KirkPaul
© salon/Turning Point USACharlie Kirk • Ron Paul
I had the pleasure of appearing on Charlie Kirk's program a few times over the years and I always found him to be polite, respectful, and genuinely interested in ideas. Even in areas where we might not have agreed, he listened carefully. He was a strong advocate of free speech and he made a career of trying to convince the youth of the value of free speech and dialogue regardless of political differences.

At the young age of 31 years old, he had already founded and ran the largest conservative youth organization in the country and as such he had enormous influence over the future of the conservative movement and even the Republican party. As I discovered during my Republican presidential runs, the youth of this country are truly inspired by the ideas of liberty, peace, and prosperity.

I do not believe we have anything near the real story about the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk last week. The narrative presented by the FBI and other government agencies is wildly contradictory, with an ever-changing plotline that makes little sense.

Some individuals close to Kirk have reported that his foreign policy position was shifting away from the standard neoconservative militarism in favor of a more non-interventionist approach. Tucker Carlson recently recounted that Kirk had even gone personally to the White House to urge President Trump to refuse to take military action against Iran. He was rebuffed by President Trump, Carlson informed us.

Likewise, conservative podcaster Candace Owens, who was a close friend of Charlie Kirk, has stated on her program that Kirk was undergoing a "spiritual crisis" and was turning away from his past embrace of militarism and in favor of America-first non-interventionism, particularly regarding the current unrest in the Middle East.

Was Charlie Kirk murdered - directly or indirectly - by powerful forces who could not tolerate such a shift in views in such an influential leader? We don't know.

If anything, those seeking to prevent the ideas of peace from breaking out would wish to cover it up, as they have done in so many past political killings. As I recounted in my most recent book, The Surreptitious Coup: Who Stole Western Civilization?, the turbulent 1960s saw several killings of major US figures, including JFK, RFK, and Martin Luther King, who were challenging the status quo and pushing for a shift away from the Cold War confrontationist mentality.

The real assassins of these peace leaders from last century were nihilists who did not believe in truth. They only believed in power - the power that comes from the barrel of a gun. Rather than compete in the marketplace of ideas they preferred to snuff out any challenges and therefore decapitate any possibility that our country could take a different course.

More than sixty years after the murder of President Kennedy, the vast majority of the American people do not believe the official story of how he was killed and why. Truth will eventually break through even when the wall of lies seems impenetrable.

If it is true that Charlie Kirk was preparing to shift his organization toward a foreign policy embraced by our Founders, the killing was even more tragic. But no army - or assassin - can stop an idea whose time has come. That may be his most important legacy. Rest in peace.