It’s taken me a bit of time to come to terms with the recent news that the founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, was gunned down after two questions at his college event in Utah.
It’s taking quite a bit longer for me to come to terms with the hate that is being spewed because of his death.
For the uninformed, Charlie Kirk was a man of God, Christian in word and deed, and in my view, a renaissance conservative, one that took his message to his detractors and face to face debated facts.
He took his message to the youth, giving students at universities across the country (and even overseas) the opportunity to question him, to debate him, always being respectful and calm even in the face of hateful and sometimes hysterical behavior. Charlie also embraced the means of communication that older generations are still struggling with. He had podcasts, video and audio all used to extol his particular beliefs.
Beliefs that apparently led to his death, the widowing of his wife, the orphaning of his children.
It wasn’t too long before the “enlightened” masses celebrated his death with glee. Young liberal automatons as well as older men and women, and yes, even celebrities, were blaming Charlie’s shooting on Charlie, and claiming it was just rewards.
This was even before it was reported that Charlie had succumbed to his wounds. Then after his death was reported, it was as if all of the voices of his opposition rose in hateful chorus to say he deserved a bullet. The claim: Charlie was a Christian nationalist, a fascist, said hateful things and incited violence and therefore must die.
There also were condemnations by association, meaning that anyone who was conservative in nature and outspoken in their beliefs should take notice. Then there were unconscionable comparisons to the shooting of Charlie and school shootings; ghouls questioning why dead children lay forgotten but Charlie is lamented, or political sock puppets using the event to further their quest for the destruction of all guns.
(A friend of mine who I’ve known for decades made a gruesome comparison between Charlie and dead school children. He is no longer my friend.)
Aside from his horrific slaying, this event has shined a bright, magnifying light on the current state of political discourse in this country, and it can be said that it also magnifies the socialist zeitgeist present on college campuses. Charlie was a vanguard in trying to reverse this trend, showing by example that people can disagree and still be civil.
As strange as it may sound, this was one of those seminal moments that will be a tipping point, one that it is my fervent hope falls toward civility. It will give us the opportunity to pull back from the abyss, to rethink our trajectory, and to embrace not only the freedom to think differently but the unalienable right to not be murdered for it.
We also can hope that the lesson takes hold. As it was with Jesus, with the Apostles, with MLK, with Lincoln, with John Lennon, with Malcolm X, with Brian Thompson, with the Hortmans, we can be good people again if we just embrace peace, love and understanding.
Tony Farkas is editor of the San Jacinto News-Times and the Trinity County News-Standard. He can be reached at tony@trinityconews.com.
