While catching up on some back issues I came across this quote from Charlie Kirk in “The Betty Diaries”, Sept 13-16: “I can’t stand the word empathy, actually I think empathy is a made-up New Age term that does a lot of damage.”
Wow, what a cold-hearted bastard, I thought. And that’s exactly what Kate Sonnick wanted me to think. I’ll get back to that quote in a sec, but first a little background on how I first became aware of Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA.
There was an incident in 2019 at Park City High School when some students needed first aid and/or were hospitalized after another student put tear gas into the HVAC system to disrupt a Turning Point event. Being a curious sort, I looked into TPUSA and learned this was likely politically motivated.
So how did The Park Record report this attack on free speech in our high school? They called it a “prank” and buried the story.
Now, back to the quote. Again, being a curious sort, I easily found the exact quote by Charlie Kirk in its full context.
Firstly, this was an aside and not the subject at hand, but more importantly his very next words were, “I prefer sympathy.” In other words, he was making a distinction between two very similar terms. He was not expressing indifference to the plight of others, as Kate Sonnick wants us to believe.
And this is the way it goes lately every time I come across a damning quote, video clip, proposed law, etc. It’s always an out-of-context straw man designed to invoke anger.
Can’t we do better, at least at the local level? Isn’t this the kind of drive-by journalism that incites violence? Have we learned nothing after burying the TPUSA attack here six years ago, and now Charlie’s murder?
Ron Reich
Park City