It is a sick culture that celebrates when opponents are silenced

I had never heard of Charlie Kirk until he was dead. I have no real regrets about that; I wouldn’t normally seek out the views of a far-right, gun-supporting, Bible-bashing Christian fundamentalist American whose world view might not add any particular value to my own. But I now feel duty bound as a lily-livered liberal to defend his right to express the views he held without being shot dead for them. 

I also feel some moral obligation to correct the record in the face of such intellectually bereft attempts to besmirch him by what he never said rather than what he actually did (which was often bad enough without any need for embellishment) and by people that I would normally recognise as sharing my creed. Because what has happened in the aftermath of the Kirk assassination talks to a much wider wound in society whereby a whole swathe of people are simply unable or ill-equipped to deal with a conflict of opinions but who, ironically, lean towards physical violence as a retort. 

And as someone whose whole life is wrapped up in words, power of debate and the ability to change minds with rational argument, it sticks in my craw that it is freedom of speech that is on trial here.

Once we liberals were the kind ones...but now, I see so-called progressives blinded by their own ideological entitlement, who have been fed the hogwash that words are literally violence, and they react to disagreement with fury.

I have no doubts that I would disagree with most of what Kirk advocated and so this is by no means an attempt to lionise him or his views but a death like this helps to crystallise some of the unease I have certainly felt over recent years as my own words and those of others whom I respect have been distorted, disregarded and weaponised and then used to justify hate.

Too often these days, when questioned about what it is that someone finds abhorrent about another person’s views, you will find they haven’t actually read them or heard them first-hand but are just parroting the assessment made by others, inevitably on social media. And that unavoidably  leads to a deadly game of Chinese Whispers.

Within minutes of Kirk’s assassination, there was an unseemly celebration on X (formerly Twitter) at the slaying of a young father that many saw as their arch enemy for simply disagreeing. He was reviled as a bigot, a racist and a fascist who fully deserved to be shot. The comments on the apparently much kinder social media site Bluesky were equally  grotesque. And even among my own circle, there was always a ‘but’ used to justify a slaying. Foul stories were repeated as fact and later followed by mealy-mouthed apologies when the lies were exposed but the damage had been done. There were others who posted shocking, real-time videos of the blood pouring from the bullet wound in Kirk’s neck as he fell backwards and died. 

That is not just inhumane. It is the normalisation of violence against those who dare to think differently. And a culture that celebrates when opponents are silenced by brute force is a tyrannical one that should not be revered.

At the crux of this is our belief in the right to freedom of speech and who gets to use it. And the reality is that as long as we hold dear to that democratically agreed principle, then the risk it carries is that it will always be closely accompanied by hateful propaganda, bad actors, and disinformation. And even if you could restrict the most incendiary of oratory, there will always be unhinged individuals who will gravitate toward violence to hammer home their point and there will be those waiting in the wings to facilitate, capitalise on, and inflame situations. There is no law against gullibility and wile to suit determined agendas.

And while I would not have the temerity to liken the threats I have suffered because of my belief that sex is immutable to what has happened to Kirk, I have never known such fear for my safety as I have over the last seven or so years because of the words I write. 

A culture that seeks to repress dissent and silence debate is the culture that bred the killer of Charlie Kirk. A culture willing to stand by while women are threatened by men in balaclavas is the culture that fans the flames of misogyny and legitimises violence against women. A culture that attempts to censor divergence of opinion or stifle critical thinking is the culture that celebrates ignorance.

And Scotland is not immune. Nicola Sturgeon recently said that Scotland had “lost its collective mind over trans issues” when what she meant is that there are people that disagree with her that men can self-identify as being women. She glibly proclaims that the rights of women and the rights of trans people are not in conflict but has never engaged with the substance of that argument. And she brands those that disagree with her diktat as racists, bigots and homophobes. The former first minister mourns the rise of the far right but doesn’t see her culpability in fostering an environment of intolerance on the so-called progressive left that validates hate and pits the women who wouldn’t wheesht as the enemies of the state.

Once we liberals were the kind ones, the tribe that could argue their corner, disagree agreeably and enthusiastically embrace debate with a degree of empathy and forgiveness. But now, I see so-called progressives blinded by their own ideological entitlement, who have been fed the hogwash that words are literally violence, and they react to disagreement with fury.

As I have learnt in his death, Charlie Kirk was provocative, he said things that I do find stomach-churning, he held views in the name of God that even with that holy endorsement, I would find hard to justify. But he did not deserve to die, and he does not deserve to have his views now distorted to fit a progressive agenda whereby opinions that differ from your own are an assault and where murder can be justified.