The crime of Charlie Kirk: He forced people to think

A recent discussion, with a friend, caused me to think about one of the great attributes of the late Charlie Kirk. 

I told him that an article he’d sent me, written by a highly educated individual, proved to be quite inaccurate. Although the writer obviously researched the subject, she clearly failed to interview people from the community about which she was speaking, and apparently relied upon things she’d either heard or read.

This is what made me think of Charlie Kirk. Knowing that so many of today’s young people are misinformed by what they either read online or hear from biased university professors, Charlie made a practice of challenging their inaccurate information, usually exposing their inability to back up their claims.

It was why he adopted the slogan, “Prove me wrong.” Always eager to encourage free and open debate, when being called a fascist, he would ask his opponent to define “fascism.” Almost no one could.

When hearing someone claim that Israel was perpetrating a genocide, he would demand that they provide proof of that assertion. Since no one had ever spent time in Gaza, no evidence could be given for the outrageous accusation.

Perhaps, the thing that most irked the far-left, Woke crowd, who stepped up to the microphone to try to make minced meat out of Charlie Kirk, was that he would not allow them to regurgitate false or libelous claims without backing them up.

Consequently, he forced them to think about what they were saying and not just blindly accept what others had told them. He knew that few are willing to put in the work that is required when doing a thorough investigation into a subject.  

It’s easy and quick to go with the word of others. It doesn’t obligate asking questions or speaking to people who really know the issue, because they live it on a daily basis.  

But, in addition to the factor of laziness, there is the other factor of agenda-driven information. For those who want to believe the worst about Israel, for example, or come against the conservative principles, by which Charlie lived, there is little or no motivation to dig deep in order to discover a truth which would be inconvenient to their way of thinking.

So, Charlie kept plugging away, ripping apart the false contentions which would predictably come up, often able to guess how the conversation would play out.

Whether the topic surrounded the transgender issue or the notion that fewer guns or fewer police would prevent crime, Charlie demanded accurate data and statistics to back up those claims.  

If offered, Charlie would systematically reveal the inaccuracy of those sources as well as the political biases behind them, providing solid factually-based research which would end up obliterating the erroneous findings they quoted.

That was the crime of Charlie Kirk. He realized that there was a chance that people’s minds could be changed if they would only be forced to think and confront their prejudices, closedmindedness or need to fall in lockstep with their peers.

By leaving them speechless, unable to substantiate the false narrative they’d been taught, they were left in a corner, having to confront their ignorance or the lies upon which they hung their theories.

It was this unexpected vulnerability which left them bare and uncovered, as if someone had stripped them of all their pseudo-intellectual arguments that gave them a false sense of assurance. 

But that is what happens when someone bases their principles, values and ethics upon faulty humanistic ideology which rejects God, the wisdom found in the scriptures and the moral laws by which we were meant to conduct ourselves. 

It is this rewriting of life’s manual which is the beginning of insanity, a condition which creeps in slowly when there’s total disavowal and repudiation of spiritual standards.  

Sadly, the delusion grows, and the ability to think rationally often dissipates completely, replaced by the belief that anything goes. It is that type of audacious thinking which not only causes people to adopt all kinds of deviate behaviors but then demand that they be accepted as valid and legitimate.

The contention that men could be women and women could be men was a subject constantly brought up by those who came to the Turning Point USA campus tent in order to debate the issue.

For Charlie, it always came down to the one question they refused to answer – “What is a woman?” If he could get them to think about what they were saying, perhaps, they would hear the folly of their absurdity and finally come around to sane thinking.

But when you’re locked into the brainwashing, which has taken hold of so many of today’s young people, either because it was all they were fed or they simply didn’t want to stand out from their friends, it often came down to a stalemate, with neither side budging.

Nonetheless, even if it only lasted for 10 minutes, they were forced to think and employ reason for whatever they were espousing. That became the point of danger, not only for them but for the millions of viewers who were also forced to think and re-evaluate their positions. Undoubtedly, it was those viral moments which became an untenable threat for the opposition.

Their very fractured logic did not serve them well in tearing down the soundness of what was being put before them by a 31-year-old who didn’t even have a college diploma, but was head and shoulders superior to them, as a result of his biblical worldview.

That was what stuck in their craw.  It was the angry build-up of their mounting frustration which ended up killing a man who cared so much for this generation. In his attempt to free them from the lies, which were destroying their ability to think clearly, Charlie Kirk paid for it with his life.

If those young people could begin to internalize how much he cared for them, even at the expense of leaving behind a widow and two children, without a father, perhaps, their hearts and their minds, would begin to reflect on the enormity of what he did.  

Getting them to think and challenge the propaganda was Charlie Kirk’s crime. But it’s never too late to use the gift that God gave us – a working brain which we must all force ourselves to use.