Talk to People

The murder of Charlie Kirk has had me in a painful sorrow the last couple of days. Yes, terrible things are happening every day that shouldn't be normal. Parts of society are becoming more nihilistic and deadly every day, and we don't agree on what's causing it or how to stop it. But Charlie's assassination should have been met with universal and unequivocal mourning and condemnation. The fact that it wasn't is, to me, indicative of a new and heartbreaking low. How are we to find an off-ramp or come to an understanding of society's ills when the very thing that would solve it (civil public debate) has been flatly rejected? 

Charlie was out there doing exactly what many of us wish we had the guts to do - civily engaging face-to-face. Debating. Standing for things he believed in, with an outstretched hand.  And THAT was intolerable. He was a "platform for hate and ignorance." He "got what he advocated for." He was an "extremist." 

I admired him. I appreciated him as a man motivated by love. He was the off-ramp of understanding. We should all be mourning the rejection of the offramp. 


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