Wow. I'm not sure where to begin. I am fairly certain I speak for a whole lot of people when I say we would be just fine erasing this week from the calendar. Between the horrific video of the murder of Iryna Zarutska, losing an American icon in Charlie Kirk on Wednesday, and the 24th anniversary of 9/11, I am thinking a trip to one of Missouri's many great wineries might be in order. It's just too much to take in a span of five days. But with a bit of hindsight now, I, like many other Americans, am beginning to process what happened on Wednesday.
As we mourn both Charlie Kirk and the 2,000-plus souls lost on this day 24 years ago, I realized that there is a common thread running between both of these events. Many people will say that, as soon as they saw the second plane hit the second tower, they knew it was no accident, and America was being attacked, and that we were at war. The investigation into who killed Charlie and all of the details surrounding his murder are still very new, and there is a lot of speculation. But this feels an awful lot like others being at war with conservatives, but we have not been at war with them.
Looking back, we now see that there were several warning shots before 9/11. In February of 1993, a bomb exploded in the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center. Six people were killed and more than 1,000 people were injured. It was a dry run for what was to come. In October of 2000, the U.S.S. Cole had stopped for refueling in the port of Aden, Yemen, when a boat pulled up alongside it, filled with explosives. A 40-foot-wide gaping hole was ripped through the vessel, and the blast killed 17 sailors and injured 40 other crew members.
Then, of course, came September 11, 2001.
Like radical Islamic terrorism, we have had warnings that left-wing political violence was coming. In 2017, while Republican congressmen and senators practiced on a baseball field for the upcoming charity game between Democrats and Republicans, a crazed gunman, upset over the election of Donald Trump, opened fire on the ballfield, shooting four people, including then-House Majority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA). The shooter, James T. Hodgkinson, had signed an online petition calling for Trump to be impeached, and had posted it on social media with the caption, "It's time to destroy Trump & co." There have been two assassination attempts on President Trump, as well as attacks on countless pro-life groups, state Republican party offices, and violent protests on college campuses over conservative speakers appearing.
So, we have had warnings that this was ramping up. Whether we should have taken it more seriously is a matter of hindsight. However, I now see another parallel. That of Israel and Hamas. What the hell does that have to do with the price of cheese, you ask? Not that I am in any way comparing 9/11 and the killing of Charlie Kirk to the ongoing horror Jews in the Middle East are enduring at the hands of the terrorists of Hamas. But the principle is disturbingly similar. The Jewish people rightly know that you cannot reason and negotiate with people who have made it very clear (for thousands of years) that they want to kill you. Did conservatives get the message on Wednesday that the left is not interested in reason and negotiation? Because I did.
It has taken 20-plus years, several presidents of both parties, and ultimately the presidency of Donald Trump for Americans to learn that you cannot be nice to terrorists. I get those who say that we need to be better and that the only way to stop political violence is to talk to one another. They are clearly better people than I.
In the spirit of Andrew Breitbart, Rush Limbaugh, and Charlie Kirk, speak up as loud and as often as you can. This is war.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy RedState’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth.
Join RedState VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!