When There’s Nothing Left to Say

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity."

William Butler Yeats

W.B. Yeats made this observation about Europe after World War I. His words rang with clarity this month as we buried Charlie Kirk, murdered at 31, for the crime of arguing in public.

The loudest voices and deepest intolerances are not arising from average Americans, regardless of their political views. If one is not consumed with rage, they are at home raising their family and going to work. So radical political movements naturally attract the angriest among us, not necessarily the wisest.

Charlie Kirk was unique in that he believed people could be persuaded with reason. Especially young men and women on university campuses. He also believed in Jesus’ promise, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”  He understood that truth came first as a precondition for freedom, and that confusion arose when students assumed freedom to define their own truth was first.

It wasn’t that Kirk had no fear, but that he faced his fear. It wasn’t easy. When was the last time you saw someone change their position during a debate? When was the last time you witnessed someone say, “I was wrong”

What you have heard are vile labels. Labels like nazi, bigot, racist, or sexist, when you communicate common-sense ideas like men playing in women’s sports is unfair, the need for secure borders and an orderly immigration process, or that gender transformation in children carries great risk of emotional and physical harm. It is much easier and safer to remain silent. Most do.

John Henry Newman wrote “The Idea of a University”, in which he imagined institutions where a habit of mind is formed that lasts through life, of which the attributes are freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom. Today, what we see instead is factories of fragility, where students pay $70,000 a year to have their prejudices confirmed and their triggers avoided.

The problem is not that our universities are too political. Aristotle called man a political animal. And we are. The university problem is that they have become factories of indoctrination, especially in the liberal arts. Real politics requires engagement with difference, the ability to coexist alongside those with whom you disagree, and the skills of persuasion rather than coercion.

The cost of expressing one's convictions has become so high that capable principled people retreat from public engagement. We live in a world where it is safer to be silent than to speak, safer to conform than to question, safer to hide than to stand. But that decision to seek shelter in this place comes at a cost.

Perhaps Charlie Kirk died because we have forgotten how to hate properly. G. K Chesterton observed that the true soldier fights, not because he hates what is before him, but because he loves what is behind him. He fights, not out of hatred for his enemies, but love for his fellow soldiers, his family, and his country.

Individuals who respond to ideas different than their own with hateful rhetoric, labels, yelling, contempt, and violence will struggle to identify their own principles beyond platitudes. Most of these people don’t experience peace within their own family, neighborhood, or workplace.  You cannot love something you don’t have. So, they hate what is in front of them. If you believe in nothing greater than your own virtue, the only thing left is to destroy those who challenge that identity.

Charlie Kirk is dead at 31, but the idea he represented, that Americans can argue their way to truth, rather than shoot their way to silence, must not die with him. If we cannot make America safe for arguments again- not just civil arguments, but vigorous, passionate, even angry ones—then we should stop pretending we live in a democracy.

To my younger colleagues, I would say this. You deserve better. Your children deserve better. They deserve what Charlie Kirk tried to give them: a place at the table, a voice in the conversation, and the right to speak without being murdered for it.

It comes at a price. It takes courage to face hostility when standing up for what is right. Your job is not to win the argument, but to make the argument. If you do this with grace, you have already won. But you can’t win if you’re not on the field.

Tim Powell MD