Gunshot at the end of reason

Vigorous debate is the lifeblood of a free, co-operative society. A gunshot ended it. A widow weeps for her husband, young children for their father, and a nation for itself.

I have seen Charlie Kirk speaking. He was abrasive but respectful, never abusive. Lazy assertions made on one side were met with reason and fact on the other. Assumptions fall. Worldviews are show to be built on nothing. What the activist mind reads in a book has no more authority that the empty words of the author, unless backed by fact and experience, and reason.

“Prove me wrong” was the title to his campus shows. He had to hear his opponents to be able answer them, and they would then have to hear him. His shocking observations were annoyingly backed by hard fact and statistics, which have an underexplored story behind them. That needs more discussion, not an embarrassed mumble and change of subject.

The response to Kirk’s rebuttal should be a considered review of the logic, and a counter-argument. Typically we would see, if from a minority, a scream. Kirk did not scream – he could be forceful, but with logical words. A scream is the very opposite – it is an abandonment of logic, reason, of humanity itself.

Pride, subjecteth a man to Anger, the excesse whereof, is the Madnesse called RAGE, and FURY. And thus it comes to passe that excessive desire of Revenge, when it becomes habituall, hurteth the organs, and becomes Rage: That excessive love, with jealousie, becomes also Rage: Excessive opinion of a mans own selfe, for divine inspiration, for wisdome, learning, forme, and the like, becomes Distraction, and Giddinesse: the same, joyned with Envy, Rage: Vehement opinion of the truth of any thing, contradicted by others, Rage.

The scream is to drown out the speaker. You may think it is so he cannot convince others, but more than that – it is to drown out your own mind, so you cannot hear yourself realising your errors, casting down your worldview and all you have built your mistaken mind upon.

“Prove me wrong” he said, and they could not, so they screamed. The ultimate scream in Orem, Utah was a gunshot.