I find it personally deeply upsetting. Kirk was a very religious-y person and I’m an implacable atheist, so there there lots of things I disagreed with him on. But what he encapsulated to me is “free speech”. He debated with everyone, openly, without hostility, honestly, directly. He was without guile, laid it out on the table, kind to a fault, and, most dangerously of all to the left, extremely convincing. To me that makes him one of the greatest men of the 21st century. Free speech is, to me, probably the greatest virtue and basic foundation of all of society, and yesterday the men who couldn’t win the argument took out its greatest, happiest warrior.
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Samizdata quote of the day – Charlie KirkSeptember 11th, 2025 |
 8 comments to Samizdata quote of the day – Charlie KirkLeave a Reply |
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When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts… when you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group.
Charlie Kirk, RIP. That quote of his comes from this article.
He went into the colleges and universities to talk to young people, to listen and inform.
Many on the left chose to celebrate in a series of truly sickening tweets and videos when one of the most deranged of their number took the law into his own hands and murdered a man who’s only crime was a willingness to engage with them and challenge their ideas. For this he had to die and his death be treated as a reason for celebration – including by the incoming president of the Oxford Union who debated with Kirk earlier this year and viewed his death as reason for a good old Lol. Utter filth.
Along with the brutal slaughter of the young Ukrainian girl and the horrific indifference of her fellow passengers it’s been a pretty grim couple of days.
Well said.
I was never a big follower of Charlie Kirk but he always seemed a lot more civil to his opponents than many of them were to him, and what has happened here is a tragedy for the family and a huge outrage.
Sadly, it is instructive what pond scum comes out at times like this. Scrolling through twitter alone I’ve seen feminists… leftists… Blairite liberals… Bush era Republican never Trumpers… and NAFO ghouls gloating and talking absolute garbage at Kirk and his family’s expense. All repulsive people.
@John
Along with the brutal slaughter of the young Ukrainian girl and the horrific indifference of her fellow passengers it’s been a pretty grim couple of days.
TBH I think it is a mistake to think of it this way. What happened to that young girl was simply horrendous, and when it comes to the perpetrator it makes me regret the eighth amendment — I think death is too easy for him, I think he should be beaten to death with a baseball bat. And certainly it is illustrative of the collapse of civil society and many of the failures of the judicial system.
But the Kirk assassination is quite different. It is very like the assassination of Martin Luther King, with the exception that Kirk was a much better man than King ever was. He is a singular leader and is effectively irreplaceable. If the left wanted to advance their agenda by killing someone then Kirk may well have been their best choice. Without him Trump probably would not have won, and his death will make a dramatic difference to the next few elections, something that could well cause tremendous hurt when the movement in the US to restore sanity to government is stalled. The failure of DOGE was bad enough, but this is several orders of magnitude worse.
I think for people who don’t live in the US it is hard to understand his impact. In the past decade this man has created a conservative organization out of thin air that has chapters in almost every college and every high school in the United States. He is responsible for turning the youth vote from a dominantly left wing vote into a majority right wing vote — especially among men. A 20 percentage point swing. This young man on his own completely transformed the political landscape and hugely shifted the Overton window. He wasn’t without help but a large amount of the change is on his shoulders.
But that is politics. What he really represents is free speech, the willingness to speak that which we aren’t allowed to say. To yell “Voldemort” when everyone said “he who must not be named.” A willingness to have open dialog not based on anger or hate but honesty, a willingness to hear the other side. A willingness to honestly articulate what really is ailing the young people of America. It isn’t trans rights, it isn’t abortion, it is the lack of jobs, the fact that buying a house is inconceivable, it is the idea that getting married and having kids is a good, healthy thing the redounds to the blessing not only of that family but the whole nation.
And in a sense he is more important than even President Trump. Trump, were he, God forbid, assassinated, has a deep bench of people to carry on the torch. But there is no replacement for Kirk. He is a singular individual that comes along once in several lifetimes.
His murder is of incalculable consequence. Again, I think the best comparison is to the murder of Martin Luther King. King’s murder still echoes with us today, and Kirk’s will have consequences for decades to come.
Biggest impact that I’ve seen is, the number of people arriving at the conclusion that we simply cannot live with these people.
I’m going to expand on Krauthammer’s Law: They’re stupid AND evil.
(Just for clarity’s sake: this is driven by the huge volume of gleeful reactions to Kirk’s murder. People are now making lists. The next few months may well be lit.)
@bobby b
Just for clarity’s sake: this is driven by the huge volume of gleeful reactions to Kirk’s murder.
There was a lot of rejoicing when MLK was murdered too.
I offer for consideration of the Gentle Readers the name Jose Calvo-Sotelo, the date July 13, 1936, and the country of Spain for research.
Subotai Bahadur