[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]
We are not embroiled in a struggle between Republicans and Democrats, or liberals and conservatives, or leftists versus patriots. We are in a struggle of good versus evil. That is the primary lesson of the aftermath of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Leftists’ gleeful celebrations of his death, and refusal to set aside partisan politics even long enough to observe a moment of silence for a man who was murdered in the prime of his life, orphaning two small children, shows definitively: this isn’t about political disagreement anymore. If leftists get a chance, they will kill us all in the same way they killed Charlie Kirk.
Consider, for example, what happened when Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) asked that the assembled solons pray for Kirk. Democrats, according to USA Today, “immediately broke out into jeers, with some reportedly bringing up a shooting at a Colorado high school that also occurred on Sept. 10.” Why bring up the Colorado high school shooting? The Democrats were playing politics, trying to divert attention from their own manifest bloodlust and attempting to make the murder of Charlie Kirk into an issue that would enable them to place new restrictions on the ability of the American people to defend themselves.
And so instead of making the Kirk assassination about gun control, the Democrats only managed to reinforce the impression that they are filled with hate and unable, for all their vaunted “empathy” to set aside that hate even to have compassion for a fellow human being who was the victim of an immense evil. And why? Because those Democrats are part of that evil, and created the atmosphere in which it was able to take place.
A similar scene unfolded in the European Parliament. The European Conservative reported Thursday that “the plenary session of the European Parliament descended into shouting and jeers on Thursday after left-wing MEPs refused to observe a minute of silence for American conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was murdered on Wednesday. The gesture, requested by representatives of the Conservatives and Reformists group (ECR) and supported by Patriots for Europe (PfE), sparked a verbal confrontation that sharply divided the chamber.”
Social media is full of videos of various leftists, mostly schoolteachers and the like, gleefully celebrating the death of Kirk, but this is not just a matter of the indoctrinated rank and file demonstrating their murderous hatred. That hatred is clearly now in control at the very highest levels of the left, in the European Parliament and the U.S. House of Representatives.
And so the message is clear: Charlie Kirk’s murder was, for the left, not the reprehensible act of one lone fanatic. It was a manifestation of the left’s guiding philosophy and deepest desires. It laid bare the true views that leftists have of those who are patriots, and those who oppose their deranged sexual obsessions and social engineering agenda. Every time the left has come to power, from the French Revolution to the Soviet Union to the People’s Republic of China to Democratic Kampuchea and all the rest, it has instituted a reign of terror, treating its foes with obscene violence in order to terrify the rest of the population into submission.
That is the idea behind the killing of Charlie Kirk as well. The idea was to frighten patriots into thinking that all resistance is futile, and that the only way forward is to acquiesce, and surrender to the left’s deranged desires — or else suffer the same fate that Charlie Kirk suffered.
It has always been this way. Back in 1787, Thomas Jefferson wrote: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” This is necessary because tyrants have never hesitated to shed the blood of patriots in order to protect their hold on power, and they do not hesitate now.
The killer of Charlie Kirk is, knowingly or unwittingly, a tool of those who would impose a tyranny on us, and there are many more like him. The tyrants and their henchmen have been training up such young people for years, and now their efforts are bearing their horrendous fruit. Patriots, however, must not quail, and must not cede any more ground. “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you,” says Saint James (4:7). Now that we know that the devil is the one we are up against, it is time for us all to strengthen that resistance.
