The Dignity of Charlie Kirk

The starting point of any political conversation has to be the dignity of our opponents

It’s been 10 days since Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck in front of his family, in front of hundreds of students, and (via the internet) in front of us all. I saw a still of the shooting in a Signal group and held my breath for almost 4 hours until it became clear that he had died of his injuries.

I was shaken. I am still shaken. If you follow me on the worlds most insane social media platform, I’ve been a mess. I’m all over the place with anger, frustration, and grief. I have a lot of important things to do and it is very hard to do them right now because my mind is on Charlie Kirk.

I did not know Kirk well before he was killed. I’ve watched a lot of Charlie Kirk since he died. I was more impressed than I thought I would be. I think Charlie and I missed each other by about 5 years. I saw him 10 years ago as a younger man, full of fury and energy and I interpreted that as ideologue, a grifter, someone who would follow the party line regardless of direction for the purpose of money or influence or fame.

But as I’ve watched him through the many videos, I see someone who I didn’t see on Twitter. I see someone who was funny, thoughtful, well-read, smart, and who loved to engage people. He seems really good in so many of these interactions.

As I’m seeing this, I’m also hearing from my more liberal friends about the severity of Charlie’s thought crimes. If you’re looking for a good summary of what both the right and left thought of Charlie, click that link.

But in this moment, the most shocking thing I see is how people can watch a man die in front of them and their first thought is to demonize him. And then their second thought is to lie about him. And their third thought is to make sure everyone knows, in enormous detail, how evil he was.

I am at the end of my rope with this.

Something Has Happened

Something happened with Charlie’s death. Things have changed. The attitudes and conversation has shifted and I’m not sure everyone fully realizes what has taken place. I’ve seen liberals say “oh you’ll forget about this in a few months” and I’m a little shocked that their theory of other minds is this broken.

For myself, I’ve set a new bar for public debate and conversation. I need people to show me that they think their opponent is a human being.

As an example, Ilhan Omar compared Charlie Kirk to “Dr Frankenstein whose monster shot him through the neck”. That is psychotic thinking. That is the sort of thinking that leads to genocides, to indiscriminate murder, to the slaughter of innocents for being on the “wrong side” of some political debate.

This brings us to a new normal. There is no compromise possible with people who watch a man die for the crime of speaking and say “good”. They have placed themselves outside the range of reasonable discourse. They have thrown up a flare that says “I do not think my opponents are humans and, because of this, they may die as dogs”.

This is the last straw. These people are no longer welcome in civil society. They may rage and yell and spew their bile, but their opinions, thoughts, and arguments will no longer take space in my mind.

From here on out, the starting point of any argument, any debate, is the question “Do you think your opponent is human? Will you mourn their death? Are they worthy of life and liberty?” If the answer is “no”, then this person is lost. They have allowed their souls to be consumed by a hatred so profound that I doubt even they fully understand it . They have lost themselves to the demon of politics.

What should be done about the lost in this situation? They certainly should not be teaching the children of the people they hate. They should be purged from schools, universities, and any form of law enforcement. This isn’t cancel culture, not by a mile. This is the recognition that when someone is eager to deny the humanity of their fellow men, there is no limit to what rules they will break, what horror they will commit, what evil they will engage. This person cannot be given any form of power over the people they despise. They should certainly not be trusted around children.

This opinion seems harsh as I state it here, but it is the result of watching a significant chunk of people claim the the words coming out of Charlie Kirk’s mouth meant that it had to be closed with a bullet. We cannot live with someone who suggests that the world is a better place when a human whose greatest crime is a verbal disagreement is put death in a public forum. These are evil people and cowards. They wouldn’t pull the trigger themselves but, having watched this man die on video in front of them, they say “he got what was coming to him”. This is not a stable place for a civil society. We cannot tolerate this attitude and still live together.

The starting point for engagement in the public sphere has to be “I think the world is better with you in it”. Anyone who can’t come to this position needs to be pushed outside the arena. They can watch the debate, but they are not welcome. They can keep their anti-human nihilism to themselves.