Kirk’s views antithetical to many Canadians’ core values

Opinion

While it is normally considered impolite to speak ill of the dead, the Sun report on last Friday’s Charlie Kirk vigil provides an exception. (“Vigil for Charlie Kirk draws about 250,” The Brandon Sun, Sept. 20).

According to the report, Kirk was celebrated by the vigil emcee as “a thinker, a diplomat, an advocate, a builder, but most of all, a believer … in an almighty, loving God …,” and as someone who had the “courage to do the right thing.”

In fact, as even the most casual inspection of his public statements reveals, Kirk was a hate-mongering white supremacist, a demagogue who made a small fortune (roughly US$13 million) peddling outrageous pronouncements that pandered to the fears, frustrations and prejudices of his audience of disaffected youth.

Among other things, Kirk argued that: African-Americans were “better off” in 1940 than they are now; the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed segregation and discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex and national origin in the U.S., was a “huge mistake”; affirmative action programs have facilitated the “stealing” of white people’s spots by “unqualified” minorities, particularly minority women; Martin Luther King was an “awful person”; and George Floyd was a “scumbag” whose murder by police did not merit the attention it received.

Kirk described Islam as a threat to America and claimed that Muslims only come to America in order to destabilize Western civilization. He argued that Palestine “doesn’t exist” and likened those who support it, as Canada, Great Britain and Australia have recently done, to the Ku Klux Klan.

Moreover, he was a proponent of the specious “Great Replacement Theory,” positing that Jews are trying to replace white Americans with nonwhite immigrants. Indeed, Kirk claimed that Jewish philanthropists “largely finance” various so-called “anti-whiteness” campaigns, such as Black Lives Matter, and that they control “not just the colleges — it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.”

Relying on biblical authority, Kirk argued that a woman’s place is under the control of their husbands and that successful women, like Taylor Swift, should reject feminism, submit to their men and focus their life on having children. He stated that parents should prevent their daughters from using birth control, that rape victims should carry every resultant pregnancy to term, that abortion has resulted in a “holocaust” greater than that perpetrated by the Nazis and that most young women enrolled in university are actually pursuing a “Mrs. Degree.”

Similarly, Kirk vigorously opposed the so-called “LGBTQ agenda,” which he considered to be in breach of biblical laws on sexual matters as set forth in the book of Leviticus, suggesting that those who violate these laws should be subject to the punishments set forth in that book.

Kirk was a death penalty advocate, arguing that all executions should be public and televised with children being required to watch. In this context, Kirk went so far as to call for the public execution of Joe Biden.

Finally, and not without irony, Kirk famously remarked: “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

These are some of the “right things” Kirk asked people to have the “courage” to embrace. Fortunately, they are antithetical to the core values espoused by most Canadians.

JOE DOLECKI

Alexander