Kirk’s assassination shows need for civility

While our editorials usually address local matters, we live in a precarious time period when our democracy – and our country – feels more fragile than it has since the 1960s or even the 1860s. Indeed, in 2024, exit polls at the general election consistently ranked the fate of the nation as the number one priority on voters’ minds and yet, in the aftermath of that night, it’s hard not to feel like we have found ourselves in even worse straits.

Last week’s shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University only underscores that feeling.

As press, we naturally recognize the importance of the First Amendment and the rare gift we were granted some 249 years ago when it was set down by our nation’s founders that speech – even in defiance of norms and established society – is a protected right. We know, too, that this is not a gift granted even to our peers in other western nations, that the concept of “free speech” oftentimes comes with strings attached. We oftentimes disagreed with Charlie Kirk’s positions, but we recognize, too, that his media empire was built on the concept of dialogue, of holding debates and having conversations. He exercised his right to free speech to its fullest extent.

No matter your opinion of Kirk himself, perhaps this should serve as a reflection that we, as people in an age of digital remove, crave the connection such conversation and debate foster.

It’s been noted that when violence enters our political ecosystem, it becomes exceedingly difficult to return to civility or any semblance of past normalcy. As fear breeds, so too does reactionary violence. Already, we’ve observed calls to respond to some group, to mete out retributive justice to an unnamed “they.” Not only do we find the idea of continued, violent escalation in our politics to be deeply unsettling, we find it reprehensible that, for some, the response to this assassination should be a rising call for still more trauma and carnage.

We do not believe responding with inflammatory rhetoric or violence will begin to salve the wounds inflicted by this incident, but that this will invite only more division. Perhaps that’s the point, but we reject that, too.

We hope, instead, that this might serve as a turning point in our collective history in which we consciously choose again to enter into good faith debate with each other, to respect our neighbors, to withhold our judgments. These were among the values our country was founded on: freedom, reason and good morality. It will take our combined efforts and courage to beat back the currents of violence and division, but we think it’s a worthy fight.

Already, we know it’s possible. Here in Cody and throughout Park County, we are neighbors and in community with each other despite our sometimes different views. And so we can only make the plea, as a part of the community ourselves, to extend that same sense of neighborliness further – to open and engage in honest dialogue wherever it is we go, to be curious and kind, to remain open to others, and their views and experiences even when we do not necessarily understand or agree.