Charlie Kirk’s assassination was another tragedy. I disagreed with many of the things Kirk said, but respected and admired his patient willingness to dialog with disagreeing members of his audience. It was a behavior the country would greatly benefit from more of. But liking or not liking Charlie Kirk should be totally irrelevant to strongly condemning his assassination.
A The Hill headline stated “A top State Department official on Thursday warned “foreigners” in the U.S. against praising the death of Charlie Kirk, the conservative influencer who was shot and killed at an event in Utah on Wednesday.” “foreigners-warned-Charlie Kirk” I would like to unpack that statement a bit. No one should praise his death. If we are sharing with foreign visitors the behavior we would expect from them and that they should display if they want to get on well, that would be fine. But coming from our current State Department I suspect that the warning is a threat of deportation for anyone who would dare to be so rude, which would violate the fundamental free speech principles that have always been so important to our culture.
President Trump stated that the assassin was from the “radical left.” As the assassin has not yet been apprehended, we don’t even need to wonder what information the President has that has not yet been shared with us. I very much want to know who the assassin was and what his motivation was. But that information will in no way absolve him of the evilness of his crime (we do know that it was a man/boy from FBI photographs). The President’s baseless claim is not contributing to a better atmosphere in America. It certainly did not reflect Charlie Kirk’s commitment to civil dialog.
Warren's space 