The assassination of a good man for talking is a tragedy born from twisted thinking, in which violence is normalized and moralized, undermining our society and constitutional traditions. Ideological thinking has usurped recognition of our neighbor’s humanity, and the immoral has become moral in the name of ideologies and is a road to more civil conflict.
As a society we should come up with generally agreed on principles to live together in peace, and we can write these principles down on a big piece of paper that constitutes the foundation of a peaceful society—perhaps call it a Constitution.
And predicated upon this is our duty to never lose sight of all of our neighbors’ humanity, which means individual rights. For how can we demand rights for ourselves, without recognizing it for all others?
But here’s the hard part: How do we restore peace in public political and social debates? Our constitutional traditions and concept of the Rule of Law mean little to those rationalizing away either Charlie Kirk’s assassination or the many other instances of politically motivated violence in last few years. The answer lays within restoring the meaning of the Constitution and the Law founded on individual right to free thinking and speech. Doing so undermines violent ideologies at their core.
The violent Left has an inherent belief in the righteousness of their ideas, a belief that justifies and even necessitates their actions. Anyone who disagrees is automatically labeled as a racist. The Rule of Law is redefined by the Left to mean authoritarianism, not government protection of individual rights.
And that turns things upside-down. The police protect rights, and so the violent Left wants to defund the police and ban the Second Amendment.
Since so much is at stake, in their view, that any means needed to achieve the ideological agenda become morally acceptable. Consequently, the tactics of violent leftist groups like Antifa, which include violence, seem logical. Free thinking, free speech, and free association by conservatives and Christians are threats to be attacked as “hate speech” or vilified in a variety of emotional terms.
Ideologically motivated violence is hardly new in history. The Wars of the Reformation, the French Revolution, and both Nazi and Communist Totalitarianism have all rationalized the murder of innocents in achieving their goals. Robespierre unleashed the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution to purge resistance and achieve a virtuous democracy, even among his fellow revolutionaries. The Nazis, Communists, and contemporary ideological activists go further and de-humanize their opposition. Nazis labeled the Jews explicitly as sub-human. Marxism’s color is red to represent the blood of the bourgeoisie. In all of these cases, de-humanizing of their enemies unleashed violence and murder that were perversely considered self-defense.
But when the dehumanization is called out as wrong—which it is—then the ideological moral façade evaporates. All that remains is violence and murder, immoral as always.
Charlie Kirk was targeted with made-up accusations of racism and nationalism. Dehumanizing him was essential to the violent Left, as is shown by the visceral response we all saw on social media—the joy that was taking in a father’s death in front of his family. You can’t do that if you see someone as a person.
Charlie’s death could, indeed, be a turning point—one that turns us back to recognizing each other’s humanity and restoring individual rights. But it won’t be easy; it requires tolerating differences—something the left sees as intolerable. Yet there are hopeful signs, such as the adoption of the University of Chicago Statement, which supports the principles of the Constitution, including the freedom of expression.
The critical challenge in this approach is that ideologues—true believers—must admit their enemies are human. We cannot expect to retain our own rights if we don’t respect those of others.
The defense of fundamental individual rights is the battle of Civilization. Restoring of rights is truly revolving back to our American foundations—in fact, a revolution.
