“Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make you unjust.”
– Voltaire
It’s been nearly two months since I saw the news flash that Charlie Kirk was killed. To my horror, I noticed some people couldn’t even condemn the act. That made me pause and question whether I want to live in a country where people believe violence against those who simply disagree with them politically is justified.
It made me wonder: Who injected this poison into America?
Basic humanity says if people go astray, you pray they find salvation. You leave judgment to God. When you wish death or destruction on those who think differently, you become no better than the people you despise.
That’s why I’ve hesitated to talk politics lately. Many of my leftist friends have become the very thing they claim to resist. They shout “Nazi” and “racist” — but how are they any different when they respond to disagreement with rage and dehumanization?
I may disagree with President Donald Trump. I think some of what he does is reckless. But I don’t lose sleep over him. If I truly hated his policies, I’d vote differently or move elsewhere. Life’s too short to live in perpetual outrage.
I live and work among people I disagree with every day. If someone excludes me because of my beliefs, so what? If a white man won’t hire me or let me use his restroom, I don’t whine — I compete. I build. I do better. That’s the America I believe in.
Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where both extremes — the far left and the far right — reject coexistence. They don’t want debate. They want domination. They don’t want dialogue. They want submission.
We live in terrifying times. In this age of artificial intelligence and emotional fragility, anything you say can be twisted — reimagined to make you either a savior or a villain. That’s what truly frightens me.
Some say Kirk “said controversial things.” Well, that’s called America. Free speech is supposed to make you uncomfortable. It’s not meant to be polite — it’s meant to be honest.
What horrifies me most isn’t Kirk’s death — it’s the people who justify it. They say, “He was transphobic,” or “He supported the Second Amendment,” as if that somehow excuses murder. That coldness — that lack of grace — is the real sickness.
And I’ve seen this spirit before — the same one that spat on soldiers returning from Vietnam, that mocked those who leapt from the Twin Towers on 9/11. Back then, that cruelty was fringe. Now it’s mainstream.
Kirk wasn’t violent. He provoked debate. He challenged ideas. That’s what a healthy democracy should welcome. But today, disagreement itself is treated like violence — and that’s how bullets become the response to words.
This is how fascism grows: first, they silence the speech they hate, then they destroy the people who speak it — and eventually, they come for everyone else.
I grew up during the era of Martin Luther King Jr.. He faced fire hoses, bombs, and dogs — and still never responded with hate. That was real courage. But now, people celebrate killing someone simply because they believe in faith, family, or borders.
When fewer than 30% of Americans even go to church weekly, chaos fills the void. A society without moral grounding doesn’t forgive; it cancels. It doesn’t pray; it punishes.
Kirk wasn’t Putin or Kim Jong Un. He didn’t jail, starve, or silence anyone. He was a man with a microphone, saying things people didn’t want to hear.
Some say he “trafficked in hate.” What does that mean? We all hate something. I hate liars and thieves. Some of the left seem to hate America’s founding, its flag, its Bible, and its white men. Why is their hate acceptable, but mine condemned?
You don’t express hate with violence. You set boundaries and standards.
But in today’s America, one wrong sentence — taken out of context — makes you a monster. That’s not discourse. That’s fear. Writing is meant to provoke thought, not to be policed by the powerful. Because once the powerful decide what can’t be said, free speech is dead — and when free speech dies, fascism takes its place.
The real atrocity is this: Kirk was 31. He had a family. He could have grown and changed like any of us — I had views at 31 I don’t hold now. But we’ll never know, because his life was ended by hate masquerading as virtue.
Too many people cheered. That is the sickness. That is the atrocity Voltaire warned about.
America doesn’t need more martyrs. It needs courage — the courage to let people speak, even when we hate what they say.
