Charlie Kirk is emblematic of one of the things that is great about our country.  Endowed by our Creator, we have freedom of speech.  The First Amendment in our Bill of Rights enshrines this.  Within bounds, we can express our own opinion, argue, and debate.  Most importantly, we are free to say unpopular things so long as there’s no incitement to violence or willful defamation.

Charlie used freedom of speech to enlighten, educate, argue, and persuade.  He chose a debate format, offering people with ideological differences a chance to give their own perspectives.  If you count winning by hearts and minds, there was a clear champion over time of the debates.  And, that champion was gathering strength and gaining ground.  This is what terrified atheists and progressives most.  The latter’s worldview has a stranglehold based on conformity, consensus, and ideological purity couching no challenge or dissent.

Calls have been renewed for progressive fascists to renounce political violence and violent rhetoric.  This would leave progressives embracing just the socialist component of fascism.  Establishing such a limit on themselves, they would have to settle for progressive socialism.  This presents a vulnerability to ever louder calls to debate differences instead of resolving them with coercion, intimidation, and violence.

Why can’t progressive fascists debate?  The answer is that, decades ago, progressives lost all the arguments on their merits.

How can Democrats defend socialism when it has impoverished and tyrannized citizens everywhere and every time it’s been tried?  Won’t capitalism have to be recognized as the only economic system in mankind’s history capable of elevating people out of poverty and increasing liberty?

How will progressives justify regulation of every personal and corporate action?  How will they oppose implementing only necessary, affordable, and beneficial regulations?

When libertarians opine the money you have earned legitimately is yours, what argument will advance the idea that all money belongs to the government from whence it is allocated to the people?  How will leftists advocate for confiscatory taxes instead of low tax rates?

Will advocacy for open borders sound more compelling than having only legal immigration that serves our country’s interests?

Progressive fascists crave social justice even though it brings violence and anarchy.  How will this stack up against citizens’ desire to live in safety in their neighborhoods applying criminal justice?

Where are the arguments from progressives in either party supporting Ever Bigger Government?  Won’t minimalist government appear more compelling on the merits?

Do most citizens appreciate our Constitution anchoring rights of individuals, or do they prefer an untethered, living document with only contingent rights?

Will authoritarian arguments for freedom only within narrowly specified bounds sound better than freedom of everything as long as it’s not specifically forbidden?

Will Marxists convince listeners that words are violence, or will freedom of speech be cherished even if the opinions expressed are unpopular or disfavored?

What new arguments will be made that welfare should be open-ended, and there should be no workfare by able-bodied individuals?

How will consumers be convinced that higher cost, unreliable wind and solar energy with blackouts and brownouts is preferable to lower cost, abundant energy?

Is the U.S. an immoral and degenerate country led by, and populated with, irredeemably racist and unremittingly oppressive people?  Or, will more people be persuaded these United States represent the best nation on earth, and things keep getting better over time?

Will Democrats argue Western Civilization is evil in all respects?  What response will be given to evidence presented that Western Civilization is the best that’s ever been?

Apostate Christians and atheists have found their home in the Democrat party.  Will that party now plainly advocate for their worldview, knowing there’s only this life with the highest goals of hedonism or a struggle to build utopia?  What will be the rebuttal to the Christian worldview that best perceives, understands, and explains reality?

When does life begin?  If it’s not a tomato or a squirrel, what is that newly conceived being?  Is it a human being?  When should new individual human life be protected?  Christians and conservatives have ready answers.  What responses can be given by atheists and progressives that won’t evoke horror and revulsion in many?

Over decades, our culture rejected Christian roots and influence.  We progressed to modernism in our post-Christian time.  Progressivism knowing no limits, modernism has been rejected for a post-reality vision.  Nevertheless, science and facts are useful for describing reality. So, what is the compelling argument by progressives for a reality defined only by imagination and unburdened by what is sensed? That reality is just what political elites say it is today?

Is the grooming of children for sterilization and sexual mutilation going to be defended outright by Marxist cultural theorists?  Won’t conservative advocacy maintaining the innocence of children for as long as possible be received more favorably?  How will arguments go for holding accountable enablers and practitioners when inevitable buyer’s remorse of Frankenstein procedures is expressed?

Will enablers of perverts, predators, pedophiles explicitly be lionized by the left?  Or, is there insurmountable empathy for protection of women and girls in spaces and opportunities?

Are progressive arguments better for group identity and enforced level achievement when compared to those for individualism and exceptionalism?

Will leftist arguments for reparations based on ancestral offenses win the day along with the idea of inexorable systemic racism?  Rather, shouldn’t people, all made in the image of God, be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin?

Everyone’s for equality.  But, is this forced equality of outcomes?  Or, will there be recognition that individual differences means there will always be inequalities of outcomes absent coercion. Aren’t arguments more attractive for equality of opportunities?

For decades, progressives in both political parties have put American interests last in economics and foreign affairs.  Is this defensible?  Contemporary arguments advocate for putting American interests first.  We can’t go in both directions.  Which is most appealing?

World government is the gold ring for many progressive fascists.  Incremental progress has been made over time with innumerable multilateral engagements.  Can these be defended against arguments for only bilateral relationships that best serve our country’s interests?

If progressives can’t win any debate on the merits, then they won’t participate.  It suggests speeches, arguments, and debates should still be used by Christians, conservatives, and libertarians for the purpose of awakening some of the woke.  This will work and be effective so long as freedom of speech endures.  But, the primary goal of progressive fascists will be to re-impose censorship and hollow out freedom of speech.  Censorship will be expanded greatly in scope along the lines of what was implemented in the great trial run during the COVID-19 tyranny.  If progressives can’t win a debate, then there should be no debate.  In the immortal words of Anthony Fauci, “Just do as you’re told.”

It doesn’t bode well for our country when one of the two major political parties disdains virtues and eschews traditional and normal values.  With or without any debate, the progressive fascist grip on the Democratic Party means their pernicious ideas are being mainstreamed. In memory of Charlie Kirk, let us resist those ideas and vanquish them, in debate, winning hearts and minds one by one.

Whitson G. Waldo, III is a capitalist, a venture capitalist, and master and skipper of a 43 foot monohull sloop-rigged sailing vessel.

Image from Grok.