Michael Knowles on Why the Free Marketplace of Ideas Requires Order After Charlie Kirk's Assassination

[00:00] really unbelievable press conference

[00:03] from the governor there and from Cash

[00:04] Patel the FBI director. We got a lot of

[00:07] information. We got a lot of information

[00:10] about the shooter. We now know they got

[00:13] him. That was the opening of the press

[00:14] conference. We got him. We then got an

[00:17] interpretation of what the events mean

[00:19] because the governor was leading it. We

[00:21] got a a vision of the path forward.

[00:24] There was a a an incredibly thorough

[00:26] robust press conference here. So they

[00:29] have the suspect.

[00:31] The guy was living with his parents. He

[00:36] was uh

[00:39] I don't I think pretty clearly a member

[00:42] of the political left. In fact, when the

[00:44] governor was asked uh what the what the

[00:48] casings meant, what the engravings

[00:50] meant, he said, "Look, it says catch

[00:51] this fascist. I'll let you draw your own

[00:53] conclusions. It seems pretty clear to

[00:55] me." So this this was by all evidence

[00:59] left-wing political violence. He also

[01:03] said that social media is a cancer and

[01:05] that our brains are just not wired to

[01:07] see this kind of uh political

[01:10] assassination up close in HD from

[01:12] someone that many people grew up

[01:15] watching, especially young people have

[01:16] been watching Charlie Kirk since they're

[01:17] 10 years old. And they see this guy uh

[01:20] murdered in a very gruesome way on their

[01:21] phones. He said, "This is not good. This

[01:23] is this is not how we're how we're built

[01:26] to live. Social media is a cancer.

[01:28] That's an amazing and largely accurate I

[01:31] think view of the situation. Uh I was

[01:34] listening to a a lecture the other day

[01:36] that pointed out that each social media

[01:39] uh website is tied to one of the deadly

[01:42] sins. I think this is in the Tumistic

[01:44] Institute. And so LinkedIn is is avarous

[01:47] and Instagram is pride and X Twitter is

[01:50] wrath, you know, and it's just there's

[01:52] so much wrath and uh it's it's so

[01:55] gruesome. I was speaking last night to

[01:57] someone who said, "Michael, it's so

[01:59] scary when I watched the video. The

[02:01] scariest thing about watching the video

[02:03] of Charlie's assassination is that I

[02:05] felt nothing." This person didn't know

[02:07] Charlie. He agreed with them on some

[02:09] things, didn't agree with him on other

[02:10] things. What isn't particularly

[02:11] political, but I was taken a back. I

[02:13] said, "What do you mean you felt

[02:14] nothing?" He said, "I felt nothing

[02:17] because I'm so desensitized

[02:20] to seeing this violence." It was 10

[02:23] years ago. If you wanted to see a really

[02:25] gruesome video, you had to go to the

[02:27] darkest corners of the internet. Now, he

[02:29] said, "I've seen multiple murders just

[02:31] in the past 3 days in high definition on

[02:34] my phone."

[02:36] He said, "It was it it scared me that

[02:38] fact about myself. No question about

[02:40] it." And then the governor said he

[02:43] didn't want to be preachy, but he gave a

[02:45] kind of a political sermon about

[02:48] opinions and about how horrified we all

[02:50] are that people are now being murdered

[02:52] for expressing their opinions.

[02:55] And this gets to the almost

[03:00] universal reaction to to Charlie's

[03:02] murder on the right, on the left. And

[03:05] this is where I think people are

[03:08] actually misinterpreting things. uh you

[03:10] you saw this quite clearly uh even just

[03:13] yesterday on the view from Alyssa Farah

[03:16] articulating much the same view that

[03:17] everyone else is mentioning.

[03:20] Um I hope it doesn't have a chilling

[03:21] effect whether you're left or right on

[03:23] your ability to speak your mind. I know

[03:25] the one thing we all agree about on this

[03:27] table. We all share our view points.

[03:30] I don't agree with that. I don't agree

[03:32] with that. And I agree with the broader

[03:35] sentiment that I want to get back to a

[03:37] civil society where we can speak and

[03:38] where we can uh articulate views like

[03:41] reasonable people and have our

[03:43] traditional self-government and all the

[03:44] rest of it. I I certainly agree with the

[03:46] governor on that. I agree with with

[03:48] everyone who's saying it. But I don't

[03:51] agree that the immediate reaction to

[03:53] this has to be to just speak a lot more

[03:56] to not not tamp down any kind of speech

[04:00] that we what we need to do we just need

[04:02] to engage a lot more in the open

[04:03] marketplace of ideas. I I think that is

[04:05] a totally wrong interpretation of what's

[04:08] just happened.

[04:10] Charlie Kirk

[04:12] did the best job it is possible to do in

[04:16] the most generous, gracious way of

[04:20] engaging with the left in the free

[04:22] marketplace of ideas. He he did it

[04:24] literally in a wide open field many many

[04:27] times. Anybody could come up to him and

[04:30] ask him any question about anything. He

[04:34] He gave it the best shot

[04:38] and the left killed him for it. The left

[04:40] murdered him for it. He He did the most

[04:44] noble thing you could possibly do in the

[04:46] free marketplace of ideas and they

[04:48] murdered him for it. And as I mentioned

[04:49] on the show yesterday, in a battle, a

[04:52] physical battle or a rhetorical battle,

[04:54] your opponent gets a say, too. You don't

[04:56] get to just make up all the rules. And

[04:59] what the political left has said, and

[05:02] it's not just the murder of Charlie.

[05:03] This has been going on for years and

[05:05] years and years. Threats and attempts at

[05:09] violence against many people on the

[05:11] right. And it's almost uniformly from

[05:14] the left against the right reaching its

[05:17] horrific and tragic peak in the

[05:19] political assassination of Charlie Kirk.

[05:23] They said, the left said, "No, you you

[05:26] want to come into the free marketplace

[05:27] of ideas, we're going to shoot you."

[05:29] Well, you can't have a marketplace if

[05:33] people don't feel safe to go into the

[05:35] marketplace. No one's going to go to buy

[05:36] the goods. You can't. You can't have a

[05:39] free and open and flourishing

[05:41] marketplace.

[05:43] If people can reasonably expect a bomb

[05:45] to go off in the marketplace at any

[05:47] given moment, if they feel that they'll

[05:48] be sitting ducks in the marketplace,

[05:50] marketplaces don't work that way because

[05:52] marketplaces need rules. Marketplaces

[05:54] need security. Marketpl need order and

[05:58] peace in order to function.

[06:01] You can't have a marketplace if people

[06:03] keep shooting up the marketplace and the

[06:05] left keeps shooting up the marketplace.

[06:08] And so it seems to me what is called for

[06:10] now if we want to return to a country

[06:14] that has a healthy exchange of ideas and

[06:18] in in which we can all flourish and live

[06:20] together in a peaceable way without some

[06:22] kind of uh heavy-handed government

[06:25] around us. What we need to do in order

[06:27] to get to that is to be a little bit

[06:30] more forceful. I think we we do need to

[06:32] tamp down some things. I think we do

[06:35] need to restore order. I think we need

[06:39] more arrests of criminals.

[06:41] I think we need more early

[06:43] interventions.

[06:45] I think we need more insane asylums.

[06:47] It's totally unclear what the this

[06:49] shooter psychiatric condition was, but

[06:51] broadly speaking, I think we've seen

[06:53] that with the Charlotte attack, with

[06:55] with many of the leftist attacks, the

[06:58] transgender attacks in recent years. We

[07:00] need institutions that can take care of

[07:02] these people who cannot take care of

[07:04] themselves and who are constantly

[07:05] imperiling our lives and who have made

[07:08] it impossible to have a free marketplace

[07:10] of ideas.

[07:12] I think we need to be a little more

[07:14] forceful about delusions.

[07:16] We've entertained a lot of delusions.

[07:18] We've given license to a lot of

[07:19] delusions that have led directly to

[07:21] violence and that is especially

[07:23] including trans transgender violence.

[07:25] But it's not just transgender violence.

[07:26] It's left-wing anarchism generally.

[07:29] Antifa,

[07:31] all the many many delusions about our

[07:34] society. I think we need to be a little

[07:36] more clear about what the truth is and

[07:38] we need to have the confidence and the

[07:40] dignity to stand up for the truth in the

[07:42] public square.

[07:44] Ostracism. I think we need a little bit

[07:45] more ostracism for the people who are

[07:48] celebrating the cold-blooded murder of a

[07:50] man who only ever wanted to talk it out.

[07:52] I think those people need to lose their

[07:53] jobs. I think those people need to be

[07:56] expelled from polite society.

[07:59] and uh they can go they can have a a

[08:01] little book club themselves where they

[08:03] can uh dance gleefully at the murder of

[08:05] innocent people but they should not be

[08:07] permitted into polite society.

[08:10] I think we need we need clarity and

[08:12] force on that front

[08:15] in the government in the educational

[08:17] institutions in corporate America

[08:21] in in society

[08:24] William F.Buckley Jr. No less urbane and

[08:26] and uh clubbable a conservative than

[08:29] William F. Buckley Jr. made this point

[08:31] 60 years ago. Some liberal on his show

[08:33] said, "We need a really open society. We

[08:35] all agree with how open the society

[08:37] should be, right? The open marketplace

[08:38] values, the open, open, open." He said,

[08:39] "No, no, no. I think society should be

[08:41] considerably more closed.

[08:44] We want freedom, but you can't have

[08:46] freedom without order. There's no such

[08:48] thing as freedom without order. There's

[08:49] no such thing as liberty without

[08:51] knowledge. You can't be ignorant and

[08:52] free. You can't be undisiplined and

[08:54] free. You can't have anarchy and chaos

[08:57] and shooters lurking around every corner

[08:59] and and half the country gleefully

[09:02] celebrating cold-blooded murder

[09:05] and be free. You can't have that. The

[09:08] prerequisite for freedom is order and

[09:11] discipline and knowledge.

[09:14] That's what we have to restore right

[09:16] now. And that involves circumscribing

[09:19] some of the insanity that we have

[09:22] allowed to fester over the last several

[09:24] decades. Insanity that is totally out of

[09:26] step with the American tradition, with

[09:28] the principles of ordered liberty, with

[09:30] the ideals that every reasonable person

[09:32] holds. We need to we need to have a

[09:35] little more courage and we need to have

[09:36] a little more clarity and we need to

[09:38] exercise a little bit more just

[09:40] authority in our society.

[09:43] How many people have you talked to? I've

[09:46] I've heard this from so many people.

[09:48] They say, "Michael, I'm something that

[09:50] scandalizes me most about Charlie's

[09:52] assassination is that I logged on to

[09:54] Facebook and people I grew up with,

[09:56] people I used to work with

[09:58] are happy about it. Multiple people have

[10:02] said this to me. I bet it's true of you,

[10:03] too. I never I never thought I because

[10:07] Charlie being so mainstream, being

[10:09] relatively moderate, being so gentile,

[10:11] being so polite, being so nice, if they

[10:14] would celebrate his murder, they'd

[10:15] celebrate my murder. If they would

[10:16] justify his murder, they justify my

[10:18] murder. I thought these people were my

[10:19] friends. I thought they were my family.

[10:20] I thought I grew up with them.

[10:24] You cannot have a society like that. And

[10:27] we need some standards back in our

[10:30] society. And we need some rules around

[10:33] the marketplace. All marketplaces need

[10:36] rules. All in order for a marketplace to

[10:38] flourish, you have to feel that that

[10:41] your life is not imperiled by walking

[10:42] into one. That's what is called for

[10:45] right now. That is the necessary step

[10:48] that most people I think are missing to

[10:51] arrive at the ideal that they like of a

[10:53] society in which people can have a

[10:55] healthy exchange of ideas.