Words aren't violence. That's a simple truth that many on the left know in their hearts but reject out of hand. They do this for many reasons, but from where I'm sitting, it seems the top reason is that when they're forced to protect their ideological position that they've married themselves to come hell or high water, reframing any disagreement as a harmful attack is a quick and dirty way to silence their opponent.
It even lets them silence their foes through physical means with a clear conscience.
But I think this does show that words absolutely do have power, and that words can be so impactful that they can disrupt and terrify.
I mentioned in my article yesterday a quote by comedian Pete Holmes that seemed to confuse some people. It's one of my favorite quotes about words of all time.
"We're casting spells on each other," Holmes says during an interview.
He's, of course, being poetic in his framing, but what he really means is that our words absolutely have weight and do affect people. Holmes says that during his stand-up shows, he'll randomly compliment someone, and he notes that he watches them perk up and have a bit more confidence in themselves.
The power of words is often dismissed, especially — and somewhat ironically — during debate. We often fall back on the old idiom "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me" when someone brings up how someone else's words hurt their feelings or made them feel less than they were.
Not to say the idiom doesn't have an element of truth to it. I get called names, have my character questioned, and am otherwise insulted constantly, but the words mean nothing to me because oftentimes the source is an angry person who doesn't like what I wrote or said on my YouTube channel. In fact, I oftentimes appreciate the engagement.
But when hurtful words come from people I care about, that's a different story.
Words absolutely can harm. Anyone in an emotional or mentally abusive relationship with a parent, a spouse, or even a coworker can tell you all about it.
If words had no power, then people like Charlie Kirk wouldn't have been so impactful. God communicates to us in many ways, but one of His chief tools is "The Word," which is found in the Bible, a book full of words that change lives for the better. Psychologists use words to help people heal their minds, and we use words from wise men and women to help us frame events and give us guidance.
Like many things that the left gets hold of, the idea of the powerful impact words can have is perverted into something they're not and made into an excuse to take things to an extreme. "Words are violence" is one of those extremes. It takes the idea that debate or truth-telling in any capacity is somehow a direct physical attack, or at the very least, an intent to attack physically when given the opportunity.
J.K. Rowling recently posted to X in response to someone saying words equate to violence, and she put this phenomenon very well:
Words are not violence. When you pretend that views that oppose your own are violence, you are justifying the use of actual violence towards the speaker.
Gender ideology’s reliance on tropes and slogans like ‘words are violence’, its constant rationalisation and justification of using force against opponents and its preference for enforcing compliance through fear rather than permitting debate, are straight out of fascism’s playbook.
‘The function of propaganda is . . . not to weigh and ponder the rights of different people, but exclusively to emphasize the one right which it has set out to argue for. Its task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.’
The words are Hitler’s, but I must have seen trans activists say the same thing, barely rephrased, a thousand times. Your movement seeks to remove rights from others. It is anti-truth and critical thinking, pro-violence, pro-dehumanisation of those who disagree with you, and you are so lacking in self-awareness you cannot see that you are precisely what you pretend to hate.
Words are not violence. When you pretend that views that oppose your own are violence, you are justifying the use of actual violence towards the speaker.
— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) September 17, 2025
Gender ideology’s reliance on tropes and slogans like ‘words are violence’, its constant rationalisation and justification of… pic.twitter.com/wTEfVKbk8a
She's 100 percent correct, and I'll add that the "words are violence" argument is a call to a reliance on emotion over fact. It specifically calls for a person to deny the truth to wholly embrace the narrative, or to "serve our own right," as Hitler framed it.
In a way, this signals the actual power of words and the real danger they can pose to those who deny the truth. They would rather resort to violence because violence is the only way to stop the words that are harming their ideological stances.
Of course, as the murder of Charlie Kirk proved, killing a person for using words only makes their words more powerful.
Lies are always doomed. You can bury the truth as much as you want, but eventually, the truth will resurface and be more impactful than it ever was. You can silence the speaker through legislation, censorship, or murder, but the truth cannot be contained forever.
Word will get out.
