When you get violence

“When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.”- Charlie Kirk

I am a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. I disagree with Kirk on many items, but he was 100% correct in his approach to free speech. Under the Constitution (“Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech”), we all have that right. The person who shot Kirk did not believe in democracy as we know it. If found guilty, I fully support that person getting the death penalty for cowardly shooting an unarmed man.

The shooter thought Kirk to be “evil”, without ever having met him. Along those lines, I would like to recall the first time I ever met the late Henry Kissinger.

In the 90s, I was a Vice President for a national healthcare company. A friend of mine, our lobbyist who had been Chief of Staff for Senator Bob Dole, arranged for Kissinger to be the keynote speaker for a private corporate gathering of over 100 hospital system CEOs in Aspen, Colorado. He asked that I pick him up at the airfield and spend the day with him, just in case he needed anything.

I had read that Henry was a narcissistic, overbearing person. Plus, although I supported our soldiers, I was against the Vietnam War. So, my pre-conceived notion was that I would find him obnoxious and unbearable, characteristics as often cited in press stories about him. I found exactly the opposite.

Henry was humble, asking me about myself. We engaged in small talk. I mentioned that as a teenager my father, like Henry, fled the Holocaust in Europe for the USA. Kissinger instantly warmed up and wanted to know more about my family. He was a charming person and reminded me of my grandfather.

A year later, I was back in Aspen having a drink with the President of the NYC Hospital Association. When I went over to Henry’s table, he recognized me and was friendly.

I disagree with Kirk’s statements and positions on gender, race, immigration, religion and women’s rights. There is an extensive list of them at the Guardian newspaper (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs). I believe Kirk was 100% wrong in many of his political and social views. However, that does not automatically mean he was a bad person. A bad person condones violence to get their way. Kirk’s killer did that-he is the bad individual.