Charlie Kirk is known to many as a political activist; he is known to some as a Christian; he is known to two as daddy, and to one as a husband. As of today, September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk is also known as a martyr.
As of this day, Charlie will be remembered forever as a martyr, a thirty-one-year-old man who gave his last breath in his exercise of free speech and his defense of reason — on a university campus, no less, where civilized men were once encouraged to engage in the free exchange of ideas, and where the most impassioned of dialogue was meant to take place. After all, where discourse breaks down on campus, where the truth is off limits even at our supposed institutions of learning, arguments are soon substituted with assaults and the freedom of speech is effectively null.
As President John F. Kennedy famously proclaimed on April 27, 1961, “That is why our press was protected by the First Amendment — the only business in America specifically protected by the Constitution — not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply give the public what it wants — but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion.”
Charlie Kirk dared to take the risk — the risk of angering public opinion in an effort to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, and educate. And, especially in the presence of evil, men must be willing to take that risk; that is, if we intend on preserving truth, reason, or the remnants of civilized society.
Charlie was one such man dedicated to the pursuit of truth, committed to leaving the world not just better informed but richer through the lessons he shared and the lies and delusions he exposed. Charlie lived his life honestly and deliberately as a man of God, a man on a mission, and a man with conviction. He wasn’t a talking head or a political pundit who delivered monologues from the comforts of a studio. He lived his life as a man of the people, handing microphones to any and every one so each could be heard, engaging in dialogue even with his fiercest opponents on the hope that ideas and reason would win out — and Charlie died a martyr’s death while doing just this on a clear, sunny day on the campus of Utah Valley University. On Wednesday, September 10, 2025, a single bullet screamed against reason and, in the pandemonium that ensued, there was silence — that distinct silence that comes in the death of reason, the senselessness of the unholy, and the confusion around what comes next. That single bullet traveled through the air to snatch Charlie Kirk from our grasp, but it also tore through the hearts of a family and, as we will see, whatever delicate bonds are still barely keeping society together.
Upon hearing the news that Charlie Kirk had been shot, I was absolutely devastated, but (not having seen the horrifying footage) I held onto the hope that he would pull through. I quickly tuned in to live broadcasts to follow the latest reports on his condition. I hung on every word, hoping and praying that positive news was forthcoming, that his condition was stable and doctors were confident that he would make a full recovery. When I suddenly heard the ‘breaking news’ tune, it was already becoming clear that those hopes and prayers would go unanswered. In short order, the somber news was reported that he had passed away. I was in disbelief. I am still in disbelief. I was sad, devastated, and infuriated, and I still am.
Feeling the need to pay my respects, in whatever way I could, to the man I deeply admired for his wit, honesty and moral courage, a man who by all accounts lived honorably and faithfully by God’s Word, I hurriedly gathered myself and went on a march with my Betsy Ross flag and stood at my familiar overpass in an effort to represent our mighty cause to travelers who passed by, and to remind fellow Patriots and other sane, good-hearted people that, amidst the grief and the sorrow following this senseless tragedy, they are not alone, and that there is something we can do about it as the ones possessing the spirit of the message which Charlie so fervently sought to share with others.
While I wish I could do more to pay my respects, each of us can at least honor the moral obligation that comes with possessing wisdom and truth. While I wish I could do more to impress upon people the dire need for immediate action, we can at least let it be known where we stand and that we are still here; we can demonstrate our convictions through our courage and our actions. I wish that, through more than futile attempts at explanation, there were other ways to successfully communicate to the people around us just what is at stake in our failure to take action, but we can at least continue as examples to others of what action they can take. Alas, I resolve, at least, to take action, to continue to stand and march in solidarity with the likes of Charlie in spirit, in his memory today and for posterity in the days ahead.
The weight of recent events has been debilitating — the political assassination of Charlie Kirk and the racially-motivated murder of 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska, the Ukrainian refugee stabbed to death by a career criminal in Charlotte, North Carolina, represent more than just two statistics added to the FBI’s crime database. The murders themselves and the subsequent reactions (and the sheer fact that violent criminals, such as Iryna’s killer, are repeatedly released back into society by politically-compromised judges) represent the consequences of a low-trust society, the widening divide between people on issues of values, responsibility and morality, and the unmistakable numbness among us toward sin and suffering (in a ‘society’ progressively distracted by the virtual and the ephemeral over the real and the lasting). To the extent that trust is lost and virtue abandoned in any society, the dysfunction tends to drive ever more of the same as bad actors and opportunists seek to get in on the action, to get their part of the spoils, or even to simply avenge their own losses; at the same time, progressively more come to see precious little worth defending when taking stock of what’s left of their former society.
Indeed, the fact that many people aren’t even surprised by the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the fact that many are even celebrating it or explaining it away, the fact that many attendees immediately began cheering after Charlie was shot, offers even more confirmation that we are in the midst of not only a watershed moment in our history, but a true culture war — we are at a crossroads whereby any passivity and any failure to act means surrender to the forces of evil dead set against us. Any acceptance of these horrid events will doubtless make it easier to cope, easier to continue in relationships with immoral (and amoral) people, and easier to sleep at night without the nagging thoughts about what more could and should be done. Of course, those comforts come at the highest price, often to those who have less in the way of years and wisdom, and thus less in the way of resources to defend against the vile onslaught.
It is a real struggle to reconcile these realities with the need to continue with my life in leading my family, while knowing that, as one particular philosopher has put it, “The world is made by what you accept”; thus, I live with knowing that, as these horrific events slip by, they are soon to be accepted. We mustn’t accept them, and we mustn’t accept among us any who do, any who fail to appreciate just what these two murders represent about the country in which we live; the country that, should we come to accept these events and the kinds of heinous acts that have no place in any society, our children and theirs are sure to inherit it in even worse condition, where those acts come to be understood or even condoned on the basis of having already been accepted, explained away, or cloaked under the fog and the gleam of infinite subjectivity and abject immorality.
I didn’t follow Charlie’s work or life other than his seemingly tireless effort to get the “America First” philosophy back in the driver’s seat in this country. Clearly he was a man that saw insanity for what it is and was unafraid to speak and debate truth and principle rather than shrink in appeasement of the insane proposals and policies of the left and the moral decay they represent. I think he knew, rather than a humanist call to compassion the left was deploying a thinly veiled scheme to distract the masses with manufactured social issues all while looting our liberty and wallets. He seemed like a real man of conviction and we don’t see that nearly enough in politics. It’s probably the very thing that made him a target of the deranged. R.I.P.
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