By Gretchen Garrity
The educated and sophisticated Left have run out of arguments to deny responsibility for the violence they incite. The martyrdom of Charlie Kirk has changed everything. There was a momentous shift in ways we cannot yet fathom.
As some on the Left continue to celebrate the murder of someone with whom they disagreed, other more reasonable individuals are working through the event in a more thoughtful way. MSU Professor Elizabeth Dudash-Buskirk continues to opine on her Facebook page HERE. While I disagree with much of what she writes, it is a hopeful thing to see the admission that "empathy" must go both ways.
The long-time illogical idea that it's guns that kill has been modified to 'people with guns.' We moved them an inch, fellow thinkers. Celebrate!
But with that admission, the argument must deflect to a side issue, that of selective outrage. Professor Dudash-Buskirk cannot admit that certain speech, or as she says with her professor pants on--rhetoric--can sway people to commit acts of violence.
Of course rhetoric can move people to great good or great evil. Ask Edward Bernays. As someone who has "studied communication for 30 years," she is deeply aware that rhetoric has been used to inflame dissent, rally armies, calm a populace, etc.
Professor Dudash-Buskirk writes in her latest Facebook post, "Get PISSED OFF at the gun violence, stop blaming the world for RHETORIC and start reflecting on the DEATHS.
What caused these? Rhetoric? NO. People with guns caused these."
Methinks the good professor is justifying calling those with whom she disagrees "bigots" and other equally defamatory appellations. If it is true that rhetoric--the art of communication or persuasion--did not affect the beliefs and actions of people, why does the Left in academia cling so deeply to their rhetoric? In fact, most colleges and universities these days actively suppress any other views than those of the Left.
They suppress and mock and censor others because rhetoric has consequences.
Just now, because of the immense shift that has happened in this country since Charlie was martyred, she is calling for "mending [the] divide and understand the process of the two party system is based on PRODUCTIVE DEBATE, not violent division."
Unfortunately, many people on both sides of the "two-party system," do not understand that there is only one party. It is the party of millionaires and billionaires and multi-national corporations and NGOs who some time ago usurped the two-party system. It is they who pull the strings and 'encourage' legislators to vote against their constituents time after time.
But back to rhetoric.
Professor Dudash-Buskirk makes a call for outrage in all caps no less, "I AM CALLING ON ALL AMERICANS TO BE OUTRAGED AT THE DEATHS OF THE HORTMANS, CHARLIE KIRK, the attacks on PAUL PELOSI and PRESIDENT TRUMP, EVERGREEN HIGH SCHOOL, ANNUNCIATION SCHOOL, ANNUNCIATION CHURCH, and the FORTY-SEVEN SCHOOL SHOOTINGS…"
Note, that the professor deftly moves the issue from the spoken word to the selective outrage she claims is the problem. She equates the murder of the Hortmans to that of Charlie Kirk, who is magnitudes more well known than the murdered Minnesota state representative, and thus would naturally receive more attention.
You see, vile rhetoric and incitement to hate isn't the problem. The problem is we all must be equally outraged at every act of violence.
The Oxford Learner's Dictionary defines "outrage" thusly: "To make somebody very shocked and angry." In an interesting twist, the etymology of the word means, "c. 1300, outragen, "to go to excess, act immoderately," from outrage (n.) or from Old French oultrager. From 1580s with meaning "do violence to, attack, maltreat." Related: Outraged; outraging."
In sending your sons and daughters to almost any university, parents are (unwittingly) paying to have their children radicalized.
— Larry Alex Taunton (@LarryTaunton) September 12, 2025
As a parent, I prefer that our children's professors do not use the rhetoric of outrage to influence them or anyone else. Toward the end of her Facebook post, she states (again in caps), "STOP TAKING THE EASY WAY OUT AND BLAMING RHETORIC. BLAME ACTORS AND ACTION..."
Where does Elizabeth think the actors got the ideas for their actions? The ether? When teachers and online 'friends' and bad actors and cultural Marxism all converge to spread hatred to other people groups, to demonize and dehumanize them, it is not surprising that political acts of great evil happen. We have seen this before throughout history.
The question for all citizens at this point: Will YOU dial down the hateful rhetoric? Will YOU refuse to dehumanize your political opponents? Will YOU seek truth regardless of where it leads? Will YOU be the model for civil dialog?
Who launched Mao’s bloody Cultural Revolution?
— Xi Van Fleet (@XVanFleet) September 12, 2025
Radicalized students—the Red Guards. They quickly went from justifying violence to committing murder, leaving up to 20 million dead, including many of their own.
Who radicalized them? The Communist education system.
In America,… https://t.co/WQe2D6qW4N pic.twitter.com/tO7AgdLYAM