When I was much, much younger, I remember running to my dad in tears because my sisters said something that had hurt my feelings. I’ll admit, it happened more than once.
My dad would respond the same way every time. He’d say, “Show me where they hurt you.”
When I couldn’t produce a wound, because they hadn’t actually hurt me, he’d invariably say, “You’ll be fine. Get back outside.”
Eventually, his lesson got through and eventually I stopped reacting so strongly to being teased by my sisters. It was another step towards emotional maturity.
Words Can’t Harm
Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never harm me.
It’s a simple lesson. A lesson that all of us of a certain age learned before our first day of school. Essentially, it means that words aren’t inherently good or bad and they only have as much power as we give them.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the line, that lesson stopped being taught. Instead, kids were taught that words do harm and that anyone who simply disagrees with you is using violence against you. And it’s acceptable to meet that perceived violence with actual violence.
And that thinking is what killed Charlie Kirk.
A Good Man
I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I knew of him, but I didn’t know him. Like most of us here, I’ve watched hundreds of videos of him on college campuses across the country debating with anyone brave enough to step up to the microphone.
What I saw was a young man who may not agree with everyone but was respectful in his disagreement.
He never incited violence, never said “it’s going to take a bullet” to stop someone or that anyone should be “punched in the face”.
He never called anyone a fascist, racist, white supremacist or a nazi. He was a peaceful man who never, at least in any of the hundreds of videos I’ve seen, even raised his voice.
I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I didn’t even agree with everything he said. I probably only agreed with him 70% of the time. But I respected him.
He was a passionate supporter of the Constitution, especially the First Amendment. Charlie worked tirelessly to ensure that everyone had a chance to speak. Even if they disagreed with him. Especially if they disagreed with him.
And for that, they killed him.
Culpability
I use the term “they”, because the asshole who shot Charlie (I’m never going to say his name) didn’t do it alone.
Every person who called Charlie a fascist or a Nazi and spread all that other made-up shit about him are to blame for his death.
Key members of the Democratic party, the entire liberal media and a host of other people contributed to the death of Charlie Kirk.
What’s even worse is that they don’t seem to see the role they played. Or at least they won’t admit it.
Instead of taking responsibility for their role in his death, Democrats are either pointing the finger at President Trump (in the words of J.B. Pritzker, “Political violence, unfortunately, has been ratcheting up in this country … I think there are people who are fomenting it in this country. I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it.”) or claiming that people on the Right are equally as guilty as people on the Left.
Both sides are throwing words at each other, but there’s a huge difference in what’s being said.
Trump calls Pritzker fat and Democrats call Trump a dictator, modern-day Hitler and an existential threat to democracy. Charlie told people he disagreed with them, and they called him a fascist, racist and a white supremacist.
Please tell me you can see the difference.
Escalation by Design
It’s true that there will always be disturbed individuals on both sides of the aisle who go off on their own and do something stupid.
But it’s also true that some of these people wouldn’t have done what they did if they hadn’t gotten the idea and encouragement from somebody else.
Impressionable young people are being radicalized and told that words are, indeed, harmful and violence is a reasonable response to words you don’t like. And they’re told this over and over and over again.
If someone already mentally ill repeatedly hears that people like Charlie, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro and even Riley Gaines are evil and that someone needs to “do whatever it takes to stop them”, what do you think is going to happen?
I’ll tell you what will happen. We’ll see ever-increasing acts of violence against people with a different point of view. And that’s exactly what happened.
After years of programming, mentally ill people were trained to believe that words equal violence and that violence must be met with violence.
Unsurprising
Nobody should be surprised by this because it didn’t happen overnight. If you look back at just the last few of years, you’ll see the escalation of violence against people on the Right.
The Democrats were told after the first attempt on Trump’s life that they were responsible for what happened in Butler, PA. But they didn’t listen. Instead, they blamed Trump because he called Kamala dumb.
Anyone paying attention could see that it was eventually going to reach a point where someone gets killed.
Even if they weren’t paying attention, we told the Democrats to stop spreading lies or someone else would get hurt. But they didn’t tone it down. They doubled-down. And the only possible outcome of that is where we are today.
Plenty of Guilt to go Around
People have been saying that the only person responsible for the death of Charlie Kirk is the asshole who pulled the trigger.
I disagree.
That asshole may eventually be found guilty of killing Charlie. But have no doubt, anyone who reinforced the message that Charlie Kirk was spreading “hate speech” is responsible for his death.
