Speech Or Silence: RIP Charlie Kirk

Not Just Murder Most Foul, But Murder Most Stupid As Well

In the Old Testament, the Prophet Hosea warns the Israelites that “they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.”

Whomever thought assassinating conservative activist and commentator, and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was a good idea has undoubtedly sown a wind of political violence. In all probability the whole country shall reap an inevitable whirlwind of political chaos.

Nothing will have been won. No advantage shall have been gained. Progressives are diminished by this senseless killing. Conservatives and the MAGA Coalition are pushed that much closer to accepting all out violence and, ultimately civil war.

Such outcomes make this killing not just a murder most foul, but a murder most stupid as well.

Charlie Kirk built his Turning Point USA organization as well as his own personal reputation by seeking out respectful and civil debate with anyone and everyone. Social media is replete with viral videos of him speaking respectfully and civilly with people who completely disagreed with him. The public communications model he championed was a frank and honest discussion about ideas, where people challenged each others ideas—no insults, no juvenile ad hominem attacks, no grandstanding, just probing questions honestly asked in the hopes of being honestly answered.

I did not know Charlie Kirk, but that was the public image he cultivated through social media. That’s a good image to cultivate. It’s the right image, not just a “right wing” image.

That was the public image which Kirk’s killer attacked at Utah Valley University.

Let that sink in: Charlie Kirk’s killer attacked the very idea that people with differing views not only can engage in civil discourse with one another but have an affirmative moral duty to do so.

Whether one believes Charlie Kirk the man matched his public persona and reputation is immaterial.

What is material is that civil discourse was indisputably essential to Charlie Kirk’s “brand”, and that gunning anyone down is a most uncivil act.

What is material is that killing Charlie Kirk in the middle of one of his speaking events cannot help but promote a message that murder is how one rebuts Charlie Kirk’s ideas.

What is material is that whomever killed Charlie Kirk (the shooter is apparently still at large as of this writing) sought to trump Charlie Kirk’s words with violence.

What is material is that the killer was indisputably wrong. Violence is not speech, and is not an answer to speech.

Violence was not an answer to speech during last year’s appalling and repulsive anti-Semitic demonstrations on the nation’s college campuses.

Speech Or Silence: Violence Is Not Speech

Violence is not speech. Violence has never been speech. Violence will never be speech.

What are the likely outcomes? Will conservatives and MAGA Coalition members be intimidated by this?

That does not strike me as likely.

Do progressives really believe they would prevail, or that their ideas would prevail, should political violence fully supplant political debate in this country?

Do progressives really believe their priorities are advanced by Kirk’s assassination? Do they genuinely expect conservatives to climb on board with their ideas because of this?

I do not see how that is at all possible.

Will conservatives be seeking retribution and “an eye for an eye”?

I do not know how likely that is, but I suspect that is a more likely outcome than them being silenced and intimidated by this. Certainly for some the thought has become more acceptable after this.

I hope that does not happen. As Martin Luther King, Jr., himself argued in his 1957 book Stride Toward Freedom, “The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind.”¹ No good would come from visiting violence upon progressives because of this.

Yet not everyone will agree with me. Some on the political right may even feel compelled to answer violence with violence, and with every new act of violence the argument for restraint grows weaker.

When enough violent acts by progressives have accumulated, that argument will itself be silenced. Then the violence will be returned, and with interest. In that moment, questions about the moral right and moral wrong of violence will cease to matter to a critical mass on both sides.

After today, we are one more violent act closer to that tipping point.

That tipping point is what makes this heinous act a staggeringly stupid act as well. Once that tipping point is reached, progressives will not be able to stop the violence, nor prevent it from destroying their friends, their families, their lives. Once that tipping point is reached, the violence will continue unabated until both sides exhaust themselves.

There will be no victory. There will be no peace, save the peace of the grave.

Between any two opposing parties—the Arabs in Gaza and Israel, the Protestants and the Catholics in Northern Ireland, and progressives and conservatives here in the United States—the essential ingredient for peace is the same: both sides must come together and agree to live side by side harmoniously. Progressives do not have to agree with conservatives, and conservatives are not obligated to accept progressive ideology, but if progressives and conservatives cannot agree to live side by side harmoniously, the only peace possible is the peace of the grave.

The peace of the grave is no victory, not for anyone.

I do not agree with progressives on anything. I do not agree with their moral ideas, I do not agree with their political ideas, and I certainly do not agree with their notions of dividing people along lines of race, gender, and whatever other arbitrary characteristic suits their whimsy.

Yet I want peace. I am not afraid to coexist side by side with progressives.

Charlie Kirk made it clear he was not afraid to coexist side by side with progressives. His public habits of civil discourse and open debate would have been impossible if he were unable to accept such coexistence.

Progressives have made it clear they are afraid to coexist with Charlie Kirk and all those like him. Progressives have made it clear they are afraid to coexist with conservatives, with MAGA Coalition members, with anyone who does not move in lockstep with their ideas and their beliefs.

That will be the lasting message from Charlie Kirk’s assassination: that progressives are not only driven by hate, but that they are driven also by fear.

For every political ideology, for every system of ideas and beliefs in every sphere of human thought, fear is weakness. Such is the nature of fear, and such is the nature of ideas.

By gunning down Charlie Kirk, progressives have shown the world just how weak they really are. Progressives have shown the world they have lost the debate, and they are giving up on the battle for hearts and minds.

Killing Charlie Kirk was a foul, disgusting, unequivocally evil act. By killing Charlie Kirk, the progressives have guaranteed their own eventual defeat on every battlefield—and that is simply a stupid thing for anyone to do.

1. King, Jr., Martin Luther. Stride Toward Freedom. Harper San Francisco, 1957.