Widener Library, Harvard University (in full dress for the inauguration of the new university president. (Credit: Joseph Williams)
Guest post by Ken Pittman
Like many millions of others, I learned of the bloody execution of Charlie Kirk soon after it happened at 12:23 pm on September 10th.
I knew of Charlie as a Christian-first conservative American, best known for engaging college campuses for political debate.
For many, he became a national example of how conservatives should engage the other side. Some saw him as an agitator by doing so. Others grew to see him as a horrible,
right-wing fascist who should be stopped by any means.
Soon after Kirk’s assassination, it was clear that at least hundreds of thousands of Americans were eagerly willing to openly ‘spike the football’ and celebrate or taunt those who mourned Kirk’s slaughter either on social media or in person. I found this to be shocking.
They hated Kirk badly enough that his shocking bloodshed, which took his life, wasn’t enough for these depraved masses.
So how did we get here? How are so many mostly young Americans radicalized?
I first watched the established media networks and newspapers formulate their motive for the assassination. It became “clear” to them all, in a suspiciously synchronized way, that the shooter was right-wing and a Trump supporter.
Some lunged toward the theory that the alleged and arraigned shooter, Tyler Robinson, was a “Groyper”, if you never heard of the word, I don’t blame you.
It’s a term which is basically a person belonging to a fringe group of alt-right white nationalists, alleged Nazis, headed by a far-right Illinois man, Nick Fuentes.
The absurd theory by left-wing media was that an ultra-fascist killed a fascist for not being as fascist as the assassin.
Then, once the mainstream media realized that they could not control the narrative, they began to share the information already outed by Utah’s Governor Cox, the FBI, and conservative media, who for days have been sharing the statements by Robinson’s own family, his friends, and his live-in transitioning boyfriend who is said to be cooperating with authorities.
Now, the attempt is to plausibly blame the phenomenon of so many radicalized young Americans, on gaming and online sites and their groups. I’m certain that this should ALSO be looked at very deeply and may share in the causation.
However, I am a licensed private investigator who is chronically slow to get to conclusions. I need solid data, evidence before acknowledging anything as being a fact.
So I started to see a disturbing pattern in our nation in the hours and days after Kirk’s death. I looked in particular at the many ugly and irresponsible comments made by a certain vocational demographic: College Professors.
It’s been no secret that college campuses are dominated by liberal student bodies and faculties. But the inventory of crazed thoughts by so many people in positions to have full access to the minds of our millions and millions of college-age students looking to learn from them prevented me from scratching them off of my list of suspects in my process of elimination to find the etiology behind the violence.
A 2006 study by Professors Neil Gross and Solon Simmons of George Mason University, sampling over 1400 college professors in 912 American higher education institutions, determined that only 9% were conservative politically.
Some regions were worse than others, but one example was my own region here in New England, where professors claiming to be “moderate to liberal” outnumbered conservative professors 28 to 1.
How badly are these mentors poisoning the minds of so many people who were otherwise perceived as having bright futures and “on their way” in life?
I’m not accusing; I’m asking a question. I’m investigating, but so should the federal government.
Where is your evidence?! I’m glad you asked. We can’t prove anything without evidence.
Again, I’m not exonerating these causes pointed to by CNN panelists and others who say it’s the unknown vortex found in gaming sites and online groups on the net and dark net. I believe they may possibly end up being the perpetrator or possibly an accomplice.
But let’s examine the rabbit hole I have chosen for a moment.
There is a lot of hatred for conservatives found on the campus, and it has grown worse.
Liberal or potentially radical professors have the brains of America’s higher-educated youth, class after class, day after day, week after week, semester after semester, year after year.
When a conservative is given a somewhat rare but occasional invitation to speak at a college, what is the norm here? Sudden petitions to stop the event. Protests, threats of violence, riots and now add murder to the behavior.
Except for Kirk’s murder, it’s nothing new and it’s quite tolerated by the college authorities whose silence connotes endorsement in the eyes of this observer.
In February 2016, Ben Shapiro had to be escorted by a large contingent of police to protect him as he was escorted off the campus of California State University, Los Angeles due to the student violence.
In February 2017, Breitbart, a conservative media outlet, sent an editor there after receiving an invitation from conservative students at University of California at Berkeley.
Milo Yiannopoulos appeared on campus, despite death threats and threats of violence. His event was canceled when students shot fireworks at police, broke windows and set a building, cars and barrels on fire.
In November 2022, conservative pundit Ann Coulter was invited to speak at the Ivy League school Cornell but was met with so much hostility by students who promised in flyers passed around before her arrival to “deplatform” her. She spoke for a constantly interrupted seven minutes before being forced to retreat off the stage.
The climate had been worsening. Enter Charlie Kirk.
Not to discount the bravery and steadfast determination of others like Ben Shapiro, for example, but Charlie Kirk brought a different set of skills to all of this. He was an absolute threat. But not the kind of threat that the ginned-up left was being fed.
Charlie’s brand and mind both confounded intellectual academia. He was charming, polite, engaging and unwavering in his demeanor as he expressed an unapologetic ideology, whose message is clearly not allowed on campus if it makes a difference on the college campus. Here, they do not celebrate diversity… of ideas.
He made a difference. A large following of Kirk began by college students and other young Americans to the point where he went from insignificant to extreme relevancy at the speed of light.
Suddenly it was somehow unfair that Charlie Kirk engaged with the minds of a college for a one-time, period of two hours, compared to the thousands of hours of their minds captivated and accessed to the minds of liberal, even marxist professors.
Kirk was no fascist. He was no Nazi. He defined himself as the following: A Christian first. An American second. A Conservative third. A Republican last.
I’m sure there are many nasty groups formed online and in the gaming community predominantly used by young males, but I cannot unsee and unhear the terrible threats for invited, renowned conservatives found on almost any college campus they dare to enter.
Conservatives like Charlie Kirk are now the paramount example of another kind.
It is a great day for too many minds whose conclusions seem not just inaccurate, but also ominously uniform and whose causation may have gone unchecked for too long. Kirk’s death isn’t just an attack on him. It may be a sign of a Stage 4 malignancy of our national education system.
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