Charlie Kirk and “Invasive Extremists”
As someone aligned with the liberty movement in New Hampshire, and a gardener dealing with bittersweet, I read Jean Lewandowski’s remarks in the Concord Monitor (“Root out invasive extremists”) likening me to the worst plant on my property with disappointment and nothing more.
But when a sniper murdered Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, I thought of them again. Bittersweet is tough. Either you have to pull it utterly, or poison it. Nothing else gets rid of it. There is an analogous attitude gaining ground in progressive circles that they cannot persuade their enemies; they can only eradicate them. Some people in those circles celebrated Kirk’s assassination, just as they celebrated the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in December 2024 and the May 2025 murders of Israel Embassy workers Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky.
Intrinsic to the ethos of liberty is that offensive force is wrong. The only moral way to resolve political disagreements is persuasion. Progressives who hear some of the rhetoric from their own side and think, “No, this is not who I am,” should meet with us and find out why we believe what we believe. They will find that we are literal humans, not metaphorical invasive vines, and that we want peace and a good life like they do.