First, let me make it clear that I’m a fan of Charlie Kirk, and have followed him for years. He did something that was desperately needed. He went to the campus, the church of leftist thought, and engaged people in conversation. He asked what the people believed and why. People who disagreed with him were welcomed to speak first. He would then discuss data, history, cause/effect, the world, and his faith. And he was killed for that.

Now people are losing their jobs and crying freedom of speech. But they’re not being fired because they’re criticizing Charlie, but because they’re openly and publicly celebrating his murder. There are many, many online videos of people dancing, laughing, clapping and expressing their glee that a man was shot and killed, leaving a wife and two small children. Freedom of speech means that the government can’t limit your words. It doesn’t mean that your employer can’t fire you because you show yourself to be an ugly human being.

“But... but conservatives...” No, that’s not how it works. The people celebrating the murder of a man for engaging people in an exchange of ideas are doctors and nurses, professors, teachers, business owners, professionals. These are people who have graduated college, many of them with PhD’s, and should understand the marketplace of ideas and robust debate. In the greatest feat of hypocrisy, they’re people who declare themselves to be compassionate, filled with empathy.

We’re used to the rhetoric. The hardcore left would rather scream at us than engage in an exchange of ideas. Actually speaking to us would make us human in their eyes, and we just can’t have that. Their thought leaders constantly call us fascists, nazis, white supremacists, homophobes, transphobes, islamophobes, deplorables, and a wide variety of other epithets. Many of them don’t even know what fascism is. They just mindlessly parrot the insults not understanding what they mean.

On September 10, 2025, the world changed. Actual fascism, the squashing of ideas that the elite don’t agree with and won’t accept, stopped. The ugliness of the hearts of people who can’t stand different views has been exposed to the light of day. For our professors and teachers instructing our youth; 1984 is a cautionary book, not an instruction manual.

I’ve long thought that I would finish my career by taking a professorship at a local college, imparting my years of experience and knowledge. But I understood that my lack of wokeness would be a hurdle. I now have hope not just for our institutions of higher learning, but for our youth and the renewing of their marketplace of ideas. That this hope came from such evil is a tragic thought.

“When people cease to communicate, that’s when violence erupts. What we have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.” Charlie Kirk