21/09/2025
๐๐๐๐ฎ๐๐๐ถ๐ป๐ฎ๐๐ถ๐ผ๐ป ๐๐ ๐ก๐ผ๐ ๐ฎ๐ป ๐๐ฟ๐ด๐๐บ๐ฒ๐ป๐
Disagreeing with someoneโs politics should never mean signing their death warrant. Charlie Kirk, the outspoken conservative activist behind Turning Point USA, was shot dead during a university event in Utah on September 10. His killing stunned many and pleased others, reigniting a hard question: How far can political anger go before it shreds democracy itself?
Kirk was a deeply polarizing figure. He rejected gun control, spread election-fraud claims, and even ran a โProfessor Watchlistโ that targeted educators. Yet thereโs a bitter irony in his death: the very gun rights he wanted were the ones that ended his life.
But assassination is not justice, and history shows it rarely silences an idea. Research on political violence consistently finds that martyrdom strengthens movements rather than destroys them. From Martin Luther King Jr. to Benigno โNinoyโ Aquino Jr., whose assassination helped spark the Philippine People Power Revolution.
Some critics, however, openly celebrated Kirkโs death, calling it inevitable or even deserved because of his gun-rights advocacy and combative rhetoric. To them, the shooting felt like poetic justice, a man consumed by his own politics.
But what does that say about us as a society? Even in the face of views we despise, cheering a killing betrays our commitment to free speech and basic humanity.
Democracy cannot survive when disagreement ends in death. True freedom lies in resolving conflict without violence, because another Charlie will always emerge, carrying the same ideas under a different face.
The lesson is clear: Fight harmful ideas with stronger arguments, civic education, and public debate, not with bullets. A bullet can stop a man, but it cannot stop a movement. In the end, when we choose calm debate over rage and treat even our opponents with basic respect, disagreements stop feeling like battle lines. In doing so, we keep compassion alive and give democracy a real chance to survive.
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via Dahffnie Abundo | TSS Probie
Cartoon by Ehna Derecho | TSS Probie
