The last few weeks have been a rough go for our nation.

The mindless and omnipresent urban violence in many of our major cities—with the possible exception of Washington, D.C. since President Trump deployed the National Guard—has not abated. A disgruntled man who thought he was a woman shot up a Catholic school in Minneapolis, which resulted in the deaths and injuries of many children. Security camera footage of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska being brutally and senselessly stabbed to death by a stranger sitting behind her on Charlotte mass transit is sickening beyond words. The onstage murder of Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at Utah Valley University is yet another sign that violent political rhetoric has the real potential to produce violent political assaults, and we might be seeing more of this in the very near future because making threats against those with different viewpoints has become the new normal. 

Our country is, of course, full of citizens who follow their faith, treat others courteously, and live their lives with the intention of helping their families, friends, and neighbors whenever possible. Unfortunately, today it too often seems that the good intentions of the best of us are increasingly being overwhelmed by the actions of the angry and unhinged. Perhaps because the universal moral code once provided by Judeo-Christian religious beliefs and practices is no longer a central part of many lives today, self-justification and self-delusion allow many people who are demonstrably terrible human beings to believe their cruelty and callousness is somehow a reasonable response to a world that refuses recognize that they are the true victims—so whatever horrors they commit are A-OK.

This phenomenon is nothing new. We humans  have a unique capacity for deluding ourselves into believing whatever we do is right and proper. The tyrants and butchers of our shared history have, although we prefer to think it would be otherwise, still slept perfectly well at night because they convinced themselves that even their most bloodthirsty acts were contributing to a “greater good” by eliminating enemies, unbelievers, or undesirables.

There is no doubt that the uncontrolled rage of the political and cultural fringe in America today is coarsening our public debates with cold-blooded threats, wild accusations, and fantasies of retribution. Worse yet, a surprising number of these individuals occupy responsible positions in education, healthcare, entertainment, business, journalism, and government. Never in my wildest imagination would I have expected to read social media posts from teachers, doctors, elected officials, and reporters celebrating the death of another human being, but the recent revelry of the Left around the very public murder of Conservative commentator and activist Charlie Kirk has been a chilling reminder of the deranged mindsets that have excused massacres throughout history.

Fanatics are very annoying; angry fanatics are very dangerous.

Although one can make an argument that Conservative speakers and writers are often angry about the consequences of too much government accomplishing far too little, it is undeniable that the storm of scary psychosis in America today is blowing in from the political and cultural Left, which has left decency behind in their quest to remake America into the totalitarian dystopia of their dreams.

Now that the societal and financial wreckage of our decades-long experiment with the nihilism of supposed Socialist idealists, who define themselves and others based on both blind hatreds and tribalism, has finally become too, too obvious to any longer ignore, the tide of public opinion has turned quite dramatically. Fewer and fewer Americans now believe, much to the dismay of shocked Leftists, that transgenderism should be taught to children, illegal immigrants have squatters rights to our nation, criminals deserve our deepest sympathies, or we need to continue to empty our pockets to support those who have no interest in supporting themselves.

Hence, the looneys of the Left are becoming angrier and more dangerous to us all. It would, of course, be nice of we could count on our courts to arrest, convict, and incarcerate those who are attempting to force Americans to submit to their twisted agenda, but the revolving door of our judicial system, which is too often packed with Marxist prosecutors and judges who wink at political and cultural terrorism, is now run in many cities and municipalities for the convenience of the criminals—not the safety of our citizens.

Disagreements are a part of life because we all have differing values and life experiences that inform our judgments, but there is a vast gulf between sometimes heated discussions and basking in the torture or demise of one’s ideological opponents (let us not ever refer to a fellow American as an enemy). Threatening, harassing, attacking, or killing anyone because you are so absolutely certain of your own moral superiority signals both one’s incredible immaturity and plain stupidity. This kind of idiocy has no room in our democracy, and every true American should withdraw their support from any individual or group that mistakes fanaticism for patriotism.