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The past few days have been deeply unsettling. The assassination of Charlie Kirk, gunned down while addressing young Americans on a Utah college campus, was horrifying.
It seems clear that Charlie was targeted for his beliefs, which he expressed with remarkable clarity and conviction.
Over the past decade, Charlie Kirk emerged as one of a number of new conservative communicators who mastered digital media to connect with younger audiences who found traditional conservatism uninspiring.
Bold yet civil, Kirk fearlessly shared his views and welcomed open debate with those who disagreed. Tragically, it was during one such exchange that he was murdered.
The bleakness of the past few days has been amplified by a rush to vilify those on the “other” side. Where does this appetite for indignation that makes us want to always assume the worst about others come from? It risks driving us towards disaster.
Most liberals and progressives I know are as horrified about the events of the past week as my conservative friends. Yet, I fear that too many Americans have elevated politics to be a sort of substitute religion. It has become a belief system through which they try to make sense of the world. It won’t work.
When politics becomes your religion, you view those who share your beliefs as inherently good and those who don’t as inherently bad. This Manichean mindset erodes respect for differing opinions and abandons civility. Once you start to use your social media feed as the moral yardstick by which you judge the actions of others, you enter a world without redemption. It will be hell.
As a conservative think tank, the Mississippi Center for Public Policy relentlessly pursues practical solutions like eliminating income tax, cutting red tape, and expanding school choice to improve our state.
But what value do these victories hold if the next generation of Americans is indoctrinated with extreme ideologies? What good is tax reform today if young people are taught to see their country as irreparably beyond redemption; that only the darker parts of our history are to define us, and not the ideals of freedom that the Founders clung to?
Charlie Kirk understood the importance of teaching young Americans the principles that made the nation great. Through Turning Point USA, he educated students on freedom, free markets, and limited government.
We need to stand firm in our advocacy for these principles. Respectful but absolutely resolute.
Four years ago, we began the Mississippi Leadership Academy precisely because we recognized that shaping young hearts and minds is just as vital as pursuing legislative reform.
Our Mississippi Leadership Academy, which starts next week, is a two-part program designed to equip students with the skills and knowledge to become effective change agents in our state, ready to defend American principles and free markets. After this week’s events, the need for the Leadership Academy seems more urgent than ever.
It’s also why we run our Speaker Series, bringing leading advocates for liberty, such as Douglas Murray and Corey De Angelis to our state.
In the wake of this week’s tragedy, it’s understandable that some friends have felt despair. Two hundred forty-nine years after America’s founding, some may wonder, is this where our nation stands?
So let me say this as an immigrant that came late to your country; the United States is an extraordinary nation—the greatest republic in human history. America will remain great, able to overcome every challenge, as long as you hold fast to the founding principles and freedoms that built this nation.
Now more than ever, our mission must be to pass those principles on to the next generation.
Douglas Carswell is the President and CEO of the Mississippi Center for Public Policy and former member of British Parliament.
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