I live 15 minutes from Utah Valley University, located on the edge of the congested and overpopulated city of Orem. Like much of Utah County, it is a maze of complicated streets divided by concrete barriers and curbs, which seems to be a fetish of Utah’s municipal planners. I’ve attended several events there, including a speech by Nikki Haley. The school has been wrapping up the refurbishment of its stadium, an impressive sight easily visible from the highway.

It’s a nice campus in one of the most “Mormon” parts of the state. Nestled in the Happy Valley, in what Bob Costas once called the “Land of the Blonde and the Bland,” one would hardly think of it as the site for cold-blooded murder. 

Make no mistake, despite the Utah stereotype, the state has more than its share of hot-headed Lefties. Yes, you can find them in Salt Lake, Park City, Moab, and other places, but you can find them anywhere. Some are ex-pats from blue states who fled the failed doctrine of Democrats and yet spread that twisted gospel wherever they land. Some are holdouts from the '60s who long ago traded in their sandals and love beads for orthopedic shoes and medical alert bracelets. There are plenty of AWFLS and students who live out their lives on social media and parrot back that which has been fed to them by their teachers, professors, and algorithms. 

My point is that there is no place that is truly safe. There is no place that is immune to this poison. When I told Mrs. Brown the news of Charlie Kirk’s death, she remarked, “I have never been this ashamed to be a Utahn.” I’m ashamed to be a Utahn right now. I’m ashamed I ever was a Democrat.

My one and only interaction with Charlie came in the form of a column I wrote back in 2023 in which I asked noteworthy people for their recommended reading lists. Here is what he sent me:

Good books, and to be honest, they are books everyone should read in this day and age. 

The MSM wasted no time in casting this in as horrific a light as possible, hypothesizing that the shooter was celebrating the moment by irresponsibly exercising his Second Amendment rights, before naturally falling back on the idea that (delivered with a sneer, and in at least one case half a smirk) Charlie was the victim of his own divisive rhetoric. 

The Left, from Biden to the media, and everyone else down its mutant food chain, has engaged in more divisive rhetoric than Kirk ever did, and has repeatedly praised and more than tacitly endorsed violence. I’ve listened to many of Kirk’s speeches and podcasts. I have disagreed with him on several points, but I never found the man to be divisive. But if the MSM and the barbarian hordes on the Left are correct and Kirk got what was coming to him, does that mean that anyone has license to murder someone whom they find deplorable? If Charlie’s death was a direct result of his words, do those who despise MSNBC, or the usual suspects, have the freedom to hunt down the progressive celebrities like a bounty hunter? That is a very perilous gambit, and one should think more than twice before advocating such a thing.

The Left has been far more inflammatory than the Right, and the so-called guardians of free speech would theoretically want to rethink their assertions. They might, but they won’t, since this sort of Wild West approach to the exchange of ideas is applicable in their minds only to the likes of Charlie Kirk. Or you or me. 

Naturally, the tree-dwellers who occupy the lower ranks of Progressivism began celebrating even as the first headlines started rolling in:

Charlie Kirk was gunned down because the Left is terrified of ideas. And it was terrified of Charlie. It was terrified of Charlie because he was not someone it could pigeonhole as a “right-wing nutjob.” He didn’t pontificate. He listened. He responded. He communicated. He reasoned with his opponents, and, more often than not, those opponents came away feeling heard. And that made him a threat. The last thing the Left wants is for people to engage in the forbidden art of reason. The Left prefers overmedicated, uninformed, indoctrinated feral animals to go into the streets and set fires, break windows, overturn cars, and stoke fear.

And shoot people. 

The Left is perfectly happy to manufacture vandals, terrorists, and murderers. It is pleased to turn out never-ending ranks of rabid dogs who have no idea why they are enraged. 

There is a case to be made for rage. The Left, at best, excuses shooting presidential candidates, Catholic school children, and anyone who is not like its denizens. At its worst, its members endorse such behavior, glorify it, and encourage it. There is a party going on over on the Left right now. The sad truth is that one cannot reason with Leftists; one cannot appeal to their sense of dignity or the intrinsic value of human life. In some ways, it might be successfully argued that the Left has abandoned its humanity. It has no compunctions about inflicting every possible penalty, hazard, or sentence on its opponents. Life itself has no value to the Left. It is as if it is doing its level best to recreate the ennui, despair, and rage of the Weimar Republic, which would one day give way to the Third Reich. In the case of such a philosophy, everything and everyone is expendable, except those at the top. Small wonder, then, that the Left can send its monsters into the streets.

These people champion child mutilation, sexualization, and murder. They have firmly aligned themselves with the Baals of Chaos in the hopes of becoming ascendant masters. They can do what they do because they have no souls. So yes, there is a case to be made for rage and for combating the pure evil that grips the Left now. There has always been a tinge of anarchy to them. I could sense it growing up as a young Democrat, but never before has it been laid raw, naked, and bloody before our eyes. 

But before anyone fires the first shot, before we seek blood for blood, before we seek to purge the demons from our midst, let us reason for a moment.

To give in to the bloodlust that is part and parcel of Progressivism is to lower oneself to the Left’s level. The Leftists have sold their souls; shall we be so eager to sell ours?

The Left has mastered the art of projection: Leftists accuse their opponents of everything in which they routinely indulge. They are foaming at the mouth and trembling in pre-orgasmic anticipation that a conservative will make the slightest transgression in the name of retribution. Then, they can claim that they have been sorely injured, affronted, and made to feel unsafe and thus once again unleash their slavering wolves into the city streets. The Leftists will bait you with all manner of vile, base, and despicable comments and actions. They are incapable of self-reflection, and everything and everyone is disposable to them, so long as they enjoy the endorphin rush that comes with cruelty. Feral animals live for such moments. 

We will not defeat the Left by aping its constituent apes. So allow yourself to feel the rage. Let it flow through you. Rage is a natural reaction to a moment such as this. But give it time to pass.

Then, go back and read Charlie’s reading list above. If you have already read those books, read them again, and then buy copies and pass them on. Let us not raise up one or two people to take Charlie’s place, but thousands. And let those thousands be so loud that they cannot be drowned out. 

And there will be justice. As Utah Governor Spencer Cox remarked in the presser: “We will find you…and we still have the death penalty in the State of Utah.”

We are engaged in a war that hopefully will not evolve into the use of munitions. But it is a war, a war of words and ideas, and yes, a war against principalities and powers. With that in mind, let us recall the words of Winston Churchill:

“We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender…”

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