An admittedly strange confession: I've spent the vast majority of my life studying, teaching and writing about something I tend to dislike -- politics.

The purpose of the studying, teaching and writing was to convince people that politics should be kept in its proper corner, that it shouldn't matter nearly as much in our lives as friends, family, church or careers, at least for normal, reasonably well-adjusted human beings.

Along these lines, I've always been more upset when my favorite basketball or football team loses a game than when a candidate I voted for loses an election. This attitude seemed particularly appropriate for a society with a Constitution designed to keep government limited and political power checked. That Constitution was crafted by men who prioritized individual liberty and recognized that the primary threat to it throughout history was tyranny, defined as unconstrained political authority.

Government, in this sense, continues to be the necessary but perpetually depressing price we pay for escape from the state of nature. This is also why, of the many horrific aspects and likely horrific consequences of the assassination of Charlie Kirk, it is especially horrifying to realize that politics and disagreements over it could matter so much as to drive someone to commit premeditated murder.

Charlie Kirk didn't occupy a position of political authority; he........

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