By far the best commentary I have read on the murder of Iryna Zarutska and the assassination of Charlie Kirk is this essay by C. Bradley Thompson: Nihilism and the Crisis of the West.

In contrast, this post by me is a mere footnote.

As I wrote in 2022,

Philosophically, the American Left endorses the purest form of mindless indulgence of emotion. [For example:] “I feel I am a boy; therefore I am a boy.” “I feel oppressed; therefore I am oppressed.” “I feel like taking the wealth of others; therefore I will.” “I feel like having promiscuous sex; therefore I will.” “I feel like killing my child or my neighbor’s child; therefore I will.” “I feel empathy for this group; therefore I will take and destroy and kill for this group.”

Regarding Leftist ethics, as I noted in 2009,

Hegel wrote, “A single person, I need hardly say, is something subordinate, and as such he must dedicate himself to the ethical whole.” His next sentence was: “Hence if the state claims life, the individual must surrender it.”

Regarding Leftist politics, Marx famously wrote,

 From each according to his ability, …

But what if an individual does not want to give “according to his ability”? Well, then, he must be forced to do so. What if the individual resists? Well, then, he must be forced violently.

Suppose Charlie Kirk had been kidnapped while he was asleep and placed gently in a cage and left to rot. Would such non-violent coercion have been less evil? Or suppose everything Charlie Kirk ever produced were taken from him, day after day, for his entire life. Would that not also be evil? It is the coercion, not the violence per se, that is the evil.

Many Leftists do not seem violent. Indeed, many of them decry violence. But they decry violence only because they are inconsistent and evasive. They are evading the fact that some—or many—people will dissent from Leftism. Many will choose not to give “according to his ability.” What then?

Some who claim to be on the Right—on the side of individual rights of life, liberty, property, and the pursuit of happiness—are also coercive, and violently so. But these individuals are acting contrary to their avowed fundamental ideas. The coercive, violent Leftists are acting in accordance with their avowed fundamental ideas. And that is why there are many more coercive, violence Leftists than coercive, violent Rightists.

And that is also why so many non-violent Leftists cheer on the violent ones.

Ominously, more and more on the Right—absorbing the mentality of Leftist institutions—are becoming mindless too. But that subject is for another day. Today we remember a hero for rational discourse.

I propose that the U.S. replace the national holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. with Freedom of Speech Day to celebrate America’s freedom of speech and to commemorate Americans—such as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Charlie Kirk—who gave their life embracing freedom of speech in furtherance of liberty.