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2025-09-21 -Great Cultural Revolution

William Bennett: What Charlie Kirk's murder tells us about the American mind

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Posted by Besoeker 2025-09-21 09:00|| E-Mail|| Front Page|| [1796 views ] Top

1 Much truth found here.

Posted by Besoeker 2025-09-21 09:10|| 2025-09-21 09:10|| Front Page Top

2 Charlie Kirk died because we have forgotten how to hate properly.

Patton:
Then there's one thing you men will be able to say when this war is over and you get back home. Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?' You won't have to cough and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say 'Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named George Patton!'

Posted by Skidmark 2025-09-21 09:46|| 2025-09-21 09:46|| Front Page Top

3 Know that there is real evil in the world. It's not relative. And that some people has unfortunately sold their souls.

Posted by Procopius2k 2025-09-21 10:05|| 2025-09-21 10:05|| Front Page Top

4 My son learned a hard, unfortunate lesson during graduate school, one countless other students have learned in recent years. The modern university, where Kirk met his end, has become the opposite of what John Henry Newman envisioned when he wrote "The Idea of a University." Newman imagined institutions where "a habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom." Instead, we have created factories of fragility, where students pay $70,000 a year to have their prejudices confirmed and their triggers avoided.

The founders would have recognized Charlie immediately. Franklin with his junto, Hamilton with his newspapers, Jefferson with his correspondence, they all understood that democracy is an argument, not an answer. Madison wrote in Federalist 10 about the dangers of faction, but he never imagined we would solve the problem of faction with assassination.

Here is another unconventional thought: The problem is not that our universities are too political. They are not political in the classical sense of "political" that Aristotle meant when he called man a political animal. The university problem is that they are factories of indoctrination, especially in the liberal arts. Real politics requires engagement with difference, the ability to live alongside those you disagree with, the skill of persuasion rather than coercion. Our campuses have replaced politics with theology, and a particularly intolerant theology at that.

We have made the cost of conviction so high that capable, principled people retreat from public engagement entirely.

My son concluded his reflection with words that haunt me: "In those moments, having made the wrong choice at that juncture many times before, I hope I have the conviction and bravery to live it like Charlie and live it like Bill." He meant Charlie Kirk, of course. The other Bill he referenced was his father — me. I am humbled by the comparison but troubled by his confession. While he admittedly tossed his hat out of the ring, and entered the non-political world of finance, he has found his comfort and happiness. But at what cost to our society?

This is what we have done to our young people. We have made the cost of conviction so high that capable, principled people retreat from public engagement entirely. We have created a world where it is safer to be silent than to speak, safer to conform than to question, safer to hide than to stand. There is a certain relief in that. But it does not come without a cost.

The question before us is not whether we will have more Charlie Kirks—young people willing to brave hostility for their beliefs. We will. The question is whether we will have more like my son—capable people who retreat from public engagement because the cost has become too high. Few of the brightest people I know dream of entering politics—they dream of venture capital, private equity, the places where talent can still flourish without ideological inquisition. It makes brutal sense: Make enough money, and perhaps you can affect the change you want to see in society, safely insulated from the mob.

If we cannot make America safe for argument again—not just civil argument, but vigorous, passionate, even angry argument—then we should stop pretending we live in a democracy. In its literal etymological sense, democracy means "power of the people"—today it feels more like power of the perpetually aggrieved. If you are not consumed with rage, you are at home raising your family and going to work. So radical political movements naturally attract the angriest among us, not necessarily the wisest.

Charlie Kirk is dead at 31, but the idea he represented—that Americans can argue their way to truth rather than shoot their way to silence—must not die with him. My son's generation deserves better than the choice between silence and death. They deserve what Charlie Kirk tried to give them: a place at the table, a voice in the conversation, and the right to speak without being murdered for it. Our children and grandchildren deserve it.

Posted by KBK 2025-09-21 11:54|| 2025-09-21 11:54|| Front Page Top

5 Not only do many of us believe you cannot persuade them anymore, they flaunt beliefs that are basically crimes against humanity. They glorify their own inhumanity. And so, we must treat them as they desire, as rabid animals needing to be culled.

Posted by Silentbrick 2025-09-21 11:57|| 2025-09-21 11:57|| Front Page Top

6 This is one of the chief reasons why Congress has abdicated its proper role.

Posted by Anguper Hupomosing9418 2025-09-21 13:18|| 2025-09-21 13:18|| Front Page Top

7 The assassination caused many masks to slip, some to fall off, not only in the US.

In a sermon broadcast by the German government tv chain ARD a pastor representing the German mainstream government affiliated protestant church EKD explicitly called the denial of Charlie Kirk's right-wing racism a diabolical act.

No free marketplace of ideas, no freedom of speech!

Charlie Kirk was the little Satan!

And and those who deny this are the little Satan too!

Nuts!

(link in German, link to translation)

Posted by Elmerert Hupens2660 2025-09-21 15:23|| 2025-09-21 15:23|| Front Page Top

8 Try telling them about reasonable doubt and George Floyd's toxicology report.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2025-09-21 17:18|| 2025-09-21 17:18|| Front Page Top

9 Hint: It doesn't work.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2025-09-21 17:18|| 2025-09-21 17:18|| Front Page Top

10 Kirk preached biblical Christianity. The other side will tell you what they believe in pride and envy. I’m sure if you look hard enough, the other five are in there too. At the end of the day, this is spiritual warfare. Charlie Kirk fought the good fight.

Posted by Difar Dave 2025-09-21 19:34|| 2025-09-21 19:34|| Front Page Top

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