The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.


Charlie Kirk died in a mindless, murderous attack that reflects a growing assault on our democracy.

Democracy is built on the foundation of free speech and the vigorous intellectual competition of ideas. In democracies we shouldn’t seek to silence those who disagree with us. We should listen respectfully to their ideas and if we disagree, seek to convince them of the error of their thoughts.

As in all human confrontations, it is important not to attack the person but to debate the ideas.

Hugh Mackay, the great Australian psychologist counselled, “If you want to be heard, first you have to listen!” This, I attest, is very sound advice.

The left, with its “cancel culture” has been keen to shut down those they disagree with.

Unfortunately the left now dominates our universities, and these institutions which once promoted free speech have silenced dissenting voices and instead of Socratic debate have imposed leftist ideological thinking on those that venture there.

More and more, particularly in our universities, the left has sought to silence its critics. The countless social media posts applauding Kirk’s death depicts the irrational fear people hold of having their ideas contested. This is one of the worst effects of identity politics. When I rely on my sense of self which is dependent on associating myself with ideological ideas, I am threatened by anything that contests such ideas. Those who denigrate Charlie Kirk on social media have neither the wit nor the courage to contest his ideas.

On social media, Kirk’s critics accuse him of “hate speech”. In the videos I have seen of his discourse with young people he seems always to have been respectful and courteous.

It seems to me that the left is now so fragile that it can’t tolerate contrary opinions. For these fragile souls “hate speech” is merely anything that threatens their opinion. Out of this has derived their penchant for “cancel culture” which attempts to shut down criticism of their point of view. Assassinating your ideological opponent is the extreme example of “cancel culture”.

Thus behaviour is not only antagonistic to free speech it is a fundamental attack on democracy.

If important ideas are shut down in the marketplace of opinion, our democracy is compromised. How can we be the best we can be if some ideas are not allowed to be debated.

In the current political environment, for example, immigration is not a subject for reasoned debate because anyone suggesting that our immigration rates are too high seems inevitably to be dismissed as racists! If you want to debate our unreasonable rush to renewable energy you will be dismissed as a ”climate denier”. Labelling people in this way seems sufficient for the Left to be able to dismiss such contrary opinions without further debate!

Wading through some of the cess-pit we call social media, most of the references to Charlie Kirk I encountered were of this ilk. He seems to have been constantly denigrated for “hate speech”. This is such a cowardly way to despatch the thoughts of a principled man who was willing to engage in debate, particularly with young people, about important issues.

To my dismay there were countless social media posts applauding Kirk’s assassination. This is a demonstration of huge intellectual cowardice. We have killed the voice that we couldn’t silence with logic and reason! Don’t dare to annoy us again with uncomfortable truths or you will be despatched as well. More power to guns and buggar reason!

Kirk devoted a lot of his time to going to US university campuses to debate with college students. A 2024 survey showed that the campuses have been primed for violence. It found that 63% of students thought it was OK to shout down a speaker to deny them a platform, while 27% thought it was right to use violence to stop a campus speech.

So cogitate on that a little. In the very institutions that traditionally we have relied on to help us discern the truth, free speech has been curtailed and the pursuit of truth thwarted.

Instead of nurturing a desire for earnest debate and the pursuit of truth, our universities seem so perverted as to propagate “trigger warnings” when the poor fragile little souls under their tutelage might be compelled to confront and idea they disagree with.

Charlie Kirk was a Christian and he espoused Christian values. I am not a Christian but I admired his adherence to the fundamental principles that he held.

Paradoxically Kirk engaged those young people under a banner which said, ”Prove Me Wrong!” Despite having no university education himself (or might I suggest cynically because he had no university education) he generally prevailed in such debates.

And then finally the dignity and the charity of his wife, Erika Kirk After having watched the cold-blooded murder of her husband and consequently the loss of the father of their two young children she found it in her heart to forgive Tyler Robinson, the perpetrator of this heinous crime.

Charlie Kirk and his courageous wife were role models of how democracy should be conducted. Those from the left who have poured their vitriol and hate on them should hang their heads in shame!

In her heart rending speech Erika Kirk said, “The answer to hate, we know, is not to hate. The answer, we know, from the Gospel, is to love.”

My good friend and mentor, the good Dr Phil taught this not as a Christian precept but as an undeniable truth in understanding the human condition. In the end the well-being of all of us is dependent on the manifestation of love. Erika Kirk has demonstrated this not just as a Christian but as an exemplar of the deepest human understanding.

6 Replies to “The Death of Charlie Kirk and the Erosion of Democracy.”

  1. There’s a lot that goes both ways. To accept the climate science and such predictions is to be labelled climate catastrophist or a zealot (I think you say).

    Those to be critical of Israel’s war on Gaza is to risk being categorised as antisemitic.

    To criticise Charlie Kirk now, one may have to consider the risk for fear of personal safety. AC Graying wrote about the moral and ethics of the question, should one have to speak fondly of the deceased? This is seperate to the evil or the tragedy of the death, but is conflated (in the Kirk case) and used against anyone who are not Kirk supporters. This is taken further to push that by not being a supporter of Kirk, one has upon them the idea that they celebrate the tragedy, which i think is so false and divisive and polarising.

    Which side is really pushing away free thinking and free speech?

    I haven’t kept up with the developments, but I read your post as having an underlying foundation that the murderer was from the left. Is it true that the murderer is left wing?

    1. Thanks Matt. You are right that those on either side of these arguments tend to exaggerate their case and diminish the case of those that oppose them, My argument is merely that we should listen respectfully to each other and be allowed to put an opposing point of view without being “cancelled”!
      As for Charlie Kirk’s murderer he seems to have come from a conservative family but in recent years adopted left wing ideas. He was cohabiting with a transgender woman which is not a crime but hardly the behaviour of a conservative!
      Some elements of the American press tried to brand him as a conservative because of the beliefs of his parents, but you and I both know that one of the processes of individuation is to shake off parental influences.
      I whole heartedly agree with Grayling. There is a tendency when people die to eulogise them and gloss over their faults. But this does not seem to be the case with Kirk who was well- loved by many.
      But to take your observation further I can assure you that you should feel free to tell the world what a bastard I was when I die!
      Always good to hear from you Matt.

  2. Congratulations on this article, Ted.

    I wish our political leaders would read your thoughts instead of denigrating the other side. Particularly, our current governments federally and in Victoria.

    Many of the issues, such as the rush to renewables / nuclear, are not left vs right, as we can see left-leaning governments in other parts of the world doing exactly what our government says makes no sense.

    1. Thanks Ian. I believe citizens are beginning to wake up to the Net Zero fraud, By next election Albanese and Bowen will be hard pressed to convince the electorate of the wisdom of this folly!

  3. Quite so Ted…. You’re sounding very Christian for a non-christian….. Curiously enough I didn’t see hardly any hate posts about Charlie Kirk (thank God), maybe the Facebook and Google algorithms know what I favour …. Keep up the good work… Yours Jack

    1. Thanks Jack.

      Yes, I am not Christian. I have a few good reasons not to be a believer In Christ. I will elaborate on that if you wish.

      But I think it is presumptuous to assume that the highest forms of morality are the prerogative of Christian believers only!

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