Turning Point

September 13, 2025

By NZB3

The murder of Charlie Kirk in America will, I suppose, be the end of his Turning Point USA organisation. Earlier in the week another father, New Zealander Tom Phillips, certainly had his organisation of 4 years ended by a bullet. The big difference is that in New Zealand our killings are judicial and carried out by policemen backed by massive political, legal, and media machinery. Last month a Bryndwr man was shot down by police followed by his now dead wife who police also shot at the scene after her reaction to the killing. Over the past decade New Zealand’s rate of fatal police shootings has been 11 times higher than in England and Wales, the Guardian reported.

Our ‘official’ and sanctioned form of killing allows we New Zealanders to look down on America and their freelance style of assassination.

As a side note this week, Stuart Nash lost his job and is in doubt as New Zealand First’s next candidate because he said “pussy” and “tits” on the radio. I could respect that if he stuck to it but he immediately wimped out, took it back, apologised. It’s evidence that his authentic self (which I don’t mind in this case) is not the same as his politician self; Who you vote for is not who will be governing you. He may yet stand but it will not depend on improving his manners as much as it will depend on if he can deliver the seat of Napier for Winston Peters. Yet, while Nash is making a rude joke we have an Australian comedian touring the country to sell-out shows. Kevin Bloody Wilson is literally being paid to sing and swear yet when Nash does far less, for free, and without music, he’s Mr Bad Guy. My point is that there are bizarre hypocrisies obscured by the circumstances of Charlie Kirk, Tom Phillips, Stuart Nash, and Kevin Bloody Wilson!

Kirk’s murder is more of a Turning Point than he ever knew. A ‘Turning’ is also what Strauss and Howe call it in their mechanical history model when we switch between one of the 4 phases: High, Awakening, Unravelling, and Crisis. It’s that 3rd one, the Unravelling, that the West and so New Zealand has been in for some time. Coming apart. Internal conflict. Polarised factions. I heard this put quite well by Edward Dutton, the Jolly Heretic, while reporting on Kirk’s death. He pointed out that the English Civil War was Celts vs. Saxons and that the American Civil War was simply a sequel which was again fought between Celts and Saxons (aka South vs. North.) I think he’s quite right.

Every 80-100 years our society will have its Unraveling Turning which culminates in the 2 surviving subcultures of a winning process fighting it out to see who will rule the next cycle. The losers will not have their hands on the levers of power and culture but may be allowed to migrate elsewhere to set up their own commune or even country. Trace the history of America’s 13 colonies, or New Zealand’s 6, or consider Taiwan. A new colony frequently starts off as a getaway group who came out second best in a Third Turning.

One of the reasons our current Third Turning has lasted so long, I think, is that there are not too many uninhabited places on the globe to self-exile to.

Early reactions to Charlie Kirk’s murder were initially confusing. There was a strong reactionary vibe of “That’s enough. WAR!” and “America has just been changed forever.” But what did that mean? How? Then I realised that the reaction I was waiting for had already come.

For example, the girl who shows on up short videos sliding into frame to tell us about male/female behavior, Emily King, suddenly became political for the first time. Until now she had esteemed an effeminate soy-drinking psychology coach (goodness knows why…) who had now polarized her. Soyman said it’s OK not to feel empathy for Charlie’s murder. Perfectly natural not to experience remorse when someone horrible to you dies. That was too much for Emily.

Another example, a caller, Reuben, called Sean Plunket’s Platform show to say American gun culture was the real problem here. Although it was almost exactly the same thing Michael Laws said the next show it was too much for Sean and his other callers who kicked Reuben off and chastised him. From their point of view the nuance is lost. It can only mean that Reuben is blaming Kirk for being shot. After all, many Leftist reactions are explicitly doing that. They think Kirk, as a defender of the Second Amendment, had been killed as a result of a system he directly helped maintain. But to most Kirk fans, including Emily King, that is simply a horrible point of view. They think everyone must empathise with a man losing his life dramatically no matter who he represented to them.

So, we have the two branches. There’s the branch that hated Charlie and so, understandably, don’t mind too much that he’s now a dead man. Then, there’s the branch that admired or loved Charlie and are in grief but also busy trying to out everyone who lacks empathy/sympathy for his murder. This later group, like Emily, like Plunket’s audience, have yet to work out that the Charlie haters are simply being consistent with the beliefs they have held all along.

Think about it. How would you react it someone you despised got themselves hurt or killed in the act? An elephant tusk poacher gets killed by an elephant while trying to saw its tusks off? How about a car thief gets run over in the act? What if your hated Jacinda Ardern keeled over on the Podium of Truth having been struck down by a ‘vaccine injury’ of her own making? As Scott Adams pointed out it is perfectly normal for people to react according to their own lights. I think he said that you are a level behind if you don’t get that part.

The Third Turning is people getting that part.

It is the realisation that we are not one people. Those guys over there who you thought were in your tribe don’t just dislike Charlie Kirk a bit. When it comes to the crunch they are neutral or even happy to see him murdered. When Kyle Gas was basically cancelled for saying of the Trump shooter ‘Should have aimed better’ (or words to that effect) he was mostly alone. Whereas, now, there is a flood of Leftists expressing indifference or pleasure that Kirk’s murder. The other branch thinks it is appalled by this but they’re wrong; Lack of self-knowledge. What they are really appalled by and is slowing dawning on them now in a sweeping cultural realisation is that the Leftists we cohabitate with ARE Leftists.

Hitherto we were not polarised openly because many of us were pretending it wasn’t real. Covering up for our Leftist friends or family. Didn’t believe they really thought those things. We thought they were just kids. They’ll grow out of it. ‘If at age 20 you are not a Communist then you have no heart. If at age 30 you are not a Capitalist then you have no brains,’ we say. This blue-hair and pierced nose and white-hate Wokery stuff will pass; “They’re OK really.” We didn’t listen. We pretended not to hear. We fawned and made concessions. We let them change our pronouns and place names, let them pull down statues and fire our leaders. Cancel our movies and songs just a little bit more for the sake of peace…

And then, they took Charlie Kirk. Literally took his life, according to the mainstream news that blames a Leftist gunman. But in spirit and word the Leftists took Charlie Kirk. All those apologies, statues, abortions, climate marches, diversity quotas,…..not enough. They crossed a line this time by making a blood sacrifice of a living thinking peaceful man. It was take. It wasn’t a mistake. Not an error to apologise for. Sympathies not offered. Empathy denied. Humanity rejected. Othering insisted upon.

The Third Turning ends when we realise, at last, that the two conflicting branches have now emerged and must fight it out to see how we will enter our next Saeculum of time.

It was possible before Charlie Kirk’s murder to have what they called in my Peace Studies course at university “negative peace;” A suppressed conflict. Walking on eggshells and willfully believing a lion can lay down with a lamb and get along fine. The credulity was being stretched but Kirk’s death has, I think, snapped it.

Like a UV light beaming over everyone it now becomes clear by reactions who is on which side of this conflict. It’s a similar crystalising moment to the George Floyd killing of 2020.

People like Emily need to accept that Leftists are Leftists. They’re not kidding. They’re not faking it. They really believe those things they say. And, they’re not going to go away or grow out of it. It is a civil war.

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Update: I’ve just been sent the following from Nick Freitas who is saying the same as the above. We are not one people..