At dawn in Switzerland, I read the alert: Charlie Kirk, 31, shot dead at a Utah Valley University event. This isn’t a verdict on his ideas; it’s a warning. A murder on a debate stage signals that words are losing to force. He built a career on argument; answering it with a bullet declares debate illegitimate. When speech is branded “violence,” real violence follows. Accept that trade and the liberal promise collapses into nihilism—and so, eventually, does civic peace.