The Morning Rant: Minimalist Edition

24 years ago our relaxed post-cold-war, end-of-history world changed.

But did it? Or was it that our perspective had become so relaxed that we lost sight of the reality of the human condition, and the even more brutal reality that there were, are, and always will be forces aligned against the best and highest expression of our humanity.

Part of the problem is that we have also lost sight of what that humanity is, and have lost sight of the true face of those who are allied against that humanity.

Our founders knew very well what that humanity is, and knew that without a robust structure protecting it, we would lose it. Our glorious Constitution gave us that structure, and the Bill Of Rights codified the rights that must be protected.

But the true face of those who would destroy our humanity is difficult to discern in a world that carefully rejects clear morality, and much prefers the murky and unstructured view that we are all able to create a moral and ethical structure out of whole cloth.

We can't. There is evil in this world, and no amount of obfuscation and moral relativism can hide that. Islam is evil, and its single-minded purpose is the destruction of exactly what makes us human. And those who would subvert the essence of what makes us unique are also evil. Celebrating transsexualism, stealing our free speech, destroying the family, making love of God a nasty punchline, killing the most innocent among us... all of this and more conspires to steal our individualism and make us just cogs in their infernal machine.

Because evil will never rest, and will do whatever it takes to destroy those who love and respect humanity, we must be vigilant forever.

And there are those among us who are more than vigilant. We are blessed with people who not only are aware of the evil around us, but also join the fight against it.

There was no one in the world who fought harder and better against the encroaching evil than Charlie Kirk. Not with his fists, but with his intellect and wits and love of humanity.

Charlie Kirk was our Happy Warrior!

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he

That every man in arms should wish to be?

--It is the generous Spirit, who, when brought

Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought

Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought:

Whose high endeavours are an inward light

That makes the path before him always bright;

Who, with a natural instinct to discern

What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn;

Abides by this resolve, and stops not there,

But makes his moral being his prime care;

Who, doomed to go in company with Pain,

And Fear, and Bloodshed, miserable train!

Turns his necessity to glorious gain;

In face of these doth exercise a power

Which is our human nature's highest dower

The arrant nonsense spewed by evil that Charlie Kirk was a racist and a Nazi and a White Supremacist and hated gays doesn't survive a cursory examination of his work. His skill at refuting evil while still able to smile and love was astonishing, and it is all the more impressive when one appreciates the vitriol that was heaped on him everywhere he went. But he kept doing it, and he made a real difference.

When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group.

What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have reasonable disagreement -- where violence is not an option.

The question before us today is whether the evil that is arrayed against humanity can be combated with talking. Some of it? Certainly? But when it crosses into violence, what should good people do?

posted by CBD at 11:00 AM

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