When I heard about the assassination of Charlie Kirk and how so many young Americans were upset at his loss I wondered. I had never heard of Charlie Kirk. And yet I read that millions of Americans were grieving and sharing an outpouring of their feelings on the Internet.
I soon learned he was a young conservative Christian leader who had visited many college campuses to share his ideas with students. Just 31 years of age, he had become a spiritual and political inspiration to millions of young Americans in an organization he had started called Turning Point USA.
He encouraged young conservatives, many who said they had felt isolated in classrooms taught by liberal educators and unable to express their ideas and opinions.
Wanting to understand more about this situation, my husband and I asked our 15-year-old grandson, William, if he had known Charlie Kirk. We discovered he had not only been following him on his daily “podcast” since 2020, but he had been devastated by his assassination.
He emailed us this note:
“Hey grandad and grandmother,
“Hope you’re doing well. Charlie Kirk’s death for me was a tragedy. I had been following him on social media since 2020. I first saw him debating some kids at a college, and ever since then I was interested and influenced by him. I’ve been following him since and it was one of the saddest and most tragic experiences I’ve been through. It made me open my eyes to the fact that we don’t really live in a safe world, especially when speaking our opinion.
“Thanks, William.”
This note stunned me. I attended Ohio public schools and later a private women’s college along with public colleges and universities in Virginia and later Oxford University in England. I was aware that most of my teachers and professors were liberal (or socialist) but I never once felt I could not express my opinion.
I am concerned, not just for my own grandson, who is now fearful of expressing his opinions, but also for our society in general. Is this America? Pinch me, I must be having a nightmare.
Has this nation, through extreme polarization, shut down free expression and open discussion of ideas in our classrooms? If so, this trend must stop. America was founded on freedom of expression and has served as a beacon of light to the world that ever blinks the message that free people have the right to say what we think and that no force on earth can shut down open discourse.
So, I answered his note:
“Dear William,
“I was moved by your email about how you felt about the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Thank you for sharing your feelings as Granddad and I did not know the man, nor what he meant to your generation. Now we do.
“As someone who has written opinion in a small rural newspaper in Virginia for over 40 years, I know something about writing opinion. I can understand your fear and concern about expressing opinion.
“Expressing opinion is always risky, but I have noticed it is becoming more so in today’s polarized and growingly intolerant world. This is particularly sad because tolerance is what we as human beings should strive for as we grow from childhood into adults.
“I have seen, especially in this last presidential election, how intolerant many Americans have become. The concept of Loyal Opposition, a tradition our society has known in the past between the two major political parties, has almost entirely disappeared.
“It has become risky to opine for those in the world of business, government and education as one today can be fired for saying what one thinks. This is because of a condition I call ‘small mind-i-tus’ (Which is a myopic brain that can only see one side of an issue…a condition that is a growing problem in our country!)
“I’ve had my share of intolerance in personal hate calls or notes, (one man called me the devil acting on earth for my position that VMI should be open to qualified women) but never a death threat.
“Yet, a man tried to strangle me in a rage one evening at a cocktail party, so furious he was about my opinion that week in my column in the Sentinel. (Fortunately, he was able to contain his fury and released his grip from around my neck before I dropped to the floor!)
“But freedom of expression is a tenet that America was built on, among many other basic human rights, and we must never cower to those that do not respect such rights.
“I encourage you, William, to express opinion but always with tolerance for others as they have the same right as you have to their own opinions and they deserve the same respect.
“Here’s how I dealt with a left-wing professor at the College of William and Mary in a History of Mexico course. It was taught from a socialist’s perspective.
“That in itself was fine. But the one question on the final exam was to trace the history of Mexico as the struggle for a final triumph of socialist government.
“That wasn’t OK. She was asking her students to dish out exactly what she had dished out to us. That’s not education, William.
“I told her I did not see Mexican history as a struggle to achieve socialism. I told her my interpretation of Mexican history was the long and tragic struggle for the individual to achieve freedom from government in the pursuit of his own definition of happiness.
“She frowned. Finally, she agreed I was free to tackle the exam with that slant but the highest grade I could receive from her would be a ‘B.’ If I wanted to earn an A, I had to give her the correct answer … (which was her interpretation of Mexican history!)
“Most students would have taken the A and moved on. Not your grandmother! She wrote a defense of her interpretation, took the B and was proud of it! She believes the purpose of education is to be exposed to facts and ideas but to always do your own thinking and come up with your own conclusions.
“Yet sometimes we have to keep opinions to ourselves to earn various rewards in life not to mention to keep a job! I understand that. But I also believe in the adage ‘to thine own self be true.’
“I also believe in the ‘Golden Rule.’ Do onto others as you would like them to do to you. I think one can live a successful life with a blend of both axioms.
“If you are a conservative Christian like Charlie Kirk was, William, then hold on to your beliefs. But remember to be tolerant of those who have different beliefs for we as Americans all hold not only the right to express our differing beliefs, but also to receive respect for our differing beliefs.
“I am sorry you have suffered such a shocking jolt in losing your friend and guiding light in Charlie Kirk. But his ideas live on. Remember that.
“I love you, Grandmother.”
