The Murder of Charlie Kirk and the Left’s Delusions

Before Charlie Kirk’s appearance at Utah Valley University, where he was murdered last week, a Change.org petition, “Stop Charlie Kirk From Spreading Hate on Utah Campuses,” was circulating online. It stated that Kirk’s presence on campus would threaten the “inclusive, respectful environment that our campuses are supposed to represent,” and that schools have a “responsibility to protect students from harassment, hostility, and the legitimization of hate under the banner of ‘debate.’” One commenter expressed his disappointment in UVU’s president “for giving a platform to a man who attacks the rights of women, LGBTQ, people of color, and other marginalized Americans.”

These claims are delusional, Heather Mac Donald writes. “There have been few more pampered and richly endowed individuals than early twenty-first century American students,” she notes. “Yet they are encouraged to think of themselves as ‘unsafe’ by the very adults who should be leading them toward a grounded understanding of reality.”

Indeed, Kirk never spread hate—he expressed disagreement through debate, and he invited those who attended his lectures to challenge his views. “Far from being a ‘hater,’” Mac Donald observes, “Kirk was the sunniest personality on the MAGA right—buoyant, optimistic, and eager to engage with those who hated him.”

Read her take on Kirk’s death and the Left’s views of violence.

Last month, Robin Westman fired more than 100 rounds through the windows of Annunciation Catholic Church in Minneapolis, leaving two children dead and several people injured.

The anti-Catholic nature of the attack should be obvious, Christopher Rufo and Ryan Thorpe write. Westman had a photo of Christ on a paper target in his room and an upside-down cross on his weaponry. And new photos reveal bullet holes, which likely came from his gun, in a statue of the Holy Family outside the church.

Transgender ideology likely played a role, too, given Westman’s writings expressing regret about being brainwashed by the trans movement.

And yet, media outlets “wasted little time muddying the waters,” Rufo and Thorpe write. Read more from their reporting on the shooting.

The murder of Iryna Zarutska on a light-rail train in Charlotte, North Carolina last month has reignited debate over crime. It’s a worthy debate in New York City, too, where residents are fearful of taking public transit thanks to a tripling of subway assaults since 2009.

“New York needs zero tolerance for all subway crimes,” Elliott R. Hamilton writes. “That means that the city’s district attorneys must resume prosecutions for turnstile jumping.” Indeed, nearly 25 percent of violent subway offenders had been arrested for farebeating in the past six years.

Read more about how enforcing fare-evasion laws could help make the city’s trains and buses safer.

Artificial intelligence is transforming the job-hunting process. Because AI makes it easier for companies to post openings and for job-seekers to apply, “it has become harder to know who is genuinely looking to hire and who is seriously looking for work,” Will Rinehart writes. And applicants have to get more creative to stand out, like highlighting certain projects or relying on industry connections.

“AI could drive market segmentation and create a bifurcated system in which job postings mediated by LLMs are high-volume and algorithmic,” Rinehart argues, “while those mediated by humans are relationship-based. Each segment would develop distinct wage and employment dynamics.”

Read more about how AI could change the labor market.

In his memoir, Hard Lessons From The Hurt Business: Boxing and the Art of Life, retired boxer Ed Latimore writes about growing up in poverty and battling addiction. “In one of the book’s most harrowing passages, he describes witnessing the aftermath of his mother’s boyfriend beating his two-and-a-half-year-old sister with a metal coat hanger,” Rob Henderson writes. “These scenes are not presented for shock value. They are meant to show the environment that shaped him.”

Read Henderson’s review.

“Of course it’s inefficient. Look what’s running it.

I spent 12 years in Manhattan and Bronx Catholic schools and we never had dysfunction like the public school system has.”

Photo credit: PHILL MAGAKOE / Contributor / AFP via Getty Images