I knew Charlie Kirk. In fact, I was proud to be one of his founding donors when he launched Turning Point in 2012. I first met Charlie when he was a senior in high school, and he was already a dynamic, energetic, and focused young man, and none of his earliest supporters were surprised by the success of the organization he built. His oratorical and organizational skills were something to behold, and his talent for persuasion is self-evident in the way in which he grew Turing Point USA from a small, rag-tag team of conservative-thinking college students into a polished, dynamic organization that would help sway presidential elections. Indeed, Charlie and I once stood on a stage together introducing President Donald Trump.
I first met Charlie when he was seventeen or eighteen. He is a friend who died much too young at age thirty-one. Charlie leaves behind a loving wife, Erika, a 3-year-old daughter, and 1-year-old son…all of whom he loved dearly, and who will now grow up without their father’s guiding hand.
If he died in a car accident, it would be a tragedy…but he didn’t. He died at the hand of a political assassin. And that doesn’t make it a tragedy, it makes it an outrage.
The craven political violence that flows routinely from the Left (and occasionally from the right) has got to stop. Now! Way too many in the leadership of the political Left (and their many advocates in the Democrat Party) sanction political violence, which they justify by claiming allegiance to a higher moral cause. Doubt me? Healthcare executive Brian Thompson was stalked and gunned down in cold blood by Luigi Mangione in NYC simply because Mangione believed he was performing a noble, dutiful public service on behalf of his Marxist-leftist ideology. Who says so? Mangione himself, for one thing. But also, so do the twisted leftists who created an off-Broadway musical called “Luigi: The Musical” which is now selling-out in theaters around the globe. Here’s the promotion its producers used for the production: “Experience the dramatic and possibly true story of Luigi’s journey through his journey of despair and redemption with the most unlikely of cellmates.” By all means, let’s be sure to send a message to other radical left-wing Americans that, “yes, violence pays.” There’s a widow and fatherless children left behind? No problem, it’s in service to a higher political cause! Twice recently, people tried to shoot the current President of the United States! Are we to accept the would-be assassins’ claims that they were doing it for the greater good to achieve justice and Utopia on earth?
The problem is simple: Radical leftist Democrats and extremists on both sides feel impervious to the law…because they believe the ends justifies the means. They believe their ideology is a higher moral calling that validates their actions. Do you know who else believed this way? Vladimir Lenin and his murderous thugs of the Communist Revolution.
Well, I would like to send a different message: It is time we establish federal prosecution and a mandatory death penalty for first-degree murder committed against any American citizen.
If I served in Congress today, I would propose legislation putting new teeth into the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution which prohibits the states from depriving “any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
The value of your life should not differ depending on the state where you live or happen to be visiting. But the unfortunate reality is, it does. To be sure, if you are visiting a “blue” city, an innocent life is almost certainly less valuable than it is in visiting a “red” town in Collier or Lee County. Don’t think so? Take a walk some night with your family down 5tth Street in Naples or the River District in Ft. Myers. Then take a stroll with your family through Washington Park in South Chicago, and tell me where your lives feel more valued.
Since the right to life is the most fundamental guarantee of our Constitution, I will work with like-minded legislators to make first-degree murder a felony prosecutable by the federal government that is attachable in any and all cases also being prosecuted under state law. It is our federal Constitution that guarantees EVERY American the right to life…not just Americans living in certain states which may or may not choose to protect the lives of American citizens with equal zeal.
Thanks to the wisdom and values of our Founding Fathers, in America all life matters. Not just lives that happen to subscribe to your own particular political perspective.
I believe this could be a good start to a more comprehensive fix needed to end murder as a means of political dialogue in America!
Charlie, should I get elected, this one’s for you, buddy.
