Debate, not violence, will lead us forward

Wednesday afternoons are a busy time here in the newsroom, as we work to put together the Thursday paper in time to get on the press by the end of the day.

But the reports on the tragic assassination of young conservative activist Charlie Kirk still caught our attention and made us stop and reflect, digest the awful news, and think of his poor family. 

Before long I was receiving press releases from our Washington delegation and state leaders expressing condolences for the loss of Kirk, whose Turning Point USA, helped initially by the late Foster Friess, a former Wyoming gubernatorial candidate, was built around growing a conservative movement amongst college students, which is why he was at a college campus in Utah when he was shot and killed. 

Four months prior Kirk was at a similar function at the University of Wyoming, and President Ed Seidel also released a statement expressing his sadness. 

Since then it’s been a time for prayerful reflection, made heavier as I write these words on Thursday, the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks that shaped the world as we know it and led to the deaths of nearly 3,000 Americans. 

Killing as a way to enact political change, whether as a terrorist attack or a political assassination, is a horrific assault on our freedoms as American citizens. We are a country founded on the belief that we can solve our problems and enact change through our Democratic processes, and that the free exchange of ideas is paramount. Those who are willing to kill someone who shares different opinions are working in direct opposition to the values of our First Amendment. It's not just the government that can dampen free speech. As Founding Father Benjamin Franklin said, “Without freedom of thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as public liberty, without freedom of speech.”

Though our country was founded in the blood of the Revolutionary War and its ties renewed and strengthened in the four-year slaughter of the Civil War, I hope most people still believe in the foundations of our constitutional republic to be able to improve our lives. 

Resorting to violence shows a lack of faith in the foundations of our republic and the will of this country to change for the better. I hope we can maintain that faith despite seeing the latest in a string of recent assassination attempts and assassinations strike down a young husband and father who, whether you agreed with him or not, devoted himself to sitting down with those who disagreed with him and engaging in a reasonable debate. 

Debate, not murder, is the true recourse to improving our country.