By Frosty Wooldridge
9-14-25

“Just because someone disagrees with you, it doesn’t mean you get to shoot them,” said comedian Jay Leno about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

You might silence one voice in America; but you cannot silence all our voices. You can kill one of us; but you can’t kill all of us.

One bullet killed Charlie Kirk, but one bullet cannot silence those of us who love our freedom of speech, our right to speak up, our energy as a free people. One slashed throat of Iryna Zarutska ended her life, but the slasher’s life will be ended behind bars or the electric table. That kid at Evergreen High School may have shot fellow classmates, and he ended his own life, but our civil society will move forward with law and order.

A 20-year-old kid nearly killed President Donald J. Trump. How and why does such a violent act begin? Another gunman killed a man and wife political team in Minnesota. Those killings continue since Sandy Hook, Columbine, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King.

It’s our greatest challenge as to “how” to stop these killings not only of famous people, but regular people living average activities in their lives. For the love of God and all that is decent, we’ve got to discover “how” those lunatics became lunatics, and how to subdue them before they kill one of our loved ones. We’ve got to go into the inner cities of Chicago and New Orleans—-and find out “why” young minority kids shoot each other to death, week in and week out. Then, we need to promote solutions.

We’ve got to discover why mayors and governors of such states as Chicago, Illinois “WANT” the killings to continue. We need to bring the full weight of the law down on them. The sheer magnitude and incompetence of Governor Pritzker and Mayor Johnson of Chicago must be changed by the voters. If they re-elect the incompetent leaders, they suffer ongoing violent results.

We need to discover “why” violence has become THE tool to vanquish someone that a violent fanatic doesn’t like as to their religion, politics or status.

The reason our Founding Fathers placed the First Amendment to our Constitution at the top of the list illustrates the importance of the exchange of ideas, both for something or against something, as the hallmark of ALL our lives.

Instead of killing someone for their differing view, how about talking with them. Discover their side of the equation. Write a letter to the editor. Write an op-ed at your local newspaper. Speak up at city council. Don’t just kill them for their own opinion.

That’s what they do in North Korea, Russia, China and other dictatorships. They kill you for attempting to engage in free speech. In North Korea, you do not possess a single thread of free speech as to their deadly dictator, Kim Jung Un. In Russia, Putin kills anyone who disagrees with him. In China, you simply “vanish” if you disagree with Xi JinPing.

If you burned the Chinese flag in public, you would die. If you did it in Russia, you’re toast. If you did it in North Korea, they would hang you or shoot you by sundown. When you burn Old Glory, you’re literally burning your own country’s honor, integrity and Constitution. You may get away with it, but can our country survive your anger?

If we continue to follow such violence in those dictatorship-run countries, we’ve lost the core reason for our success as a society.

What can we do to bring the temperature down as to violence in America? Yes, I’ve written about the low IQ of House Member Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), but I’ve never threatened her lack of intelligence with violence. Same with AOC, Hank Johnson, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson—and other intellectually vacant political hacks. Even with their enormous failures, and even their calls for violence, along with attacks on our U.S. ICE agents, I’m not about to do violence to them.

As a former teacher, I DO KNOW that we, as a civilization, in order to move forward, need to examine our parenting and educational systems. Additionally, we need to change our TV programming, and our violent video programming that’s turning our kids into violent criminals.

Psychologists have discovered that a young person’s mind is not fully developed until his or her 25th year. At that age, they gather enough knowledge and maturity to make reasonable decisions. Before the age of 25, they follow their emotions first without thinking. Thus, if parents allow their kids to play violent video games 7 hours and 22 minutes daily, (that’s the average in America), you can bet they suffer incredible and indelible “markings” on their brains.

Why do teens engage in violent video games? Perhaps the parents and the schools did not offer after-school activities that moved their “negative energies” into “positive activities” that developed their sense of belonging, sense of fellowship, and sense of personal success with a team sport or individual sport such as tennis, or macrame’, pottery, art…and dozens of creative activities that will engage children.

You, as a parent, you’ve seen the enormous violence in Criminals Minds, NCIS, The Punisher, Reacher….and dozens more.

There’s something primordial about violence that draws millions upon millions toward its expression. Today, we’ve got robots killing each other, killing us, and smashing everything in sight. How do we reprogram ourselves toward peaceful movies, videos and outcomes?

I’ve seen war’s violence during Vietnam. I’ve seen its sickening results in mutilated bodies, burned up bodies with Napalm, and lost limbs. You may have seen some of those bodies on “Tunnels to Towers” advertisements. You might start crying at their horrifically horribly mutilated bodies. Because I saw them in person at Fort Benning, Fort Riley and Fort Sam Houston—I abhor war because it mutilates peoples’ lives. The 58,479 boys that died in Nam, may have had it better than the thousands who came away with their emotions/brains mutilated, and bodies maimed for life. I still wish Lyndon Baines Johnson, Richard Nixon and the Military Industrial Complex corporate heads, along with Robert McNamara share the same cell in hell for all eternity for what they did to our generation: ten years of death for us, and 2.3 million Vietnamese—all for nothing, to no end, for no moral or ethical reason.

Yes, I know we must maintain our fighting forces…and at the same time, I pray for, I write for and I give energy toward peaceful resolution. Yes, Trump needed to take out Iran’s nuclear threat. Yes, we must remain militarily strong. Yes, take out those drug boats speeding toward us to kill our kids with fentanyl.

Can we as a free society…stop killing our Iryna’s or Charlie Kirk’s or kids praying at church, or watching a movie in Denver, or going to school at Columbine, Uvalde or Sandy Hook? Can’t we stop the endless killings in Chicago, LA, Memphis, New Orleans and Detroit?

Maybe we should ask ourselves why we’re spending billions/trillions in Foreign Aid to countries that don’t like us, or billions of dollars for space travel that will not improve our lives—-when we’re rotting our inner cities to death, watching and doing nothing to solve our 773,000 homeless Americans, half our kids cannot read at grade level, lack of jobs training for 40 million Americans on food stamps, our incredible obesity levels affecting our kids and parents…what’s with that kind of neglect?

Thank you to all of you who wrote me with solutions from the last column. I am compiling them. Whether you’re a liberal, libertarian, conservative, or just don’t care—-this is our society. We need to improve it, love it, take care of our people, and move toward solutions. Perhaps an annual national conference of top leaders from each state to define our problems, and come up with solutions. We gotta’ do something. We can’t keep traveling down our current path.

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