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JFK, MLK, RFK and now CJK – Charles James Kirk

September 22, 2025

Andy Caldwell

OPINION by ANDY CALDWELL

Although I was a child when President John Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, I vividly remember my own grief for their families and our country. What I don’t remember is anyone openly celebrating the deaths of these three great Americans. Especially since they were shot in cold blood by assassins.

These murders shook our nation to its core and rightly so.

Today, there is no doubt that too many Americans have lost their soul, their humanity, and their decency in that they rejoiced to see Charlie Kirk gunned down in front of his own family and for what?

Charlie Kirk, armed with only faith and facts along with a genius IQ, respectively allowed all comers to challenge his faith, knowledge, and patriotism in an open forum. And because he was extremely successful in the battle for hearts and minds on college campuses across America, he became the enemy of the left in America. An enemy whose death was worth celebrating by too many people.

Do any of these people still believe these words from the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness?”

Is it no longer a self-evident truth that murdering somebody speaking in the public square is evil? Apparently not.

The people who are celebrating Charlie’s murder obviously no longer believe in free speech, the right to peacefully assemble, the freedom of religion, nor the unalienable right to life and liberty.

That begs the question, what do these wicked people believe in? Certainly not the God who gave us our divine rights along with such commandments as do not kill.

Thomas Jefferson rightly warned us that the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants, as he emphasized that freedom is never free in our ongoing struggle against tyranny. And that is exactly what the left in America has become, tyrants. They don’t recognize anyone’s right to oppose their wicked ideology.

Regardless, Charlie Kirk’s mission has now gone viral. So, where do we go from here?

I, for one, plan to continue to call out the godless and unamerican people who celebrated the assassination of a man who simply wanted to have a civil conversation to preserve our civilization. A man who believed from the bottom of his heart, and by way of the history of our great traditions, that talking with one another is our only chance to avoid division, and worse, violence.

Ironically, his murder was celebrated by some of the same political ideologues who believe words constitute violence, and who also rally against gun violence at schools! Go figure.

Regardless, in their opinion, Charlie’s murder was justifiable homicide because of his words. So, while calling Charlie a fascist and a wanna-be tyrant, the real fascists and tyrants are those who called for and condoned his assassination.

The group of people who need to be confronted, the very people Charlie Kirk was talking to, would include the bulk of American college students who Charlie gave his life to reach.

As Daniel Greenfield pointed out in a recent column in Front Page Magazine, a very large survey of some 68,000 students at 257 universities by FIRE (The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s) revealed that one in three students believed that using violence and/or aggression to stop a speaker they disagreed with on campus was acceptable at least in some way, shape or form!

Unfortunately, however, a lot of Americans are done with talking. As one pundit on social media stated, “No, we don’t need to have a conversation! You killed the guy willing to do that.”

Andy Caldwell is the executive director of COLAB in Santa Barbara County and host of The Andy Caldwell Radio Show, weekdays from 3-5 p.m. on  FM 98.5, FM 99.5, AM 1240, AM 1290 and FM 96.9.

 


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So juvenile, how this new generation spews things like “inclusion, diversity, etc. only to murder someone they “don’t agree with.” Ignorance is bliss, I guess. So next, on their agenda is, “I identify as a murderer, so I am allowed to kill whoever I choose.” Lord come quickly, and heal our broken world!


8

I was in 7th grade when Kennedy was killed. No one was saying that he deserved it. But then I was in Indiana where the people are generally nice.


11

Even if someone thought he deserved it they would not say so or post it for all to see, as people in those days used discretion and had respect.


9

What I see in this post is a glaring contradiction. On one hand, you talk about freedom of speech, civil discourse, and American ideals—but on the other, you paint Charlie Kirk as some sainted martyr of truth, while ignoring the fact that he made his career stoking division, spreading half-truths, and vilifying entire communities of Americans. That is not patriotism—it’s profiteering off hate.


Yes, celebrating anyone’s death is wrong. It’s ugly, it’s dehumanizing, and I’ll call that out just as strongly as you.


But don’t twist this moment into some holy crusade. Kirk wasn’t silenced because he was “armed with faith and facts”—he was a provocateur who made millions by pitting Americans against each other, particularly the most vulnerable. If you believe in liberty and free speech, then you should also recognize that the right to speak does not mean freedom from accountability.


As an activist for equality and free speech, I’ll fight anyone who celebrates violence—but I’ll also fight the toxic ideologies Kirk pushed, because those ideas are what breed hate in the first place. You can’t defend democracy with division. You can’t preach freedom while denying it to others. And you can’t claim to honor Jefferson’s “tree of liberty” while watering it with propaganda.


If we really want to honor the legacies of JFK, MLK, and Bobby Kennedy—the men you invoked—we should remember that they stood for inclusion, justice, and moral courage. Not fear-mongering. Not cheap soundbites. And definitely not monetized division.


So yes—I’ll fight for free speech. But I’ll also fight to expose the ignorance of those who confuse demagoguery with dialogue, and hate-mongering with heroism.


3

I have been watching Charlie Kirk debate students and professors for over a year and have never found any toxic, hateful, dehumanizing, racist, half-truths or propaganda in his dialog. On the contrary I’ve found him to be intelligent, fair, decent, truthful, honest, moral and yes righteous.

Disagreeing with wokeness, liberal viewpoint and Christian oppression is not hateful or racist.


9

I’m sorry but either you 1. Haven’t actually watched Kirk debate or 2. You’re willfully misrepresenting him. Sorry but yeah, if you go around saying that gay people should be stoned to death, that’s hateful. Claiming that the Civil Rights Act should have never been passed is indeed racist. Stating that girls, children, should be forced to carry pregnancies to term is not decent. Openly accepting the brutal slaughter of children in schools as an acceptable price to pay for a totally unregulated Second Amendment right is not moral.


-1

And you just proved you never listened to his show or You Tube videos, because he never said those things. You pulled some leftist blame words of some leftist site, and proclaim them real, when all those are cherry picked and jumbled words from the actual quote, which shows the exact opposite..


7

Assassinating your enemy only makes your enemy stronger…If you say Kirk said vile hateful things you have been misled and don’t know what the word vile means… he said things you may disagree with but that doesn’t mean its vile or hateful… you are the one who is vile and hateful…


8

Multiple things can be true at the same time. For example, the belief that violence, especially political violence in a liberal democratic republic like the U.S. is supposed to be, is abhorrent. It is. What happened to Charlie Kirk is abhorrent. It is condemnable and should be condemned. It is also true that the political ideology espoused by Charlie Kirk is deeply harmful.


Kirk believed that gay people should be stoned to death. He believed individuals should not be allowed to retire. He believed that MLK Jr., referred to by the failed congressional candidate that wrote this poorly written missive, was “an awful person.” He promoted the great replacement theory, that vaccine requirements were “medical apartheid,” believed that the Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake,” believed that underage girls should be forced to carry their pregnancies to term, I could go on. His “debate” style was more reminiscent of a gish gallop than actual legitimate and logical argumentation. He chose his debate opponents rather well, going to college campuses with students who had not mastered all of the facts or have anywhere near as develop of a debate style as him.


Charlie Kirk’s death must be condemned. Attempting to rewrite history, and frequently trying to “cancel” individuals for simply quoting Kirk, should also be condemned. We should be able to have an open and honest conversation about his legacy as well as political violence in this country more broadly. As another commenter has already pointed out, individuals like Andy Caldwell were pretty quiet following the assassination of Melissa Hortman and her husband. Prominent Republican politicians publicly made crude jokes following the attempted murder of Paul Pelosi. Hell, Donald Trump pardoned January 6th rioters who had been found guilty of attacking police officers. Again, not a word from people like Andy Caldwell.


(Time to sit back and watch the downvotes roll in… cannot wait to hear everyone’s well reasoned replies about how I have TDS or I’m some communist socialist cuck…please for the love of GOD get better material people!!)


1

Now, go back and find, exactly, those statements you listed, said by Charlie. No fair using a left leaning site or Huffpost. Find his real words, in the complete sentences, then come back here and try again.


7

I was attending Arroyo Grande High School when MLK and RFK were assassinated. There was quite a lot of horrific jubilation for the two American leaders getting what they deserved. I was sickened and stunned that everyday school chums could think in such a way let alone say it out loud with glee. It still is an awful memory.


19

Utter hogwash, like most of what Caldwell spews. I was in college when MLK and RFK were killed. I can remember many folks basically saying those men deserved it, including my late father, God bless him, who still often used the N word in those days. It was an incredibly charged political environment in 1968, probably more so than today if that’s posdible. The only difference is today we have social media, 24-hour news cycle and the internet to exacerbate the problem.


16

You admit you were “a child” when the two Kennedy’s and MLK were murdered, but you also say you “don’t remember” anyone “openly celebrating” their deaths.


1) First off, nice revisionist history

2) We didn’t have the internet back then, so how would you know the thoughts and comments of people from across the WORLD, like we have available at the tips of our fingers now?

3) You were a child, with the mind of a child, and the memory of a child

3) You have to be high as a kite if you don’t think there were people plain giddy over the death of Martin Luther King when he was murdered. There are people today who relish his death.

4) Charlie Kirk said some of the most vile things about people in general. MLK did not. JFK did not. Charlie is responsible for his words. As it keeps being said, your words are protected from government suppression, but words absolutely have consequences and Charlie suffered the consequences of the horrible words he uttered.


-19

Johnny Carson kept his job, and the nation’s thanks through all that horrible history. Even you can grasp why.


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