<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019ve been working on this piece for a year now. Every time I think the moment has passed, something else happens \u2026 and the I try tweaking it \u2026 but things shift again and the moment passes. Maybe it did have to wait a year for the anniversary \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Last September, Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood in broad daylight in the midst of one of his signature rallies on the campus of Utah Valley University. The reaction from national Republican leadership was as excessive as it was effusive. Kirk was not an elected official \u2026 held no formal public role \u2026 was even not a candidate for any office \u2026 was not a universally beloved celebrity. And yet, the news \u2013 from the shooting to the death to the very public memorial rally \u2013 was stop-the-presses, full bold headline, push alerts, the works. The Vice President flew to retrieve Kirk\u2019s body. The President gave a national address and ordered flags lowered to half-staff. The hunt for the suspect, the vigil in the performing arts center at the US Capitol, the memorial service at a packed NFL stadium weeks later all dominated the news cycle for weeks \u2026 until the cycle turned to other things \u2026 as it always does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The story has continued to return prominence now and then \u2026 a December 13th<\/sup> town hall broadcast on CBS with Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk and new head of Turning Point USA \u2026 the annual Turning Point event \u2026 then America Fest, a few days later, with a who\u2019s-who of officials in the current national administration \u2013 including the President and the Vice President \u2026 a tour of college campuses this spring in preparation for the primaries and mid-terms \u2026 more recently, the final preliminary hearing for Robinson, a week or two before the one-year anniversary of the crime. At every turn, the central focus is how righteous Kirk was, how bold, how courageously he crusaded for the one and only absolute truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Because this seems to need saying repeatedly: Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be murdered \u2013 as if it were even possible for anyone to ever deserve such a fate \u2013 period. full. stop. Nothing the man said or did \u2013 or any other person says or does \u2013 justifies or excuses being killed. There is no justification, no excuse that will make this wrong action to be a right one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is well established that Tyler Robinson fully intended to shoot and kill Charlie Kirk; however, his own motives are far from clear. A number of his actions suggest the \u201cterminally online\u201d gamer subculture had some influence \u2026 and his relationship with his roommate may have been a factor as well. Despite being quickly obscured soon after his arrest, there are also indications that Robinson had been, at least initially, a supporter of Republicans and perhaps even somewhat sympathetic to movements like Turning Point USA. But something changed for him and a switch flipped from supporter to opponent and that opposition turned almost as rapidly to violence. (How and why this happens has yet to be explored at any length or depth \u2013 but it is happening.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the immediate aftermath of Charlie Kirk\u2019s shooting, a number of people called for cooling the highly inflamed state of what currently passes for political discourse. It is true that neither political side has a lock on virtue and goodness to the exclusion of the other and both sides have engaged in absolutism around \u201cwe\u2019re right and our opponents are wrong \u2026 bad \u2026 evil.\u201d Although there was some introspection on the left that perhaps things had gone too far, become too hurtful, there has been no such introspection by those on the right about their own role in the overheated rhetorical violence. Any suggestion that Kirk actively contributed to this dynamic through his own comments about those whom he opposed was immediately shutdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two examples of occurred on NPR\u2019s Morning Edition<\/em><\/strong> the day after Kirk was killed. In both cases, very skilled interviewers<\/a>, keenly aware they were speaking to grieving people<\/a>, sought to gently widen the scope of demonizing rhetoric to suggest that the right also needed to dial things back. Both attempts were met with immediate denials of \u201cI don\u2019t know what you\u2019re talking about\u201d and suggestions that the interviewer was blaming Kirk for his own murder.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n Soon after, at least one state government sought to establishing Turning Points USA chapters in all high schools and colleges within that state. Debate clubs were being organized, or re-organized, to promote Charlie Kirk\u2019s ideas and methods. These are often presented and defended as ways to \u201cprevent further indoctrination of our young people,\u201d which is what Kirk and is supporters insisted has really been happening in the schools under the guise of education. Kirk\u2019s death has been used as an excuse or a cause to promote this<\/p>\n\n\n\n Education, however, is inherently a liberalizing activity: learning how one thinks, how we know what we know, how to evaluate facts and weigh differing evidence for or against something, to apply reason and logic, to consider alternate explanations or viewpoints \u2026 all of this is part of the educational process. To give only one account or one version, to exclude contrary facts or alternative viewpoints, to emphasize retention of what one has been told over application of what one has learned — this<\/strong> is indoctrination. It is a refusal to consider alternate viewpoints as having any validity that Charlie Kirk advanced with his watch-list of professors and demonstrated Kirk was the actual promoter of indoctrination in the guise of education rather than an advocate of real education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Consider what Parker Palmer wrote on education in Healing the Heart of Democracy<\/a><\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n “If the teacher does little more than dictate that information and then demand that students memorize and parrot it on tests, \u2026 [the students] are learning to survive as subjects of an autocracy: keep you head down, your mouth shut, and repeat the party line whether or not you understand or believe it.<\/em>\u201d (pp 132-33)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Who are those actually advocating for this approach to education that Palmer describes and who are the ones actually encouraging curiosity, open inquiry, and independent thinking?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Although Charlie Kirk was shot under his trademark canopy emblazoned with \u201cProve Me Wrong,\u201d he was never open to being proven wrong. What he actually did was invite all comers to step up and allow him, perhaps gently and patiently, but certainly most pointedly, to prove them<\/strong> wrong \u2026 and so provide content fodder for his larger operation. His public discussions or debates were not really about an open exchange of ideas in an effort to find mutual understanding or possible common ground for a way forward. Instead, these were opportunities for him to demonstrate the use of right-wing talking points. On the rare occasion when someone presented an issue or a point for which he didn\u2019t have a ready refutation, he would use that as an opportunity to perfect his counterattack for the next time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n