Last Thursday was R U OK Day.

To me, it’s never rated a mention. It feels performative and replete with platitudes from people not prepared to follow up their words with action.

But this year, something horrific occurred on R U OK day – the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

And after watching the fallout in the days following, I can say with full confidence that I am not okay, and we, Western liberal Democracy, are not okay.

It has taken me some time to pinpoint what exactly upset me.

It wasn’t just because I unwittingly scrolled across the graphic video on social media.

It wasn’t because I saw old footage of his daughter embracing him on the set of Fox News, knowing she will grow up without a father.

I’ve worked out it was because it feels like an imaginary line was irrevocably crossed, and a sacred democratic social contract has been broken.

Turn up, argue your point, and go home safely. That’s the deal. That’s been the deal for centuries.

It’s what separates us from the regimes that seek to destroy our way of life.

In the days following, never have I seen such animosity between left and right, to the point where I worry that they might simply stop talking to each other.

The gloating of the ‘progressive left’ that he got what he deserved has seen the scales fall from my eyes, that some are so entrenched in their ideology that they are beyond reasoned debate.

Don’t get me wrong – I disagreed with many of his opinions and found his style of debating aggressive. I’m not even religious.

But I respected him as a man of values, as a man who raised a family, and as a patriot.

He was a standard-bearer for many young conservatives.

He was an embodiment of free speech; always turning up to debate, even when he knew the room was against him.

Indeed, I first came across Kirk when he appeared at my alma mater, the Cambridge Union, where, in scenes that resembled those at the Oxford Union, he was set upon by a rabble of students – more kangaroo court than esteemed debating society.

The foundational pillars of the Anglosphere seem to be crumbling.

And while it feels like so many of our privileges in Australia are also slowly slipping away, at least here, assaults on our freedoms remain metaphorical.

The battle for the West will not be fought in foreign lands.

It will be fought online, on college campuses, and in the streets – protesting our democratic institutions.

Kirk dedicated his life to the contest of ideas, many unsavoury, but all deserving of debate.

Last week, someone decided to settle that debate with a bullet instead of an argument.

And that is utterly terrifying.