Writer, Learner, Music Fan, Judge.
Charlie Kirk, Where We Came From and What We Do Next
While mindful of the poignant reflections from my fellow Times of Israel Community Bloggers Juda Engelmayer, Harel Ben-Michael, Simon Kupfer, Ofir Ohayon and Rabbi Samuel Stern, on the assassination of Charlie Kirk (which everyone should read), I wanted to add a few words of my own. America and Israel – both of which were rocked this week by savage, politically-motivated murders – find themselves at an important crossroad.
What can easily be lost amid the grizzly videos swirling on social media is that Charlie Kirk was murdered, in mid-sentence, while making an argument on public policy. For free peoples living in Israel and the United States, the assassin’s bullet that struck down Charlie Kirk was also aimed at us; and our ability to govern ourselves.
The injury from the political violence in Utah is particularly perilous because America was founded upon the idea that G-d’s endowment of rights to each and every one of us, in equal measure, meant that we could choose the country’s future for ourselves. And we would set our collective course by reasoning with each other.
That model was exemplified best by Jefferson’s prose in the American Declaration of Independence. He stated explicitly, on behalf of all Americans, that we were making a political argument about the future of the Thirteen Colonies; and that “a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that [we] should declare the causes which impel [us] to the separation.” And without missing a single beat, Jefferson set out to methodically detail the “history of repeated injuries and usurpations” by King George so that “facts be submitted to a candid world.”
Americans did not choose to martial muskets first; we preferred to martial facts.
Nearly two centuries later, from the exhibition space in the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, the Jewish National Council made a similar Declaration to Jefferson’s, martialing a similar battalion of facts. They declared that it was the natural rights of Jews to be masters of their own fate, and that this self-mastery required both the freedom and space to reason with others. As set forth in the Israeli Declaration of Independence, the new country “will be based on freedom, justice and peace as envisaged by the prophets of Israel; it will ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex; [and] it will guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture ….”
And Israelis know the anguish and chaos that follows from not being able to peaceably discuss, debate and reason with each other. Thirty years ago this November, Yitzhak Rabin stood before a large crowd in what was then known as Kings Square, in Tel Aviv. And he made an argument about the Olso Accords and where Israel should be headed. Into his microphone, he thundered: “I always believed that most of the people want peace and are ready to take a risk for it.” Moments later, as Rabin made his way to a waiting automobile, he was gunned down by a man who didn’t want peace; who didn’t want discussions; and who didn’t want Israelis to choose for themselves.
That awful moment reprises itself, in our time, today. And for all of those in the West who believe that we should never allow assassins or bullets to censor what we can hear or discuss, I am asking you to take a personal stand on the free exchange of ideas.
I am asking everyone to pick an episode of Kirk’s podcast, or one of hundreds of videos he posted to the Turning Point USA YouTube channel, and forward that episode to someone else.
In the spirit of public libraries that exhibit books that have been banned by local school boards; those who wish to read, hear and discuss freely should amplify Kirk’s voice today. And “amplify” does not mean that one should agree with any of the things Kirk said. I could care less if anyone receiving a forwarded broadcast from you agrees with his views. That is not the point.
If you don’t want killers to structure what you can hear or consider, your actions should make clear that such violence will have the opposite effect: That civilized people everywhere will circulate, amplify and critically analyze views that killers hope to seal in a coffin.
May Charlie Kirk’s name be for a blessing and a reminder of what is at stake.
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