For days, I have been trying to find the words to describe the loss of Charlie Kirk.
And the demise of free speech.
It will take a long time for public speakers to stand in front of a crowd without a cold chill in their veins. They will scan their faces as Salman Rushdie does, wondering who has a question and who wields a knife.
The innocence of our post-war age has been lost.
A generation raised in peace has been introduced to the curse of political violence.
While trying to sketch out my thoughts, I ventured down to a cafe in a Teal-leaning, upper-middle class part of Sydney.
The streets are clean. The people are rich. It is somewhat of a cultural sunset where the outlines of Australia's glory lingers, gradually losing form in the failing light.
As for the cafe, it is owned by a former migrant who sells a cuisine completely at odds with their heritage. And it is flawless.
The casual staff are, without exception, newly arrived migrants on student visas. They occupy a stable job in a safe area surrounded by aging Australians whose criminal record is probably limited to jaywalking. Theoretically this should ensure a rapid assimilation into Western Civilisation.
Or so goes the metaphorical life-raft sold to the masses to make them feel better about the housing crisis.
It was here, shortly after my coffee arrived, that a loud and joyful conversation echoed across the tables.
One young waitress was laughing with what looked like an old lefty bloke (trust me, the T-shirt gave it away). Without hesitation, she declared in quick succession that Trump should have been killed before he had the chance to become President, that the assassination of Charlie Kirk was justice, and that there needed to be more political violence.
He nodded and chuckled with her, agreeing.
It wasn't what they said so much as the careless nature of its delivery.
As if they were commenting on the weather.
What a lovely day, if only more conservatives were dead!
When people warn that political violence has been normalised they do not mean only on shadowy Reddit forums or the absolute sewer of Bluesky (ironically, a social media platform where many virtuous members of the Australian Teal, Green, and Labor political ranks escaped to because they felt it was a safe space).
It only takes a few minutes to find people calling for the murder of Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, and JK Rowling.
'Ooooooh that was fun! Do Ben Shapiro next!'
'lmaooo best birthday present ever!! I'm laughing too hard that's what you get bitch. Die bitch that's what you deserve. Someone should take out Ben Shapiro next.'
'Like I'm glad that guy died but they're going really hard on the ohhh this is a dark day for America about a guy I had never heard of till he was shot. Can we get JK Rowling next like the UK would be unbearable about it but it's for the greater good of trans people.'
These are real examples of the standard commentary, repeated in their thousands.
When a magazine joked about putting a curse of Charlie Kirk a day before he was murdered, the top comments on the article included:
'LOL at all these loser snowflakes crying over the death of a hateful bigot. The only problem I have with Charlie Kirk's death is that it didn't happen sooner. He got less than he deserved. There is an upside, though ... Now that he's dead, his daughter's chances of being sexually assaulted by a republican just decreased slightly. Burn in Hell, Charlie Kirk :)'
It is difficult to imagine how people came to such a depraved place of psychosis regarding a public figure they barely know.
But then, I am relatively sure they haven't thought about it very deeply. Hate has become a reflex clicked as easily as a like button. We know this is not an abstract, innocent delusion. When they saw real blood, they made celebratory videos. (And follow-up rants, bewildered about why they were sacked. What did I do wrong? they ask, genuinely confused.)
Who set their moral compass?
They have been told, through their childhood, that the Right are literal Nazis, that words are violence, and that democracy will die if political opponents are allowed to speak. They believe a contest of ideas is a threat to their life, just as they believe in the fake Climate Change apocalypse and the plight of Islamic terrorist groups like Hamas who are just poor little misunderstood resistance fighters that love the LGBT+ community.
These kids trust, at face value, their left-wing elders. A consequence of too many arguments from authority and an obsession with credentialism.
What have we seen in the three days since Charlie Kirk's political assassination?
Those left-wing elders deliberately promoting lies. Some have been shamed into deleting their posts. Others have been fired. Most continue to distort the truth or indulge their most disturbing impulse to denigrate a murdered man whose greatest crime was to have political conversations with students. They complain about misinformation and disinformation and then pour it over the internet knowing its flammable nature.
Why do they post these things? Do they see, on some level, Charlie Kirk's death as a victory?
Or are they simply bitter?
The most generous lesson we can take from this behaviour is that the Left fear the infiltration of reason.
That speech threatens the propaganda washing over the West's youth.
Worse, that the Left, which the Right have seen as their political opposition, does not pursue censorship out of concern for children's safety, but because it can no longer defend its ideas as Western Civilisation collapses, gravely wounded by 'progressive' thought.
Charlie Kirk was changing minds, and a significant percentage of the Left think his murder is a solution to the problem of free speech.
Conservative figureheads saw this coming.
How many times have Douglas Murray, Jordan Peterson, Matt Walsh, and Nigel Farage been banned from a campus or intimidated by students once there? I remember footage from a Peterson event where the audience was barricaded into a room while students beat their hands against the windows, creating the horrifying spectre of socialism's raised fist.
'Free speech is the mechanism by which we keep our society functioning,' bellowed Peterson, at the rally. To the vicious mob of students trying to shout him down, he said, 'I know where that leads. I've studied totalitarianism for four decades and I know how that starts.'
To all those old, smug, rich, privileged, left-wing figures congratulating themselves on smart arse comments, take a moment to consider how millions of young people feel, most of them university students.
They have watched a political figure murdered in front of other kids. A man who was, to them, as MLK was to you.
Not only was someone who thinks like them assassinated, the friends they sit in class with, their mates on social media, and their colleagues at work, laugh and cheer on the bloodshed. How many people like your tweets and escalate their calls for violence?
I walked out on my cup of coffee and yes, the woman salivating over the murder of the President probably came from a country where political violence is considered a moral right of revolution.
But the old bloke egging her on knows better. It takes two to have that conversation.
I still don't know what to say about Charlie Kirk. It is too sad. Too much of a loss to a cause that desperately needs talent.
What I do know is that when the Left chose their hero, they picked a criminal and mourned his death by burning city blocks, looting businesses, tearing down historic statues, setting up racist communes, scamming hundreds of millions off the public, causing billions of dollars in damage, and ultimately killed more people.
Today, the Right are being critised for writing articles in celebration of free speech, holding prayer vigils, and pledging to spread faith and peace.
These differences say a lot about what we are trying to achieve here, including with this publication.
If we do not commit to a restoration of our once-great nation and culture, we will have a revolution. As Nepal has shown us, revolutions are an open gate to the barbarians.
I want my country to thrive.
The legacy of Charlie Kirk is the realisation that we must all awaken and embrace the best of ourselves.