OPINION:
In the immediate wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, a friend of mine posted on social media that she looked forward to similar levels of outrage for the recent shootings of schoolchildren.
Here’s the difference: Those who kill random strangers (or acquaintances or loved ones, for that matter,) are for the most part, and for whatever twisted reasons, trying to kill individuals. An assassin, on the other hand, is trying to kill the very idea that all of us should have the right to hear and adjudge ideas and those who express them.
Political assassins, such as the person who killed Charlie Kirk, want to destroy our ability to govern ourselves, make decisions for ourselves and, ultimately, live life on our own terms as best as we can within the strictures of the law.
The terrible reality is this: Mr. Kirk was killed because he was effective at using persuasion to change hearts and minds and helping people and the nation find their way back to health (of all kinds) and greatness. Turning Point USA has almost 1 million members who followed him and who are a potent intellectual force.
Political violence has, once again, become an unfortunate reality in the United States. Kirk, a confidant to the sitting president, is the most recent and most prominent victim of violence designed specifically to reduce the voices that voters hear. He joins a long list of people and institutions attacked in an effort to stamp out their beliefs. That list includes Rep. Steve Scalise, former Rep. Melissa Hortman, former Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman, Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanagh and, of course, the president himself. I would be remiss if I did not include the more than 500 attacks on Catholic churches over the past few years, as those attacks are clearly political in nature and, like assassinations, are conscious efforts to destroy messages and institutions that the assassins would rather not allow individuals to access.
The American public understands that assassinations (attempted or successful) are different in character from other homicides; that they are attempts to alter the political life of the nation and limit discourse and choice with respect to national issues. In 1963, there were approximately 8,600 homicides in the United States, but most of the nation can remember only the one killing that had the practical effect of vitiating a presidential election and changing forever our national trajectory.
We are at an extremely dark moment in our nation’s history. It is incumbent on all of us to summon whatever charity we have for our fellow citizens. The alternative, which is too terrible to contemplate, is to prepare ourselves to engage in conflict to determine which faction will inherit the land.
There are no other choices. We must learn to live together and recommit ourselves to civil discourse or resign ourselves to an ever-intensifying gyre of violence.
As he headed toward the gallows after his failed effort to seize the federal armory at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, in 1859, John Brown, the prophet of the apocalypse that was coming, gave the hangman a note. It simply read: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood.” He was, of course, unfortunately, correct.
For us, though, it is not yet too late.
• Michael McKenna is a contributing editor at The Washington Times.
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