AMERICA DODGED A BULLET

By Roland Watson
September 20, 2025

Too soon?

There are a variety of theories about Charlie Kirk and Tyler Robinson. With time the truth should come into better focus. Nonetheless, we should not ignore the deeper background of the murder, and of the situation in America which gave rise to it.

Humans are pack animals. We say we treasure "freedom," and many individuals have accomplished amazing and unique things. But in a social context we are, almost all of us, ready to give up our freedom if we think it will get us something we want (or are told we want). We are more than happy to follow others.

The very first packs were the family clans that migrated out of Africa. The key feature of packs is that they have leaders - someone takes charge. This in turn illustrates a crucial issue. Following leaders creates a huge risk: They may be terrible. Early nomadic groups with good leaders survived and thrived. They found bountiful areas to settle. Others with poor leaders died out - there didn't find enough water or food.

Sometimes there would be competing leaders, such as from sub-clans. For some groups one individual would be chosen over another and the loser's sub-clan would acquiesce. Maybe the selected leader was older or stronger or more wise.

But in other situations there would be a conflict and one of the prospective leaders would kill or otherwise expel the other. This in turn might result in a blood feud, or everyone at that point would just follow the winner.

This was Natural Law, otherwise known as Might is Right. In this system there is no such thing as "murder."

Why did the Ten Commandments even say: "Thou shalt not kill." The earliest alternatives to natural law were elder councils in communal groups, and which would resolve disputes. You can believe that the Ten Commandments were a supernatural pronouncement but an alternative is that it was an early legal system, one of the first formal attempts at Human Law. Another example is the Hammurabi Code.

Might is right has continually clashed with human law, and the latter has regularly failed. Indeed, our history celebrates conquerors, who in reality were nothing less than bandits, many of whom also perpetrated genocide.

Take Genghis Khan, the Mongol warlord who arguably established the largest empire that ever existed. How did he do it? He used massive and indiscriminate extermination, killing entire populations, one after another, who refused to submit.

What this shows is that following a leader also changes you. His soldiers, at least as children, would not have been homicidal maniacs, but that is who they became. Over time many people will do whatever a leader demands. Anything is possible.

Recent examples include Hitler and the Nazis and Rwanda's Hutu who slaughtered the Tutsi.

The United States at present has a personality cult led by the rapist felon Trump. But his prominence is itself the consequence of his own radicalization and more importantly the decades long propaganda of the Neoconservative Movement, which too morphed over time and became much more extreme. It's transformation to a hate-based ideology was spearheaded by figures like Rush Limbaugh, turbocharged by Rupert Murdoch and Fox, and it had its power cemented through the manipulation of the Supreme Court by Mitch McConnell.

Through the Neocon movement the Republicans have repudiated human law, and human rights. The Supreme Court, the supposed Supreme Law of the Land, is now a collection of legal hacks. They issue rulings based on an 18th Century interpretation of the Constitution, at which time many groups had no rights at all. But this is just a ruse. They do not even believe in the Constitution. The unelected branch of government has been busy rescinding previously established rights, and reframing the law so that it only serves men, the wealthy (including their "corporations"), "christians," and "white" people. The Court is destroying human law and replacing it with yet another version of might is right.

Indeed, the more the modern fascists get, the more they want, with the fanatics now calling for the establishment of white christian ethnostates, where anyone without an Aryan heritage would be banned. SPLC identifies close to 1,000 right-wing hate groups in America. That's about twenty per state, although many are active in multiple states. Categories include KKK, Neo-Nazi, white nationalist, skinheads, anti-government, militias, "sovereign citizens," "constitutional sheriffs," Christian Identity, male supremacists, anti-LGBTQ, anti-semitic, anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, "Neo-Volkish," and others. But if you live a normal life you are probably not even aware of this.

There is no comparable phenomenon on the other side. Progressives protest for many different causes, not only anti-fascism. There is no "antifa" network or movement.

There is a Republican cancer in America, and its overall goal is to destroy democracy and establish a one party state. This would be enforced by a military dictatorship. Another common thread is that many of the hate groups are "accelerationists." They want to destroy democracy as quickly as possible. As the traitors who invaded the United States Capitol on January 6th shouted, the "Storm" is coming. They want violent chaos. They want another American Civil War. Violence is not just a means; it is their objective.

How do we respond to this?

In totalitarian regimes the people have no choice. They have to rise up. But there is a fine line with self-defense, when you can justifiably fight back to protect yourself.

In some cases massive street protests and national strikes are enough to regain popular power. However, when the dictators repress the people with terror then only armed revolution will do. For example, this is what is happening in the Southeast Asian nation Burma (aka Myanmar), where a real civil war has been raging for over four years. Its military dictatorship is clinging to power and one of its main tactics, since it controls the skies, is to use Chinese jets and bombs to attack the public. But it is not only targeting the revolutionary armed units. Instead, in a page out of Genghis Khan's playbook, it is bombing schools, hospitals, monasteries and churches, to try to kill as many ordinary people, including children, as possible. There has been one mass casualty massacre after another.

It's clear that the U.S. is not yet in this type of situation. Trump may be breaking the Posse Comitatus Act and ordering soldiers into different cities, but these soldiers are not shooting into crowds. And the Republicans in states like Texas, Missouri, Indiana and Ohio may be trying to rig their states so only their party can win, but they haven't tipped the national balance yet. The 2024 Midterms and the 2026 Presidential Election should offer the American people decisive opportunities to reject the Republican fascism.

So again, what about Charlie Kirk? He was vile, and also - already - a terrible leader. (Your quality as a leader is based on how you lead, not the size of your audience.) His core belief seemed to be: Why hate just one group when you can hate many? But we do not know if his hate was sincere. It looks more like he copied Limbaugh's strategy to sell hate and this was merely his chosen route to money and power. Everyone has to sell something, right?

The hyperbolic Republican reaction to his death is amazing. They are so, so angry. This is surprising since they generally do not care about death, including murder. But Kirk was their next generation public face of hate. He was the chosen one, the anointed. He would be the second coming of Trump.

There is a paradox here. No matter how reprehensible he may have been, he did not deserve execution. He did not perpetrate capital crimes. Even given the U.S. legal system failure, we are still not Burma.

But as many people have pointed out, while he did not deserve to die it is certainly better for America that he is no longer around. One less high-profile person spewing hate is a good thing, especially when he was influencing young and impressionable minds. It would have been far better of course if the young people who admired his outspokenness listened more carefully to - and rejected - his message, and also if he himself had discovered the true teaching of Jesus, to love not to hate, and changed his views. Now, neither can happen.

A well known trope is the idea that someone would time travel into the past and kill Baby Hitler, to prevent World War II and the Holocaust. The fallacy though is that you can't blame a baby for its future actions - we may try to prevent crime but we do not (and literally cannot) punish it before it happens.

You could apply the same idea to Kirk. Certainly not a baby, he seemed destined for a central role in the American Taleban. While it is possible that the Republican Party will fade away (like the Whigs) they will probably survive. One hopes they will be roundly defeated in the upcoming elections, that the old generation will leave the scene, and that younger members will realize they were misled and change their views. It is a mistake to fear progress. It is a mistake to fear change. Diversity is the essence of value, not something to be repudiated.