{"id":9075,"date":"2025-09-16T01:32:42","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=9075"},"modified":"2025-09-16T01:37:19","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T01:37:19","slug":"charlie-kirk-no-choice-no-empathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/?p=9075","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk &#8211; On &#8220;Choice&#8221; And Empathy, Or Lack-Thereof."},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Charlie%20Kirk%20-%20On%20%22Choice%22%20And%20Empathy%2C%20Or%20Lack-Thereof.\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>\n<p>Two observations on some of the dialogue surrounding Charlie Kirk\u2019s opinions and positions being talked about in the wake of his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>First: His view that being gay is a lifestyle choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;m a gay man. I\u2019ve been hearing this all my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m sorry, but being gay is not a \u201clifestyle choice\u201d. Living in a city or in the country, residing on the coast or in the mountains is a lifestyle choice. Straight people, upon reaching puberty, didn\u2019t one day look at both sexes and decided to choose to be attracted to the opposite sex. Being gay, or wherever you are on the sexual orientation scale, is not a choice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Can one experiment and find what they like?<br><br>Sure.<br><br>I\u2019ve never been a coffee drinker, but a few years ago I decided I\u2019d try it. That experiment lasted two months. I never liked the taste, it didn\u2019t give me any extra energy, and it only made me sweat. Now, there are some people who experiment with same sex relation, be it sex or just open to maybe having a relationship. Some people find they are actually gay, some maybe fluid and can have meaningful relations with either sex, and some go on in life being heteronormal and feel no need or desire to be anything different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They are who they are. The only choice is whether they accept it, or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Calling it a \u201clifestyle choice\u201d is willful ignorance of another persons reality. Whether you\u2019re straight, bi, or gay, no one consciously \u201cchooses\u201d it. People chose not to acknowledge this, which makes it easier to dismiss one\u2019s identity as a \u201cwrong\u201d choice, when, in reality, there\u2019s no choice at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now. On empathy. <br><br>People have been posting a snippet of Charlie Kirk\u2019s negative views on empathy. Here\u2019s what people have been posting:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c&#8221;I can&#8217;t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage&#8221;\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fans of his are complaining that there\u2019s more to this quote, and it\u2019s taken out of context. That\u2019s fair. Here\u2019s the full quote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c\u201d So the new communications strategy for Democrats, now that their polling advantage is collapsing in every single state\u2026 collapsing in Ohio. It&#8217;s collapsing even in Arizona. It is now a race where Blake Masters is in striking distance. Kari Lake is doing very, very well. The new communications strategy is not to do what Bill Clinton used to do, where he would say, &#8220;I feel your pain.&#8221; Instead, it is to say, &#8220;You&#8217;re actually not in pain.&#8221; So let&#8217;s just, little, very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It was all about empathy and sympathy. I can&#8217;t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that \u2014 it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That&#8217;s a separate topic for a different time.\u201d\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, granted, pointing to Bill Clinton\u2019s political use of empathy to score point is fair game. A deep problem is revealed here. He prefers sympathy over empathy. But sympathy is the more shallow of the two related emotions. Sympathy has less emotional connection within yourself. Sympathy is \u201cI feel bad for this person\u201d, instead of \u201cI can relate to how this person feels. Sympathy allows for easier disconnect, making it easier to not care if your words or action may hurt another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And this, my friends, is how you get to a place where he, and others before him like Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Mark Levine etc, can thrive and not care if their words or actions hurt others. It allows someone to call being gay a lifestyle choice, without considering how wrong that statement is.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Charlie%20Kirk%20-%20On%20%22Choice%22%20And%20Empathy%2C%20Or%20Lack-Thereof.\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div><p>Two observations on some of the dialogue surrounding Charlie Kirk\u2019s opinions and positions being talked about in the wake of his death. First: His view that being gay is a lifestyle choice. I&#8217;m a gay man. I\u2019ve been hearing this all my life. I\u2019m sorry, but being gay is not a \u201clifestyle choice\u201d. Living in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[63,59,27],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9075"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9077,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9075\/revisions\/9077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonicfrog.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}