“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

―George Orwell

Two thousand years ago, a politician named Pilate, in a classic dodge to avoid responsibility, asked, “What is truth?”  But he already knew the truth, for after questioning Jesus, he told the accusing crowd, “I find in him no fault at all” (John 18:38).  Instead of acting on that truth, however, he rejected it, leaving Jesus’s fate to the mob.  He then symbolically washed his hands of the affair, as if that made him innocent of Jesus’s blood.

Today, the radical left denies even the existence of truth, claiming that everything is a societal construct based on racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, etc.  Too consumed with ideological passion to recognize that if their claim were true (i.e., there is no truth), then their own claims and doctrine must also be false.  But such is the nature of ideology, before which truth, reason, and contrary evidence must bow.  They even go so far as to challenge their usually deified science, claiming that a male can become a female (or vice versa) by simply willing it to be so.

But Truth is not mocked, nor will it conform to ideological fantasies — except by coercion, or, as we’re seeing more and more often, by violence. 

Truth is the foundation of a free society.  Without universal acknowledgment and acceptance of truth, there is no way humans can live together peaceably.  The Founders proclaimed such truths in the Declaration of Independence, declaring that all men are created equal and that each have God-given, inalienable rights over which other men and governments have no rightful authority.  The first of those is the right to life.

Leftists, however, deny the truth that each individual has a God-given right to life, exemplified by the “my body, my choice” pro-abortion zealots.  They deny that an unborn infant is a human life, claiming that “it’s only a fetus” (to wash their guilty hands?).  When intellectually honest people object to such a deliberate distortion of truth, the left has no coherent, reasonable response — only personal insults and vilifying or shouting down of their opposition.  Because truth stands in the way of their ideology, it must be suppressed, as we discovered was done by the social media platforms (and our federal government) during COVID.

Abortion isn’t the only rejection of truth by the left.  Leftists deny that black Americans have any responsibility for their own welfare, in a shameful (and inherently racist) paternalism that consigns blacks to be perpetual wards of the state and infantilizes an entire race for political gain.  Feminism, too, is a denial of the truth that men and women have different natures, motivations, and perceptions.  The tortured frustrations of leftists (Greer, Steinem, et al.) have in large part destroyed the nuclear family by denigrating wives and motherhood as elements of “the patriarchy.” 

Homosexuality is another area where the left has rejected truth.  Even aside from the biblical admonition that God views homosexuality as an abomination, homosexual unions cannot produce offspring, the primary function of the family.  The current celebration of the trans culture (a tiny percentage of Americans) was a logical next step, further rejecting God’s truth about men, women, and biology. 

That is the ultimate foundation of leftist ideology: the rejection of the truth of the Bible and the existence of God.  For those God-given inalienable rights get in the way of the leftist dreams of creating a man-made Paradise on Earth...by force if necessary.  No matter the 20th-century chronicles of over 200 million killed by leftist regimes in the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Venezuela, etc., it’ll supposedly be different here — in itself another lie.

Americans were once able to agree to disagree, without the demonization of opposition views.  But when those on the right are vilified as essentially evil — Nazis, racists, homophobes, transphobes, misogynists, etc. — the left can’t then compromise with those it’s painted as villains (compromise being the essence of democracy).  What’s left but suppression of the truth that threatens their ideological goals?  And if suppression doesn’t achieve their aim, what then? 

That is the trap that the left has laid for itself by its rejection of truth and subsequent decline into tribalist, winner-take-all politics.  Leftists have put together a shaky coalition of interest groups, many of which share no obvious common goals, so they must zealously defend to the death their lies or risk losing that support.

The margins of electoral victory are too close for them to tolerate such losses.  The political power they crave in order to impose their ideological fantasies (for our own good, you see) is too important to leave to the will of the great unwashed masses, who aren’t as enlightened as leftists imagine themselves.  With free and open debate rejected, they censor or shout down the opposition, manipulate elections, and skew the narrative...and when that doesn’t work, they resort to violence (BLM riots, Antifa thuggery, etc.).  Once embarked on that path, murder to achieve their goals isn’t just a possibility, but inevitable.  Read history!

Charlie Kirk’s unforgivable crime was to challenge the liberal lies with which young people in America’s schools have been so successfully indoctrinated.  He did so on the leftists’ own turf, the universities, and did it with grace, patience, and respect.  In fact, his catchphrase was “If you disagree with me, come to the front of the line.”  He didn’t insult or belittle, but allowed students time to reveal their beliefs.  Then he articulately and politely demolished their fantasies with facts and reason...with the truth.

Benjamin Franklin said, “Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech.”  Free speech was Charlie Kirk’s passion, for he knew that the principles of God, the Declaration, and the Constitution are not threatened by open debate and dialogue.  But free speech is the left’s nightmare, for leftists know that their ideas and ideology cannot survive illumination.

By exposing the left’s fallacies, Kirk threatened the flimsy structure of modern liberal ideology.  In the zero-sum politics practiced by the left, it’s hardly surprising that some troubled person would commit violence against those so vilified.  President Trump evaded two assassination attempts, one just barely.  Sadly, Charlie Kirk wasn’t so fortunate.

The Senate and House politicians who are the usual purveyors of the left’s deadly ideology were quick to post cheap and easy “thoughts and prayers” sentiments — the modern version of Pilate’s hand-washing.  Although they and the leftist professors, pundits, and so-called journalists may not have pulled the trigger, they are every bit as responsible for Charlie Kirk’s death as that poor deluded soul who did. 

For America to wake up and finally reject the left’s anti-God, anti-truth, and anti-American ideology would be Charlie Kirk’s fitting legacy.

Image via Pexels.