In the fallout of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, what bothers me the most is not that evil intentions and actions have once again broken the heart of America. It’s the continued reporting of false narratives and lies that educates the majority of our citizens via biased social media, newsrooms, and podcasts. When one side says it’s green, the other side defaults to saying it is yellow, and everybody picks up their designated banner and marches forward. We’ve arrived at an intellectual dead-end where we are educated by single sentences, agree without question with what we are told by authoritative figures, engage in one-direction conversation, and restrain from any effort of actual research into the matter at hand.

Both sides of the government and media outlets, while standing for different policies and values, play the same game. It doesn’t matter what side you are on; lying, or spinning the narrative, or omitting key facts, all done to better fit your view, is damaging to the system and country as a whole. Every time this happens, and it happens countless times every day, we fall deeper into fantasy and widen our division.
This is why I’m writing about these things in this season. In the past, I have avoided commentaries on the conservative and liberal clash. There are much smarter men and women than I who are already doing that. My calling has been to provide biblical commentaries and raw testimony that introduce Jesus Christ as our just and merciful savior.

Now, through current events, I can see that my faith and the conservative views I believe in do not stand separate. If the narrative in the media is true, then my belief that abortion is tragic and wrong, or my belief that the traditional family unit is the best-case-scenario of society, or my belief that capitalism provides the greatest opportunity for any individual to succeed by their own ability, will power, and courage, then I am a hateful and bigoted man.

But that isn’t true. Is it? Therefore, I ask, how can conversation and debate about policy, ethics, morals, and truth be considered hateful? And how can approximately half of the American population buy into that claim?

In this social media age, our disregard for truth has spoiled the effectiveness of political argument. Policy disagreements are dishearteningly coined racist. Valuing family over wealth becomes misogynistic. The statement about the ownership of biased media groups is anti-Semitic.

Charlie Kirk is called all of these, and yet, he is none of these. False statements, which continue today and will proceed into tomorrow, are all over social media and are repeated by members of the House and the Senate.

It is my deep desire to stand against false accusations, to rebuke the lazy and dangerous rhetoric that social media promotes, and to encourage everyone to think, research, read, and speak independently of the masses. This is why I have written this series of blog entries. Not to debate conservative policies, but to show that conservative ideas, and Charlie Kirk’s work, his debates, and conversations, are not hateful or bigoted.

There are several words that are being hazardously thrown around to describe Charlie Kirk, and after listening to hours of Kirk’s debates and speeches, I can say not only do these words portray him falsely, but I find it incomprehensible that anyone could make these claims.

They are:
Racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, and bigot.

Let’s get started.

Charlie Kirk’s arguments reflected a decrease in government influence over the people, thereby, less government dependence by the people. This is the source of many of the out-of-context quotes being used in calling him a racist. His arguments are in step with Black leaders like Thomas Sowell, Vince Everett Ellison, Glenn Loury, Shelby Steele, and Kaizen Asiedu. These are Black men stating the same ideas as Charlie Kirk, with intelligence, deep thought, research, and courage.

Are these Black men racist? Or do they view policy and its outcomes differently from others? Do they believe the government should pull a fallen man out of the pit, or that community and that man’s personal courage and commitment to overcome an obstacle should draw him out? The two options are incompatible with each other.

These men argue that, to a degree, affirmative action policies, which require government intervention to propel a people group or a culture forward, have not been effective, and have caused more damage than good.

We can compare this to current events by looking at the policy of free college tuition for everyone. By giving everyone free tuition, the quality of the institution is diminished, the quality of the institution’s product (college graduates) is diminished, and drop-out rates will soar.

Why?

Because the students have no skin in the game. They didn’t have to work hard to get there. They didn’t have to dream about it for years. They were robbed of the chance of accomplishing admittance. Their capacity to care for the opportunity with all of their heart is quenched. Of course, this doesn’t apply to everybody, but it will be the norm.

What comes after free admission? Grading on a curve so underperforming students don’t feel bad or lose their chance to get a degree? Maybe.

The same can be applied to a Black man who received something he wanted, but was robbed of the chance to accomplish it. If his thought process brings him to this realization or not, it is still a fact. When a person of color accomplishes something great, the cloud of affirmative action hovers over it. Michelle Obama stated that as she excelled in college she wondered if the people around her thought she was only there because of affirmative action. That is sad. It took something away from the accomplishments of an amazing and strong woman.

The most negative response to affirmative action is for a man or a woman to be paralyzed into inaction as they wait for the benefits of this policy to come for them. If a person gets something based on an unchangeable characteristic like skin color, then why study so hard? Why search for work opportunities to gain meaningful experience? Why try to stand apart from your peers or your competitors? The better option is to appear as if you are in greater need of help.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to smarter men than me, Glenn Loury and Shelby Steele, speak to the issue, if your willing to invest the time to know for yourself.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jGsxK4rsOQ

Another social reform policy that has negatively affected the people it was supposed to help is welfare policy. Welfare does a lot of good for a person who is momentarily struggling, and it does a lot of good for those who can’t provide for themselves, like the truly mentally and physically disabled. But consider this, Stephen Hawking was never on welfare.

Again, this policy tells people that if they fall into a certain group, then this is the option they should take. And why not? It’s free.

I have been a recipient of government welfare, and I can speak to its benefits and its dangers. The trap of welfare is real. After a serious work injury, I went back to school. At the end of my first semester, my wife gave birth to our first child. As I made a living as a graduate assistant, we had little money to spare, and not enough for medical expenses. We applied for state assistance, which included baby supplies, food, and medical insurance for my wife and our child. We carried these benefits until after our second child was born 2 1/2 years later. By this time, I had a degree and was back at work. Our family had landed once again on a solid foundation, even though I had an injury that didn’t allow me to participate in many sectors of the workforce.

When the state sent a renewal letter for our benefits, we had to make a decision. Do we want to keep these benefits, or strike out on our own and become more than what these benefits represent to us?

The temptation was real, as was the opportunity.

We sent back the renewal application blank and included a letter saying thank you for the help; it blessed our family greatly, but we no longer needed the assistance.

The alternative: to keep the benefits, maybe stay in school longer than I needed to, and since the welfare culture was intruding into our future, use the injury I had suffered to claim disability.

Staying on welfare would have held our family back. We would have stayed in poverty for the sake of free benefits paid for by our neighbors. Instead, I went back to work and we are financially secure enough that my wife has been able to stay home, raise our kids, and provide them with a homeschool education(she does this with her diploma for her Master’s degree hanging on the wall in our home classroom).

I don’t speak to the issue of race only from my own meditations and experiences. I’ve read books written by Critical Race Theory authors, like Kendi, Tatum, and Coates. Yes, I’ve read the opposing arguments, and that is something we all need to do. When there is something we don’t understand, we need to search for the understanding we don’t have. These books have given me sympathy for the Black experience, which, while I haven’t changed my core views, opens the door for a more meaningful and productive conversation.

We miss this in America, where our views of the opposition are given to us by social media algorithms and corporately influenced news outlets. We are being conditioned to hate the other side, not to understand them. Understanding leads to progress.

Charlie repeatedly stated that what a person does sexually is their own business, but that doesn’t require that he thinks it is morally correct. The Bible says not all will seek God, but many will turn away.

Believers must understand that it is not our job to fix the non-believer’s sin or convince them to turn to God. Our only job is to introduce them to Jesus and His gospel.

The argument that has earned Charlie Kirk and conservative America as being homophobic, particularly regarding transgenderism, is not complex. It says that you can do what you want with your body when you reach an agreed-upon accountable age (you can drive at 16 and vote at 18—these ages would be good candidates), and you must leave children alone.

Children are the most vulnerable and confused people on the planet. For centuries, we have raised them to embrace morals and values. We’ve encouraged them to embrace our culture, to have families, to be productive members of society, and to do that, we’ve guarded their hearts from confusing and perverted ideologies.

By introducing children to homosexual ideas, options, and methods, we are introducing ideologies that contradict nature, thereby contradicting the foundations of what they naturally think of as truth. We are introducing confusion that they can not, nor should not be expected to, handle. In the last 2 decades, the rate of high school kids claiming not to be “something other than heterosexual” has skyrocketed. Studies claim as little as 10% and as high as 30%. An increase as large as that does not represent closeted individuals feeling safe enough to come out. It represents a high level of grooming and influence, and it starts on social media and continues into the classroom.

Individual discrimination aside, the United States has always stood for equality and freedom for everyone, and that is true today. Any adult is free to make decisions regarding their personal life without punishment, as long as it is affecting only their DNA and is done with the consent of any other adult involved. But to bring these ideas into the classroom under the banner of inclusion and anti-discrimination is wrong. The definition of homophobia does not include protecting children from the influence of homosexual propaganda. Protecting future generations from making negative decisions they may not have made without that influence is not hate. It is discernment.

Now that American culture has turned its back on family, has pushed alternative sexual lifestyles into our schools, and has demonized anyone who stands for values, we have arrived at the most devastating results—the transgender movement.

Although I’ve read a couple of books about it, like Irreversible Damage, this topic is quickly evolving, and I am not well educated on it.

What I see when it comes to this topic is a breakdown of the power and influence of family, a complete abandonment of common sense, an embracing of bold-faced lying, and the victory of confusion. Its influence removes the focus from a child’s mental health, from the real-world challenges of being a young person, and from common sense, practical answers to helping them walk through this stage of life. It replaces it with the false premise that if a person could be someone else entirely, then their life would be better.

That if life feels this bad, then something is wrong with who I am.

Let me tell you, as a person who has experienced decades of depression, which started as an adolescent, that life can feel desolate and pointless. There is no permanent fix for any 13-year-old; but there is perseverance, the love and support of family and friends, and self-determination to survive.

Statistics and viable long-term research are lacking on the subject of transgender adolescents, but there are signs that too many kids are choosing this path based on influence and false hopes. While research suggests regret and detransitioning is low for adults, some studies show it as high as 35% for one sex of adolescents and 20% for the other (the wording is confusing, and I couldn’t tell if the sex referred to pre- or post-transitioning). And these are preliminary numbers, not backed by extensive research.

Transgenderism as a cultural movement is dangerous. That’s why families need to come together, have open discussion, avoid indoctrinated content, support each other, and do battle together against the false ideas of this current cultural movement.

Guard the hearts of your children!