Before You Blame the Messenger

You know, ninety-eight percent of folks I run into online—heck, sometimes in person too—are ready to tell you what Charlie Kirk said, what Charlie meant, and how Charlie ruined the world with it. I read the comments, shake my head, and think, none of you have ever heard him speak.

Not once, not even five minutes. And yet, there you are, waving your digital pitchforks like a town crier who never actually went to town.

It’s funny, really. Human nature has this way of letting rumors outpace reality.

You get a snippet, twist it into your own shape, and suddenly it’s gospel. I’ve been guilty of it myself, oh yes—but I try to catch it before it leaves my mouth, or, in today’s world, before it leaves my thumbs.

Last week, I found myself in a diner—small town, greasy coffee cups, the kind of place where you know everyone’s business and sometimes wish you didn’t. I overheard a young man at the counter telling his friend, “Charlie literally said this, and I hate him for it.”

I smiled because I knew the words were half wrong, maybe three-quarters, or the opposite entirely. So I walked over, sat down with my own cup of coffee, and said, “You know, maybe you ought to hear the whole story before you decide to despise the guy.”

He looked at me like I’d grown antlers overnight. “I don’t need to. Everyone knows.”

“Everyone knows what?” I asked.

He fumbled with his sugar packet. “That Charlie said…”

“And maybe he didn’t. Maybe he said something else entirely,” I said gently. “Maybe he said it poorly. Maybe he said it perfectly and everyone just twisted it. The point is—you’re letting somebody else do your thinking for you.”

He blinked. The friend was already looking at his phone.

Classic. Classic.

I realized this wasn’t about Charlie. It was about us—all of us—trying to carve out certainty in a world that never stops pushing confusion into our heads.

“You know,” I continued, “listening takes effort. Paying attention takes humility. And admitting you might be wrong? That’s courage. All the rest—hating someone without hearing them—that’s just cowardice pretending to be conviction.”

The young man frowned, like I’d just handed him a puzzle he didn’t want to solve. But then he shrugged, probably thinking, what’s the harm in listening to an old guy drone on for a few minutes?

So I droned on. About nuance. About context. About the difference between a sound bite and a sentence, between a rumor and a reality. It’s something I actually know a little bit about, given my radio background.

By the time I left, the young man was quieter. Maybe even thinking. That’s all you can ask for sometimes. Not a conversion. Not a debate victory. Just a pause. A crack in the armor of certainty.

And me? I sipped my coffee, paid my check, and walked out into the sunshine. Because, really, the world doesn’t need more hate.

It wants more listening. More humility. More willingness to look at a person without judging them by the echo of what someone else said.

Charlie? I have no idea what he actually said that day.

And maybe that’s the point. The lesson isn’t about Charlie at all.

It’s about us—how we treat the words we hear, how we carry them, and whether we let them weigh us down with anger before we even lift a finger to check the truth. And that, my friends, is the hardest thing of all—listening first, deciding later, and keeping your pitchfork in the shed until you’ve got the facts.

Life’s too short for anything else.