modern high school hallway dissolving into a dystopian landscape — lockers on one side turning into prison bars, fluorescent lights flickering, gray-faced students walking in single file with heads down — in the center, one teenager breaks from the line, standing defiantly in warm orange light, symbolizing awakening, something symbolic of what Charlie Kirk described.
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What Charlie Kirk told us about breaking the spell

ByTC Marti

Tom Woods shared an outstanding email he got in 2012 from an 18-year-old Charlie Kirk, who wrote how he “felt subject to the system.”

It’s always a treat to open Tom Woods’ emails, which I do about 99 percent of the time. Heck, even when I don’t have time to read my laundry list of junk mail, I find time for Woods.

The day after Kirk’s tragic death, Woods shared a message he got shortly before Kirk turned 19. And it talked about, among other issues, shortcomings in the public school system. Here’s an excerpt:

Mr. Woods,

Your speeches on YouTube have inspired me to take action on a national stage. I am 18 years old and a recent high school graduate. So often in high school we are told what to think instead of how to think. For years I felt subject to the system, like a sheep getting ready for slaughter. Then my friend told me about your videos. I watched every single one, and I read two of your books. Upon reading your work and watching you speak I realized that freedom is the solution, not the problem, and our public school education system has done nothing more but perpetuate the problem and make it worse.

Charlie Kirk nailed the public school spell

You don’t need the recent historical decline in student test scores to understand what Kirk was getting at. Just look at people you went to school with.

How many of them think outside the box in history, economics, or science? And how many will give you a blank stare if you told them alternative forms of education exist?

I once told a friend my beef with public schools, and they shot back, “Private schools are no better.” They weren’t thinking of micro-schools, pods, or unschooling. Just the local Catholic school. That’s how narrow the education debate still is.

And that’s the tip of a much larger iceberg. Most people who’ve gone through the system never question:

  • The role of government
  • If local “public services” like police, fire, EMS, etc., could thrive in a free market
  • Ditto for courts
  • Plus military and defense
  • Or road maintenance

I can keep going here, but you get it. Most would toe the party line. If they think differently, be grateful. It means they broke free from the script.

Kirk’s legacy’s baked into the freedom movement

Charlie made it further in the freedom movement than I ever will. Putting it in hockey terms, I’m the rugged fourth-line winger; a background agitator. Charlie was front and center; that highlight-reel goal-scorer, comparable to the first-line center.

No, I didn’t agree with everything Charlie said, since I’m into anarcho-libertarianism and he was more of a traditional right-winger. Yet as far as public schooling goes, he and I would’ve, for the most part, seen eye to eye.

Doing my part

The Arcane Prophecy by TC MartiMy strong opposition to public school helped inspire me to create the Arcane Elemental Academy series, a young adult fantasy with market-based education in an anarcho-capitalist society.

Think Harry Potter crashing into Chaos Theory set in a modern-day alternate world, and you’ll get an idea of what Arcane’s like. But what good is a story without a kick-ass plot?

Here’s the skinny: My protagonist, Yote Diamondback, discovers a disturbing truth about herself, her family, and even her identity. And we ain’t talking about identity politics.

If you’re tired of state-run education and want to see what a free-market academy might look like, plus a mystery that’ll keep you turning pages, check out The Arcane Prophecy’s first three chapters and meet Yote before she starts her term at Arcane.

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