑜𝑐𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 𝑜𝑟 𝑐𝑎𝑢𝑠𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝑟𝑒𝑠𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑚𝑒𝑛𝑡 𝑔𝑖𝑣𝑒𝑛 𝑏𝑦 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑠𝑜𝑛 𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑖𝑛𝑠𝑡 𝑤ℎ𝑜𝑚 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑐𝑟𝑖𝑚𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑑𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑.

(I didn't look in the Black's Law 7th, 8th, 9th or 10th, because I'm lazy and those dictionaries are on another hard drive. I might do so later.)

I'm not saying this 𝑝𝑟𝑜𝑣𝑒𝑠 anything. It does seem to me that using the term 𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑎𝑠𝑠𝑖𝑛𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 is a little inappropriate when used to describe the murder of a CEO of a political action committee.


(Anyway...) Probably just me being persnickety.

(And don't get me started about the hard T in often!)
(To be clear, there is is a silent t in often.)

I'm going to go read the post and the comments, and grill a steak for breakfast (not necessarily in that order) and I'll see you guys later.

Cheers! ☮️

PS

It’s a somewhat known fact that human brains really aren’t “fully wired” before age 25, which is why in some quarters some medical (dare I say) experts have questioned the use of SSRIs to treat issues children may have, like depression. In any case, not being “fully wired” tends to explain why so many youth lean liberal.

Mr. Kirk was not wholly responsible for the very large shift of Gen Z males from D to R in 2024, but he no doubt was a significant influence behind that. That alone put a big target on his back, and made it a political act, so it’s an assassination.

As I noted in my substack, the left has put lethal force on the table... even if the Kirk shooting was actually a false flag by the “ultra right” or “big jew,” the outpouring of glee and revelling in his death, along with calls by those who are loud and proud on the left for many others who stray from their approved viewpoints, e.g. Joe Rogan, who is hardly a God-fearing Rightist, to be similarly despatched are indicative of the willingness of the left to use any and all means to achieve and hold control the course of our society.

As for who actually killed Kirk, I tend to look at this as a calculated move to light off the fireworks that will justify a further clamping down of the surveillance state. I saw a clear version of the fuzzy perp shot released by the Fibby, and you can see a line at the neck that looks like the perp in the shot might be wearing a silicon mask. The See Eye Eh revealed the extent of their masking abilities a couple decades ago. What you see Ian doing in MI is not Hollywood fantasy. It is possible this was not some MK Ultra’d gender-confused kid who pulled the trigger, but as has been noted in Mr. Hail’s comment, we shouldn’t be surprised when that particular gender-confused face is found suicided in the woods.

TPTB see that their puppets in the Western governments are losing control, and it is time to clamp down. Bellum omnium contra omnes would be a useful way of getting through the next few turbulent years, but it will fail miserably by the mid 2030s.

It’s TEOTWAWKI time.

I am THE Alarmist !

🕉

PS

A little addendum to my previous comment:

It's worth remembering that CK only had his 25th birthday in October 2018.

It's said that only around the 25th birthday (+/-, maybe a bit later still for those further to the right of the bell curve) does a man's mind actually settle down into becoming fully mature (and with good care and luck, the mature mind lasts until death or senility decades later). But CK was already a pretty big social-media political celebrity, and Trump Guy, before age 25.

Charlie Kirk had talent in many ways, but besides right-place-right-time-ism, he got a kind of affirmative-action bonus for being so young. In the earliest days he got all kinds of legs-up for that reason, as a novelty. (As I mentioned before, throughout the land and in any era you can find plenty of people like this in late-teenage and early-20s, but just like pro-sports players there is little path for most, no matter how devoted or skilled. But in our time there is a bit more of a path.)

The usual criticism of the Trump People that I've come to is, the people he surrounds himself with are not particularly merit-based. I'd have to make the same criticism of Trump choosing a press secretary in her mid-twenties, for the tint of blonde in her air (the SAT range of her college suggests her is IQ solidly in the 110s). It's possible/plausible that in important ways Charlie Kirk was far better than the average, but in principle it's a bad bet to invest in people that young until they've learned more, done more things in the world, proven themselves, had experience.

There is a sense that Charlie Kirk is being celebrated as a hero. I echo what Adam Smith wrote in an earlier comment: This makes me uncomfortable, even if I understand the emotion and the message behind it.

PS

-- Charlie Kirk on MLK --

Here are some of the times Charlie Kirk used the word "MLK" on Twitter, 2between late 2014 and early 2024. That almost-ten-year period covers the great bulk of his career (as a full-time, permanent political activist and social-media personality).

There is a notably big change evident, a story "told in the timestamps." Those who didn't follow Charlie Kirk closely may be unaware of the change, though several commenters here including Mr. Alarmist already made reference to it. (I was only vaguely aware of Charlie Kirk's increasing willingness to embrace pro-White sort-of views, but it's still uncertain what to make of that phase of what he was doing.

In the tweets, you'll see two things:

(1.) Kirk's longstanding status, all through the 2010s and beyond as as a loyal center-right gatekeeper, an upholder of inherited political orthodoxy;. He was someone who willingly held up MLK as a secular saint, the kind who would say, "MLK was a true conservative and liberals are the REAL racists." Did he believe those things? He said it, consistently, without any irony.

(Charlie Kirk all thru the 2010s and into the 2020s was a run-of-the-mill type, a kind of young-hustler type modeled on people like Glenn Beck, I think, with a claim to fame of being a teenager, similar to the later activism of people like David Hogg (recently fired from being a co-chair of the DNC). Kirk in the mid-2010s got lucky, got his big break, by walking into the Trump big-tent at just the right time,That is how I characterized his 13.5-year career of doing exclusively full-time political activism starting the summer after high school).

BUT THEN --- (2.) During and after the heights of Wokeness' excesses of the early 2020s, he slowly began to stray at times off the reservation, and you can see what he was up to by that watershed-year 2024.

.

____________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

Nonviolence leads to redemption and the creation of a beloved community.... MLK

Nov 25, 2014

____________

.

_____________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

MLK was a hero. MLK would be disgusted with ferguson protests and violent demonstrations. #MLK

Jan 20, 2015

___________

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

We need more MLK and less Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

Jan 20, 2015

___________

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is, 'What are you doing for others?'" — MLK

Jan 20, 2015

___________

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

Harvard will host its first ever “black only” graduation ceremony

This is racist and a disgrace to all racial progress made over the last 60 yrs

MLK would be disgusted at this

By the way, if you are a black person that goes to Harvard, you are the furthest thing from oppressed

May 22, 2018

__________

.

__________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

Sick:

Watch these ANTIFA rioters try and shout down black Trump supporters on MLK Day

Turns out there was a white supremacist rally today

But it wasn’t in Virginia—it was in Seattle

RT to expose the REAL domestic terrorism in America

Jan 21, 2020

___________

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

Millions of people today will tell us to preserve the legacy of MLK, and then demand white people be judged by the color of their skin.

Jan 17, 2023

___________

.

(NOTE ---- in mid-October 2023, Charlie Kirk has Steve Sailer on his radio-show, for the first and only time. I wrote about it at the time, asking a simple question: "Why now now and not any time earlier?" There were a range of theories, one to the effect that Charlie Kirk has embraced tacitly a form of white-ethnonationalism gradually in the early 2020s, ironically the same force which he had helped suppress and undermine throughout the 2010s, including agitating against the Charlottesville demonstrators, for example.)

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

Who was MLK?

A myth has been created and it has grown totally out of control

While he was alive most people disliked him, yet today he is the most honored, worshipped, even deified person of the 20th century

Today we are going to tell the truth and explain how this myth was born.

Jan 16, 2024

___________

.

___________

Charlie Kirk
@CharlieKirk11

I haven't even done my show yet on MLK Jr. and already it's clear to me that I have found the sacred cow of modern America.

Ask yourself, why is exposing the flaws of MLK's life and character — something he said we should judge others by — so controversial?

Has America become more colorblind, and merit based the more we have worshipped King?

Jan 16, 2024

____________

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