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<title>Is it news, or is it just click-bait?</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/is-it-news-or-is-it-just-click-bait/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/is-it-news-or-is-it-just-click-bait/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Robertson]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Wed, 17 Sep 2025 22:14:03 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[At TMV]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Journalism]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Media]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287223</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Is it news, or is it just click-bait? That question should be asked whenever one reads a sensational headline. Before elaborating, a tidbit of reality bears repeating: The job of media members is to enable their employers to earn a profit through participation in the media industry. If media members also provide the general public<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/is-it-news-or-is-it-just-click-bait/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/is-it-news-or-is-it-just-click-bait/">Is it news, or is it just click-bait?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Click-Bait.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="350" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-287225" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Click-Bait.jpg 300w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Click-Bait-257x300.jpg 257w" sizes="(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px" />
Is it news, or is it just click-bait? That question should be asked whenever one reads a sensational headline.
Before elaborating, a tidbit of reality bears repeating:
The job of media members is to enable their employers to earn a profit through participation in the media industry. If media members also provide the general public with 100%-correct data, then that is a bonus.
Here is a second tidbit of reality:
Media members do not have to provide the general public with 100%-correct data in order to get members of the general public to click on a headline so long as the headline is sensational.
That second tidbit was revealed in a 17 September 2025 headline appearing on the website Real Clear Energy.
Here is a screenshot from that website:
<img loading="lazy" src="https://64.media.tumblr.com/7ef408b5557a1e70c11ea82bc3ef35fc/96fa481035041b35-68/s540x810/c3c33a2e00df692c0801a07d5cfedc9ff5bf68e1.jpg" width="540" height="276" class="aligncenter size-full" />
Can you detect the sensationalist headline that is click-bait but in error?
Here it is headline: “Trump Ends Group That Doubted Climate Change”.
Here is the error: That group of climate scientists never doubted climate change.
Real Clear Energy’s headline presents a falsehood, but it is a falsehood that generate clicks for CNN.
Getting people to click on the headline is all that matters even if the headline presents something false.
For the purpose of this particular blog post, I will not elaborate about the CNN report that the Real Clear Energy headline links to.
The take-away here is this: 
Media members do not have to make accurate statements in order to get you to read their stuff.
As long as they get you to read their stuff, they have done their job. 

The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/is-it-news-or-is-it-just-click-bait/">Is it news, or is it just click-bait?</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></content:encoded>
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<title>The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Dorian de Wind, Military Affairs Correspondent]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 22:07:10 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[At TMV]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Donald Trump]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
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<category><![CDATA[Inspiration and Living]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[2025 Nobel Peace Prize]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Alfred Bernhard Nobel]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nobel Peace Prize]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nobel Prize]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Nobel Prize Committee]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Norway]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Norwegian Nobel Committee]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287192</guid>
<description><![CDATA[We are rapidly approaching the date, October 10, 2025, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member body appointed by Norway’s Parliament (Storting) will announce the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, one of the world’s most prominent and prestigious honors. There is heightened interest this year because of the intense lobbying to have the<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/">The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_287221" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287221" style="width: 793px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-16-165948.png" alt="" width="793" height="515" class="size-full wp-image-287221" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-16-165948.png 793w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Screenshot-2025-09-16-165948-300x195.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 793px) 100vw, 793px" /><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287221" class="wp-caption-text">Credit, Ed Wexler. Courtesy Cagle Cartoons.</figcaption></figure>
We are rapidly approaching the date, October 10, 2025, when the Norwegian Nobel Committee, a five-member body appointed by Norway’s Parliament (Storting) will announce the recipient of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, one of the world’s most prominent and prestigious honors.
There is heightened interest this year because of the intense lobbying to have the Prize awarded to Donald Trump. Pressure that includes multiple nominations and shout-outs from U.S. political allies and organizations, including from foreign leaders.
Trump himself has not been shy about promoting his qualifications for the Prize, which <a href="https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/trump-nobel-peace-prize-russia-ukraine-rcna225251">Zeeshan Aleem calls</a> “yet another stroke of Orwellian audacity…”
Efforts that have not gone unnoticed by the Nobel Committee which has found it necessary to state that it will not be swayed by public pressure.
<a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/trumps-insistence-he-deserves-a-peace-prize-wont-sway-us-says-nobel-committee/">According to the Times of Israel,</a> the Secretary of the Committee, Kristian Berg Harpviken, had this to say, “Of course, we do notice that there is a lot of media attention towards particular candidates…But that really has no impact on the discussions that are going on in the committee.” 
I found the history, background and facts surrounding the Nobel Peace Prize fascinating and would like to share such with our readers.
The Nobel Prize for Peace is awarded, according to the will of Swedish inventor and industrialist Alfred Bernhard Nobel, to the person “who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.”
First presented in 1901, the Peace Prize has been awarded in recognition of “many different kinds of peace work and concepts of peace.” 
Since World War II, “the Peace Prize has principally been awarded to honor efforts in four main areas: arms control and disarmament, peace negotiation, democracy and human rights, and work aimed at creating a better organized and more peaceful world.”
More recently, “the Nobel Committee has embraced efforts to limit the harm done by man-made climate change and threats to the environment as relevant to the Peace Prize.”
The Nobel Peace Prize is one of five original Nobel Prizes. The other four are: the Nobel Prize in Physics, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The Prizes were specified in Nobel’s last will and testament in 1895, a year before his death, directing that the bulk of his fortune, believed to be around 31 million Swedish kronor (SEK) at the time — today approximately SEK2.2 billion, or $236 million — be used for those Prizes.
A sixth Prize was created in 1968. It was named “the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel.” It was established to celebrate the bank’s 300th anniversary and in memory of Alfred Nobel. 
While the Nobel Prizes are awarded in Stockholm, Sweden, the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo, Norway according to the wishes of Alfred Nobel.
Alfred Nobel was a Swedish “inventor, entrepreneur, scientist and businessman who also wrote poetry and drama.” He invented and manufactured dynamite and several other explosives, though he was “<a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Alfred-Nobel">essentially a pacifist and hoped the destructive powers of his inventions would help bring an end to war…</a>” 
The first Nobel Peace Prize was jointly and equally awarded in 1901 to Jean Henry Dunant “for his humanitarian efforts to help wounded soldiers and create international understanding” and to Frédéric Passy “for his lifelong work for international peace conferences, diplomacy and arbitration.”
Since then, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded 105 times to 142 Nobel Prize laureates: 111 individuals and 31 organizations:
• 71 Peace Prizes were awarded to a single laureate.
• 31 Peace Prizes were shared by two laureates.
• 3 Peace Prizes were shared by three laureates.
One of those shared Prizes was the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize awarded jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin “for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East.” 
Of the 142 laureates, 92 were men, 19 women and 28 organizations.
Among the 29 women laureates:
• Bertha von Suttner (1905 – Austria). The first woman to be awarded the Peace Prize, “for her audacity to oppose the horrors of war.”
• Mother Teresa (1979 – India) “for her work for bringing help to suffering humanity.” 
• Aung San Suu Kyi (1991 – Burma) “for her non-violent struggle for democracy and human rights.”
• Jody Williams (1997 – USA) along with the International Campaign to Ban Landmines “for their work for the banning and clearing of anti-personnel mines.” 
• Shirin Ebadi (2003 – Iran). The First Female Peace Prize Laureate from the Islamic World. “for her efforts for democracy and human rights…” 
Of the 28 organizations, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), has been awarded the Peace Prize three times, and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize two times.
While there are individuals who have received a Nobel Prize twice in other fields, no individual has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize more than once.
The first organization to receive the Nobel Peace prize was the Institute of International Law in 1904 “for its striving in public law to develop peaceful ties between nations and to make the laws of war more humane.”
Some of the other organizations:
• 1965: United Nations Children’s Fund “for its effort to enhance solidarity between nations and reduce the difference between rich and poor states”
• 1977: Amnesty International “for worldwide respect for human rights”
• 1981: Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees “for promoting the fundamental rights of refugees.”
• 1999: Doctors Without Borders “in recognition of the organization’s pioneering humanitarian work on several continents”
• 2020: World Food Program “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict.”
U.S. Presidents who have been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize:
• Theodore Roosevelt, 1906, “for his role in bringing to an end the bloody war recently waged between two of the world’s great powers, Japan and Russia.”
• Woodrow Wilson, 1920, “for his efforts in ending the First World War and help in creating the League of Nations.”
• Jimmy Carter, 2002, “for his efforts in finding “peaceful solutions to international conflicts, advancing democracy and human rights, and promoting economic and social development.”
• Barack Obama, 2009, “for his efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation.”
Vice President Al Gore was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 “for his efforts to obtain and spread knowledge about climate change.”
Other notable Nobel Peace Prize laureates:
1952, Albert Schweitzer; 1964, Martin Luther King Jr.; 1978, Anwar al-Sadat and Menachem Begin; 1983. Lech Walesa; 1984, Desmond Tutu; 1986, Elie Wiesel; 1989, the 14th Dalai Lama; 1990 Mikhail Gorbachev; 1993, Nelson Mandela and F.W. de Klerk. 
The 2023 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Iranian human rights advocate Narges Mohammad “for her fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.”
When her selection as the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was announced, “she was locked in Tehran’s notorious Evin prison.” Her condition and situation in Iran remain precarious, to say the least. As recently as July 2025, the Norwegian Nobel Committee expressed “<a href="https://www.nobelpeaceprize.org/press/press-releases/the-norwegian-nobel-committee-expresses-its-concern-over-threats-against-narges-mohammadi-1">its concern over ongoing threats against Narges Mohammadi.</a>” 
The age of a person is not an obstacle to well-deserved recognition.
The youngest Nobel Peace Prize recipient is Malala Yousafzai from the United Kingdom. She was 17 when she shared the 2014 Peace Prize with Kailash Satyarthi (India) “for the right of every child to receive an education…for their struggle against the suppression of children and young people and for the right of all children to education.”
The oldest Nobel Peace Prize recipient is Joseph Rotblat (Polish-British) who, at age 86, shared the 1995 Peace Prize with Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs “for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms.”
Additional interesting facts about the Nobel Peace Prize:
While presently (and after 1974), a Nobel Prize “cannot be awarded posthumously, unless death has occurred after the announcement of the Nobel Prize,” the 1961 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded posthumously to Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld “for developing the UN into an effective and constructive international organization, capable of giving life to the principles and aims expressed in the UN Charter.”
The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded on 19 occasions, such as in years during World Wars I and II. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Winners-of-the-Nobel-Prize-for-Peace-1856940">According to Encyclopedia Britannica,</a> “Prizes may be withheld or not awarded in years when no worthy recipient can be found or when the world situation (e.g., World Wars I and II) prevents the gathering of information needed to reach a decision.”
The Vietnamese politician Le Duc Tho, who was awarded the 1973 Nobel Peace Prize jointly with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, is the only person who has declined the Nobel Peace Prize. “Le Duc Tho said that he was not in a position to accept the Nobel Prize, citing the situation in Vietnam as his reason.”
The statutes of the Nobel Foundation restrict disclosure of information about the nominations, whether publicly or privately, for 50 years.
A Nobel (Peace) Prize cannot be revoked once awarded. However, the Nobel Organization adds, “criticism of Nobel Peace Prize laureates after they have been awarded is something the Committee tries to follow closely, sometimes with great concern.” 
Jane Addams (USA) was nominated 91 times between 1916 and 1931, before she was awarded the 1931 Nobel Peace Prize.
There are several nominees for the Peace Prize who – unsurprisingly – were not awarded the high honor. Among them, Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Benito Mussolini.
On the other hand, although nominated, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru and Winston Churchill were not awarded the Peace Prize. Churchill did receive the 1953 Nobel Prize in Literature. 
Deadline for 2025 Nobel Peace Prize nominations was midnight CET January 31, 2025.
According to the Norwegian Nobel Institute, 338 candidates were nominated, “of which 244 are individuals and 94 are organizations…a significant increase from last year when there were 286 nominees.”
Various news sources have published names of nominees. Among them, Donald Trump, Pope Francis, Elon Musk, Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman, and Yulia Navalnaya, the wife of deceased Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.
“At the beginning of October, the Nobel Committee chooses the Nobel Peace Prize laureates through a majority vote. The decision is final and without appeal. The names of the Nobel Peace Prize laureates are then announced.” This year’s announcement is expected to be on October 10.
On December 10, the day of Alfred Nobel’s death, the 2025, Nobel Peace Prize laureates will receive their prize at the Oslo, Norway, City Hall. The Nobel Prize consists of a Nobel Prize medal and diploma, and a document confirming the prize amount, which is expected to be SEK11 million, or approximately $1 million. 
We know that the Norwegian Peace Price Committee will deliberate and decide in the same independent and impartial manner they have been doing now for over a century.
Sources and quotes, unless otherwise noted, from <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org">web sites of the Norwegian Nobel Institute</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-2025-nobel-peace-prize-facts-and-circumstances/">The 2025 Nobel Peace Prize: ‘Facts and Circumstances’</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<title>UN inquiry insists IDF has committed genocide in Gaza but Israel junks it as “distorted and false”.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/un-inquiry-insists-idf-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-but-israel-junks-it-as-distorted-and-false/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/un-inquiry-insists-idf-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-but-israel-junks-it-as-distorted-and-false/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 17:41:38 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Breaking News]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Featured]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Gaza]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Hamas]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Israel]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Palestinians]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[United Nations]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[United States]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[War]]></category>
<guid isPermaLink="false">https://themoderatevoice.com/?p=287203</guid>
<description><![CDATA[Even as Israel’s defense minister declared that “Gaza is burning” because “the IDF strikes with an iron fist “, a United Nations inquiry insisted that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. Israel immediately denounced the genocide allegations as an antisemitic “blood libel”. After a painstaking legal analysis of Israel’s actions and intent, the<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-inquiry-insists-idf-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-but-israel-junks-it-as-distorted-and-false/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-inquiry-insists-idf-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-but-israel-junks-it-as-distorted-and-false/">UN inquiry insists IDF has committed genocide in Gaza but Israel junks it as “distorted and false”.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></description>
<content:encoded><![CDATA[Even as Israel’s defense minister declared that “Gaza is burning” because “the IDF strikes with an iron fist “, a United Nations inquiry insisted that Israel has committed genocide in the Gaza Strip. 
Israel immediately denounced the genocide allegations as an antisemitic “blood libel”. 
After a painstaking legal analysis of Israel’s actions and intent, the inquiry named Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu and President Isaac Herzog as being main inciters. It demanded that the international community should end the genocide and take steps to punish everyone responsible for it.
The allegations were contained in a deeply researched 72-page document prepared by a three-person independent “Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel”. 
It was chaired by Navi Pillay, a UN High Commissioner for Human Rights from 2008 to 2014 who earlier served as a judge on the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda that sentenced 62 people over the 1994 genocide of more than half a million Rwandans.
Herzog condemned the Commission’s findings. “While Israel defends its people and seeks the return of hostages, this morally bankrupt Commission obsesses over blaming the Jewish state, whitewashing Hamas’s atrocities, and turning victims of one of the worst massacres of modern times into the accused,” he said.
Daniel Meron, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N. in Geneva, branded the report as “scandalous” and “fake” and authored by “Hamas proxies”.
“Israel categorically rejects the libelous rant published today by this commission of inquiry,” he told reporters at Geneva’s UN Human Rights Council which does not include Israel and the US as members.
The report concluded that Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to which Israel is a signatory.
The four acts are: killing; causing serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part; and imposing measures intended to prevent births.
Pillay said the Commission “finds that Israel is responsible for the commission of genocide in Gaza. It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”
“The responsibility for these atrocity crimes lies with Israeli authorities at the highest echelons who have orchestrated a genocidal campaign for almost two years now with the specific intent to destroy the Palestinian group in Gaza,” she added.
Although the Commission and the UN Human Rights Council cannot take action against a country, the findings could be used by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court or the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ).
A 2024 ICJ ruling found it plausible that Israel’s acts could amount to genocide. It issued provisional measures ordering Israel to prevent any acts contrary to the 1948 Genocide Convention but did not order Israel to suspend its military campaign in Gaza. Israel rejected the rulings. 
Pillay’s Commission said Israel must end its policy of starvation, lift the siege and ensure the unimpeded access of humanitarian aid at scale. 
It called for an immediate end to activities of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a controversial American group staffed mostly by former US soldiers who critics charge have repeatedly killed Palestinians, including children, seeking food aid at its distribution sites.
The Commission’s report arrived just as IDF ground troops began a large scale invasion of Gaza city to confront up to 3,000 Hamas combatants that the IDF believes are still holed up there.
“Gaza is burning,” Defense Minister Israel Katz posted on X. “The IDF strikes with an iron fist at the terrorist infrastructure and IDF soldiers are fighting bravely to create the conditions for the release of the hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
Reportedly, the ground invasion is defying warnings from European leaders but seems to have Washington’s blessing conveyed by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio during his visit to Jerusalem over the weekend.
Bombs also continue to fall on Gaza City as families try to flee. Speaking from south Gaza, Tess Ingram of UNICEF, the UN’s agency for children, said it was “inhumane to expect nearly half a million children battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict to flee one hellscape to end up in another.”
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-inquiry-insists-idf-has-committed-genocide-in-gaza-but-israel-junks-it-as-distorted-and-false/">UN inquiry insists IDF has committed genocide in Gaza but Israel junks it as “distorted and false”.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
]]></content:encoded>
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<title>Charlie Kirk was wrong about Affirmative Action.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-was-wrong-about-affirmative-action/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-was-wrong-about-affirmative-action/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[David Robertson]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 17:32:23 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[African-Americans]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[At TMV]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Right wing]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Affirmative Action]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk said some negative things about Affirmative Action, and he was wrong. He mischaracterized Affirmative Action. Yahoo! News has provided a video clip of Charlie Kirk mischaracterizing what Affirmative Action is. Because certain black women were the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action, Charlie said to those women, “You do not have the brain processing power<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-was-wrong-about-affirmative-action/"> […]</a>
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Charlie Kirk said some negative things about Affirmative Action, and he was wrong. He mischaracterized Affirmative Action.
Yahoo! News has provided <a href="https://ca.news.yahoo.com/fact-check-charlie-kirk-once-170000805.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">a video clip of Charlie Kirk mischaracterizing what Affirmative Action is</a>.
Because certain black women were the beneficiaries of Affirmative Action, Charlie said to those women, “You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Contrary to what Charlie believed, Affirmative Action does not promote less-qualified people over more-qualified people.
Instead, Affirmative Action pertains to equally-qualified people.
Affirmative Action is a means of making a selection from equally-qualified candidates.
Affirmative Action allows for the selection of equally-qualified people who are part of a population that has historically been discriminated against by white men.
Affirmative Action corrects educational and occupational disparities that white men created.
The people opposed to Affirmative Action simply ignore the educational and occupational disparities.
Again, beneficiaries of Affirmative Action are not less-qualified for what they obtain through Affirmative Action.
So, Charlie Kirk was wrong to slander beneficiaries of Affirmative Action.
No, Charlie’s opposition to Affirmative Action had nothing to do with faith in Messiah Jesus as described in the Bible.
Charlie was wrong. The black women he criticized did not “steal a white person’s slot” as Charlie claimed.
People who idolize Charlie probably won’t acknowledge his error because he is their idol.

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<title>THE GOP CLINGS TO POWER HOWEVER IT CAN</title>
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<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 16:07:46 +0000</pubDate>
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<title>After Charlie Kirk’s murder, the US might seem hopelessly divided – is there any way forward?</title>
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<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 16:04:03 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Many people think the U.S. is at an inflection point. StudioM1/iStock via Getty Images Lee Bebout, Arizona State University Shortly following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, many politicians and pundits were quick to highlight the importance of civil discourse. Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called for an “off-ramp” to political hostilities, while California<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/after-charlie-kirks-murder-the-us-might-seem-hopelessly-divided-is-there-any-way-forward/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[ <img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690982/original/file-20250915-66-pvkggf.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C63%2C5458%2C3244&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /><figcaption>
Many people think the U.S. is at an inflection point. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/illustration/man-talking-to-his-partner-with-eye-contact-royalty-free-illustration/1469747610?phrase=arguing%20illustration&searchscope=image,film&adppopup=true">StudioM1/iStock via Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lee-bebout-1180179">Lee Bebout</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/arizona-state-university-730">Arizona State University</a>
Shortly following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, many politicians and pundits were quick to highlight the importance of civil discourse. 
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called for an “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/utah-governor-cox-wake-charlie-kirk-killing-urges-off-ramp-political-hostility-2025-09-12/">off-ramp</a>” to political hostilities, while <a href="https://www.gov.ca.gov/2025/09/10/governor-newsom-statement-on-the-murder-of-charlie-kirk/">California Gov. Gavin Newsom released a statement</a> condemning political violence. He lauded Kirk’s “commitment to debate,” adding, “The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse.” <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/opinion/charlie-kirk-assassination-fear-politics.html">Political commentator Ezra Klein wrote</a>, “You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way.”
With so many Americans consuming political content via <a href="https://newsliteracymatters.com/2022/09/06/the-growing-threat-of-news-silos/">siloed social media feeds</a> and awash in <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/09/13/1122786134/does-social-media-leave-you-feeling-angry-that-might-be-intentional">algorithms that stoke outrage</a>, these ideals may seem quaint, if not impossible.
Clearly, murder is a no-go. But what does it mean to practice politics “the right way?” How can people engage “across ideology” in a “spirited” way?
Well, one way to not practice politics the right way is to limit the other side from having a voice of authority. Since 2016, the organization Kirk co-founded, Turning Point USA, has hosted <a href="https://www.thebanner.com/education/higher-education/charlie-kirk-maryland-professors-watchlist-RBDSLYUHUJHHDMED6XHDXHOSGY/">the Professor Watchlist</a>. The online database generated harassment campaigns against professors, leading to calls for firings, hate mail and death threats. To be sure, the left has not been without <a href="https://www.thefire.org/research-learn/judge-duncan-shoutdown-what-stanford-students-think">its own excesses of harassment</a> in recent years.
Kirk was also known for going to college campuses and speaking to students: entering the lion’s den and affably challenging audiences to “<a href="https://calendar.fsu.edu/event/change-my-mind-featuring-charlie-kirk">change my mind</a>.”
To me, the impulse to shut down the other side, combined with the “change my mind approach” to debate, has only exacerbated political polarization and entrenchment. Instead, I propose a few different ways of thinking about conversations with people whose views differ from your own.
<h2>The fantasy of swiftly changing minds</h2>
In my forthcoming book, “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479829514/rules-for-reactionaries/">Rules for Reactionaries: How to Maintain Inequality and Stop Social Justice</a>,” I explore the language strategies used to advance white supremacy and anti-feminism across U.S. politics and culture. 
<a href="https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/social-sciences-and-humanities/deliberative-democracy">Deliberative democracy</a> is the idea that decision-making and governance are arrived at through thoughtful, reasoned and respectful dialogue. This may take the shape of debates in Congress or robust questioning in town halls. But deliberative democracy also shapes the way all neighbors or citizens treat each other, whether on the street or at the dinner table.
I contend that a big stumbling block that prevents the U.S. from tackling its biggest problems is how Americans conceptualize deliberative democracy: There’s a fantasy that people’s minds <a href="https://www.doi.org/10.1038/srep39589">can be easily changed</a>, if only they’re given certain information or hear certain arguments.
In the 1990s, this was epitomized through former President Bill Clinton’s <a href="https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/clintons-initiative-race">Initiative on Race</a>, a program that he framed as a vehicle for social and political transformation. Clinton believed that an advisory board of experts could foster a meaningful national dialogue and produce necessary healing.
In response, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1997/12/15/time/krauthammer.html">conservative political figures objected</a> both to the need for a conversation in the first place and to the makeup of the committee leading it. 
By the time Clinton’s second term ended, the initiative quietly disappeared, only to be mentioned in passing in Clinton’s memoir. Yet with each subsequent racial flash point, from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/02/03/magazine/henry-louis-gates-jr-interview.html">the arrest of Henry Louis Gates in 2009 </a> to <a href="https://apnews.com/article/death-of-george-floyd-minneapolis-police-reform-d109eb0d3094119ddbcb560676467f19">the murder of George Floyd</a>, calls resurfaced for the national conversation. But race remains a politically and culturally salient issue.
Similarly, many Americans view friends, relatives and colleagues as targets for conversion. Because of the nature of my research, I often get a version of this question from my students: “How do you change someone’s mind if they say they’re a socialist?” Or they may frame it as, “I’ve got Thanksgiving with my family coming up, and my Uncle Johnny is so transphobic. How do I convince him to support trans rights?” 
Cultural theorist Lauren Berlant would describe these encounters <a href="https://www.dukeupress.edu/cruel-optimism">as moments of cruel optimism</a>. There’s the belief that what you’re about to do is good and worthy. But time and again, you’re met with feelings of futility and frustration.
When debating politics, many people crave a chance to engage with someone they disagree with. There’s the hope of changing hearts and minds. But few minds – if any – change that quickly, and approaching these conversations as small windows of opportunity ends up being their downfall. 
<h2>Opening minds instead of changing them</h2>
There are more fruitful approaches to conversation than merely trying to best someone in an argument by deploying buzzwords or “gotcha!” moments.
Rather than trying to immediately change someone’s mind, what if you entered a conversation with the goal of simply planting seeds? This approach transforms the dialogue from an attempted conversion into a legitimate conversation, wherein you’re merely offering your partner something to consider after the fact. 
Another strategy involves remembering that conversations often have multiple audiences. 
Consider the Thanksgiving dinner with Uncle Johnny. What if, instead of focusing on trying to convert him, the speaker recognized that there were other listeners at the table? Perhaps they could rethink their encounter not as converting an opponent, but as modeling to relatives how to have a conversation about one’s values with a loved one whom they vehemently disagree with. Or perhaps the speaker could recognize that a cousin at the table may be closeted, and take it upon themselves to model how to push back against transphobia.
In both cases, the conversion of Uncle Johnny ceases to be the objective. Civic dialogue and persuasion remain.
<h2>Change is slow but never futile</h2>
If the U.S. is going to heal its civic life through dialogue, I think it will require Americans to not just speak with those they disagree with, but to listen to them as well. 
<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=jpaVp-QAAAAJ&hl=en">Krista Ratcliffe</a>, a scholar of rhetoric at Arizona State University, has written about her concept of “<a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=jpaVp-QAAAAJ&citation_for_view=jpaVp-QAAAAJ:u5HHmVD_uO8C">rhetorical listening</a>.” Listeners, she argues, must not simply be attuned to the words a speakers says, but also to the life experiences and ideologies that shape those words.
Rhetorical listening means avoiding the urge to one-up the opponent or convert the unwashed masses. Instead, you’re entering into dialogue from a position of curiosity, with a willingness to learn and grow.
Many people believe that <a href="https://www.aei.org/multimedia/an-inflection-point-whats-next-for-america/">the U.S. is at an inflection point</a>. Will families and friendships continue to be torn apart? Will greater political polarization lead to more violence? Often it feels hopeless.
<a href="https://www.greekmyths-greekmythology.com/the-myth-of-sisyphus/">Like Sisyphus</a>, many Americans probably feel like they continue to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll down the other side. The error would be for Americans to be surprised when the boulder rolls back down – shocked that there was no progress and that everyone has to start over again. 
While the Sisyphean task of deliberative democracy requires that citizens push the boulder day in and day out, they should also recognize that as they push, the weight of the boulder as it’s collectively pushed will gradually and imperceptibly alter the terrain. 
Moreover, <a href="https://theexaminedlife.org/library/the-myth-of-sisyphus">as the French philosopher Albert Camus once wrote</a>, it’s important to “imagine Sisyphus happy” – to continue to seize what joy can be had as this hard work plods along.<img loading="lazy" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/265248/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/lee-bebout-1180179">Lee Bebout</a>, Professor of English, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/arizona-state-university-730">Arizona State University</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-charlie-kirks-murder-the-us-might-seem-hopelessly-divided-is-there-any-way-forward-265248">original article</a>.
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<title>IF ONLY WE COULD START OVER</title>
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<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 15:46:18 +0000</pubDate>
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<title>We’ve walked this road before or how Woodrow Wilson trampled free speech long before Trump’s efforts</title>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[KATHY GILL, Associate Editor]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Tue, 16 Sep 2025 03:08:56 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[I got a history lesson Sunday night at the Seattle premiere of Suffs, but it may not have been the one its creators had intended. The Tony award-winning musical focuses on the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. In the process, it introduces us to the First<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/weve-walked-this-road-before-or-how-woodrow-wilson-trampled-free-speech-long-before-trumps-efforts/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[<figure id="attachment_287171" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-287171" style="width: 775px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="https://www.loc.gov/resource/mnwp.27503_275034/"><img loading="lazy" src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/service-mss-mnwp-275-275034v.png" alt="woman behind bars, 1917" width="775" height="618" class="size-full wp-image-287171" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/service-mss-mnwp-275-275034v.png 775w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/service-mss-mnwp-275-275034v-300x239.png 300w" sizes="(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px" /></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-287171" class="wp-caption-text">Helena Hill Weed, Norwalk, Conn. Serving 3 day sentence in D.C. prison for carrying banner, “Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.” July 1917, LOC.</figcaption></figure>
I got a history lesson Sunday night at the <a href="http://suffsmusical.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Seattle premiere of Suffs</a>, but it <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/250915/p100#a250915p100" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">may not have been the one</a> its creators had intended. 
The Tony award-winning musical focuses on the ratification of the 19th Amendment to the Constitution, giving women the right to vote. In the process, it introduces us to the First Amendment curtailing policies of Woodrow Wilson, the first southern Democrat elected to the White House since the Civil War.
Wilson campaigned in 1916 on keeping America out of the war in Europe. However, on 01 April 1917 he reversed course. <a href="https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/news/how-world-war-i-helps-explain-what-gave-rise-trumps-second-term" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">What followed was</a> the Espionage Act of 1917 and the Sedition Act of 1918. 
<blockquote>
Woodrow Wilson’s administration, both before and after Wilson was disabled by a stroke, did things that [President] Trump would like to do. Under the sweeping provisions of the Espionage Act, passed by a compliant Congress, it closed down some 75 newspapers and magazines and put hundreds of Americans in jail solely for things they wrote or said (emphasis added).
</blockquote>
Alice Paul and suffragists of the National Woman’s Party <a href="https://www.crusadeforthevote.org/wilson" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">began protesting outside the gates of Wilson’s White House in 1917</a> to pressure him to endorse an amendment granting women the vote (suffrage). Under Wilson’s crackdown on dissent, <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=wps#:~:text=Later%20known%20in%20the%20annals,all%20suffrage%20pickets%20were%20released." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">police arrested the protesters</a>.
<blockquote>By the fall of 1917, more than a hundred women had been arrested and imprisoned on charges of obstructing traffic and unlawful assembly, ostensibly because they attracted large and often hostile crowds to witness their demonstrations.</blockquote>
Wilson was “sentenced to seven months in prison for picketing at the White House on October 22, 1917.”
<blockquote>
Two weeks later, on November 5, Paul began a hunger strike at the District of Columbia Jail to protest the refusal of prison officials to grant her and her fellow suffrage inmates the status of “political prisoner.” Panicked by the prospect of Paul’s martyrdom while under their care, officials for the District Jail had called in noted psychiatrist William Alanson White, the head of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital for the Insane, to evaluate her sanity, and to determine whether she should be fed by force…
Held incommunicado in the “psychopathic ward” at the District Jail, Paul experienced the horrors of forcible feeding three times a day. At the same time, the last picket line of the campaign resulted in the arrests of forty-one women, including the wives of prominent Washington men, who were tried en masse and shipped off to the workhouse. The new prisoners intended to adopt Paul’s strategy of demanding to be treated as political prisoners, but quickly found that the officials at Occoquan had no patience with the niceties of such theoretical discourse. An organized mob of prison guards and prisoners attacked and beat the prisoners and dragged them off to their cells, leaving one on the floor having a heart attack, and another chained to the bars over her head. Later known in the annals of the NWP as the “Night of Terror,” the violence brought to bear against the women both terrified them and strengthened their resolve not to cooperate with prison authorities (emphasis added).
</blockquote>
Pause for a moment and think about current events. Arrested in DC, shipped to the Occoquan Workhouse in Lorton, Virginia. Force fed. Beaten. It should sound familiar.
Wilson also <a href="https://damagemag.com/2024/12/04/is-trump-hitler-or-just-woodrow-wilson/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">sent troops into Mexico</a> and started the first Red Scare.
How many <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/trumps-attacks-on-press-freedom-escalate-npr-pbs-funding-cuts-explained" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">news media outlets</a> has <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2025/02/28/trump-white-house-coverage-fcc/80742236007/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump sued</a> or threatened to sue? What about illegally deciding not to fund NPR? And his <a href="https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/trump-vance-kirk-murder-destroy-progressive-groups/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">attacks on the First Amendment</a> post-Charlie Kirk’s murder?
<blockquote>Trump, who blamed the political left for Kirk’s murder before authorities had identified a suspect, told reporters Sunday his administration has launched a probe into unnamed figures in response to Kirk’s murder. 
“They’re already under major investigation — a lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left,” the president claimed. “They’re already under investigation.”
[…]
While speaking with reporters, Trump also again downplayed right-wing extremism by solely blaming the political left for violence in the country.
“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It’s not on the right,” the president said. “When you look at the agitators, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag-burnings all over the place — that’s the left. That’s not the right.”
</blockquote>
His statement about right-wing extremism is a lie [1].
Trump’s blustering doesn’t have the cover of a world war, although he’s trying to create one with his <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-says-us-military-again-201438685.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">unlawful attacks</a> (there was another today) on <a href="https://themoderatevoice.com/what-happened-in-the-caribbean-was-murder-and-a-dangerous-precedent/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">boats in international waters</a>.
Today’s political environment is a direct reminder of <a href="https://americanart.si.edu/artwork/those-who-cannot-remember-past-are-condemned-repeat-it-george-santayana-life-reason-1905" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">George Santayana’s quote</a>, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
If an underfunded group of women could arrange a <a href="https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1120&context=wps#:~:text=Later%20known%20in%20the%20annals,all%20suffrage%20pickets%20were%20released." rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">protest in two months in 1917 that upstaged Wilson’s inauguration</a>, bringing together 5,000 women from across the country and a half-million spectators (before cellphones and transcontinental flights) … then we should be able to drown out Trump. Let’s build on the courage of the women who came before us.
~~~~~ 
[1] <a href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2024" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2024</a>.
<blockquote>
All the extremist-related murders in 2024 were committed by right-wing extremists of various kinds, with eight of the 13 killings involving white supremacists and the remaining five having connections to far-right anti-government extremists. This is the third year in a row that right-wing extremists have been connected to all identified extremist-related killings.
</blockquote>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/weve-walked-this-road-before-or-how-woodrow-wilson-trampled-free-speech-long-before-trumps-efforts/">We’ve walked this road before or how Woodrow Wilson trampled free speech long before Trump’s efforts</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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<title>Charlie Kirk talked with young people at universities for a reason – he wanted American education to return to traditional values</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-talked-with-young-people-at-universities-for-a-reason-he-wanted-american-education-to-return-to-traditional-values/</link>
<comments>https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-talked-with-young-people-at-universities-for-a-reason-he-wanted-american-education-to-return-to-traditional-values/#respond</comments>
<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest Voice]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:06:49 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Assassination]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Education]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[academia]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[higher education]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Political Ideology]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Political Polarization]]></category>
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<category><![CDATA[Republican Party]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Student activism]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Trump administration]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[Charlie Kirk speaks at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah, shortly before he was shot and killed. Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images Daniel Ruggles, Brandeis University Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025, at the start of a college campus tour that centered on Kirk discussing politics<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/charlie-kirk-talked-with-young-people-at-universities-for-a-reason-he-wanted-american-education-to-return-to-traditional-values/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[ <img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690674/original/file-20250912-56-6ye6hh.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&rect=0%2C16%2C3069%2C1650&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" /><figcaption>
Charlie Kirk speaks at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10, 2025, in Orem, Utah, shortly before he was shot and killed. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/charlie-kirk-speaks-at-utah-valley-university-on-september-news-photo/2234095376?adppopup=true">Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images </a> 
</figcaption><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daniel-ruggles-2233623">Daniel Ruggles</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308">Brandeis University</a>
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated on <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/us/charlie-kirk-shooting-timeline-map.html">Sept. 10, 2025</a>, at the <a href="https://www.americancomebacktour.com/">start of a college campus tour</a> that centered on Kirk discussing politics – and education – with students.
A large part of Kirk’s political activism centered on what education should look like. Amy Lieberman, The Conversation’s education editor, spoke with <a href="https://www.danieljruggles.com/">Daniel Ruggles</a>, a scholar of conservative youth activism, to better understand the beliefs about education that influenced Kirk and the connection he tried to make with young people.
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young man wearing a black t-shirt extends his arm toward a crowd of young people, many of whom are wearing red hats." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690675/original/file-20250912-56-g2ojcy.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
Charlie Kirk arrives to speak at University of Nevada in Reno in October 2024. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/conservative-political-activist-and-youtuber-charlie-kirk-news-photo/2176767147?adppopup=true">Andri Tambunan/AFP via Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
What is most important to understand about Charlie Kirk’s views on education? 
Charlie Kirk’s education philosophy was founded upon the idea of not being on the left. One of the problems with that approach is that it’s harder to explain your ideas and values in a positive way instead of just being “anti” left.
Conservatives, well before Kirk’s time, have been trying to reclaim education from liberals whom they view as valuing equity and belonging instead of timeless values of order and traditional values in society. This philosophy overall focuses on reclaiming education from liberals.
There is a lot of alignment with Kirk’s education philosophy and the Make America Great Again movement, but his approach predates Donald Trump’s rise. It is focused on returning to what conservatives call Western and “traditional” values. This means rolling back the clock to an idealized time when men and women had set gender roles in society and life was more harmonious and wholesome. At its best, this education philosophy can be valuable – teaching what society views as virtuous behavior, ethics and tradition – but it can also prioritize tradition and privilege over justice and equity.
This philosophy also has to do with not feeling a need to apologize for one’s identity. A big divide between liberals and conservatives is how they explain disadvantage. Conservatives like Kirk believe they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/us/charlie-kirk-views-guns-gender-climate.html">should not have to apologize</a> for their identities, and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjmysFunUjE">other people’s identities should not</a> be a reason for special treatment.
This philosophy is not so much about making education more effective as much as it is about not being “woke.” <a href="https://theconversation.com/trump-free-to-begin-gutting-department-of-education-after-supreme-court-shadow-ruling-5-essential-reads-261218">De-woking the classroom</a> is usually the overall goal. This involves ridding the classroom of what is known as grievance politics – meaning someone believes they have been marginalized because of their identity, race, gender or sexuality.
How far back can you trace this educational philosophy?
The 1960s had an explosion of progressive activism amid the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/New-Left">New Left</a> and antiwar movements as young adults realized that they could now demand certain rights. At the same time, there were a lot of young conservatives on campuses who felt fine with the way things were or who were concerned about some of the more radical ideas promoted by the New Left.
Universities became more inclusive in the 1960s, too. Generally, there were not any gender studies programs at American universities <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/reading-list-gender-studies/">until the 1960s and 1970s</a>, nor were there any <a href="https://www.asccc.org/content/ethnic-studies-looking-back-looking-forward">race and ethnicity programs</a>. Some conservatives pushed back on the emergence of these programs, saying that if there is an African American studies department, they want to see a conservative studies department, too.
After the 1960s, conservative education fights died down. Conservatives still wanted their voices heard on campus, but their merit-only based education philosophy seemed less relevant when left-wing campus protests had <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/moves/antiwar_intro.shtml">declined significantly</a>.
How did Charlie Kirk capitalize on the conservative feelings regarding education?
Kirk founded his political nonprofit, <a href="https://www.americancomebacktour.com/">Turning Point USA</a>, in 2012. Kirk didn’t originally support Trump, but he became friends with Donald Trump Jr., and eventually became <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/us/politics/trump-kirk.html">close with the president</a>. Like Trump, <a href="https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/04/06/trump-young-conservatives-college-charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa-217829">Kirk saw academia</a> as the source of a plethora of problems in American society. His goal was to make college campuses more friendly to conservative students by making conservative ideas like free market economics and traditional gender roles more popular.
There was a lot of foundation laying over time for Kirk’s conservative education philosophy. Hamas’ <a href="https://education.cfr.org/learn/learning-journey/why-did-hamas-attack-israel/about-this-journey">Oct. 7, 2023, attack</a> in Israel, as well as the subsequent war in Gaza and Palestinian rights protests in the U.S., offered a moment for conservatives like Kirk to brand progressives at schools as this <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-tpusa-staffers-beaten-hamas-supporters-1837146">huge threat</a>.
What was Kirk’s tour focused on accomplishing?
Kirk and others in the conservative youth movement want their followers to have a close relationship with them. This helps conservatives influence government and society, using college campuses to recruit young adults as conservative voters and activists, making the university appear less progressive in the process. Let’s say progressive college kids have Bernie Sanders or Che Guevara posters hanging in their dorm rooms. Conservatives like Kirk have built an all-encompassing, alternative world for young conservatives to become involved in, where they have proximity to political and thought leaders, including Kirk. Turning Point has used flashy slogans, <a href="https://tpusamerch.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorseiuw_gEwARv-mYKXTC3PkQMfn2pIG40HwHP2P2a8NvdX50vK">signs and bumper stickers</a> to help make conservatism cool on campus.
Kirk’s tour had just begun, but he had planned to make stops at universities in Colorado, Utah, Minnesota, Montana and other states. It was important that Kirk himself was in the room with young people, and that they could ask him questions and talk with him. He was considered approachable in a way that most politicians would not be.
Conservatives have used this strategy for a long time. My <a href="https://www.proquest.com/docview/3245931801?pq-origsite=primo&searchKeywords=Daniel%20ruggles">own research</a> shows how college students would write to conservative leaders like Ronald Reagan and William F. Buckley in the 1960s and 1970s and these figures would write back. This kind of proximity between leaders and young supporters isn’t seen on the left. The goal is to cultivate a conservative movement community. Many of those conservative college students later worked for the government. Kirk’s tour was about continuing that kind of direct relationship between conservative leaders and young people.
Conservatives have a pipeline – meaning, let’s say you’re in high school and you discover conservative ideas by watching Charlie Kirk on YouTube. In college, you can go to Turning Point events and meet conservative leaders. After you graduate, you can even get a job with a conservative group through websites like <a href="https://conservativejobs.com/">ConservativeJobs.com</a>. The point of the pipeline is to always give young conservatives a next step to becoming more involved in politics. While not everyone follows this pipeline, it helps the conservative movement cultivate new generations of talent. I think Kirk had a lot he was trying to accomplish, including building up a reservoir of young talent through Turning Point.
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two men wearing dark shirts with yellow writing stand behind a yellow roped off area that has signs that say 'American Comeback.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=340&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690676/original/file-20250912-64-awqrld.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=427&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
FBI staff on Sept. 11, 2025, investigate the area at Utah Valley University where Charlie Kirk was shot and killed the day before. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/staff-investigate-the-area-of-the-campus-of-utah-valley-news-photo/2234251288?adppopup=true">Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune via Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
How is Turning Point distinct from the Republican Party and MAGA?
Turning Point isn’t the same as the Republican Party, but it’s helping to push the party further to the right. Turning Point has alienated other members of the conservative movement in certain ways. In 2018, the conservative youth group Young America’s Foundation <a href="https://www.chronicle.com/article/leaked-memo-from-conservative-group-cautions-students-to-stay-away-from-turning-point-usa/">accused Turning Point</a> of taking over the conservative youth movement and crowding out other groups. Turning Point’s total revenue has grown considerably in the last few years, <a href="https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/800835023">topping US$85 million in 2024</a> – that matters because money and attention help Turning Point push out other conservative voices.
Kirk and Trump agreed on a lot of policy issues. Kirk used Turning Point to define conservatism on his terms and to defend Trump. Education is the bulk of Turning Point’s work, a continuation of what has historically also been been the most important cultural issue on the right since the 1960s.<img loading="lazy" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/265190/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/daniel-ruggles-2233623">Daniel Ruggles</a>, PhD Candidate in Politics, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/brandeis-university-1308">Brandeis University</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/charlie-kirk-talked-with-young-people-at-universities-for-a-reason-he-wanted-american-education-to-return-to-traditional-values-265190">original article</a>.
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<title>Military spending has exploded to $2.7 trillion while world poverty deepens, UN report says.</title>
<link>https://themoderatevoice.com/military-spending-has-exploded-to-2-7-trillion-while-world-poverty-deepens-un-report-says/</link>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 06:11:25 +0000</pubDate>
<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
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<category><![CDATA[International]]></category>
<category><![CDATA[Military]]></category>
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<category><![CDATA[military spending]]></category>
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<description><![CDATA[The unprecedented $2.7 trillion spent on weapons and the military has left global spending on building peace and sustainable development far behind and is intensifying wars and geopolitical tensions, a new United Nations report warns. Spending on security needs increased across all five global regions during 2024, marking the steepest year-on-year rise for at least<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/military-spending-has-exploded-to-2-7-trillion-while-world-poverty-deepens-un-report-says/"> […]</a>
The post <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/military-spending-has-exploded-to-2-7-trillion-while-world-poverty-deepens-un-report-says/">Military spending has exploded to $2.7 trillion while world poverty deepens, UN report says.</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="https://themoderatevoice.com">The Moderate Voice</a>.
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The unprecedented $2.7 trillion spent on weapons and the military has left global spending on building peace and sustainable development far behind and is intensifying wars and geopolitical tensions, a new United Nations report warns.
Spending on security needs increased across all five global regions during 2024, marking the steepest year-on-year rise for at least the last 30 years. In comparison, the world could eliminate extreme poverty for just under $300 billion.
“The world is spending far more on waging war than in building peace,” the UN Chief António Guterres said. “The evidence is clear: excessive military spending does not guarantee peace. It often undermines peace – fueling arms races, deepening mistrust, and diverting resources from the very foundations of stability.”
“A more secure world begins by investing at least as much in fighting poverty as we do in fighting wars,” he pointed out.
The report entitled, “The Security We Need; Rebalancing Military Spending for a Sustainable and Peaceful Future”, notes that the shortfall in spending on poverty reduction has reached a record $4 trillion.
Its conclusions run counter to President Donald Trump’s insistence on greatly expanding US military capabilities and enriching Americans by using economic and other coercion to reach new trade and financial deals in their favor with almost all the world’s countries. 
Military spending last year was almost 13 times the combined development assistance provided by the world’s richest countries and 750 times the UN annual budget. 
“Investing in people is investing in the first line of defense against violence in any society,” Guterres added. While more is being spent on militaries, less is being spent on social investment, poverty reduction, education, health, environmental protection and infrastructure.
Redirecting even a fraction of today’s military spending could close vital gaps – putting children in school, strengthening primary health care, expanding clean energy and resilient infrastructure, and protecting the most vulnerable.
The world could fund education for every student in low and lower middle-income countries, eliminate child malnutrition globally, fund climate change adaptation in developing nations, and bring the international community closer to achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), agreed by all member states. The SDGs are widely seen as humanity’s blueprint for a more equitable future. 
The report calls for prioritizing diplomacy, peaceful settlement of disputes, and confidence-building measures to address the underlying causes of growing military expenditure. That would include bringing military spending to the forefront of disarmament negotiations and improving links between arms control and development. 
Importantly, governments should pay much more attention to promoting transparency and accountability around military expenditure because that is vital for building trust among governments while reducing corruption and wastage of defense budgets. 
Trump’s militarist preferences for the US have placed all other nations at a crossroads facing stark choices between military security for the world’s richest country and better lives for the global majority. 
The paths chosen will profoundly shape prospects for decades to come. For better outcomes, Trump could choose to avoid military escalation, restore transparency and trust, and emphasize investments in preventing wars. He could help to promote sustainable development to rid the world of debilitating poverty and strengthen climate resilience.
Increasing military spending would also have the undesirable outcome of adding to already high levels of public debt, thus burdening future generations and limiting their progress. 
The report notes that a one percent increase in military spending in low- and middle-income countries is linked to an almost equal reduction in public health services, jeopardizing pandemic preparedness and other lifesaving health programmes. 
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<title>DONATE TO THE MODERATE VOICE</title>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[JOE GANDELMAN, Editor-In-Chief]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Mon, 15 Sep 2025 04:00:33 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Donations received as of 9/14/25: $240 The Moderate Voice hasn’t done a fundraiser in quite a while — and now is the time. TMV is one of a small number of traditional news-political blogs that remains in a social media-powered era. Its posts appear on a phone news app and also on Google News. Over<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/donate-to-the-moderate-voice/"> […]</a>
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Donations received as of 9/14/25: $240
The Moderate Voice hasn’t done a fundraiser in quite a while — and now is the time. TMV is one of a small number of traditional news-political blogs that remains in a social media-powered era. Its posts appear on a phone news app and also on Google News. Over the years, it won various awards and some well-known print and broadcast journalists have praised it.
The time has com for a needed fundraiser. TMV gets a modest bit of advertising but it has no big corporate sponsor, no political group bolstering it, no big donation from an individual. It will be increasingly adding more variety (entertainment reviews, book reviews etc) going into 2026, a critical mid-term election year.
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<title>The Charlie Kirk/Tyler Robinson shell engravings deconstructed</title>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest Voice]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2025 18:44:25 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Guest voice: Chris Thomas As probably the most terminally-online, sane person I know, I’m going to explain the whole Charlie Kirk/Tyler Robinson bullet engravings to y’all so you can share it with your parents and whatnot. The bullet casings (not bullets) the FBI recovered had four messages scrawled on them 1. “Notices bulges OWO what’s<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/the-charlie-kirk-tyler-robinson-shell-engravings-deconstructed/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[Guest voice: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1B9KHncNax/?mibextid=wwXIfr" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Chris Thomas</a>
As probably the most terminally-online, sane person I know, I’m going to explain the whole <a href="https://www.memeorandum.com/250913/p41#a250913p41" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Charlie Kirk/Tyler Robinson</a> bullet engravings to y’all so you can share it with your parents and whatnot. 
The bullet casings (not bullets) the FBI recovered had four messages scrawled on them
1. “Notices bulges OWO what’s this?” 
2. “Hey fascist! Catch!” <img src="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IMG_5380.jpeg" alt="Shell casing arrows" width="150" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-287144" srcset="https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IMG_5380.jpeg 317w, https://themoderatevoice.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/IMG_5380-300x70.jpeg 300w" sizes="(max-width: 317px) 100vw, 317px" /> 
3. “Oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao” 
4. “If you read this, you are gay lmao”
#1 is a phrase that appears in online comics making fun of people who like to engage in role-play cybersex/sexting in which they pretend to be anthropomorphic animals. If that doesn’t make sense to you that’s ok; there’s an almost infinitely deep well of variety in human sexuality and an even deeper well of ways people can make themselves feel better about themselves by making fun of it. This message is just a taunt suggesting that Kirk is sexually deviant and weird.
#2 is a reference to a video game called “Helldivers.” The arrow sequence is how a player calls in an airstrike in-game. The characters in Helldivers are fascists but they don’t really *know* that they’re fascists and so they say things like “for democracy” a lot. The shooter is echoing this phrase because it sounds both powerful and righteous; there’s a decent chance the irony is lost on him entirely. 
#3 is an old Italian anti-fascist song. At first glance you might reasonably think this signals that Robinson is in with anti-fa but the song is also popular in the “Groyper” movement. What’s a Groyper, you ask? It’s a right-wing movement around Nick Fuentes which hates HATES Charlie Kirk and thinks he’s too liberal. Really.
#4 is just a homophobic meme from 4chan, an internet message board. There’s no complexity here, just internet trolls doing what they do.
These messages fit together to tell us who the shooter is. He’s a Groyper — a follower of Nick Fuentes who’s gone so far down the weird, internet culture rabbit hole that he’s basically speaking a different language. The Groyper movement loves to use imagery and phrases that originate on the left (like the italian song) and make them their own to sew confusion. From the way the Wall Street Journal uncritically reported on the bullets as containing “transgender” messages, it seems to have worked.
But, especially taken together, the messages paint a clear picture of the shooter. He’s a far right, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, white supremacist. He’s a member of a movement that has had an axe to grind with Charlie Kirk for some time. And he’s about the furthest you can be from antifa, progressive, LGBTQ, leftist, or Democratic without actually invading Poland. 
Hope this helps.
~~~
Posted by Kathy E Gill 
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<title>UN declares roadmap to a two-state solution amid signs of hope in Gaza’s awful suffering</title>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Brij Khindaria, Foreign Affairs Columnist]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2025 13:20:28 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[The United Nations has overwhelmingly agreed on a declaration that lays out a single roadmap to deliver a two-State solution partitioning Israel and a new State of Palestine. In the UN General Assembly, 142 voted in favor, 10 voted against including Israel and the US, and 12 abstained. Those in favor included almost all large<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/un-declares-roadmap-to-a-two-state-solution-amid-hope-in-gazas-awful-suffering/"> […]</a>
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The United Nations has overwhelmingly agreed on a declaration that lays out a single roadmap to deliver a two-State solution partitioning Israel and a new State of Palestine. 
In the UN General Assembly, 142 voted in favor, 10 voted against including Israel and the US, and 12 abstained. Those in favor included almost all large members of the European Union. 
Israeli Ambassador Danny Danon said that “this one-sided Declaration will not be remembered as a step toward peace, only as another hollow gesture that weakens this Assembly’s credibility.” 
“Hamas is the biggest winner of any endorsement here today” and will declare it “the fruit of 7 October”, he added.
The declaration demands an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, release of all hostages held there, and the establishment of a Palestinian State that is both viable and sovereign.
It calls for the disarmament of Hamas and its exclusion from governance in Gaza, normalization between Israel and the Arab countries, and collective security guarantees.
The declaration comes against a backdrop of greatly intensified Israeli destruction of Gaza city and a relentless push to force its nearly one million residents to flee southwards into spaces that relief organization say are cramped, unsanitary and unsafe. Yet, there are hopeful signs of relief for people fleeing the bombardment. 
UN chief Antonio Guterres said, “Gaza is piled with rubble, piled with bodies, and piled with examples of what may be serious violations of international law. Hostages taken by Hamas and other groups must be released and the atrocious treatment they have been forced to endure must stop.”
“I appeal once again for an immediate and permanent ceasefire, unfettered humanitarian access across Gaza, and the immediate and unconditional release of all hostages. 
“Starvation of the civilian population must never be used as a method of warfare. Civilians must be protected. Humanitarian access must be unimpeded. No more excuses. No more obstacles. No more lies,” he insisted.
UNICEF, the UN’s agency for children, reported that over 10,000 children in Gaza city have been diagnosed with acute malnutrition in the past two months alone. The agency warned that if disconnected from their treatment, there is a high risk some of the 2,400 children currently being treated for severe acute malnutrition in the area could starve to death.
Gaza’s health ministry said 411 people across Gaza have died due to malnutrition and starvation, including 133 since the confirmation of famine in Gaza last month. 
Despite the chaos and violence, some UN and other relief groups are still able to provide help. As people flee southwards, relief teams are providing direct support or referral services to children who have been injured, orphaned or separated from their caregivers. 
The UN is still helping humanitarian partners to keep community kitchens open, distribute clean water, and provide healthcare to people in Gaza city and elsewhere across the Gaza Strip. 
Yesterday, a UN team successfully delivered fuel to a series of critical service providers in Gaza city. This included hospitals and other health facilities, as well as installations supporting water pumping, trucking and desalination, and the management of solid waste. 
Speaking from Deir Al-Balah in Gaza, Olga Cherevko, Spokesperson for the UN aid coordination office OCHA, delivered a blunt message: “When Gaza burned, and children starved, and hospitals collapsed – did you act?”
She said hundreds of thousands of battered civilians were ordered to flee to an already overcrowded area where “even small animals have to search for spaces to squeeze between to move around.”
“The race against time, against death, against the spread of famine, feels as if we as humanitarians are running through quicksand.
“The unmistakable smell of death is everywhere – a grisly reminder that the ruins lining the streets hide the remains of mothers, fathers, children,” she added. 
Yet, humanity shines through. The Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics are working around the clock, often without pay, medicine or electricity. Aid workers from UN agencies, the Red Cross Red Crescent and other organizations are delivering food, medicine and clean water under fire. Ordinary people share the little they have with strangers. 
“In every act of care – a refusal to let cruelty define the future. Proof that even in the darkest times, the human spirit endures,” she noted.
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<title>Yes, this is who we are: America’s 250-year history of political violence</title>
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<dc:creator><![CDATA[Guest Voice]]></dc:creator>
<pubDate>Sat, 13 Sep 2025 04:07:27 +0000</pubDate>
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<description><![CDATA[Maurizio Valsania, Università di Torino The day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University, commentators repeated a familiar refrain: “This isn’t who we are as Americans.” Others similarly weighed in. Whoopi Goldberg on “The View” declared that Americans solve political disagreements peacefully: “This is not the way<a class="read-more" href="https://themoderatevoice.com/yes-this-is-who-we-are-americas-250-year-history-of-political-violence/"> […]</a>
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<content:encoded><![CDATA[ <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/maurizio-valsania-1098422">Maurizio Valsania</a>, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/universita-di-torino-3231">Università di Torino</a>
The day after conservative activist <a href="https://www.cnn.com/us/live-news/charlie-kirk-shot-utah-death-09-11-25">Charlie Kirk was shot and killed</a> while speaking at Utah Valley University, commentators repeated a familiar refrain: “<a href="https://www.thebulwark.com/p/a-history-of-violence-17a">This isn’t who we are</a> <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@corybooker/video/7548657440099683639">as Americans</a>.” 
Others similarly weighed in. Whoopi Goldberg on “The View” declared that Americans solve political disagreements peacefully: “<a href="https://www.the-independent.com/news/world/americas/us-politics/the-view-charlie-kirk-assassination-b2824881.html">This is not the way we do it</a>.”
Yet other awful episodes come immediately to mind: President John F. Kennedy was <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/jfk-in-history/november-22-1963-death-of-the-president">shot and killed on Nov. 22, 1963</a>. More recently, on June 14, 2025, Melissa Hortman, speaker emerita of the Minnesota House of Representatives, was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/06/14/us/melissa-hortman-minnesota-assassination">shot and killed at her home</a>, along with her husband and their golden retriever.
<a href="https://www.press.jhu.edu/books/title/12786/first-among-men?srsltid=AfmBOopfhrh-U5cNevfR6IvsrpRxigRWQ2MAvMHORlOpzh-jQw4UDJUc">As a historian of the early republic</a>, I believe that seeing this violence in America as distinct “episodes” is wrong. 
Instead, they reflect a recurrent pattern. 
American politics has long personalized its violence. Time and again, history’s advance has been imagined to depend on silencing or destroying a single figure – the rival who becomes the ultimate, despicable foe. 
Hence, to claim that such shootings betray “who we are” is to forget that the U.S. was founded upon – and has long been sustained by – this very form of political violence.
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A fuzzy photo of a large car with a woman leaning over in the back seat to help a slumped man next to her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=451&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690690/original/file-20250912-56-whd7hc.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=567&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
First lady Jacqueline Kennedy leans over to assist her husband, John F. Kennedy, just after he is shot in Dallas, Texas, on Nov. 22, 1963. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/first-lady-jacqueline-kennedy-leans-over-to-assist-her-news-photo/514698396?adppopup=true">Bettman/Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Revolutionary violence as political theater</h2>
The years of the American Revolution were incubated in violence. One abominable practice used on political adversaries was tarring and feathering. It was a punishment imported from Europe and popularized by the Sons of Liberty in the late 1760s, <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/1559903">Colonial activists who resisted British rule</a>. 
In seaport towns such as Boston and New York, mobs stripped political enemies, usually suspected loyalists – supporters of British rule – or officials representing the king, smeared them with hot tar, rolled them in feathers, and paraded them through the streets.
<a href="https://www.battlefields.org/learn/articles/tarring-and-feathering">The effects on bodies were devastating</a>. As the tar was peeled away, flesh came off in strips. People would survive the punishment, but they would carry the scars for the rest of their life.
By the <a href="https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/loyalists/">late 1770s, the Revolution in what is known as the Middle Colonies</a> had become a brutal civil war. In New York and New Jersey, patriot militias, loyalist partisans and British regulars raided across county lines, targeting farms and neighbors. When patriot forces captured loyalist irregulars – often called “Tories” or “refugees” – they frequently treated them not as prisoners of war but as traitors, executing them swiftly, usually by hanging.
In September 1779, six loyalists were caught near Hackensack, New Jersey. They were hanged without trial by patriot militia. Similarly, in October 1779, two suspected Tory spies captured in the Hudson Highlands were shot on the spot, <a href="https://archive.org/details/americanviolence0000hofs">their execution justified as punishment for treason</a>.
To patriots, these killings were deterrence; to loyalists, they were murder. Either way, they were unmistakably political, eliminating enemies whose “crime” was allegiance to the wrong side.
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="An old portrait of an older man in a black robe." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=748&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690680/original/file-20250912-56-ej9ms5.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=940&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
In 1798, Henry Brockholst Livingston – later a U.S. Supreme Court justice – killed James Jones in a duel. It did not affect his career. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/brockholst_livingston">US Supreme Court</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
<h2>Pistols at dawn: Dueling as politics</h2>
Even after independence, the workings of American politics remained grounded in a logic of violence toward adversaries. 
For national leaders, the pistol duel was not just about honor. It normalized a political culture where <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300097559/affairs-of-honor/">gunfire itself was treated as part of the debate</a>.
The most famous duel, of course, was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Burr-Hamilton-duel">Aaron Burr’s killing of Alexander Hamilton in 1804</a>. But scores of lesser-known confrontations dotted the decade before it.
In 1798, Henry Brockholst Livingston – later a U.S. Supreme Court justice – <a href="https://www.fayewest.ca/jones/exhibits/jones,-james---the-duel-between-brockhust-livingston-and-james-jones.pdf">killed James Jones in a duel</a>. Far from discredited, he was deemed to have acted honorably. In the early republic, even homicide could be absorbed into politics when cloaked in ritual. Ironically, <a href="https://www.oyez.org/justices/brockholst_livingston">Livingston had survived an assassination attempt in 1785</a>.
In 1802, another shameful spectacle unfolded: New York Democratic-Republicans <a href="https://www.newspapers.com/article/springville-journal-duel-between-john-sw/130625887/">DeWitt Clinton and John Swartwout faced off in Weehawken</a>, New Jersey. They fired at least five rounds before their seconds intervened, leaving both men wounded. In this case, the clash had nothing to do with political principle; Clinton and Swartwout were Republicans. It was a patronage squabble that still erupted into gunfire, <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/the-founder-of-gothams-fortunes">showing how normalized armed violence was in settling disputes</a>.
<h2>Gun culture and its expansion</h2>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A small, antique pistol." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/690685/original/file-20250912-64-e2szx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-4.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=532&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"/></a><figcaption>
One of the matching pair of derringer pistols used by John Wilkes Booth in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln in 1865. 
<a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/lincoln-pistol-4-4-bg-9feb96one-of-the-mathcing-pair-of-news-photo/569145813?adppopup=true">Bob Grieser/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images</a> 
</figcaption></figure>
It is tempting to dismiss political violence as a leftover from some “primitive” or “frontier” stage of American history, when politicians and their supporters supposedly lacked restraint or higher moral standards. But that is not the case.
From before the Revolution onward, physical punishment or even killing were ways to enforce belonging, to mark the boundary between insiders and outsiders, and to decide who had the right to govern. 
Violence has never been a distortion in American politics. It has been one of its recurring features, not an aberration but a persistent force, destructive and yet oddly creative, <a href="https://archive.org/details/regenerationthro0000slot_p1h0">producing new boundaries and new regimes</a>.
The dynamic only deepened as gun ownership expanded. In the 19th century, industrial arms production and aggressive federal contracts <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/gun_litigation-ch3.htm">put more weapons into circulation</a>. The rituals of punishing those with the wrong allegiance now found expression in the mass-produced revolver and later in the automatic rifle.
These more modern firearms became not only practical tools of war, crime or self-defense but symbolic objects in their own right. They embodied authority, carried cultural meaning and gave their holders the sense that <a href="https://doi.org/10.2307/2944942">legitimacy itself could be claimed at the barrel of a gun</a>.
That’s why the phrase “This isn’t who we are” rings false. Political violence has always been part of America’s story, not a passing anomaly, and not an episode. 
To deny it is to leave Americans defenseless against it. Only by facing this history head-on can Americans begin to imagine a politics not defined by the gun.<img loading="lazy" src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/265171/count.gif?distributor=republish-lightbox-basic" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" style="border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; margin: 0 !important; max-height: 1px !important; max-width: 1px !important; min-height: 1px !important; min-width: 1px !important; opacity: 0 !important; outline: none !important; padding: 0 !important" referrerpolicy="no-referrer-when-downgrade" />
<a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/maurizio-valsania-1098422">Maurizio Valsania</a>, Professor of American History, <a href="https://theconversation.com/institutions/universita-di-torino-3231">Università di Torino</a>
This article is republished from <a href="https://theconversation.com">The Conversation</a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/yes-this-is-who-we-are-americas-250-year-history-of-political-violence-265171">original article</a>.
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