Editor, Gazette-Journal:
Some things have really crystallized recently in the viewpoint and methods of the progressive cause. Responses to the murder of Charlie Kirk have shed a bright light on this.
From the beginning the approach has been to characterize the people who are the biggest threat to the desired message as racist, fascist, white supremacist, dictator, hater, bigot, or anything they can dream up to tar the person.
Here is the heart of the issue. Progressives dictate that speech that disagrees with the elite consensus is somehow hate speech, and that somehow you are put at risk from words you don’t like. And these words are characterized as hate and hate equals violence, and violence propagated against you warrants return violence.
This viewpoint therefore accepts and encourages the notion that it is fine to shoot someone whose opinions you don’t like. Their words are violence against you. That is literally where we are.
Charlie Kirk had opinions and encouraged students to c...