Charlie Kirk’s assassination must push all civil society to a reflection, especially those who, like me, have ideas that are significantly devoted from his. Yes, because the US political activist was a fervent conservative: antiabortist, transfobic and supporter of the so -called traditional family. All positions that, if they spread, would end up harming the freedom and rights of other people: women, trans people and, more generally, of the LGBT community. This is why many accused him of instigation to hatred and despised him in turn. So much so that when he was killed, these same people exulted, without any remora. But we must remember that politicians do not invent anything: they only do as a megaphone to ideas already present in society, limiting themselves to riding them. For this reason, killing a politician in an attempt to suppress his ideas is the most serious error that can be made: in this way he turns it into a martyr and those same ideas are strengthened even more. Positions such as hers can only be contrasted with dialogue or, if they actually have instigation to hatred, through legal ways.

Empathy

Otherwise, democracy weaken and lose us we are all, especially those who have nothing to do with those ideas. However, we cannot be surprised if many people do not experience empathy for Charlie Kirk: humans tend to empathize only with those who recognize as similar, in particular on the ideological and valiant level. Empathy is in fact a selective mechanism: it does not activate indiscriminately. But in the face of a similar event we cannot limit ourselves to reacting with instinct, because this would demonstrate an extremely low level of civilization. The states of law, in such cases, should condemn the incident with firmness and unanimously, yet often it does not happen. We also saw it with the case of Luigi Mangione, celebrated as a hero after killing the CEO of a well -known health insurance company in cold blood.

Our inconsistency

It is paradoxical that many of the people who exult for these deaths are the same that oppose the death penalty, even against those who have committed heinous crimes. How is it possible? Because the human being is deeply inconsistent and because we have forgotten what it means to live in a society where ideas are censored or justice administered arbitraryly. The generations that crossed the twentieth century had developed antibodies against these drifts, forged by the trauma of totalitarianisms.

Fake progressiveness

The new generations, on the other hand, seem to have lost them, or in any case they do not have enough solids to resist the new anti -democratic waves, which present themselves under different the remains, deceiving us with the disguise of good intentions. Sometimes they even split as “progressive ideologies”, but there is no progress in the forced suppression of the ideas of others. We can therefore also not instinctively empathize with the death of Charlie Kirk, but we still have to worry about it rationally, because every crime benefits from those who want to destroy, not to those who want to build. Democracy, with freedom of expression as its most important pillar, remains – even with all its imperfections – the best system that the human being has ever found to manage power. Let’s defend it at any cost, because once lost going back it may no longer be possible.