‘Charlie Kirk’s Murder and the Limits of Freedom’

Moon Griffon had an interesting monologue on Thursday morning (18 Sept. 2025).  He was making the case for the kind of Enlightenment/classical liberal society that has existed in the States since they became free countries following their War for Independence with Great Britain, where individual liberties are the summum bonum, the highest good, of the society in question.

In this kind of society, he said, if one wants to mutilate his sex organs and transition to another gender, he is free to do so.  If one wants to not believe in God, he may do so.  And so on like that.

But, he conditioned all of this with one moral absolute:  One does not have the right to use violence against those who disagree with him.

There is a tremendous contradiction in this moral universe.  If one is free not to believe in and worship the Christian God, then one is also necessarily free not to obey the commands that the Holy Trinity has given mankind to follow.  And if that is so, then one is free from the command not to harm or murder his fellow man.

Thus, Christian morality is overthrown in the Enlightenment/classical liberal society for the sake of individual liberties.

Many, many people on the Right in the US are proclaiming that the murder of Charlie Kirk is a tipping point:  The States cannot go on like they have been; something has got to change; Christianity must be given more prominence in our public life – not merely in our private, individual lives.

They are right.  But for that to happen we must reorder our hierarchy of values.  Individual rights disconnected from Christianity can no longer be at the top of the ladder.  Union of all our people with Christ in His Church must occupy that spot.  There are models of this kind of ‘illiberal democracy’ in recent years – Hungary, Greece, Ireland, and some others – whose fundamental laws make explicit reference to Christ, the All-Holy Trinity, and Christianity.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/09/garlington-charlie-kirks-murder-and-the-limits-of-freedom/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘What Did Charlie Kirk Die For?’

 

The responses to Charlie Kirk’s murder have so far been very visceral.  We wanted to step away from that and take a more dispassionate look at what Mr Kirk’s death means.

The eulogies and encomiums for Charlie Kirk are multiplying as the multitudes of people whom he touched come to terms with his death.  There are some recurring themes in them – of Mr Kirk as a happy, Christian warrior advocating for a renewal of America; as a husband and father; and so on.

One of the most striking recurrences is the proclamation that Mr Kirk is a martyr.  Examples:

‘A Martyred Apostle for Liberty’ – Mike Bayham

‘America’s greatest martyr to the freedom of speech he so adored’ – Turning Point USA

‘Charlie Kirk, Martyr’ – Joshua Treviño:  ‘American liberty requires sacrifice, and it requires martyrdom too.’

‘Charlie Kirk will be a free speech martyr’ – Ben Shapiro

‘Charlie Kirk is a martyr’ – Pastor Jack Graham

And so on.

In Christianity, to become a martyr is one of the highest achievements possible.  However, in Mr Kirk’s case something other than Christian martyrdom seems to be at work.  As we see above, Mr Kirk’s martyrdom is more associated with modern American ideals – liberty, free speech – than with Christ.  His comparison with Martin Luther King, Jr, is revealing in this respect:

Intercessors for America, a Christian group with ties to the Trump administration, emailed supporters on Wednesday night with a suggested prayer in response to Kirk’s death. The subject line referred to “Charlie Kirk, a modern day MLK.”

 

Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, a social conservative advocacy group, shut down his office upon hearing the news of his friend’s death.

 

“I’m racking my brain trying to think of another political figure that had a similar impact and following who was assassinated, and the only person I can think of is Martin Luther King Jr.,” Schilling said (The Salt Lake Tribune).

MLK, Jr, was rather notorious for turning the Holy Gospel into an ideological tool to push a political program centered around various human rights.  Mr Kirk followed suit:

Kirk built a massive political movement with viral video clips of sharp comebacks and quick counterarguments in all-comers debates. He described himself as a disruptor and argued disruption was the only way to make America great again. Adopting Donald Trump’s signature political slogan, Kirk called it “the MAGA doctrine, which is a doctrine of American renewal, revival … that America is the greatest country in the history of the world” (Christianity Today).

His dedication to worldly ideology is even more pronounced on the web page of the organization he started, Turning Point USA.  The three pillars of his version of Americanism are what one would expect.  Quoting from the web site:

The US Constitution is the most exceptional political document ever written.

 

The United States of America is the greatest country in the history of the world.

 

Capitalism is the most moral and proven economic system ever discovered.

These are statements of blind faith.  They must be accepted uncritically as articles of the false American religious creed, for they do not hold up under scrutiny.

As to the first, there has never been unanimity amongst the peoples of the States regarding the beneficence of the Philadelphia charter.  The Anti-Federalists at the time of its writing and ratification were quite opposed to it, and their warnings are still relevant today.  And its deficiencies are still regularly pointed out and discussed amongst significant minority groups such as libertarians and Southern traditionalists.

As to the second, what metrics have earned us ‘greatest nation’ status?  There are only two things at which the US excel all other nations:  making money and bragging about our political system (indeed, the theme of Mr Kirk’s 2024 RNC speech could be summed up as ‘Make Gen Z Americans Rich Again’).  In traditional metrics like culture (production of original paintings, music, architecture, etc.) and holiness (i.e., the birth of saints), they are quite deficient.  Worse, in the US having large amounts of money is more or less equivalent to holiness/saintliness, which leads to the third pillar.

How moral is a system that allows a few billionaire oligarchs to control the US economy and make it work in their favor instead for the common good?  Whether one looks at the Old Testament law and prophets or New Testament warnings or the laws of Orthodox countries, one does not meet with capitalism as the ideal economic system of God’s people but rather a system of wide property distribution that intentionally discourages wealth concentration.

Nevertheless, it is said that Mr Kirk’s focus turned more toward Christianity over the years, and thus he formed Turning Point USA Faith.  But even here, the mission is tainted by worldly Americanism.  Per the TPUSA Faith web site:

We engage, equip, and empower millions of grateful Americans who are prepared to defend our God-given rights, by giving them the tools to expose lies and articulate the connection between Faith and Freedom.

As per usual with Americanism, Christ (and religion in general) is not the end, but a means to an end:  to ensuring the survival of the rights and freedoms of Americans.  It is a powerful temptation; we were once trapped in that paradigm.  But that does not justify it.

 . . .

The rest is at https://orthodoxreflections.com/what-did-charlie-kirk-die-for/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Another Russia Hoax Exposed’

 

The dishonesty about the globalists’ Russia hoax of 2016 has been exposed.  But if anyone thinks we have now entered into a media environment in which reporting on Western-Russian relations will be more honest, he had better think again.

A stunning story out of Europe shows that the globalists are still employing lies in their effort to prolong division between the West and Russia:

‘The Financial Times’ Brussels Bureau Chief Henry Foy prompted panic across Europe last week when he reported that Russian electronic warfare succeeded in jamming the GPS of European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s plane right as she was about to land in Bulgaria. The thought that Putin supposedly tried to assassinate a Western leader through “plausibly deniable” means complemented the purpose of her visit by drawing attention to the supposed “Russian threat” that the frontline states face.

‘The problem though is that this never happened. FlightRadar24, which is the world’s most reputable source for in-flight information, shared data debunking this claim. Bulgaria itself later walked back its initial support of this story, which its pro-Western leadership would never have done had there been any truth to it. Politico then published a piece to their credit about how this allegation is starting to unravel. All of this lent credence to Russian officials’ denials that their country jammed von der Leyen’s plane’ (Andrew Korybko, ‘There Might Be More To The Von Der Leyen-GPS-Russia Hoax Than Scoring Cheap Infowar Points,’ korybko.substack.com).

But why, more precisely, this latest Russia hoax?  One of the reasons will sound obscure to us here in the States, but not to the Europeans.  Some of the countries in eastern Europe have their eye on Russian territory, an enclave called Kaliningrad:

‘Astute observers will recall the recurring threats made against Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad since the special operation began. These include Lithuania’s brief blockade of that region, Poland’s renaming of it to “Krolewiec” in reference to the long-gone time when it was a Polish fief, and NATO’s military buildup that’s explicitly predicated in part on neutralizing Russian military forces there. It thus wouldn’t be far-fetched to speculate that Foy’s hoax is meant to justify aggressive signals jamming in Kaliningrad’ (Ibid.).

Another implicates us directly, however:

‘Of course, it’s also possible that Foy’s von der Leyen-GPS-Russia hoax was indeed just some random attempt to score cheap infowar points against Russia, though it can’t confidently be ruled out that this was a perception management operation aimed at advancing the aforesaid goal. Kaliningrad remains too tantalizing of a target for Western warmongers to ignore, especially those who want to provoke a crisis that could pull Trump deeper into mission creep, and this hoax provides the pretext for attempting that’ (Ibid., bolding added).

This is alarming but not all that surprising.  The blood-thirsty, psychopathic globalists know that their Ukraine war will fizzle out without US involvement, so they must do whatever they can (including more lies and hoaxes) to persuade Trump not to seek a quick, peaceful end to it in partnership with Russia.

 . . .

The rest is at https://thehayride.com/2025/09/garlington-another-russia-hoax-exposed/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!

‘Irrelevant Congresses and Caesar-Presidents’

 

The powers of the federal executive have been growing steadily in the United States since Lincoln’s War, which destroyed the limited, coordinating government that had existed in DC up to his time in office and replaced it with a powerful, centralized entity that could stomp upon the States with impunity.  Proof of this may be seen in the numbers of executive orders issued by the presidents.  Prior to Lincoln’s War they were quite rare, not even totaling 20 in most cases.  After that turning point, they have ranged from near 100 to over 1,000.

This increase in presidential power corresponds to a diminution of the power of the federal legislature.  Government power is a zero-sum game:  Particular functions cannot be exercised by more than one person or department without creating chaos.  Thus, we have seen the federal Congress grow weaker as the president and the executive bureaucracy grow stronger.

President Trump exemplifies this trend.  Many of his headline-making policies are a usurpation of congressional powers as laid out in the federal constitution.

Tariffs:  Article I, Section 8, clauses 1 and 3 clearly give the power of deciding on tariffs to Congress.  Yet Trump has been busily revising tariff rates from week to week while Congress stands idly by.

Declaring wars:  Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 11 grants this power to Congress alone.  But again President Trump has launched attacks against quite a few actors, whether countries or non-state actors – Iran, Somali terrorists, the Houthis in Yemen, Venezuelan drug cartels – none of which attacks have been debated or approved by Congress.

Calling up the States’ militias/National Guards:  Art. I, Sec. 8, cl. 15 authorizes the Congress to call out the militia to execute the laws, etc.  The president may not call them up himself; however, once the Congress does call up the Guard, the president then becomes their commander (Art. II, Sec. 2, cl. 1).  Once again, what we have seen with the Trump administrations is the reversal of the constitutional order, with the president sending the National Guard to conduct various law enforcement tasks without a specific act of Congress authorizing those tasks.

Delegation of powers from Congress to the president is an unlawful revision of the federal charter.  Only the States, either in their legislatures or in conventions, have the authority to approve revisions to the charter (Art. V), for they are the ones who originally wrote and ratified it.

But this transition from a powerful legislature and a weak executive to a weak legislature and powerful executive was foreseeable.  A federation as extensive as the United States cannot be governed well by a strong Congress/weak president.  The size of the federation to be governed was a concern from the earliest days of the newly independent States.  One of the best of the Anti-Federalist writers (those who opposed the ratification of the current federal constitution), Brutus, had this to say in Essay 1:

‘Let us now proceed to inquire, as I at first proposed, whether it be best the thirteen United States should be reduced to one great republic, or not? It is here taken for granted, that all agree in this, that whatever government we adopt, it ought to be a free one; that it should be so framed as to secure the liberty of the citizens of America, and such an one as to admit of a full, fair, and equal representation of the people. The question then will be, whether a government thus constituted, and founded on such principles, is practicable, and can be exercised over the whole United States, reduced into one state?

‘If respect is to be paid to the opinion of the greatest and wisest men who have ever thought or wrote on the science of government, we shall be constrained to conclude, that a free republic cannot succeed over a country of such immense extent, containing such a number of inhabitants, and these increasing in such rapid progression as that of the whole United States. Among the many illustrious authorities which might be produced to this point, I shall content myself with quoting only two.

‘The one is the Baron de Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws,^[1] Chap. xvi. Vol. I [Book VIII]. “It is natural to a republic to have only a small territory, otherwise it cannot long subsist. In a large republic there are men of large fortunes, and consequently of less moderation; there are trusts too great to be placed in any single subject; he has interest of his own; he soon begins to think that he may be happy, great and glorious, by oppressing his fellow citizens; and that he may raise himself to grandeur on the ruins of his country. In a large republic, the public good is sacrificed to a thousand views; it is subordinate to exceptions, and depends on accidents. In a small one, the interest of the public is easier perceived, better understood, and more within the reach of every citizen; abuses are of less extent, and of course are less protected.” Of the same opinion is the Marquis Beccarari.^[2]

‘History furnishes no example of a free republic, anything like the extent of the United States. The Grecian republics were of small extent; so also was that of the Romans. Both of these, it is true, in process of time, extended their conquests over large territories of country; and the consequence was, that their governments were changed from that of free governments to those of the most tyrannical that ever existed in the world’ (teachingamericanhistory.org).

Keep in mind that the size of the union at the time Brutus was writing was a fraction of what it is today, consisting mainly of the States along the Atlantic coast.  Yet even a union of that size aroused his skepticism of the formation and long duration of a limited, representative federal government.  How much more would he have balked at the idea of such a government existing in a union that stretches over several time zones, such as ours does today.

Brutus adds the following:

 . . .

The rest is at https://www.abbevilleinstitute.org/irrelevant-congresses-and-caesar-presidents/.

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Holy Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the Souð, unworthy though we are!

Anathema to the Union!