On the death of a good man

I live in a college town, so most of my friends are among the Good People who take their beliefs from the editorial pages of the New York Times. Still, I was surprised at the reaction when I lamented the death of Charlie Kirk. Fascist, catch! was scratched on one of the cartridges the killer left behind; and Bella Ciao on another, referencing a ballad sung by Italian partisans fighting the Mussolini government and their German occupiers in the Second World War.

But Charlie Kirk wasn't a fascist! Rather, he impressed me as a young Socrates, a decent conservative traveling to American colleges to engage students in friendly and respectful debate. This is a sin against the zeitgeist, apparently. He was therefore murdered by an unhinged young man with a Mauser 98, a military rifle adapted for hunting with a telescopic sight and .30-caliber bullets.

Greece got rid of its troublesome citizens by condemning them to drink poison hemlock, as Socrates was required to do in 399 BC. In 21st century America, we have the sewers of the internet, where our mentally unbalanced citizens discover that murder is an okay solution to their unhappiness. Thus a United Healthcare executive was shot in the back last December by a young man who objected to his medical insurance and - in an eerie forecast of Charlie Kirk's shooting - explained himself by scratching delay, deny, and depose on his cartridges.

Socrates might not have voted for the current occupants of the White House, but neither would he have murdered one of their supporters.