In the week after Charlie Kirk’s murder, we saw two troubling responses—one ominous and sadly predictable, the other ugly but not so surprising.
Scores of people lost their jobs, and maybe some friends, for making utterly unnecessary and purposely hurtful posts and video clips celebrating the assassination. Some of the firings led to First Amendment questions, as teachers and other government employees were ousted for saying stupid things about Kirk and his political positions.
What was so hideous, but not surprising, was the gleeful social-media reaction by people who hated Kirk’s politics.
Really? Some people need to be TOLD not to laugh and make jokes about murder? Some thought it was OK to call him a Nazi, racist, misogynist and allaround bigot on Facebook and TikTok?
No wonder Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah urged Americans to just get away from social media. It has desensitized users to the point that many of those publicly preening in their joy at Kirk’s killing probably didn’t even realize their celebration was, itself, a kind of hatred.
There’s no constitutional protection if a private employer is embarrassed by a worker’s boorish behavior, even if the employee doesn’t use company time or computers to put something horrible out there. You can join the Ku Klux Klan or have an OnlyFans page after hours, if you want, but you should expect a call from HR if your personal tastes reflect badly on the company you work for—especially if you’re in the media.
The Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attain for an online post about how white America handles gun violence. MSNBC dumped commentator Matthew Dowd just hours after the assassination for saying Kirk had been “divisive” and delved into “hate speech.”
ABC’s sidelining of comedian Jimmy Kimmel was much more troubling. He said some unfunny, but quite defensible, stuff about how prominent voices on the right were eager to blame the left for influencing the assassin, and many TV stations decided having Kimmel around wasn’t such a good idea. It wasn’t exactly government censorship, but the next-worst thing, though ABC said Monday Kimmel will return to the air this week.
Government interference is different. We don’t want our kids taught by people who say vicious stuff online, but should a regulatory agency be deciding what’s too vicious?
Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas wrote to county school superintendents, warning against “despicable comments on social media.” State university system Chancellor Ray Rodrigues told campus presidents “while the right to free expression is paramount, it is not absolute. Celebrating or excusing campus violence—and in this case, the murder of Charlie Kirk—by members of our university system will not be tolerated.”
Coming from government agencies or institutions that stand for free speech, these are troubling signals. The First Amendment isn’t just for the news media and it doesn’t just protect Lee Greenwood’s right to sing “Proud to be an American” at Republican rallies.
It protects the guy we’d like to smack, the hateful ideas we don’t want to hear.
But Florida Congressman Randy Fine, an orator whose calm and contemplative philosophical insights are usually found among professional wrestlers, said the morons singing and dancing on Facebook and TikTok with laughter and taunts about Kirk’s murder “must be thrown out of civil society.”
“If you are aware of anyone in the 6th District of Florida— or heck, anywhere in the state—who works at any level of government, works for an entity that gets money from government … or holds a professional license … that is celebrating the violence, please contact my office,” Fine wrote. “I will demand their firing, defunding and license revocation.”
Spying on your neighbors and coworkers smacks of Joe McCarthy’s “Loyal American Underground,” a supposed network of secret informers who tipped the demagogic Wisconsin senator to anybody who looked a little pink-o about 75 years ago. Unfortunately, communist subversion existed in the post-World War II era, but the loudmouth drunkard’s witch hunt gave patriotic vigilance a bad name—McCarthyism.
But before they mobilize the Thought Police, the Republicans running national and state government should consider the wisdom of a conservative visionary more modern than George Orwell.
“My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. I think that in a civil society, the best ideas will win as long as you have that marketplace.”
You know who said that? Charlie Kirk.
Bill Cotterell is a retired Capitol reporter for United Press International and the Tallahassee Democrat. He can be reached at wrcott43@aol.com.
