Charlie Kirk – Two Things Can Be True at the Same Time

Two things can be true at the same time. One truth is that the killing of Charlie Kirk is a terribly tragic event. The killing of any person is a terribly tragic event. The second truth, though, which should not be buried with Mr. Kirk, is that he held and effectively promoted socially poisonous points of view.

Let me be clear – no human being, whatever their viewpoints, deserves to be killed. But, at the same time, when a human being who is spreading poison is killed, that tragedy does not erase the damage that the victim caused during his or her shortened lifetime.

What was Charlie Kirk’s poison? Just by checking out the New York Times you will find that:

1. He was a racist. 
   1. He believed that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a destructive force in American politics; that its passage had been a “mistake” and that he said it had been turned into an “anti-white” weapon.”
   1. He considered Martin Luther King, Jr. to be an “awful” person.
   1. He called George Floyd a “scumbag” who wasn’t worth the attention that was  being given to him.
2. He was an antisemite.
   1. He was a proponent of “replacement theory” – that Jews are trying to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants. 
   1. He said that “The philosophical foundation of anti-whiteness has been largely financed by Jewish donors in the country.”
3. He was anti-gay.
   1. He feared the acceptance of the L.G.B.T.Q. community in the United States and was critical of transgender rights.
4. He opposed the separation of church and state.
   1. He founded TPUSA which, according to its own website, “exists to unite the church around primary doctrine and to eliminate wokeism from the American pulpit.”
5. He was a strong supporter of gun rights.
   1. He said, “I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our God-given rights.” He thought that the way to reduce gun violence was to put guns into the hands of more Americans. 

Lots of people may share those unfortunate and ignorant views. What separated Charlie Kirk from the rest was that he didn’t just keep them to himself. His life was dedicated to spreading that hate. And worst of all, he was very good at it.

Reading this, some may say that I am doing the same thing, that I am spreading hate of Charlie. If you think that, you are misreading me. I do not hate the man, I hate his ideas, and I hate that he was so influential in proliferating them.

And most of all, I hate that his tragic death seems to be making him into some kind of a martyr and that martyrdom will only cause his poison to metastasize within the body of our country.

Two things can be true at the same time. That Charlie Kirk was killed is Too soon to say these things? No. If we wait, it will be too late.

 atrocious. What Charlie Kirk believed is also atrocious.

Too soon to say these things? Not at all. If we wait, it will be too late.