Neither violence nor hate speech is the answer to our society’s problems. Just look at the Charlie Kirk case.
More than a week after the radical regressive provocateur was shot to death, he’s still all over the news, and the aftershocks from the White House on down are at least as horrifying as the crime.
A court filing says 22-year-old Tyler Robinson confessed in a text message to his roommate and lover, who is transitioning from male to female. “I had enough of his hatred,” Robinson wrote. “Some hate can’t be negotiated out.”
For while Kirk was indisputably a murder victim, he also leveled hate at just about everyone who isn’t a white, heterosexual, Christian nationalist male like him.
He said transgender people are “a throbbing middle finger to God” and advocated banning them from the military, athletics and even chess tournaments. He also called for “Nuremberg-style” trials for “gender-affirming clinic doctors.”
He made similarly hateful comments about people of color, immigrants, Muslims, former President Joe Biden and affirmative action. He put down women’s brains and recently advised superstar Taylor Swift to submit to her husband.
His racism, sexism and bigotry made him rich while bringing him acclaim in the MAGAverse and infamy among liberals, at least those who were paying attention.
Most Americans probably weren’t, though. Only now do I know that besides MAGAnetizing certain zoomers, he helped Donald Trump choose some high-level appointees and administered loyalty tests to applicants for jobs in the administration.
His death has only amplified his vicious messages, even as people on both sides try to sanitize them and all but canonize the messenger.
Our own MAGA Congressman Dan Meuser seemed to be describing someone else. A eulogy in his campaign newsletter said Kirk always sought “the higher road” and ultimately was killed “for spreading his message like someone we love and cherish, and that is, in fact, Jesus Christ.”
At least Meuser didn’t scream for vengeance. The White House did that.
Ever mindful of opportunities to sow division and rattle a saber, Trump seized control of the narrative well before Robinson was identified as a suspect.
The guy who encouraged violence against dissenters and whose stream of falsehoods led to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection blamed Kirk’s assassination on the “radical left.”
“My administration will find each and every one of those who have contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence,” he said. (Utah County Attorney Jeffrey Gray’s charging document indicates Robinson acted alone.)
Attorney General Pam Bondi said her office would target anyone who targets anyone with hate speech (which isn’t illegal). But after some MAGA pushback, she said she really meant “credible, violent threats.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff and immigrant abduction architect Stephen Miller all but declared war against political opponents, even for noncriminal acts. Federal law enforcement will find them and be used to take away their money and power, “and if you’ve broken the law, to take away your freedom,” he shrieked on Fox.
After ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel said “the MAGA gang” was trying to characterize Robinson as “anything other than one of them,” Federal Communications Commission Chair and Project 2025er Brendan Carr resorted to gangsterspeak. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” he told a right-wing podcaster. The network quickly suspended Kimmel.
More than celebrities have been caught up in the right’s 180-degree turn from free speech.
Reuters reported last weekend that at least 15 people lost or were suspended from their jobs for not showing sufficient respect for Kirk. Others received “torrents of online abuse,” and their employers got calls to fire them.
And a Philadelphia Inquirer article on Thursday indicated that critics of Kirk were still being doxed, harassed and, in some cases, threatened.
That happened to Tanisha Long, a Black woman who posted on Facebook that “we don’t owe him sympathy” or “have to empathize with agents of our oppressors.”
Nor should flags fly at half-staff for an extremist commentator whose views happen to align with those in power.
We must condemn the shooting, but the shooting doesn’t make him a hero or martyr. It is sad, though, that Robinson denied Kirk time to rethink his rhetoric — and to recognize those he scapegoated and demeaned as fellow human beings.
Lisa Von Ahn is an experienced columnist previously published in the Pottsville Republican Herald newspaper.
Canary note: Opinions expressed in any Op-Ed column appearing on this site are the views of the writer and are not necessarily the opinions of Coal Region Canary.
Want to be a columnist with Coal Region Canary? Contact us at newscanary@gmail.com.
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Howard Pryda
September 21, 2025 at 3:14 pm
There is considerable panic visible amid the professional Marxists as evidenced above on another unhinged rant by Lisa full of misinformation, lies and 1/2 truths.
The comments and quick responsive appearance of Barack Obama; the jaw-agape leftist reactions to backlash upon Jimmy Kimmel; corporate media entities trying to cope with the reemergence of shame; the fallback to tribalism and the need for reassurance from their echo chamber, and many other visible similarities are all akin to an abuser being confronted by the family of the abused.
The constant drumbeat of leftism has battered the minds of Americans for so long, the perpetrators took it for granted they would always hold the strongest position – even if in the minority. However, something has radically changed.
There is no leftist individual willing to enter the intellectual or philosophical gauntlet of debate and challenge a conservative audience to “come to the front of the line” and convince the audience of their viewpoint.
There is no person of leftist ideology capable of advocating their man-made construct against the natural laws that underpin the conservative worldview of a Charlie Kirk audience. Because the only place their ideology can survive is in an arena without challenge.
Consider the example of the ‘Law of the Farm’ vs. the ‘Law of the School’. Natural principles vs. those made by man.
A student can skip class, take few notes, pay only half attention, then stay up all night cramming for a test and manage a decent grade. It depends on the student’s goal: grades or learning.
The student can choose to manipulate the education, by avoiding the learning and capturing the grade.
This is possible in the ‘Law of the School’. However, a farmer cannot take short cuts. A farmer cannot avoid tending to the soil, preparing the seed, fertilizing and nurturing the crop, and still gain benefit of an abundant harvest.
The farmer must necessarily do all of the appropriate work in order to benefit from it. Such is the ‘Law of the Farm’, the natural law. This is the position from which Charlie Kirk effectively advanced his beliefs.
Howard Pryda
September 21, 2025 at 5:43 pm
For several years, traditional moderates and Democrats have been turning away from the messaging of the leftist party now controlled by radical Marxists and publicly declared socialists. Almost everything they created as a point of advocacy made their following spiral into an ever-diminishing circle.
Democrats are the party of censorship, gleefully cheering as conservative voices were deplatformed, demonetized, targeted by the social media system operators who controlled the public square, targeted by an aligned government and mainstream media, and evidenced in their full-throated demands around the COVID-19 madness and vaccine protocols.
Democrats cheered as government collaborated with tech donors to diminish their opposition, while simultaneously they affirmed some of the evilest enterprises around DEI, toxic advocacy for transgender and LGBTQ+ ideology, the mutilation of children and far worse. Socially their policies became increasingly toxic and ridiculous.
As they descended this spiral, Democrats became increasingly dangerous – visibly so – and the outcome of their advocacy was not in alignment with anything resembling ‘domestic tranquility’. None of this is questioned by serious people who have watched the last 18 years unfold. The leftist ideology is abusive in the extreme.
As the left pushed further and further into their created system of social madness, violence and evil enterprise, they lost support and MAGA Republicans were beneficiaries.
Those who have been abused by decades of toxic enterprise have been triggered to action by the killing of Charlie.
The toxic leftists who cheered the Marxist and abusive social constructs are being confronted. Their cheers in the aftermath of Charlies death are fueling a massive retribution from a righteously angered crowd.
The radical leftists are now being identified, isolated, ridiculed and marginalized. The Alinsky tactics of the abusers are being turned against them by the abused.
Thousands have lost their jobs; high profile leftists like Jimmy Kimmel have suffered righteous backlash. The toxic voices of the evildoers are now receiving consequences.
Evil killed Charlie, and Goodness is fighting back.
The American Christian culture has surged to the front of the battle lines, and has pierced the darkness.
Josephine
September 22, 2025 at 12:52 pm
Great article. Thank you for bringing the true Kirk out in the open. Not the rose colored glass one that MAGA is worshipping.
Guy
September 28, 2025 at 8:15 pm
Lisa Von Ahn You sure do know how to make an entrance. Spewing lies and hate it seems has been the strategy of the Left for a long time. I believe with the lies you could be right up there with your cohorts Adam Schiff and James Comey. Congrats !
Scott
September 29, 2025 at 11:39 am
Another left wing extremist spewing lies upon lies! The left wing party of hate and violence is at it again. Another one who likes to take partial quotes instead of the full truth. What a joke of an article, Lisa seems like another one of these blue haired people who can’t even tell you what a woman is!!!