I’m not gonna lie. After the initial shock over Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk’s horrific assasination wore off and I was left with the brutal reality that some crazed leftist lunatic literally murdered one of our own for expressing beliefs, beliefs that I and everyone dear to me hold, I was left with a lot of anger and a deep desire for retribution. That desire only deepened when the litany of demonic responses to this atrocity from demonic, cackling leftists rolled in. These people were more than unhinged, they were pure evil.
I wanted our side to inflict pain. The legal kind of course, but pain nonetheless. Whatever could be done to these monsters - the shooter himself, the activists who brainwashed him and are actively brainwashing others like him, the demons who openly celebrated a murder, the institutions and individuals who perpetuate the toxic beliefs that lead to such atrocities - wouldn’t be enough to assuage the loss Kirk’s poor widow and children are feeling right now, but that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be worth doing. Because, while victims can never be brought back to life, justice and deterrence are always worthy goals.
Suffice it to say that if President Donald Trump WAS the fascist dictator type, I would at least understand the mindset that he should have whatever powers needed to rain down hell on our enemies, future consequences be damned. Thankfully, it shouldn’t take fascist-style powers to do the job here. From defunding institutions, to doxxing and shaming, to firing people from their jobs, to deporting any immigrants or visitors who celebrated murder, to creating SPLC-type lists of people and groups that create the kind of environment where unhinged leftists feel emboldened to murder people for political differences, our side should do it all and more. And we should do it with extreme prejudice.
And the killer? He should rot - and I do mean rot - in a hole, Man in the Iron Mask-style, for at least three or four decades before being drawn and quartered in front of the entire world. (Say what you want about the medievals, but they did know how to deal with their monsters.)
Do I still feel this way? Hell yeah I do. Of course, what I feel, what we all feel, should be tempered by, not mercy, because they don’t deserve it and they would never give it to us, but one and only one factor: whether it would provide an opening to do the same thing to our side under similar but reversed circumstances.
Policy makers on our side should ask this question of each and every thing they intend to do: If Democrats are in power and someone prominent on the left is shot by a deranged murderer who identifies with the right, would we be comfortable with that proposed thing being done? That’s it. That’s the caveat. Everything else, as long as it’s legal and constitutional, is fair game. Here’s how the thought experiment would play out:
Would we be comfortable with right-leaning institutions being defunded by the government? Well, considering that the institutions currently funded by the government are all or almost all leftist leaning anyway, I would say the answer is yes.
Would we be comfortable with doxxing and shaming people on our side who openly celebrate murder? Given that low bar, yes. Our people have no business engaging in such behavior, and if they do they deserve to reap public consequences. We are better than them.
Would we be comfortable with people on our side who openly celebrated a murder getting fired from their jobs? Yep (see above).
Would we be comfortable with an immigrant or visitor publicly celebrating murder being deported? Duh! I’m always comfortable with immigrants, especially misbehaving ones, being deported, so give me some of that please!
Would we be comfortable putting people on our side who engaged in this behavior on some type of SPLC-type ‘hate’ list? Well, people on our side have long been put on that list for engaging in the most vanilla right-wing activity, so celebrating murder would at least be a worthy justification for inclusion on such a list.
See how easy this is?
Now, what of the various things that have been suggested online and elsewhere should be ruled out? For one, while I personally would like to see a little cruel and unusual punishment applied to this lowlife, violating the Constitution in this way wouldn’t be a good precedent. For another, politicized gun bans are never a good idea and would definitely be used by the other side, with malice, to disarm conservatives. I would also restrict any doxxing, shaming, or employment consequences to the worst of the worst. There is a huge difference between someone stating how they felt that a prominent victim was a bad person but didn’t deserve to be assassinated and publicly celebrating the assassination on social media. Oh, and it’s also probably a good idea to say no to fascist-style dictatorial powers, because they would DEFINITELY be used against us. Just think it through. That's all I'm asking.
I’ll end with this. Plenty will and should be done. These people have awakened a sleeping giant, and we have to make them regret it. Even so, the absolute best way to respond to the murder of Charlie Kirk is for our side to manufacture a hundred, or a thousand, or ten thousand MORE Charlie Kirks, for countless young people to want to follow in his footsteps. If the movement he started grows exponentially because of his death, it’ll be a small silver lining that will undoubtedly make him smile from heaven.
R.I.P. to one of the best warriors our side has ever produced. You will be sorely missed.