Thirty-one-year-old conservative political commentator Charlie Kirk was shot dead at a rally he was hosting at Utah Valley University.
It doesn’t matter whether Kirk was a liberal or conservative. It doesn’t matter if his assailant was from the right or the left. What matters is that a person was killed for his political views.
Ironically, Kirk was assassinated on a college campus, which is supposed to be sacred land for free political discourse. But that picture of a free thinking political campus is an image of a bygone era. Campuses are now amongst the most restrictive places on the planet when it comes to speech.
Safe places have replaced debate forums. Micro aggressions have replaced the concept of standing up for your beliefs. Civil disagreement has been replaced with the canceling, the expulsion, the harassment, or even the assault of those on the other side of the political spectrum.
Charlie Kirk attracted huge crowds throughout the nation because he allowed students from every political persuasion to engage in a Socratic dialogue for truth. People with opposing views were asked to get to the front, not the back, of the line. Kirk pushed students to think, even if you didn’t agree with his political philosophy.
Isn’t that what a college is supposed to do? Kirk was assassinated yesterday, but his legacy of promoting freedom of thought and civil dialogue with one’s political opposition will live on forever.