As a lot of people like to say these days, ‘free speech’ does not mean ‘free from consequences’. However, I don’t think getting killed should be one of those consequences. While I’m of the opinion that these people who like to challenge their detractors to debates are doing it more as a performance and less as serious discourse, there’s no just reason for Charlie Kirk and his family to have suffered the fate that he did.
I watched that footage of Charlie Kirk getting shot in the neck while fielding questions from an audience around a dozen times. Perhaps it’s self-evident that no one should be killed simply for what they say and believe, but that’s my opinion. However, while the content of that speech and whoever actually listens to it still matters, this shouldn’t be the result of that.
This is not a celebration of his death, or even a wagging of the finger at people who agree with him. Let’s stick with what he represented throughout his life.
Charlie Kirk
There’s a good number of prominent right-wing social commentators like Ben Shapiro, Tucker Carlson, Steven Crowder, Nick Fuentes, and Fox News broadcasters past and present. Out of all of them, Charlie Kirk (1993-2025) stood out for how hard he went for it. Even compared to Ben Shapiro, he was seemingly more brazen and gung-ho with how he debated with the public.
Perhaps that was what led him to his end, but it’s no good that he had to be killed for just speaking. Even if you don’t agree with the opinions he expressed, no matter how vile they were, violence shouldn’t have been his judge, jury, and executioner.
He made the following statements throughout his active life:
- Gay people should be stoned to death
- Most people are scared when they see a black pilot flying a plane
- Taylor Swift should reject feminism and submit to her husband
- No one should be allowed to retire
- Leftists should not be allowed to move to red states
- British Colonialism was what “made the world decent”
- The guy who assaulted the Pelosi’s should be bailed out
- Religious freedom should be terminated
- Multiple black politicians “stole white people’s spots”
- MLK Jr was “an awful person”
- The Great Replacement Theory is reality
- Hydroxychloroquine cures COVID
- Vaccine requirements are “medical apartheid”
- Gun deaths are acceptable in order to have a 2nd amendment
- Women’s natural place is under their husband’s control
- Parents should prevent their daughters from taking birth control
- George Floyd had it coming, the Jan 6th protestors didn’t
- The 1964 Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake”
- Encouraged parents to protest mask mandates
- Mamdani winning in NY is a travesty because Muslims did 9/11
- Muslims only come to America to destabilize Western Civilization
- Palestine “doesn’t exist” and those who support it are like the KKK.
This list is viral at the moment; I copy-pasted it from a Reddit thread. Despite how dubious it may seem, I was able to find clips, articles, and snippets of him stating these opinions on Twitter/X. I personally am neutral with some of them since I’m not American, but the ones that do concern me are in bold.
The ones without links don’t have sources I can immediately find with a search, but they’re close to other things that he had been confirmed to have said.
However, he is not alone in his beliefs. I’ve been digging into the political rabbit hole since the COVID-19 lockdowns, and I’ve become familiar with his ilk. Suffice to say, they may have what you may see as ‘outdated’ opinions, but the people are not outdated — they’ve evolved in their own way. It seems like they’re going forward by looking backwards.
The Dark Enlightenment
The Dark Enlightenment is an enigmatic label for a pro-authoritarian, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, and reactionary conservative movement which goes against the values of the Age of Enlightenment. While that makes it sound like they’re being contrarian for the sake of being contrarian, their arguments may seem rational for people who are frustrated with the lingering problems of the world. They may also happen to be devoutly Christian, flagrantly homophobic, and some may even be vocally pro-gun rights — like Charlie Kirk.
Writing under the pen name of Mencius Moldbug, Curtis Yarvin became known alongside accelerationist philosopher Nick Land for founding the Dark Enlightenment, also known as the neoreactionary movement (NRx) in the late 2000s. I was a fan of Nick Land’s earlier work with the CCRU for how wacky it is, but he has since emerged as a far-right thinker by establishing right-wing accelerationism (r/acc) after getting hooked on amphetamines, suffering a few mental breaks, and moving to China to find a mate and continue his work. He now lives in Shanghai.
Yarvin hides his contempt for modern society in purple prose. The main thesis of his current message is that American democracy is broken and can only be fixed by firing everyone and starting from scratch, with a dictator-like ‘CEO’ taking over. The first step is being undertaken as of this writing through his self-coined acronym of R.A.G.E. — Retire All Government Employees.
It comes as no surprise that Yarvin is pro-Trump.
I’m not saying he alone is responsible for spreading NRx beliefs, but people who vibe with him are some very powerful people — billionaire Peter Thiel, US vice president JD Vance, and (by proxy) Donald Trump himself. Perhaps you can say that Trump may not take to the philosophical side of things, but he’s certainly the one putting NRx thought into action. You can trace Trump’s beliefs to the early 80s, when he was already expressing his opinions on how America should be run.
How NRx is Affecting the World
While I’m no fan of the far-left either, I find the far-right more alarming at the moment since the world has been shifting more and more towards that direction, especially in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Right wing populist movements have been ascending to power throughout the world since 2016, and it seems like we are now in its second phase.
Trump represents a different brand of Republican politics that has overridden ‘traditional’ American conservatism, including the mass deportation of immigrants and other flagrant violations of the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Other countries like Brazil and the Philippines voted in their own populist strongmen such as Jair Bolsonaro and Rodrigo Duterte, who have since stepped down but their influences are still somewhat thriving.
It’s like an Arab Spring for bootlickers. As we speak, Germany has a growing far-right political party, Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), which is also espousing anti-immigration policy and mass deportation, not unlike their main inspiration. While they’re whitewashing fascism to make themselves more acceptable, they’re also slowly unmasking as they gain more power.
Perhaps it can even be labeled as ‘post-racial fascism’, which is why you’re seeing more and more people of color supporting right wing figures. Ironically, fascism’s greatest strength in this day and age is its diversity. They rally behind anti-immigration sentiment as their most viable entry point and are now calling for a return to authoritarianism under a recycled banner of neoconservatism that seemingly adopts beliefs that had previously been seen as obsolete.
For instance, one of its major proponents, Peter Thiel, believes that women shouldn’t be allowed to vote and that the ‘woke religion’ is like an extreme form of Christianity. Thiel also happens to be gay, although he was outed without consent by Gawker in 2007. Thiel helped destroy Gawker by funding Hulk Hogan’s invasion of privacy lawsuit against them.
Basically, what NRx puts forth is that the western liberal values that were pushed during the 20th century may not have been that good of an idea to begin with.
Toxic Empathy
On a related tangent, something I’ve become privy to for the past year is ‘toxic empathy’ — a term being used by American Christian neoconservatives to justify the exclusion and persecution of those they deem unworthy and against the Bible’s teachings.
The book Toxic Empathy: How Progressives Exploit Christian Compassion (2024) by Allie Beth Stuckey is indicative of this thought. Mind you, part of her gist is that empathy is ‘just an emotion’ and how arguments against their stance is merely emotional outburst while theirs are supported by logic, reason, and the Bible.
It’s quite compatible with the anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian stance of NRx.
This looks like an inversion (or bastardization) of Karl Popper’s Paradox of Intolerance. They’re flipping it the other way around by being intolerant of those who do not share their beliefs. However, while Karl Popper meant it to exclude the intolerant in order to maintain a tolerant society, ‘toxic empathy’ is being used to be intolerant towards people who don’t conform to the traditional image of a ‘proper Christian’.
Whether you’re religious or not, you should be able to see how this is a complete betrayal of Jesus’s teachings of love and tolerance. They cite Jesus when it’s convenient, then go back to the Old Testament to justify whatever they wish to do as they please.
As stated in Romans 15:1, “We who are strong ought to bear with the infidelities of the weak and not merely to please ourselves.”
According to scripture, what they’re doing right now is opposite of what they’re expected to do.
They Now Have a Martyr
It’s not even about the principle of the matter. We can look at it pragmatically and realize that what happened would not be good for everyone.
Killing Charlie Kirk was a mistake. NRx has gained a martyr that will help galvanize the movement. They can now claim they’re truly being persecuted, and they may do whatever it takes to wage war against the left, progressives, and whoever else they deem as their enemies. It’s like a hundred years ago in post-WWI Germany again, but everyone is speaking English.
And they’re neither poor nor repressed for their biggest proponents are some of the richest and most powerful people in America and the whole world.
I don’t celebrate his death, but I’m not sad either. I can have empathy for his family who are now left fatherless and the unfortunate people who had to witness his death.
However, he was also a man who spent his life preaching the gospel of not showing empathy to those they deem as their enemies — people who may need empathy the most.
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