I’ve been here on Earth since 1964. My interest in politics happened before I entered elementary school. Vietnam War images on the nightly news form some of my earliest memories and they made me worry. I didn’t like warfare violence. I noticed that it hurt people in Vietnam and that it hurt our soldiers. I wondered how to stop the war. I felt sympathy for both sides in that war.

I didn’t really believe the rationalizations about the Vietnam War. Later I learned that the Gulf of Tonkin conflict was faked and that’s what got us into that war. Faked justifications for war actions have happened again since the Gulf of Tonkin. I was glad when the Vietnam War ended. The aftermath of the war continued unfortuneately with damaged soldiers returning home and damaged Vietnamese people trying to rebuild their lives in the U.S. or trying to continue and rebuild in Vietnam.

Other wars happened in other places and they carried on with new violence. In some ways it’s like the Roman or Greek God of War visited many nations after Vietnam. War fever seems important at first and then purposeless later.

Violence is hard to stop. By the time that people are engaging in violence, they are usually committed to doing it. Most people don’t like violence but after becoming adapted to doing violence it can be hard for them to stop. Motivating a return to peace happens when a person is free to find something better to do with their life energy. Having something else to do is important.

A few days ago, Charlie Kirk was gunned down when he was addressing an assembly of interested people who wanted to hear what he had to say. That was about 12 years after Mr. Kirk started going to college campuses and talking to students. He would set up a card table and talk with anyone who came along. He said he was trying to recruit young conservative students. He defined Conservatism as an effort to protect social goods and pass those social goods on to the next generation. He thought that having a home and a family are social goods that are objectively good according to Aristotelian philosophy. He used early Founding documents from the colonies (later states) and Biblical texts to undergird many of his political arguments. Even though he didn’t get a university degree, Mr. Kirk studied primary source materials for his arguments. In an era of heavy-duty 24-hour propaganda, using primary source material instead of quoting second-hand opinions allowed Mr. Kirk to get to the heart of issues better than almost anyone else. Charlie Kirk is the only modern person I have heard outside of a church say that Biblical texts are important and valuable both philosophically and politically. He was talking and listening to strangers like no one bothers to do anymore.

I never had a chance to talk to him and I wish I had. I heard about Mr. Kirk (who was about 30 years younger than me) when he first started going to universities to talk with people. I admired his bravery and openness. I just never had a chance to talk to him.

I know that people want to politicize his murder. Don’t do that. Charlie was reaching out to a generation of people in the US that has been under growing economic pressure. Generation Z, born from 1997-2012, was his biggest fangroup. I think that this generation has struggled the most as compared to earlier generations, from both economic poverty and from a poverty of people ready to talk and listen to them. Talking and listening is a great way to embrace confused and economically struggling people. It helps prevent violence.

I think shooting a speaker in an auditorium, shooting Charlie Kirk, is a crime, is an act of cowardice, an act of desperation, and a futile action that has wasted Mr. Kirk’s grand generosity as a communicator. I think to myself that after killing this good man, the shooter will now be confronted with Mr. Kirk’s philosophies and Mr. Kirk’s life’s legacy on a daily basis. This is probably the opposite of what the shooter intended. By murdering Mr. Kirk, the shooter has inextricably tied his own fate to that of someone he wanted to silence forever. I didn’t hear about Charlie Kirk recently until his death. Lots of Kirk video has been released. I have watched all of the footage that I can find.

When I consider the possibility of why the shooter chose violence, I can’t help but wonder if voting frauds in the US have caused this unexpected side effect. A side effect of desperate violence. A desire to act out as a form of terror communication. I also wonder if economic struggle and uncertainty have led some people to wander into violent activism as a way to escape other kinds of uncertainty.

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In any case, I hope that this moment in history will help us to appreciate Charlie Kirk’s grandly generous communication gesture. I can’t imagine that he was correct in everything he said or believed anymore than anyone else is. Emotions of many kinds accompany this loss of a valuable person who was making a difference in our nation’s politics. Praying for us all would be an appropriate Christian gesture. Even among other faiths, such a generous spirit deserves admiration.

Also, remember Charlie Kirk’s family in your prayers and include them in the soft center of your heart.