Look Away and Keep a Strong Voice

It has been a sad week for America with two tragic, senseless killings. Murder #1 was the pointless stabbing of Iryna Zarutska on a train in North Carolina on August 22. Then, on September 10, America was rocked by the assassination of Charlie Kirk in Utah.

RIP Charlie Kirk
Mass demonstrations across the country—indeed, across the world—express sorrow at Charlie’s death and solidarity with his humane and humanizing ideas, writes Roger Kimball in American Greatness. As has been pointed out, unlike the destructive “demonstrations” (what most of us would label as riots) that followed the death of the career-criminal, drug-abusing, arrest-resisting George Floyd, the mass gatherings for Charlie have featured prayer, not arson.

Just don’t see the video, strongly advises Matthew Hennessey in the WSJ. Once seen, he warns, the video of the murder of Charlie Kirk cannot be unseen.

Our innocence about mankind’s capacity for violence may be long since gone, but we still need to keep our little souls as clean as possible—unsullied by images of ugly and indelible things. Protect your central nervous system from exposure to toxic and corrosive elements. Get angry if you must, but preserve your essential humanity.

A 31-year-old Charlie Kirk, husband, father, son, a living, breathing human, was an inspiration for his family, his followers, his faith, and his country.

Urgent and powerful guidance comes from White House chief of staff Susie Wiles. Ms. Wiles called the entire WH staff in to give them a simple, beautiful rejection of the assassin’s veto. Wiles advised the staff to go home and ” hug your children …

… hug your spouse, be careful, take precautions — and don’t let your voice get softer. Charlie would want everybody to speak as they had been and more.’”

What America needs, James Freeman of the WSJ weighs in, is more support for our First Amendment liberties to ensure that the assassin’s menacing veto has failed.

Dangerous Rhetoric

Roger Kimball discusses our country’s toxic culture, its willful, deliberate radical extremists, and Kirk’s influence on college-age voters.

At CNN, Anderson Cooper asked VP Kamala Harris if she thought of Donald Trump as a fascist.

Replied Kamala Harris:

”Yes I do.”

Tim Waltz, Harris’s VP pick, told a crowd:

“There needs to be blood.”

From Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy,

“We’re in a war right now, so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary to save the country.”

NY Governor Kathy Hochul warned:

“We’re at war right now..”

Eric “Wingman” Holder, Barack Obama’s loyal attorney general.

“They go low, we kick them.”

From President Joe Biden,

“Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”

Nancy Pelosi, reflecting on Trump’s border policy,

“I don’t know why there aren’t uprisings all over the country; maybe there will be.”

A Galvanizing Force

Roger Kimball brings up a key message:

“They don’t kill you because you’re a Nazi; they call you a Nazi so they can kill you.”

More and more, notes Kimball, people are realizing this truth:

One bullet fired by a deranged leftist silenced Charlie Kirk forever. But it also awakened millions of embryonic followers. It is too soon to say for certain what the aftermath of his tragic death will be.

Kirk’s Turning Point has reportedly signed 18,000 new chapters. Although it’s too soon to say for certain, Roger Kimball believes the aftermath of Kirk’s tragic death will be a turning Point. Turning Point could eventually come to be a mighty fulcrum created by his death.