Violence as reaction to political disagreement is detestable. Knowing human existence is finite, fearing death instinctually makes us value life. Murder abhorrently contradicts the desire for productive longevity. The U.S. Constitution, authored by minds imbued in Enlightenment philosophy, established a democratic republic that guarantees freedom of the press, expression, conscience, and prohibits government establishment, support or denial of any religion.
Democratic principles concerning people’s security and livelihood necessitate debate of issues in a non-argumentative way, without violence or disorder. Education and a 34-year health care career, with many emergency room and post-mortem experiences, impressed on me the true value of life. Respecting other human beings, cooperation among society’s members, and safeguarding survival of society became codified law. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” — a tenet thirty centuries older than Christianity, is the core of peaceful coexistence. Murder is inhumane and vile; celebrating murder is shameful, as is provocation of malicious bigotry.
Charlie Kirk’s murder was an abomination. But his murder does not redeem how he lived. Unlike what Kirk advocated, the Bible never promoted honoring evil. He is not a hero in death when he lived provoking racism and marginalizing fellow humans. We abhor his violent murder, but he lived dishonorably, encouraging and inflicting violence on people. Kirk openly displayed the right to determine who can live in America and who is an American. Having nothing to do with the Utah killing, numbers of historically black colleges (HBCUs) went into lockdown upon receiving racial death threats. Kirk’s organization fuels violence and division, avoiding compassion or empathy for American minorities. Whence the blind hate?
Astoundingly perverse, false, and ignorant comments were expressed locally. One county official stated, “The world has lost a truthsayer who fearlessly spoke the Word of God.” Kirk was anything but “Christian,” spouting hate, misogyny, racism, and promoting authoritarian rule. He spewed anti-Black, anti-immigrant, anti-brown-skin, anti-minority white supremacy divisive drivel. Trump ordering the U.S. flag to fly at half-mast was political display forcing false piety. Kirk spent his adult life sowing division and hate, displaying selective rage to invoke racial superiority.
Kirk was not an elected official and not a hero. How can hypocrites “mourn” for someone who had no compassion or respect for minorities’ lives? Local crocodile tears for Kirk are mostly Mexican American, people Kirk advocated undeserving of this country. The elected neo-Republican official and the local Republican chair should look in the mirror.
Local politicos displayed ignorance of Christianity, one saying Kirk was “…everything we hope our children could be.” God help those children from Kirk’s blind, debasing, racist, anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim ideology. “Conservative and brother in Christ?” Kirk was not a conservative; he was a hardcore MAGA white supremacist who openly loathed dark-skinned people. One dolt said, “Charlie was a great defender of the Second Amendment.” He refers to the bastardized version the NRA and similar hate groups conveniently omit, the section of “a well-regulated militia.”
Asked about school shootings, Kirk stated some gun deaths are necessary to maintain the Second Amendment, then ironically perished by his belief.
Laredo’s MAGA ignore Kirk’s accusatory lie that Democrats embrace immigration to secure voters, permit crime and promote the “great replacement” of whites. He promised Trump will “liberate” the country from “the enemy of occupation of foreign hordes.” The Southern Poverty Law Center defines Kirk’s Turning Point USA organization as promoting authoritarian “Christian” supremacy dedicated to eroding the value of inclusive democracy and public institutions; it embraces aggressive state and federal power to enforce social order in white supremacy. Kirk’s organization sows and exploits fear that white “Christians” are under attack by nefarious actors, like immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community and civil rights activists. They exploit feelings of insecurity and anxiety to instigate rage and mobilize support to revive and maintain a white supremacist, male-dominated “Christian” social order. If Jesus Christ returned, he would probably deal with these Pharisaical MAGA hypocrites like the money lenders at Jerusalem’s temple.
Kirk promoted Christian nationalism, the false theocratic worldview that the U.S. is a fundamentally Christian country and that their “Judeo-Christian” values and beliefs should inform the government, as absurd as Texas Republican buffoons mandating posting the biblical Ten Commandments in public schoolrooms. In the eighteen years I attended Catholic institutions of learning, no such posters were ever seen on the school walls.
Some of Charlie Kirk’s twisted falsehoods:
“We native born Americans are being replaced by foreigners.”
“You cannot have liberty if you don’t have a Christian population.”
“We do not have separation of church and state.”
“We should restore America’s biblical values.”
Kirk’s pseudo-Christianity is political activism created “enemies” with myths and lies of persecution, pretended victimization, and attempting to justify an extreme authoritarian vision that threatens American democracy. He lied, portraying his movement as being attacked by a “holy war’ and a “concerted effort to remove Christ.” Our Constitution prohibits imposing beliefs on citizens based on the Founders’ knowledge of European religionism. Believing Kirk overtly ignores Christ’s message of all-embracing love. If Charlie was a great American, then Heinrich Himmler was a great German.
Hypocritically ignoring an all-loving God, Kirk stated “Satan wants the children. Satan wants our country. Satan wants you,” pressuring pastors to sermonize that “the Democratic Party believes everything God hates.” So, God is not “all-loving?” Attempting to debase public education, he told parents that government was harming their children. He targeted critical race theory and inclusive education, promoted home schooling to radicalize parents with his worldview. His “Professor Watchlist’ targeted professors promoting truth, science, and critical thinking. Kirk promoted blocking teaching about institutionalized racism, preferring teaching fundamentalist racist history.
Kirk used pseudo-Christianity and “patriotism” to delude his followers. Religion, when combined with modern political propaganda, becomes a dangerous threat to our freedoms. This religious totalitarianism is useful to autocratic rule. It causes deadly aberrations in the minds of people, and we witness its tragic consequences.
