This week in Bari's Picks: Charlie Kirk's final message, a wild story out of Canada, a debate over assisted suicide, the America at 250 newsletter arrives, and more.
Keep in mind the political propaganda runs deeper than the MSM. See the following response from ChatGBT when ask “Who programs your bias?”
“Who programmed me?
• I am GPT-5 Mini, developed by OpenAI.
• My behavior and responses are guided by:
• Training on a mix of licensed data, publicly available text, and data created by human trainers
• Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), which teaches me to respond helpfully, safely, and factually
• Guardrails and moderation that prevent me from producing harmful, illegal, or false content as “fact”
No individual person is “programming bias” into me line by line — it’s the result of training on large datasets and rules for safe, accurate interaction.
⸻
2. Why my answers might feel “politically correct”
• I’m designed to avoid spreading unverified claims, conspiracy theories, or discriminatory ideas.
• I aim to:
• Stick to evidence-based reasoning
• Separate fact from opinion
• Avoid making statements that could be harmful or false
• That sometimes comes across as “political correctness,” but it’s really about accuracy, ethics, and reliability.”
"Doctors are terrible prognosticators" is such an accurate statement. I've lost count of the number of times I've had friends or acquaintances tell me when facing high risk pregnancies "My doctor said my baby would never survive,etc" and they've gone on to have healthy children.
Saying you should trust doctors as "experts" about ending your life is equal to saying "trust the science " from people who lied about "the science " repeatedly.
As the great C.S. Lewis said do not allow propaganda “to be the real origin of what you regard as personal political ideas”.
And thus recall an article and comments here that recently accused only Trump of “breaking our morality”.
Yet always buried is the fact it was Democrats who committed the unforgivable sin of publicly celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.
And just as blasphemous, it is Democrats who tell us they have the moral authority to use their administrative powers to allow the physical and chemical mutilation of defenseless children.
We can argue the pros and cons of MAID criteria and safeguards, but whatever else it is the impulse to end the suffering of someone who's ill with no hope of recovery is not 'barbaric.' Let's not lose sight of the fact that death isn't a catastrophe that falls uniquely on people who avail themselves of MAID but something that comes to everyone, without exception. It's obvious that if we're serious about giving people control over their lives, we have to grant them the basic right to choose how and when to depart life. When the only alternatives before you are a prolonged, agonizing death by inches or hitting the exit ramp painlessly at a time that suits you, the choice should be a no-brainer.
We should in any event have the freedom to exercise our own judgment in the matter. Forcing individuals against their will to delegate to the state a decision-making responsibility that concerns them more intimately than any combination of legislators or bureaucrats is ethically indefensible.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy, it is not MAID or agonizing death. Palliative care and hospice are effective and humane ways of managing these situations in a way that protects dignity of the patient and professional responsibility of the physician.
There's nothing false or illusory about the dichotomy between pain and its absence, as you doubtless know perfectly well from first-hand experience. What a dishonest and evasive response to a real life dilemma you could easily end up having to face yourself. The palliative care path is fine when it works, but like anything else it can't be categorically guaranteed to succeed—something else you can't possibly not know.
Unlike you, I'm not making a categorical claim (a preposterous and unsupportable one in palliative care's case). MAID is simply an option people should be free to select in circumstances where the alternative will be worse. Denying that such situations can and do arise stamps one as either an evasive liar, or too stupid—and/or lacking in normal human empathy and imagination—to judge even straightforward matters competently, never mind this one.
I do have experience with it. I’m an internal medicine physician and have implemented palliative care measures from settings in the icu to the office. I have spoken with the dying on their death bed. I don’t know what your experience is, but you sure seem full of it, whatever your actual experience is. It does work and it works more times than not.
That is why when people make disingenuous claims that intentionally make their points sound like a moral imperative, I think they should be called out. We can make some pretty big differences in peoples lives and make the process of dying one that is dignified. MAID Is ripe for abuse.
You're doing important work, worthy of respect, but alas that doesn't necessarily make you an able reasoner or a wise judge of public policy. Perhaps you're a little too invested in your work to be able to consider this matter objectively. Every human endeavour is abuse-prone: political power, parental responsibility, driving motor vehicles—you name it. That we should deprive ourselves of the benefits these things confer when appropriately used doesn't follow logically at all.
Yes, I've witnessed departures from life, including one in which I had power of attorney for health care decisions. Such experience doesn't make me an expert in what matters to others, nor does it qualify me to substitute my judgment for another individual's wishes. Whatever I'm “full of,” happily it isn't that kind of delusional arrogance.
I’m curious what makes you a wise judge of public policy. I would say frequent first hand experience and decision making at least provides me with the insight to make informed decisions on this issue in the very least. I agree greatly with Lydia dugdale, is she also unequipped to be arbiter of reason in this debate? It seems to me that anyone who opposes your opinion is ill equipped (by how you lashed out earlier anyway), I’m not entirely sure what is reasonable about that.
Regardless, im simply pointing out that your initial comment is dishonest, it is not an either or. There are other choices and they are beneficial and provide a peaceful and fulfilling death. I know from experience. And that simple fact makes this a far more nuanced discussion than you are pretending it is.
(?) I'm in no position to know what your evident confusion owes to inattentiveness, inadequate reading comprehension, or unfamiliarity with (or indifference to) how logical inference works (a handicap in medical practice, I would have thought); but I'll attempt to alleviate it.
A quick review discloses that the question “Should We Legalize Assisted Suicide?” (the debate's actual title) is what's at issue here; and typically one addresses such questions by presenting arguments for or against proposed courses of action, which is what others in this forum—including me—have offered. Whatever you think of a rights claim based on fundamental ethics, it at least qualifies as relevantly addressing the issue. I've argued that as the final authority on whatever our own experience happens to be, we need and are entitled to exercise decision-making autonomy when the alternative we face is “a prolonged, agonizing death by inches or hitting the exit ramp painlessly at a time that suits us.”
I think this is an easy argument to support; but when it became clear that instead of contesting it you'd simply evaded it by denying that such situations arise (which makes which of us guilty of intellectual dishonesty?) I pointed out that I wasn't making a categorical claim, a clarification you either chose to ignore, or perhaps the significance of which you still fail to grasp. Consequently, you've attacked straw men: I haven't claimed any particular public policy wisdom, and certainly haven't claimed that MAID and/or death agony exhausts the possible alternatives. Why would I need to? That's not how inductive logic works: the categorical claim “All swans are white” is falsified by the existence of a single black swan. The general success of palliative care no more changes the reality that MAID is occasionally the appropriate alternative than the fact that most swans are white can change the reality of a black swan. That's a persuasive argument for ensuring the MAID option remains available; who cares how exceptional the circumstances are? If it helps just one person, isn't that enough for you? It's enough for me.
The tour of your medical experience, whatever importance and interest it may hold for you, was and will remain an irrelevant side-excursion in a discussion concerning itself with the worth of arguments for and against positions properly classifiable as ethical and legal. In this respect, my experience may indeed better equip me for such discussion than yours evidently has. I was a philosophy major, you see, specializing in logic and epistemology, and hosting remedial seminars in logic was one of my teaching assistant responsibilities in graduate school. I'm happy to acknowledge your expertise in palliative care, Cal, but allow me to suggest that some expertise in identifying logically equivocal arguments would be of greater service to you here.
I'm sorry for your friend, but was she elderly with co-morbidities? Covid presents little risk to the young, and it is unconscionable to force people—children in particular—to take an experimental vaccine for which long-term studies do not yet exist and which has been linked to myocarditis. In any event, taking an mRNA shot will do nothing to make you less infectious.
If I am someday diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, please let me end my life while I still know who I am and who my loved ones are. And let my death be accomplished by state assisted suicide and not by my own hand with the pull of a trigger. To condemn people who are terminally ill to die painfully and at great cost to their loved ones is cruel and inhumane. The cynic in me thinks that the medical establishment wants to keep us alive for as long as possible in order to soak us for all we’re worth, impoverished families be damned.
“ To condemn people who are terminally ill to die painfully and at great cost to their loved ones is cruel and inhumane.”
This is a false portrayal of what happens. Nobody currently is being condemned to a painful death with terminal illnesses (you’d know that if you actually listened to the debate). The cynic in me thinks you do know this, but are just making an emotional appeal.
There are many options to improve where we’re at without resorting to physician assisted suicide. You think killing yourself to remove the financial burden from your family is not inhumane?You can’t think of a better way to advocate for this?
I hesitated to express my feelings about assisted suicide because in some ways it’s analogous to the topic of abortion. It’s a lose lose situation where emotions trump logic. If a person/patient is terminally ill with several months to live assisted suicide can be humane. I don’t support aid to one who in reality wants to commit suicide. Unfortunately individuals who truly want to commit suicide will find away to end their lives.
It seems very odd to me that today's "Bari's Picks of the Week" email - just received less than 6 hours ago - and the article about Charlie Kirk is already closed for comments. I enjoy the Free Press and hence why I subscribe - but I unfortunately don't have the time to read every article published every day so I rely on "Bari's Pick's of the Week" to distill the news to the really good stuff. So I can't say that I was particularly pleased to learn that the referenced Charlie Kirk article was closed for comments - and AGAIN, in case my earlier point didn't come thru - in less than 6 hours of Bari's email. I was under the impression, perhaps a bad move on my part, that The Free Press stood for seeking all views and opinions and not just those of the mainstream media and the associated thought police. I'm not trying to be critical here - but I am making the point that I think your policy of how long an article should remain open for comments be reviewed and adjusted to include any "reposted" articles referenced by Bari. Otherwise, I think there should put a stylish looking asterisk behind "The Free Speech" name, logo, etc - that says something to the effect of - "Yes, we're all for free and open speech except that you unfortunately need to do so within six hours or less." This doesn't reflect well on your public image - so please consider fixing this.
For the next three years, President Trump should borrow and apply Obama’s famous quote:
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
I am so tired of hearing about St. Kirk. As i see it, he was not well educated in anything, not that great a debater except against unprepared pansies, and his rediscovery of Christian formulas is very tiresome and not productive in any way. After listening to a few of his radio talk programs, that was enough for me. The program got even worse, with the continual Kirk hagiography, after his death. Note, i have zero sympathy for the deranged assassin.
Edit: i am tired already tired of being lectured about America - hating professors, slanted press, George Floyd, you name your particular sore point. You are probably not going to be happy about my conclusions about gun violence in the USA. You are probably not going to be thrilled with my conclusions about the sin & Salvation theory. So be it.
Hopefully we do hear more about him and others mirror his style. He opened a new world for young people and put to task the rediculous dogmas on American campuses. Not as eloquent as a professor perhaps, but a hell of lot more effective.
I have little knowledge about “St Kirk”. but I do know that he harmed no one compared to “St. George Floyd” who caused so much damage to America.. on killer is smirking in court and the other supposed “killer” is still in jail
I am not here to support Kirk, it's not my job, nor am I qualified, but when you see total crap, it needs to be called out. I think you missed a critical point; his views were extraordinarily public and documented. His events were announced months in advance; those "unprepared pansies" had MONTHS to prepare. Most of the videos I watched (after he ended), they had their notes in hand. They knew EXACTLY what his views were; they knew exactly his positions; they knew what, by and large, he was going to say; they knew EXACTLY when he would arrive; and they had MONTHS, if not longer, to prepare.
Your commentary of Unprepared pansies only HIGHLIGHTS and reinforces the message and point he was making. The "Pansies" were people so deep in an ideological possession that they couldn't dare to step away from the echo chamber. The reason they looked so unprepared is that they did EXACTLY what you did, "he was not well educated in anything." But he had his ideas well-formed, however ill-informed you see him. He had zero time to prepare for the "pansies" who came with their notes. The sad truth is, he could "dunk" on people event after event, aside from nerves, and he had built his confidence; they had EVERY other advantage and still came off like idiots. And ostensibly, his mission was because of all the reasons he was doing what he was doing. It should have been easy as pie .....
As i have read, only, he did not make it thru college. I am surely not saying a college indctrination is necessarily worth, but it does at least expose one to a wider world of ideas. I did not watch any of his mini - debates, only read extracts, but having learned a thing of two about his "debate" technique, and with no disrespect to the deceased intended, i believe i would be well placed to "debate", as these one - sided encounters with pansies equipped with hands full of notes were called. You do not let his ownership of the event, the microphone, the forum, and his celebrity overpower you.
As i see it, he is such an ephemeral phenomenon. So let's revisit this subject in six years and see if anyone remembers the name, and if 'Turning Point USA' actually went anywhere, or was just a flash in the pan.
I don't recall you brought up religion. I was Catholic, went thru a Charismatic phase and all that, possibly more decades in Christianity than you have been on Terra, and i feel pretty qualified and prepared to discuss or debate the topic. My feeling, attending a Christmas ( classical ) music event here, looking up at the huge cross at the front of the Presbyterian cathedral, was thanks that we had preseved the memory, provided the salvation for this cruelly handled prophet.
"I did not watch any of his mini - debates, only read extracts". Well, there you go. Before making demeaning comments about someone based on likely negatively biased extracts, try watching some of them. Caution: you might find that your prejudice was unfounded.
I'm not going anywhere. I listened to enough Kirk talk shows to learn there was nothing there. I have no particular animus other than to point out that out.
Just because Charlie didn't attend some America-hating Ivy League activist indoctrination camp doesn't mean he wasn't educated. He was very well read and could converse on a wide variety of topics. He built a successful political organization from scratch, starting when he was 18 years old. He was raising a wonderful Christian family and changing the lives of thouands of young people. How many others accomplished all that in 31 years of life?
I don't give a poop about America - hating Ivy league whatever. I was not impressed by his range of knowledge. I thought of him as an amateur, a flashing phenomenon, a shooting star. 31 years means nothing; why are you so impressed by that ? You somehow think that he is exceptional ? Give it 10 years; you are young and you'll be around; barring some unfortunate fate, so will i; let's compare notes then and we'll see how and if history regards this star.
Perhaps, but few others were willing and able to provide debate and diversity of thought on today's college campuses. He did great work in that regard, especially since the " highly educated " elite on those same campuses were unwilling to do so.
You have never actually seen him in action. He debated the so called smart people at Oxford and this not very smart person embarrassed the so called smart people. You tube has them so you could see for yourself
The so - called "smart people" were from what i have read of the "debates", what i call "pansies". You do not allow the man with the microphone, the host, to command the show. Unfortunately, i never had a chance to "debate". I think he would have had to just dismiss me, as he apparently had to do, if the short "debate" was already going not to his benefit.
So once again you have not actually listened to him debate. Do not trust anything you read everything is written with a narrative from whatever side you’re reading. Unlike the Lincoln Douglas debates we have the actual evidence and not someone’s interpretation of what they believe was said. I once read a piece on the Lincoln Douglas debates where the author made the claim that back in the 1850’s that every town had a Republican paper and a Democratic paper and if you read just one version you would have thought your guy would have won. So he read both sides to fully understand what was said. It’s no different today. And it’s never been different ever. The concept that the press is fair is a massive lie that the media itself has spread. When there was only three major networks which is where 90% of the news came from and they were all captured by the left they lied about being fair and honest by just ignoring stories that hurt their preferred candidate and hyping stories that hurt the opposition
Imagine the number of new subscribers to TFP if they would analytically cover the invaluably good things Trump and the Republican Congress has accomplished in just one year.
Charlie had a good idea - to go offline on Friday evening and smell the pine trees for a while, and honor the sabbath, whatever that means to each person.
Can we make that challenge for 24 solid hours in the week? Not today…
On assisted suicide…..what if the patient changes his or her mind? Doctors use cognition as the final guide. God forbid the person came awake, or suddenly was cognizant or had a change of heart, or bodily functions grew stronger, or a family member went insane with grief and remorse because they allowed this, and just the guilt alone watching. Leave nature alone.
Doesn’t matter in the long run. Most candidates for assisted suicide wikileaks be dead soon enough anyhow, and then unable to experience regret for all eternity.
I have to say that you really are the free press.. I thought when you sold out to CBS it would turn completely left.. But the fact that your interviewing Erika Kirk gives me confidence in you and your publication. You are covering both sides of the political spectrum... Thank You for all the interesting stories.. You have an excellent and interesting variety of writers..
Well, Charlie changed my life and I’ve yet to read his book - because it instantly sold out.
Bari really showed her true colors with the question taking Kirk’s words out of context. Shame. I’ll be leaving TFP.
? Where is this ?
Keep in mind the political propaganda runs deeper than the MSM. See the following response from ChatGBT when ask “Who programs your bias?”
“Who programmed me?
• I am GPT-5 Mini, developed by OpenAI.
• My behavior and responses are guided by:
• Training on a mix of licensed data, publicly available text, and data created by human trainers
• Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF), which teaches me to respond helpfully, safely, and factually
• Guardrails and moderation that prevent me from producing harmful, illegal, or false content as “fact”
No individual person is “programming bias” into me line by line — it’s the result of training on large datasets and rules for safe, accurate interaction.
⸻
2. Why my answers might feel “politically correct”
• I’m designed to avoid spreading unverified claims, conspiracy theories, or discriminatory ideas.
• I aim to:
• Stick to evidence-based reasoning
• Separate fact from opinion
• Avoid making statements that could be harmful or false
• That sometimes comes across as “political correctness,” but it’s really about accuracy, ethics, and reliability.”
"Doctors are terrible prognosticators" is such an accurate statement. I've lost count of the number of times I've had friends or acquaintances tell me when facing high risk pregnancies "My doctor said my baby would never survive,etc" and they've gone on to have healthy children.
Saying you should trust doctors as "experts" about ending your life is equal to saying "trust the science " from people who lied about "the science " repeatedly.
As the great C.S. Lewis said do not allow propaganda “to be the real origin of what you regard as personal political ideas”.
And thus recall an article and comments here that recently accused only Trump of “breaking our morality”.
Yet always buried is the fact it was Democrats who committed the unforgivable sin of publicly celebrating the murder of Charlie Kirk.
And just as blasphemous, it is Democrats who tell us they have the moral authority to use their administrative powers to allow the physical and chemical mutilation of defenseless children.
We can argue the pros and cons of MAID criteria and safeguards, but whatever else it is the impulse to end the suffering of someone who's ill with no hope of recovery is not 'barbaric.' Let's not lose sight of the fact that death isn't a catastrophe that falls uniquely on people who avail themselves of MAID but something that comes to everyone, without exception. It's obvious that if we're serious about giving people control over their lives, we have to grant them the basic right to choose how and when to depart life. When the only alternatives before you are a prolonged, agonizing death by inches or hitting the exit ramp painlessly at a time that suits you, the choice should be a no-brainer.
We should in any event have the freedom to exercise our own judgment in the matter. Forcing individuals against their will to delegate to the state a decision-making responsibility that concerns them more intimately than any combination of legislators or bureaucrats is ethically indefensible.
You’re presenting a false dichotomy, it is not MAID or agonizing death. Palliative care and hospice are effective and humane ways of managing these situations in a way that protects dignity of the patient and professional responsibility of the physician.
There's nothing false or illusory about the dichotomy between pain and its absence, as you doubtless know perfectly well from first-hand experience. What a dishonest and evasive response to a real life dilemma you could easily end up having to face yourself. The palliative care path is fine when it works, but like anything else it can't be categorically guaranteed to succeed—something else you can't possibly not know.
Unlike you, I'm not making a categorical claim (a preposterous and unsupportable one in palliative care's case). MAID is simply an option people should be free to select in circumstances where the alternative will be worse. Denying that such situations can and do arise stamps one as either an evasive liar, or too stupid—and/or lacking in normal human empathy and imagination—to judge even straightforward matters competently, never mind this one.
I do have experience with it. I’m an internal medicine physician and have implemented palliative care measures from settings in the icu to the office. I have spoken with the dying on their death bed. I don’t know what your experience is, but you sure seem full of it, whatever your actual experience is. It does work and it works more times than not.
That is why when people make disingenuous claims that intentionally make their points sound like a moral imperative, I think they should be called out. We can make some pretty big differences in peoples lives and make the process of dying one that is dignified. MAID Is ripe for abuse.
You're doing important work, worthy of respect, but alas that doesn't necessarily make you an able reasoner or a wise judge of public policy. Perhaps you're a little too invested in your work to be able to consider this matter objectively. Every human endeavour is abuse-prone: political power, parental responsibility, driving motor vehicles—you name it. That we should deprive ourselves of the benefits these things confer when appropriately used doesn't follow logically at all.
Yes, I've witnessed departures from life, including one in which I had power of attorney for health care decisions. Such experience doesn't make me an expert in what matters to others, nor does it qualify me to substitute my judgment for another individual's wishes. Whatever I'm “full of,” happily it isn't that kind of delusional arrogance.
I’m curious what makes you a wise judge of public policy. I would say frequent first hand experience and decision making at least provides me with the insight to make informed decisions on this issue in the very least. I agree greatly with Lydia dugdale, is she also unequipped to be arbiter of reason in this debate? It seems to me that anyone who opposes your opinion is ill equipped (by how you lashed out earlier anyway), I’m not entirely sure what is reasonable about that.
Regardless, im simply pointing out that your initial comment is dishonest, it is not an either or. There are other choices and they are beneficial and provide a peaceful and fulfilling death. I know from experience. And that simple fact makes this a far more nuanced discussion than you are pretending it is.
(?) I'm in no position to know what your evident confusion owes to inattentiveness, inadequate reading comprehension, or unfamiliarity with (or indifference to) how logical inference works (a handicap in medical practice, I would have thought); but I'll attempt to alleviate it.
A quick review discloses that the question “Should We Legalize Assisted Suicide?” (the debate's actual title) is what's at issue here; and typically one addresses such questions by presenting arguments for or against proposed courses of action, which is what others in this forum—including me—have offered. Whatever you think of a rights claim based on fundamental ethics, it at least qualifies as relevantly addressing the issue. I've argued that as the final authority on whatever our own experience happens to be, we need and are entitled to exercise decision-making autonomy when the alternative we face is “a prolonged, agonizing death by inches or hitting the exit ramp painlessly at a time that suits us.”
I think this is an easy argument to support; but when it became clear that instead of contesting it you'd simply evaded it by denying that such situations arise (which makes which of us guilty of intellectual dishonesty?) I pointed out that I wasn't making a categorical claim, a clarification you either chose to ignore, or perhaps the significance of which you still fail to grasp. Consequently, you've attacked straw men: I haven't claimed any particular public policy wisdom, and certainly haven't claimed that MAID and/or death agony exhausts the possible alternatives. Why would I need to? That's not how inductive logic works: the categorical claim “All swans are white” is falsified by the existence of a single black swan. The general success of palliative care no more changes the reality that MAID is occasionally the appropriate alternative than the fact that most swans are white can change the reality of a black swan. That's a persuasive argument for ensuring the MAID option remains available; who cares how exceptional the circumstances are? If it helps just one person, isn't that enough for you? It's enough for me.
The tour of your medical experience, whatever importance and interest it may hold for you, was and will remain an irrelevant side-excursion in a discussion concerning itself with the worth of arguments for and against positions properly classifiable as ethical and legal. In this respect, my experience may indeed better equip me for such discussion than yours evidently has. I was a philosophy major, you see, specializing in logic and epistemology, and hosting remedial seminars in logic was one of my teaching assistant responsibilities in graduate school. I'm happy to acknowledge your expertise in palliative care, Cal, but allow me to suggest that some expertise in identifying logically equivocal arguments would be of greater service to you here.
“My body my choice” comes to mind. A phrase used to defend abortion, but not COVID shots under Biden.
Logical consistency never takes priority over the needs of The Narrative for the ideologically, politically or religiously committed.
Doh....COVID is infectious. My friend caught it from someone's sneeze and it killed her.
sure she knew exactly where she was caught covid.. and you are sure you know too. but you dont
I'm sorry for your friend, but was she elderly with co-morbidities? Covid presents little risk to the young, and it is unconscionable to force people—children in particular—to take an experimental vaccine for which long-term studies do not yet exist and which has been linked to myocarditis. In any event, taking an mRNA shot will do nothing to make you less infectious.
If I am someday diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, please let me end my life while I still know who I am and who my loved ones are. And let my death be accomplished by state assisted suicide and not by my own hand with the pull of a trigger. To condemn people who are terminally ill to die painfully and at great cost to their loved ones is cruel and inhumane. The cynic in me thinks that the medical establishment wants to keep us alive for as long as possible in order to soak us for all we’re worth, impoverished families be damned.
“ To condemn people who are terminally ill to die painfully and at great cost to their loved ones is cruel and inhumane.”
This is a false portrayal of what happens. Nobody currently is being condemned to a painful death with terminal illnesses (you’d know that if you actually listened to the debate). The cynic in me thinks you do know this, but are just making an emotional appeal.
There are many options to improve where we’re at without resorting to physician assisted suicide. You think killing yourself to remove the financial burden from your family is not inhumane?You can’t think of a better way to advocate for this?
I hesitated to express my feelings about assisted suicide because in some ways it’s analogous to the topic of abortion. It’s a lose lose situation where emotions trump logic. If a person/patient is terminally ill with several months to live assisted suicide can be humane. I don’t support aid to one who in reality wants to commit suicide. Unfortunately individuals who truly want to commit suicide will find away to end their lives.
It seems very odd to me that today's "Bari's Picks of the Week" email - just received less than 6 hours ago - and the article about Charlie Kirk is already closed for comments. I enjoy the Free Press and hence why I subscribe - but I unfortunately don't have the time to read every article published every day so I rely on "Bari's Pick's of the Week" to distill the news to the really good stuff. So I can't say that I was particularly pleased to learn that the referenced Charlie Kirk article was closed for comments - and AGAIN, in case my earlier point didn't come thru - in less than 6 hours of Bari's email. I was under the impression, perhaps a bad move on my part, that The Free Press stood for seeking all views and opinions and not just those of the mainstream media and the associated thought police. I'm not trying to be critical here - but I am making the point that I think your policy of how long an article should remain open for comments be reviewed and adjusted to include any "reposted" articles referenced by Bari. Otherwise, I think there should put a stylish looking asterisk behind "The Free Speech" name, logo, etc - that says something to the effect of - "Yes, we're all for free and open speech except that you unfortunately need to do so within six hours or less." This doesn't reflect well on your public image - so please consider fixing this.
For the next three years, President Trump should borrow and apply Obama’s famous quote:
“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
EXCELLENT!
I am so tired of hearing about St. Kirk. As i see it, he was not well educated in anything, not that great a debater except against unprepared pansies, and his rediscovery of Christian formulas is very tiresome and not productive in any way. After listening to a few of his radio talk programs, that was enough for me. The program got even worse, with the continual Kirk hagiography, after his death. Note, i have zero sympathy for the deranged assassin.
Edit: i am tired already tired of being lectured about America - hating professors, slanted press, George Floyd, you name your particular sore point. You are probably not going to be happy about my conclusions about gun violence in the USA. You are probably not going to be thrilled with my conclusions about the sin & Salvation theory. So be it.
Hopefully we do hear more about him and others mirror his style. He opened a new world for young people and put to task the rediculous dogmas on American campuses. Not as eloquent as a professor perhaps, but a hell of lot more effective.
Zero sympathy for Charle and his family, too?
Nice try, dude. Your imagination is defective.
Oh, that wasn’t you speaking ill of the dead?
You get a zero for reading comprehension, a 100% for imagination.
I just wonder why. What drives a person to speak ill of the dead on the Internet. To claim the dead person was uneducated. It is weird to me.
I have little knowledge about “St Kirk”. but I do know that he harmed no one compared to “St. George Floyd” who caused so much damage to America.. on killer is smirking in court and the other supposed “killer” is still in jail
Is this how it works ? Compare one outrage to another ?
Not educated. Just intelligent.
I am not here to support Kirk, it's not my job, nor am I qualified, but when you see total crap, it needs to be called out. I think you missed a critical point; his views were extraordinarily public and documented. His events were announced months in advance; those "unprepared pansies" had MONTHS to prepare. Most of the videos I watched (after he ended), they had their notes in hand. They knew EXACTLY what his views were; they knew exactly his positions; they knew what, by and large, he was going to say; they knew EXACTLY when he would arrive; and they had MONTHS, if not longer, to prepare.
Your commentary of Unprepared pansies only HIGHLIGHTS and reinforces the message and point he was making. The "Pansies" were people so deep in an ideological possession that they couldn't dare to step away from the echo chamber. The reason they looked so unprepared is that they did EXACTLY what you did, "he was not well educated in anything." But he had his ideas well-formed, however ill-informed you see him. He had zero time to prepare for the "pansies" who came with their notes. The sad truth is, he could "dunk" on people event after event, aside from nerves, and he had built his confidence; they had EVERY other advantage and still came off like idiots. And ostensibly, his mission was because of all the reasons he was doing what he was doing. It should have been easy as pie .....
As i have read, only, he did not make it thru college. I am surely not saying a college indctrination is necessarily worth, but it does at least expose one to a wider world of ideas. I did not watch any of his mini - debates, only read extracts, but having learned a thing of two about his "debate" technique, and with no disrespect to the deceased intended, i believe i would be well placed to "debate", as these one - sided encounters with pansies equipped with hands full of notes were called. You do not let his ownership of the event, the microphone, the forum, and his celebrity overpower you.
As i see it, he is such an ephemeral phenomenon. So let's revisit this subject in six years and see if anyone remembers the name, and if 'Turning Point USA' actually went anywhere, or was just a flash in the pan.
I don't recall you brought up religion. I was Catholic, went thru a Charismatic phase and all that, possibly more decades in Christianity than you have been on Terra, and i feel pretty qualified and prepared to discuss or debate the topic. My feeling, attending a Christmas ( classical ) music event here, looking up at the huge cross at the front of the Presbyterian cathedral, was thanks that we had preseved the memory, provided the salvation for this cruelly handled prophet.
Thank you for your comments.
"I did not watch any of his mini - debates, only read extracts". Well, there you go. Before making demeaning comments about someone based on likely negatively biased extracts, try watching some of them. Caution: you might find that your prejudice was unfounded.
..From an education standpoint, an even playing field I suppose if neither Kirk nor the "pansies" you refer to had "made it through college"....
Solypsism, nothing more. You didn't like Kirk. OK. Now go away.
I'm not going anywhere. I listened to enough Kirk talk shows to learn there was nothing there. I have no particular animus other than to point out that out.
Just because Charlie didn't attend some America-hating Ivy League activist indoctrination camp doesn't mean he wasn't educated. He was very well read and could converse on a wide variety of topics. He built a successful political organization from scratch, starting when he was 18 years old. He was raising a wonderful Christian family and changing the lives of thouands of young people. How many others accomplished all that in 31 years of life?
I don't give a poop about America - hating Ivy league whatever. I was not impressed by his range of knowledge. I thought of him as an amateur, a flashing phenomenon, a shooting star. 31 years means nothing; why are you so impressed by that ? You somehow think that he is exceptional ? Give it 10 years; you are young and you'll be around; barring some unfortunate fate, so will i; let's compare notes then and we'll see how and if history regards this star.
Perhaps, but few others were willing and able to provide debate and diversity of thought on today's college campuses. He did great work in that regard, especially since the " highly educated " elite on those same campuses were unwilling to do so.
You have never actually seen him in action. He debated the so called smart people at Oxford and this not very smart person embarrassed the so called smart people. You tube has them so you could see for yourself
The so - called "smart people" were from what i have read of the "debates", what i call "pansies". You do not allow the man with the microphone, the host, to command the show. Unfortunately, i never had a chance to "debate". I think he would have had to just dismiss me, as he apparently had to do, if the short "debate" was already going not to his benefit.
So once again you have not actually listened to him debate. Do not trust anything you read everything is written with a narrative from whatever side you’re reading. Unlike the Lincoln Douglas debates we have the actual evidence and not someone’s interpretation of what they believe was said. I once read a piece on the Lincoln Douglas debates where the author made the claim that back in the 1850’s that every town had a Republican paper and a Democratic paper and if you read just one version you would have thought your guy would have won. So he read both sides to fully understand what was said. It’s no different today. And it’s never been different ever. The concept that the press is fair is a massive lie that the media itself has spread. When there was only three major networks which is where 90% of the news came from and they were all captured by the left they lied about being fair and honest by just ignoring stories that hurt their preferred candidate and hyping stories that hurt the opposition
Then don’t read the articles. That’s a choice.
Imagine the number of new subscribers to TFP if they would analytically cover the invaluably good things Trump and the Republican Congress has accomplished in just one year.
Maybe old habits won't allow them to do that. It takes a lot of time to wash years of liberal away.
I no longer think it is possible. The infection is incurable.
Charlie had a good idea - to go offline on Friday evening and smell the pine trees for a while, and honor the sabbath, whatever that means to each person.
Can we make that challenge for 24 solid hours in the week? Not today…
So why is Bari turning off the ability to comment on all the actual stories????
On assisted suicide…..what if the patient changes his or her mind? Doctors use cognition as the final guide. God forbid the person came awake, or suddenly was cognizant or had a change of heart, or bodily functions grew stronger, or a family member went insane with grief and remorse because they allowed this, and just the guilt alone watching. Leave nature alone.
Doesn’t matter in the long run. Most candidates for assisted suicide wikileaks be dead soon enough anyhow, and then unable to experience regret for all eternity.
Bari,
I have to say that you really are the free press.. I thought when you sold out to CBS it would turn completely left.. But the fact that your interviewing Erika Kirk gives me confidence in you and your publication. You are covering both sides of the political spectrum... Thank You for all the interesting stories.. You have an excellent and interesting variety of writers..