A Call for Calm

 

In light of recent events, the horrific political assassination of Charlie Kirk on a Utah campus on September 10, 2025, as well as all the senseless killings of late, we all need to take a step back, take a time out, and ask as a nation, what have we become? It’s not right.

 

It is the loss of empathy that makes such acts of violence possible, when we can no longer see the humanity – or divinity – in another person.

 

We might disagree, but we don’t have to be disagreeable. As memorialized in Evelyn Beatrice Hall’s 1906 biography of the French philosopher, Voltaire (1694-1778): “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it.” This is how strongly Voltaire felt about freedom of speech.

 

I probably do not agree with most of what Charlie Kirk was espousing. I’ve only heard about a few of his racist remarks and his stance on LGBTQ rights. But he didn’t need to die. That wasn’t right. A woman has lost her partner. Two children no longer have a Dad. My heart breaks for them, and I pray for them.

 

We need to cool things down. Live and let live. One person's rights extend only as far as where the next person's begins.

 

Or as my Dad always said, two wrongs don’t make a right.

 

It wasn't right either when the Democratic politicians were killed in Minneapolis in a targeted political assassination in June, when Democratic state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark were gunned down in their home, and state senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette were shot and seriously wounded. The attacks on the Governor of Pennsylvania and Donald Trump weren’t right either.

 

When is this going to end?

 

The issue is that words can be powerful catalysts for action, good or bad. Words can incite violence. Look at the January 6^th attack on the U.S. Capitol in 2021. It is our President himself who has been fomenting much of the divisiveness, when what we need most is unity. There is talk of censorship, but that’s dangerous territory, and paves the way to an autocratic society where differing opinions are silenced. Censorship is stifling to the very freedoms on which our country was founded.

 

Utah Governor Spencer Cox has been a bright light through all of this, calling for unity, compassion and calm, in the face of this divisiveness. Here is an excerpt of his remarks at the press conference on September 10, 2025:

https://youtu.be/pGJ_F5RH5i4?si=V9jI3l3k_I3behZG

 

“This is a dark day for our state, it’s a tragic day for our nation. I want to be very clear this is a political assassination.”

 

“Our nation is broken, we’ve had political assassinations recently in Minnesota, we had an attempted assassination of the Governor of Pennsylvania, and we had an attempted assassination on a presidential candidate, and former president of the US, and now current president of the United States.

Nothing I say can unite us as a country.

Nothing I can say right now can fix what is broken.

Nothing I can say can bring back Charlie Kirk.

Our hearts are broken. We mourn with his wife, his children, his family, his friends, we mourn as a nation.

If anyone in the sound of my voice celebrated even a little bit at the news of this shooting, I would beg you to look in the mirror and to see if you can find a better angel in there somewhere.

I don’t care what his politics are.

I care that he was an American.

We desperately need our country, we desperately need leaders in our country, but more than the leaders, we just need every single person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be.  

To ask ourselves, is this it, is this what 250 years has wrought on us?

I pray that that’s not the case.

I pray that those who hated what Charlie Kirk stood for, will put down their social media and their pens, and pray for his family, and that all of us will try to find a way to stop hating our fellow Americans.”

 

Here are some excerpts taken from Governor Cox’s statements at the press conference held on September 12, 2025.

https://youtu.be/CDOjTgx1c3Q?si=SLosBeJY7aBvKHTP

 

“I think it’s important that we with eyes wide open understand what’s happening in our country today.”

 

“Violence is tragic everywhere, and every life taken is a child of God who deserves our love and respect and dignity. This is certainly about the tragic death, assassination, political assassination of Charlie Kirk.

 

But it is also much bigger than an attack on an individual.

It is an attack on all of us.

It is an attack on the American experiment.

It is an attack on our ideals.

This cuts to the very foundation of who we are, of who we have been, and who we could be in better times.

 

Political violence is different than any other type of violence, for lots of different reasons. One, because, in the very act that Charlie championed, of expression, that freedom of expression that is enshrined in our founding documents.

 

In having his life taken in that very act makes it more difficult for people to feel like they can share their ideas, that they can speak freely.

We will never be able to solve all the other problems, including the violence problems, if people are worried about if we can’t have a clash of ideas safely and securely, even, especially those ideas with which you disagree.

That’s why this matters so much.”

 

Cox quoted Charlie as saying:

“When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to commit violence. What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable agreement where violence is not an option.”

 

Cox finished by saying:

“We can return violence with violence; we can return hate with hate, and that's the problem with political violence, is it metastasizes, because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point we have to find an off ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse. But, see, these are choices that we can make. History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country, but every single one of us gets to choose right now if this is a turning point for us. We get to make decisions, we have our agency, and I desperately call on every American… to please, please, please follow what Charlie taught me.”

 

“I’ll just conclude with words I share often from a friend, and author… who was asked if he was optimistic about our country.

And he said, ‘I’m not optimistic.’ He said ‘I hate optimism.’

He said, ‘Optimism is a vice, it’s this idea that good things are just going to happen. In the history of the world, good things have never just happened.

I’m not optimistic, but I am hopeful.

Hope is the virtue that sits between the vices of optimism and pessimism.

Hope is the idea that good things are going to happen because we can make them so.’

 

“I still believe in our country. And I know Charlie Kirk believed in our country.

And I still believe there is more good among us than evil.”

 

Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said it equally eloquently in June, after the killings in Minnesota, when asked where this ranked in terms of attacks across the United States:

 

“This is a political assassination, which is not a word we use very often in the United States, let alone here in Minnesota. It’s a chilling attack on our Democracy, on our way of life. It’s only the most recent example of violent political extremism in this country, and that’s a trend that’s been increasing over recent years, that’s unfortunate, and I hope it’s a wake-up call to everyone, that people can disagree with you, without being evil or needing to be killed or hurt.”

 

What Governor Spencer Cox and Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson said could just as easily be applied to either or any of the killings. And so maybe there is some common ground to be found.

Peace, friends, I wish you all peace. 

 

Post-Script:

I’m not sure which friend or author Governor Cox was quoting, but it’s very similar to a quote attributed to the Reverend William Sloane Coffin (1924 – 2006), an American clergyman and peace activist who worked for decades in the New England area and nationally:

“If your heart’s full of hope, you can be persistent when you can’t be optimistic. You can keep the faith despite the evidence, knowing that only in so doing has the evidence any chance of changing. So, while I am not optimistic, I am always hopeful.”

This quote was actually the inspiration for writing my second book, and is in a way both the beginning and ending of the book. Spoiler alert, this is how my book concludes on the last page:

“I have carried this newspaper clipping with me in my back pocket for over a decade now, pulling it out whenever I needed some inspiration, to not give up, to try to make things better, to be both human and divine. If I could not always be optimistic, try as I might, I have always tried to remain hopeful.”

Many times over my career, I have been admonished when I’d start a sentence with, “I’m hoping…”, and I’d be solemnly reminded that “hope is not a plan.” And yet, if I had to choose, and could only have one or the other, I would choose hope every time. Because plans change, things get scrapped, and it’s back to the drawing board, and with hope and sometimes a little luck, I can always come up with another plan. But if I lose hope, I have lost everything.

References:

Coffin, William Sloane. 2004. Credo. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press.

© 2025 Rosemary A. Schmidt

Rose Schmidt is the author of The Happy Clam (© 2020), and Go Forward, Support! The Rugby of Life (© 2004), both published by Gainline Press. The views expressed herein are solely those of the author, and do not represent the views of any other agency or organization. Use of individual quotes with proper citation and attribution, within the limits of fair use, is permitted. If you would like to request permission to use or reprint any of the content on the site, please contact me.