S4 E31 - Universities Under Fire: Free Speech and the Death of Charlie Kirk

Send us a text

The assassination of Charlie Kirk wasn’t just a tragedy — it revealed the hypocrisy of academia, the dishonesty of the media, and the collapse of free speech. In this episode, The Tenth Man dismantles the “both sides” narrative, exposes the campus culture that enabled violence, and explains why Kirk’s unchanging morality made him such a threat to the left.

Charlie Kirk’s assassination wasn’t just a tragedy — it exposed the hypocrisy of academia and the collapse of moral clarity on America’s campuses. Universities that should have been ashamed into silence instead shouted approval. Professors who should have defended free speech celebrated its destruction. And the media once again tried to bury the story under the false “both sides” narrative.

In this episode, we break down:

• Why assassination is not the same as “political violence on both sides.”
• How free speech is misunderstood — and twisted — by those who cheered Kirk’s death.
• The bitter irony that the attack happened at a university.
• And why Charlie Kirk’s Christian, unchanging morality made him such a powerful target.

This isn’t just about Charlie Kirk. It’s about what happens when academia fails, media lies, and free speech dies.

👉 Subscribe for more Tenth Man commentary exposing media bias and cultural hypocrisy.

Commentary on trending issues brought to you with a moderate perspective.

Episode Transcript

(00:11):
[00:00:00] As soon as the news broke, the left started saying that a MAGA Republican had done it. At the same time, their supporters were openly rejoicing that Charlie Kirk was dead. How can those two things possibly fit together? They said it out loud. It's okay for Charlie Kirk to be killed for his opinions. If they can say that without shame, if then why are they surprised when they get fired for their own words?[00:00:20] The most significant political assassination in recent American history took place inside a university, isn't it even more disgraceful, that instead of silence and shame, professors and administrators made noise, excuses, and even cheers. [00:00:35] meanwhile, celebrities like Jimmy Kimmel, cried “censorship” - he hasn't been arrested. He hasn't had his printing press smashed. He's free to speak, free to podcast, free to Rand, [00:00:47] sure there are crazy people on both sides, but it's only the left telling them that violence is good. if universities had simply done their own jobs, Charlie Kirk would never have had a job. [00:01:02] You know, the left is nothing if not inconsistent. Their only consistency is inconsistency. [00:01:07] [00:01:12] When Charlie Kirk was shot, they said MAGA Republicans did it, and at the very same moment, they cheered his death, which is it. If you really believed MAGA killed him, how could you be happy about it? Doesn't the left hate everything Maga does, but that's the madness of the left. Their next reaction was they immediately pulled out the what about lists? [00:01:41] Lists of other violent acts that they claim are the same thing. But here's the thing, if you've got two items that really are the same, you don't need to be told. So their first example was the deaths of Abigail and James McWhorter, a state legislator and her husband who were shot to death in Minneapolis in May of this year. [00:02:08] It's a tragedy, but it's not the same thing. Not at all. Those people were on a broad list of targets, and they were chosen because of her political office and their killer was last lashing out at the system. He wasn't singling out just one symbolic leader. Another example they gave was the firebombing of Governor Josh Shapiro's home in Pennsylvania. [00:02:34] That was in November of 2024 before the election. But that attack was pro Gaza extremists targeting him because he's Jewish. And the irony there, of course, is that Republicans have been Israel's strongest allies. We were on Shapiro's side in that sense. It wasn't MAGA violence, it was antisemitism from the left, [00:02:59] and neither one of these cases involved a sniper with a scope. Important because that's someone carefully targeting one man in front of a live audience. I mean, it's something we're seeing more of. If you give a military sniper an assignment, a mission to go and out and decapitate a movement, and then he just went and killed random representatives and their spouses and their dog in this case. [00:03:33] That man's commander would tell him that his mission failed. They're not the same at all. If you want a true comparison, look at some other recent assassinations in January, 2025. The CEO of United Health Group. He was shot and killed in New York City. This summer a gunman stormed NFL headquarters in New York City, killing three people and not the ones he intended. And of course there have been two attempts on Donald Trump. Pennsylvania in July, 2024, and then Florida in March, 2025. [00:04:13] And the connection between this and the violence against the Democrats, it's actually not the same at all because these were not political figures. The, it's more important that they were copycat assassination. Attempts, [00:04:27] And rather than focus on the politics of these various attacks, you should concentrate on the methodology these were copycats and they were all not random crimes. They were not political. They were deliberate attacks on symbolic leaders and actually symbolic people, not political office holders. [00:04:47] And what's the other pattern? The pattern is that when violence strikes the left, the right condemns it, but when violence strikes the right, the left excuses, it does this blame game. This both sides stuff. Or even worse, they applaud it and yes, violence happens to Democrats too. A lot of this is just simply the fact that, uh, thousands of politicians exist, especially when you go down to lower levels. [00:05:18] Governor's not that low, but state representatives are, and then if you've got local representatives, so there are thousands of politicians, and some of them are gonna be mugged or attacked, but that's not the same as a targeted critical assassination of a critical person. [00:05:37] And here's the crucial difference. No one on the right has ever admired the attackers when it comes, when it happens to Democrats. But when it happened to Charlie Kirk, the left openly praised the killer. When it happened to Trump, the the left criticized the killer for not being a better shot. Now, some of these people were fired. [00:06:03] And then they whined about free speech and when it comes to their being fired, I'm not sure we should be entirely comfortable with that, [00:06:13] but they don't know what free speech is. Free speech protects you from the government. It means the government can't jail you for your words or stop you from speaking. No one was stopped from speaking. No one seized their phones. No one stopped them from speaking again, unlike what happened to Charlie Kirk, unlike what happens to conservative speakers all the time. [00:06:41] So they may have lost their jobs. Yes, because employers have their own rights maybe. Unfortunately. So a Democrat. Campaigning for office. He doesn't have to hire Republicans to work for him, and he may dismiss people who don't support him. If you're a church, you don't have to hire atheists or an atheist organization. [00:07:02] You don't have to hire religious people. An EV company doesn't have to hire people who mock electric cars. I think they probably do, but they don't have to, and that's not censorship. That's freedom of association. Censorship is only done by the government. [00:07:19] Of course, the one in the spotlight would've been Jimmy Kimmel. He's a perfect example, because Jimmy Kimmel was suspended. He wasn't silenced. A, B, C simply decided he wasn't worth the airtime. Perhaps not worth the controversy. Maybe they are cowardly, but they can be cowardly. More important distinction here is that A, B, C is a public broadcast network. [00:07:46] They rent the public airwaves, so to speak. They have an FC, C license and the government holds them responsible for what they broadcast because they have to act. In the public interest, and that's the phrasing, I believe, the exact phrasing that's in there in their license [00:08:05] and public broadcasters both can and actually should refuse to. Air Liars and Kimmel did lie. Go watch the videos. He did lie. And they can dismiss dead weight that is losing money for, for them, either based on the popularity or on on their lies. And that's not a First Amendment violation. That part's a business decision. [00:08:28] And I need to talk a little bit more about this FCC license aspect because Bill Maher a prominent liberal, a, a reasonable one. He one you can talk to, he will, he will debate a conservative. Uh, but he was speaking about Jimmy Kimmel and saying that he was sympathetic because he also got fired. And, uh, you told him to keep your, keep your head up Jimmy. [00:08:50] Uh, because life gets better. I'm doing fine now, but he forgot to say the critical thing. Bill, mark can say anything he wants now because he is on HBOA cable network. Jimmy Kimmel is on a, b, C, A broadcast network. Bill Maher can say anything he wants without getting in trouble with the FCC. He might get in trouble with his customers. [00:09:16] He might get in trouble with his company, but HBO is not subject to FCC regulation. Uh, some people think maybe they should be, and maybe there should be some regulations on, well, regarding free speech on cable and on, uh, media channels like this one. Platforms that is, but there's not, there's not. Bill Maher's situation is vastly different from Jimmy Kimmel's. [00:09:45] So this hypocrisy, the, the left openly praises violence against conservatives while at the same time accusing Trump and Kirk of encouraging violence when neither man ever did. It's a double standard. It's a double, double standard. They don't do it, but they're accused of it. While the left does do it, but even worse, and I don't know if anybody's looked at this, look at exactly who is doing it. [00:10:16] There were doctors being fired for their speech. Doctors now people that we trust with human lives. One nurse commented on a doctor getting the news. In surgery and saying, Kirk, probably deser, well, whatever the words were, the environment was during surgery on somebody. He has a body, a human body cut open in front of him and he's saying that another human does not deserve to live or implying it. [00:10:47] So. [00:10:48] If you're gonna say that some lives are not worth protecting, then you're not a good doctor and you're not being fired for free speech per se. You're being fired for being a bad doctor, for betraying your oath in another category, professors. Teachers, administrators, the very people who should be the experts on free speech, not a guy doing a podcast from his basement. [00:11:23] These people turned out to be the worst offenders, the ones we trust with teaching our children what free speech is. Are the worst offenders. One site I was watching, one tracking site showing, uh, how many people they managed to manage to get fired. Not maybe, maybe not a laudable goal, but most of their firings were in education, [00:11:47] and in this situation. Academia, he was shot on a college campus. Academia should be bowing. Its head in shame, should be pausing to reflect, and instead they shout approval. [00:12:01] So think about it. It's been said, Charlie Kirk was shot while speaking outta university. So it's the one place that should embody the free exchange of ideas, and yet it became the place where ideas. Were silenced by bullets, and it's been said before, but it can be emphasized enough. We're gonna take this to another direction too, because Charlie Kirk Universities had banned him. [00:12:29] They protested him. They forced him to bring security. You know that if a conservative speaker tries to speak on a college campus, the student groups will automatically, automatically threaten to riot. And then the college will say, the speaker has to pay for the security and for damages. [00:12:52] That's how these children get coddled and, and given into . So he's forced to bring security, and so he gets in at one school and then that's where an assassin strikes. And it's the same schools that are building safe spaces. . And not only that, but they give Hamas encampments a platform. They provide everything for Hamas under the guise of free speech. And then when all this happens, academia should have been silent and shamed. They should have hung their heads, they should have stopped and said, Hmm, what have we been doing here? [00:13:40] But instead, they congratulate themselves and blame the gun lobby and maga. [00:13:47] So why are we spending so much time on this? Why emphasize this? Some of this has been said before, but here's the tragedy. Beyond the tragedy, the irony, turning point USA should not have been necessary. It's not just that. Charlie Kirk, should not have been assassin, or should not have been protested or banned or kept off campus Turning. [00:14:14] Point USA Charlie Kirk should not have been necessary because if universities had simply done their own jobs, Charlie Kirk would never have had a job. [00:14:31] Imagine because universities failed, failed to properly teach our students. A college dropout could show up and he could deprogram thousands of students in a couple hours of visit, and that's why he was targeted. [00:14:51] It is the universities, the colleges, the professors that are supposed to be teaching young people how to reason how to think critically, how to listen to both sides of an issue and choose one. And no one on the right is afraid to have students look at both sides of an issue, reflect, consider, critically, evaluate and choose one. [00:15:18] And that's what we have expected our colleges and universities to do. And if they had simply done that, Charlie Kirk not only would not have been assassinated. But his visits would not have been attended because they would've been ho hum. Boring. Yes. We are already getting that in class. [00:15:36] But turning Point USA did exist. Charlie Kirk did visit campuses and he was targeted and he was killed. And why did it happen general terms, it's because the left runs on feelings, not principles. And they changed their morality like they change hashtags. Today it's ban guns tomorrow, it's guns are okay for pot smokers. [00:16:09] We spoke about this on a previous video today it's defund the police tomorrow. It's police injured in insurrection on January 6th. [00:16:18] Today, it's a drunk driver's kill tomorrow. It's an intoxicated George Floyd is a hero. Morality ought to be steady, but there's shifts like sand in the wind. But Charlie Kirk was different. Hugely different. And that's for one reason. [00:16:41] Charlie Kirk was a Christian, and Christians just don't just go by whatever. They feel like, oh, we're tempted. Sure. But Charlie Kirk had a compass, a fixed, consistent God-given compass. And you know what a compass is? It always points north. Always. And that is what made Charlie Kirk powerful. And that's what made him dangerous. [00:17:10] And here's the proof. 'cause surveys don't lie. LOL, at least some of 'em don't. A recent u gov poll found that liberals, and especially those who call themselves very liberal. We're far more likely than conservatives to say political violence can sometimes be justified. Some even admitted that it's acceptable to rejoice at the death of a public figure they oppose. [00:17:41] Now, that's the obvious damage, the obvious root cause. The left is more comfortable with violent ideas than they want to admit. And the deeper danger is this, retaliation is always possible once violence is normalized, and that's bad enough on its own. But what we see here goes further. [00:18:08] It's not just retaliation that they're risking. [00:18:13] We wanna be careful what we say here. But when the left. Openly encourages violence. They're not only inviting pushback, they're lighting the fuse for fresh violence on their own side, on other sides, and all sides again and again. They keep talking about violence on both sides. Well, no, there hasn't been any violence on both sides. [00:18:36] Not yet. But there are crazy people on both sides. And the the left is telling everyone that violence is okay and everyone is listening. [00:18:49] Now some compare, uh, Charlie Kirk's assassination to Martin Luther King Jr. And it's a good comparison because yes, both men were symbolic leaders. They were men who stood for in ideology. But there are some differences after Martin Luther King Jr's murder in 1968. Riots swept through America in into a hundred cities and 38 people died after Charlie's death. [00:19:25] All you saw were peaceful vigils, whether it's another group of people, whether it's another time and place, I won't say, but they were peaceful vigils. The only violence was when they were disrupted, not by conservatives, but by the left. Oh, peaceful, truly peaceful, not democrat. Peaceful, and just look at the timing. [00:19:52] In just 18 months, there have been three assassination attempts. Two on Donald Trump and one on Charlie Kirk, and none of these attempts were against men holding public office. They had no power except the power of the microphone. So again, Democrats are pointing to attacks, but there those attacks were on political office holders, which always happens. [00:20:23] But the assassins from the left, targeted men whose influence came only from their voices. And here's a blunt truth, if they're worried about retaliation, there is no one on the left of comparable stature. There will be no retaliation because who would you retaliate against [00:20:46] qualitatively speaking, I suppose, uh, per people of the same category might be Greta Thunberg or David Hog, but are they on the same level? Most people use Greta Thunberg as the target of jokes. David Hog. I don't think most people know who he is, and both these people, they just lecture. Neither one will stand and and debate as anybody on the right will do. [00:21:21] Certainly Trump will, Charlie Kirk certainly did it for a living. There's no comparison. There's no, no one to compare to them. There are people of, of, of, of higher stature. The squad, for example. But they too, they only chase cameras. They won't debate. They're not Kirk, they're not Trump. And the left knows it, which is why they hated him. [00:21:52] Charlie Kirk was right, objectively and morally right because he followed God's law, not man's whims. Isn't it funny how much people care what a righteous man thinks of them? Why is that? There are people in the Middle East shouting death to America. Does that bother you? [00:22:20] It doesn't bother me. I do not yearn for their approval. Why do people yearn for the approval of a man like Charlie Kirk? And when he says he does not approve, when he even says, I love you, but I do not approve, they call that hate speech. But Democrats rewrite morality daily while Charlie's morality was unchanging, and that's why he was content and why they were enraged. [00:22:56] And now two and a half weeks later, the nation has seen the funeral. Every speaker returned again, again, to the gospel, to doing what is right -that's the gospel of Jesus, gospel means the Good News- and Charlie's widow stood up and forgave the killer. [00:23:13] Think about that. While the left, mocked, excused, and even praised the assassin, the family of the man himself chose grace over hatred. That's not weakness, that's strength. And that's what a real moral compass looks like. And that's why Charlie Kirk mattered so much, be not because he was loud or combative or popular, but because his life and now his death pointed to an unchanging truth. [00:23:46] In the end, it comes back to free speech. Mature adults know that both sides can argue and both sides can be partly right, but the principle that keeps us free is this. I may disagree with everything you say. But I will defend to the death, your right to say it. [00:24:08] That was Charlie Kirk's creed, and it needs to be everyone's.