Justice Barrett: Political Assassination Should Be ‘Foreign’ to the American Experiment

“Control your emotions,” Justice Amy Coney Barrett told Hugh Hewitt, “or they’ll control you.” Barrett is correct, but this misses the point. The Supreme Court justice hits much close to the mark in the same clip from Hugh’s show today, however.

In discussing the rising tide of violence in America, Barrett laments that people have lost the ability to debate ideas rather than attacking people of differing opinions. The American republic was built on the ability of a self-governing people that could allow debates and ballots to settle important conflicts of values and policies. Rejecting that process, Barrett tells Hugh, is “foreign” to the American political system:

WATCH — Justice Barrett says people MUST learn how to attack IDEAS NOT PEOPLE!

“That notion that you can’t like, work with, or treat civilly…people with whom you disagree or even that you dislike, is FOREIGN to the way we ought to be conducting public affairs & personal ones.” pic.twitter.com/TUvmPg2CQF

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 15, 2025

It’s not all that foreign, unfortunately. We went through a decade-plus period in the mid-60s to mid-70s where political assassinations became part of the fabric of American life, and we seem to be heading in that direction again. Barrett argues that the siloing of American lives into self-selected echo chambers has warped American culture, and that is certainly part of the problem, which, as Barrett notes, was an issue Charlie lost his life to address:

🚨Justice Barrett’s new book Listening to the Law speaks to the loneliness and unhappiness that comes with shunning those you disagree with.

“We’re driven by emotion rather than reason. It can take discipline to speak civilly & collegial to people with whom one disagrees.” pic.twitter.com/5vK4LR7S26

— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) September 15, 2025

True enough, but … is that siloing a cause or a symptom? 

I’ve made this argument a few times over the last few days, but perhaps this is a good place to lay it out more comprehensively. We struggle to engage differences intellectually because we have not formed people to do so. Our education systems have abandoned that kind of formation and replaced it with ideological indoctrination. That is especially true in Academia, not just the Poison Ivies but across the entire spectrum of colleges and universities. 

The previous model of classical education formed people to think on their own and immersed them in all sorts of competing philosophies, values, and perspectives. It grounded students in Western civilization and its history and development while opening them up to other ideas through comparative approaches, but never lost its footing. This educational model promoted critical thinking rather than indoctrination into “Critical Theory,” and challenged students to develop the intellectual skills to consider all arguments and debate issues and values through reason and rationality.

The educational models in place for the last six decades have utterly stunted intellectual development. At many universities, one has to pledge to support radical values just to enter disciplines like education, liberal arts, and especially sociology. Even core STEM programs now require “check your privilege” struggle sessions just to study the hard sciences. The entire structure of these models is to prevent students from being exposed to competing ideas and values, which means they never develop the skills for critical thinking or to debate those ideas rationally. 

When challenged, some of those lacking that capacity react irrationally. And a subset of those will react violently to deal with the cognitive deficit they suffer in being unable to address competing ideas and values. They silo themselves first, and then when they discover that their values are in reality on the fringe and doomed to be rejected by people more capable of rational thought, they fixate on such people as enemies rather than opponents. 

And this week, those people are self-identifying all over social media by celebrating the death of an enemy rather than expressing horror at the attack on the American model of civic life. 

What is the solution? We must replace indoctrination with education at every level, returning to a grounded approach based on Western civilization and a focus on intellectual development rather than raising the next crop of radical activists. This problem runs far deeper than just social-media platforms; by the time people get a Twitter or TikTok account, the intellectual stunting has already taken place. We need to tear out the Left’s control of education, root and branch, and restore it to the classical model to save this generation and the next — even if it’s too late for those who have already been failed by Academia and the compulsory education systems. 

Here’s the full episode from today’s Hugh Hewitt Show. 

Editor’s Note: President Trump is fighting to dismantle the Department of Education and ensure America’s kids get the education they deserve.

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