Peace
Although our country has a history of political violence, assassination is never acceptable. It is not how our system is supposed to resolve conflicting opinions. Charlie Kirk’s death is just another example of a broken system. Although I disagree with many things in his message, I respect the courage he showed in putting his philosophy in the public space. I think he viewed his role to be the leader in an apocalyptic battle between good and evil. He was a cultural warrior who used words rather than bullets. His organizational and communication skills were incredible. He might have been elected president.
The question now is how to best honor his legacy. One approach is rooted in the Old Testament phrase “an eye for an eye” while another way is found in the New Testament phrase “love your enemy.” The path we choose has important consequences for our nation.
If I read the current media correctly we seem to be inclined to interpret his murder as a call to punish those who disagreed with him. Those who do not mourn sufficiently loudly are considered hateful or unpatriotic. There are calls for job firings, business black listings, banishment from civil society, revocation of drivers’ licenses and/or citizenship. These responses mock Kirk’s core belief in freedom of expression and public debate.
We need to be better people despite our grief and anger. “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”
Kirby Stiening, Portsmouth
The Windy City
The Chicago Tribune reported 573 homicides in the Windy City during 2024. Chicago’s mayor and President Donald Trump agree the violence must be abated. They sharply disagree on tactics.
The mayor is following a “holistic approach” to public safety. Progressive social programs, integrated with the police, are networked to thwart the violence in crime-ridden neighborhoods. Touting optimism, the mayor recently announced homicides declined about one-third in 2025 compared to 2024. His assessment is promising. However, odds are the decline is influenced by statistics in Chicago’s moderately violent North Side — not the South Side where far more criminal activity abounds. Comprehensive abatement, predictably, may be futuristic.
Anticipating the Washington, D.C., experience, the president would like to deploy the National Guard to quell the violence. Their intervention has been steadfastly rejected by the mayor as unwelcome, unnecessary and illegal. Nevertheless, the Chicago police, with National Guard assistance, could rapidly push down homicide associated violence — enough to enable public safety improvements to be embodied expeditiously. Pending common-sense collaboration between the city’s mayor and the president, the Windy City will likely keep one of the nation’s highest homicide rate — the victims, hapless casualties of a horrendous problem in search of a sustaining solution.
Herb Kline, Virginia Beach
Empathy
Last Sunday, people in liturgical churches all across our country heard from the book of Amos in the Hebrew scriptures, “Hear this, you that trample on the needy, and bring to ruin the poor of the land … Surely I will never forget any of their deeds.”
From gutting U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to severely limiting Medicaid, one can see how some pastors in the MAGA movement, to keep their flock happy, cast aspersions on the idea of empathy (as per a recent Daily Press column). That word has very little place in the goals of the Trump administration. The trouble is, anyone with even the most elementary concept of the major themes of the Bible knows that empathy is a core value.
The book of Amos has lots to say to America about how we treat people; read it some time. And remember: Someone will never forget.
Bradley R. Norris, Hampton