Free speech under the First Amendment indeed protects the right to express even hateful or violent rhetoric without fear of government censorship or arrest. However, this constitutional protection does not mean that speech is consequence-free. In the United States, unlike in the UK where hate speech laws can lead to arrests, there is no government authority arresting people for hateful speech alone; free speech is robustly protected from government interference. But that does not imply that society, employers, or institutions must tolerate or reward such speech without accountability.
The First Amendment protects individuals from government punishment for their speech, but it does not shield them from social, professional, or political consequences. For example, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, several individuals, including some public figures and employees, have faced termination or disciplinary actions because their violent or hateful comments were seen as harmful or disruptive to their workplaces or public roles. This is not a violation of the First Amendment but an exercise of accountability within private or public employment rules, often supported by employment laws that allow firing for conduct damaging to an employer’s reputation or working environment.
It is reasonable and necessary to expect accountability from public-facing professionals such as teachers, nurses, doctors, or city councilors. These individuals hold positions of public trust and responsibility, which demands respectful and responsible speech. Allowing them to express hateful or violent rhetoric could undermine trust in their abilities to protect and care for communities, educate children, or serve effectively in public office. Accountability measures such as reprimands, suspension, or job termination for speech that damages public trust are an important aspect of maintaining ethical and functional institutions.
In the U.S. context:
The First Amendment forbids government censorship but does not protect against firing or losing leadership positions for speech that offends or disrupts.
Employment law, especially in at-will states, permits employers to respond to employees’ speech that is harmful to the workplace or public image.
Public employees may have some protections but still can face discipline if their speech interferes with their job performance or the employer’s mission.
Unlike the UK, where laws criminalize certain offensive speech with arrests, U.S. law protects free speech from government criminal penalties except for narrow categories like true threats or incitement to imminent lawless action.
Thus, advocating for consequences such as job loss or reprimands after harmful speech—including violent or hateful remarks after a political assassination—is compatible with free speech and reflects a healthy balance between liberty and accountability. This approach ensures society can uphold free expression without tolerating speech that damages public trust or safety, holding individuals responsible without resorting to government punishment or censorship.
This stance supports free speech without endorsing cancel culture, emphasizing respect and responsibility in public discourse while rejecting government overreach seen in other countries.
While I agree that professions such as nurses and K-12 teachers losing their jobs over certain speech can be a different matter as they’re caretakers of children/patients who rely on a direct bond of trust...professors, though, aren’t in that same role. Their job isn’t to nurture or protect in the same way; it’s to challenge, research, and push students—who are adults—to think critically for themselves.
When we hold professors to the same standard as K-12 teachers or nurses, we collapse that distinction and treat college students like children who need shielding rather than adults who can weigh ideas. That undermines the very purpose of higher education. Professors should be free to express controversial opinions on their own social media accounts without fearing they’ll be run out of academia (mid-semester/contract) for offending sensibilities. It’s about preserving the conditions for free inquiry. If the school decides to not renew the faculty member's contract that's a different story as well.
I appreciate your trying to nuance a tricky issue.
You recognize that free speech is a broad concept, while the 1st amendment applies only to the US and to the governments therein - a subset.
And you recognize that even non-government employees can face sanctions from their employers if their private free speech interferes meaningfully with the trust they need to inspire in the public - so for a medical professional who seems to endorse the death of a non-violent person they disagree with, might not inspire confidence in vulnerable patients under their care who might differ politically.
In that light, distinguishing college professors from K12 teachers is a credible attempt to refine the ethical (not constitutional) issues around free speech and employment.
We all have to be vigilant not to engage in the behaviors we find objectionable in others.
While I agree that it is not good for universities to censor or threaten the expression of controversial ideas by professors or students, it is not a first amendment issue. This is not about the government unless it's a state school. A private school can decide that a professor's ideas are so beyond the pale and not in keeping with their philosophy that they choose to let him or her go.
Of course the irony is that universities have been coddling leftist students for 30 years, creating speech codes, allowing professors to be fired for the mildest statements because an angry mob of progressive students lobbied to get rid of them, "trigger warnings" that should only be necessary for those so mentally ill that they don't belong in a university in the first place.
Yes, I'm finding it hard to be impartial since I'm so damn sick of the leftist witch hunts of the past decade or so. They've been mercilessly hounding people out of jobs and now whine when the tables are turned. So pathetic. Vengefulness aside however, I agree with the line being drawn on offensive speech when it comes to suitability for certain roles and public versus private employment. Many teaching jobs have codes of conduct that would be violated by publicly celebrating murder. Conservative and Christian children have the right to feel safe at school too, even though the concept that "oppressors" have any rights is apparently anathema to the social justice warriors. Infuriating as the woke whiners are, I'm trying hard to be careful what I wish for under the current administration. This post and comments are the most rational discussion on this I've read in days. I'm still furious about Kirk's murder and the grotesque reactions but hopefully cooler heads and our Constitution will prevail.
Yes I agree. Anyone should be allowed to say they didn't like Kirk or his ideas (I didn't), but anyone celebrating his death or calling for more is fair game for firing. After all, as the far left says, "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences."
Nice try, but no. 95+% of the professors have one point of view. And they pretty much marginalize or worse, demonize the few conservatives. It's not like students are given much of a cafeteria of professorial opinions. They're given one and only one point of view. And woe to them if they write papers espousing a different one.
The gamut of opinions about the Kirk murder runs from ignoring it to praising it and calling for more. How many voices on most college campuses offer the opposite opinions? Heard about many? Me neither.
Should there be freedom of speech? Yes, absolutely. But it has to be able to come from all sides. It isn't. Why not? Because the left has been in control of who gets hired and what gets taught for decades. The time to change that has been a long time coming.
Now is the reckoning. When uncivil speech becomes the norm and inflames unstable people to violence, that's when it needs to be removed, root and branch. What we're seeing now is that reckoning. It has begun. And it is unlikely to change any time in the near future.
But let me offer another way o look at it. Consider what an NDA is--it's a non-disclosure agreement. In order to receive sensitive information, people are often required to sign one and abide by its terms. Nobody forces anyone to sign them. If they don't, they don't get involved in those projects. Similarly, a university or other her corporation can have a code of conduct that proscribes uncivil speech. If you don't like that, you can always go to a different university or work for a different company.
There needs to be a national suggestion that universities, being incubators of our futures, adopt such policies and enforce them. It's about our national ethos: we are civilized people, not savages. Too long we have endured incivility in the name of freedom of expression. Hopefully those days are over.
Finally, since it's impossible to upload images, take a look at this xkcd:\
And since we're celebrating free speech here I would like to say that like Charlie Kirk I believe there are only two sexes, male and female, and that there is no such thing as a gender identity.
Who gets to decide what speech is violent or hateful or offensive? Employers? Social media? Plain ole' common decency?
The crux of the issue has never really been holding people accountable for their words, but rather how do we agree, as a society/community/nation, what kind of speech rises to a level that permits some sort of material punishment.
This is why the author spent so much time talking about the need for maturity when dealing with offensive speech, especially with college-age citizens. She argued that the bar has been set too low and needs a higher adjustment. Because rational and mature individuals are not nearly as "harmed" by speech as those less mature or reasonable. To put it frankly, some people just need to grow up.
In this age of eternal fetishization of youthful emotionalism, it's not a bad argument.
But this restructuring has to sweep across all students and all ideologies. If students are mature enough to handle a professor being glad that Charlie Kirk is dead, they should be able to hear literally anything else the professor says, even when it is their ox being gored. I am certainly not seeing any progress on this elsewhere.
I think I’m in the “mourn Charlie but don’t turn it into a crusade.” I absolutely love seeing flags out, signs on cars and homes and billboards honoring Charlie. But I don’t want to “fight back.” I’ll “fight back” by just being more honest and real about what I think. I hear about people getting fired and people purposely exposing peoples’ behavior. And yes, I think it’s worrisome. But as someone who like Charlie…I’m finding it hard to have the energy to worry too much about it.
This is a very important perspective that must be the guideline.
Just a couple of caveats, though: while I don't think anybody should be fired for criticizing Kirk, celebrating his murder is a bit different. Most employers want employees of good character. An employee who publicly celebrates a killing isn't someone I'd probably want in my workplace.
And as far as the church thing, if I may: I think people go to church in part because they want answers for what they are going through. If they go to church heavy of heart or wondering what to think about an important event of the past week and the pastor doesn't even mention it, church seems irrelevant and less like a haven from a cruel world. Churches, in my experience, stay away from talking about difficult current issues because they are afraid of losing members by offending people. It really makes them seem weak, out of touch, and irrelevant. I definitely would expect and hope my pastor would talk about a prominent Christian being brutally killed a few days prior.
1) As others have pointed out, the 1st amendment only protects against govt. restrictions, not private ones. Nor against private consequences.
2) (Google "Prisoner's Dilemma" and "Tit for Tat"). It's NOT clear that the best way to support free speech is to always support free speech when one side does not always support free speech. The winning strategy (the one that best supports free speech in the long run) might be to retaliate, but make it clear that you will de-escalate when the other side de-escalates.
So, I'm not sure I have a problem with the right trying to silence dissent; what I do have a problem with is the lack of clarity of motives. It needs to be clearly "How do you like it? Perhaps we should both stop"
"For everyone screaming “gun control”: Charlie Kirk was assassinated with a single-round, bolt-action hunting rifle: Exactly the kind of gun that progressives keep saying they have no intention of banning …" is Jim Trageser's view on firearms proliferation on his Substack.
This comment merely muddies the water: Those of us "screaming for gun control" are looking to uniform gun registration laws and a computerized federal data base; bans on assault weapons (for the second time!) and bans on large magazines; ban on ghost guns, and strict control of silencers and ammunition purchases. Hunters can keep their bolt-action rifles and now, in 47 states, flaunt them in public along with their sidearms. But, the massive firepower of assault weapons does not belong in civilian hands -- only those of .a regulated militia and standing army. It's a start -- or has Jim yielded already to nihilism?
So what is your conclusion? How about all guns of all types be outlawed? Any shooting reminds us of the mass shootings which have become common place. While Kirk allegedly said that a few dead people are worth the Second Amendment, he failed to mention the dead school children. I have been unable to find Kirk's statements about dead school children. https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-it-2nd-amendment-1793113
Since 2000, there have been 515 school kids shot dead and 1,161 injured. Kirk thought a few dead people was acceptable, but he never mentioned hundreds of dead school kids. Why was Kirk silent about Sandy Hook? Why did didn't Kirk mention Sandy Hook when opposing gun control? Did Kirk speak out against Alex Jones? He did host Jones on his podcasts!
If Trump and the Alt Right were not making a saint out of Kirk, I doubt so many people would be bring up unpleasant FACTS about Kirk.
https://tinyurl.com/45x7mmts September 15, 2025, CityWatch, De-Register, De-Register, De-Register, by Richard Lee Abrams
This aphorism comes to mind: "Perfect is the enemy of the good," attributed to Voltaire, which advises against letting an unattainable ideal stand in the way of tangible progress or useful outcomes.
The majority of Americans may now be mobilized to do the things I have listed above: We're sick and tired of our children and neighbors being gunned down. The immediate hurdle is the cohort of elected officials held hostage by the gun lobby and 2A fanatics. (Marco Rubio, for example, received over $1 million from the NRA in 2016. The remainder of GOP legislators in Florida are terrified of being primaried from their right and so toe the mark of the firearms maximalists.)
Attempting to rid society of all firearms is not do-able except in a pipe dream. Our goal should be to narrow the odds, diminishing the possible harm that is possible by eliminating access to weapons of war and etc.
Kirk was assassinated. Not by my hand nor by my wish. His commentary is the stock in trade of many MAGA media figures and politicians, and this is what I opposed.
Kirk was a racist and misogynist based upon the record he created and left behind. For example, Kirk had every right to say on his broadcast that Michelle Obama was intellectually feeble despite her earning a BA from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. But, listeners have every right to call him out -- which I believe would be the position of the late Nat Hentoff..
It's neither racism nor misogyny to criticize a particular black woman. It would be if he said all blacks or all women were stupid and inferior or similar, which he did not. Besides that, I agree with you on the gun issue.
Kirk's comment was occasioned by a 2023 court decision negating parts of Affirmative Action.
Kirk targeted four Black women including Obama who had access to better colleges due to AA: “Three weeks ago, if we would’ve said that Joy Reid, and Michelle Obama, and Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would’ve been called the racist,” Kirk said Thursday on his talk show.
“But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us,” the far-right commentator continued. “They’re coming out and they’re saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
He added: “You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
Besides being racist and misogynistic, one has to laugh at a first-semester college dropout like Kirk imagining that he is intellectually superior to these four accomplished Black women. (This also says a lot about the mass of overwhelmingly white folks who made Kirk an "influencer.")
Yes, I'm familiar with the comment. We'll have to agree to disagree at least on a couple of those people. I'm not familiar enough with the others to comment. I can say I have personal experience with DEI hires at a former workplace, and I know exactly what he's talking about. When your ideology forces you to hire people because of their gender and/or skin colour, you're going to end up with unqualified people in some positions. Just the way it is when you have a limited pool to pick from that everybody's trying to go for.
BTW: John Ganz who has the popular Substack site on economics and whatever else is on his mind, also buys into the defeatism refrain: "We can't take back what has spewed forth from Pandora's box." No, we can't, John, but we can pick the the low-hanging fruit and try to put a dent into the mess created by firearms proliferation.
Yes, Nancy Mace and the SC Freedom Caucus are completely out of control with their overreaching and need to be pulled back. I hope we actually do still have a functioning SCOTUS who will not allow anything like defunding Clemson to go forward because there's clearly no one in the executive or legislative branches who will do anything .
We all should be able to have a conversation, dialogue kindly, respectfully. Actually listen! Like we are all doing here. And we as a country seem to have forgotten that. Able to know we all are human and forgive. But still hv justice. Easy to see and read something too and jump to conclusions when we don’t know everything that happened/s sometimes. Strive for righteousness, justice, peace, equality, compassion, understanding of each other.
Idw to live in a country where we can’t be free to speak up, out for or against anyone, even and especially the government. We don’t want communism here. We should all want freedom of expression…but there should be guardrails. No should be afraid for their life because of what someone said abt them.
What about when ppl or groups call on others to rise up and sometimes violently? And over and over again? And ppl have followed thru on physically hurting others. Should we be allowed to scold or warn…or how do we prevent injury, death? Wrongful one like this one. Have more security and rules of engagement….
Your article is at best very inconsistent. At worst, it is highly self-righteous and hypocritical. You claim free speech should be allowed even if a person is saying he or she is happy about a murder of a good man took place. But where is my free speech, as an owner of a company, to say to such a despicable person, "You're fired!"
Why should free speech be disallowed behind the church door. What’s even more disturbing is your accusation of idolatry and that Charlie put himself or that any who think he was a good man put him "above reproach." If his murder had happened in the days of the Book of Acts, he would have gotten his name in Scripture along side Stephen. And Charlie would have probably said the same thing, "Forgive them for they know not what they do!" You wrote, "Influencers declaring, 'If your church didn’t mention Charlie Kirk this Sunday, find a new church'” was idolatry and hero worship, is absurd.
In every debate Kirk had, he defended the Lord Jesus Christ and the Christian worldview.
Since when is it idolatry to say all Christians should speak against the murder of Christians because of their love for Christ and their Christian worldview?!
The service I attended on Sunday did not mention Charlie Kirk, not because mentioning him would have been cultic, but because the church I attend is more or less in its own little Christian "tribe" (i.e. - cultic) and disagrees with Evangelicals on various points. If the pastor had mentioned Charlie Kirk, even if it was a prayer for his widow and fatherless children, he could have been excoriated by some in the "tribe."
When it comes to college students, how can you even think that they can fight against what has more or less become Marxist indoctrination centers?! But watch, many more of them will now stand up for what they believe, even if they are insulted by a bully professor and given a failing grade.
The death of Charlie Kirk has revealed to me my own cowardice. I think Trump is doing a great job as president and I have a t-shirt with him raising his hand and the words, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" But I have been too intimidated and cowardly to wear it outside the house for two reasons. 1. Because people like you will call me a cultist or Trump worshiper, and, 2. Because of the "action" of those who have a passionate and unreasonable hatred for Trump might scratch up my car or want to kill me. Trump and conservatives have been called Nazis, fascists, Hitler, deplorable, irredeemable, etc., for years now, and there are people acting on such lies, false accusations, and deceitful propaganda. See Solzhenitsyn in his essay "Live Not By Lies" (2/12/1974) and you will understand exactly where we are today in America. Young people do not know what happened in the past. But us older folks do, and it is distressing to see it repeat itself! Charlie Kirk saw it and he spoke against it!
I would definitely have exercised my right to fire an employee whose heart was filled with such hatred for another human being that he or she was happy about a public murder.
Many of us have heard the cry of the child, "The emperor has no clothes!" Still, the parade must go on. I refuse to be a part of it!
Free speech under the First Amendment indeed protects the right to express even hateful or violent rhetoric without fear of government censorship or arrest. However, this constitutional protection does not mean that speech is consequence-free. In the United States, unlike in the UK where hate speech laws can lead to arrests, there is no government authority arresting people for hateful speech alone; free speech is robustly protected from government interference. But that does not imply that society, employers, or institutions must tolerate or reward such speech without accountability.
The First Amendment protects individuals from government punishment for their speech, but it does not shield them from social, professional, or political consequences. For example, following the assassination of Charlie Kirk, several individuals, including some public figures and employees, have faced termination or disciplinary actions because their violent or hateful comments were seen as harmful or disruptive to their workplaces or public roles. This is not a violation of the First Amendment but an exercise of accountability within private or public employment rules, often supported by employment laws that allow firing for conduct damaging to an employer’s reputation or working environment.
It is reasonable and necessary to expect accountability from public-facing professionals such as teachers, nurses, doctors, or city councilors. These individuals hold positions of public trust and responsibility, which demands respectful and responsible speech. Allowing them to express hateful or violent rhetoric could undermine trust in their abilities to protect and care for communities, educate children, or serve effectively in public office. Accountability measures such as reprimands, suspension, or job termination for speech that damages public trust are an important aspect of maintaining ethical and functional institutions.
In the U.S. context:
The First Amendment forbids government censorship but does not protect against firing or losing leadership positions for speech that offends or disrupts.
Employment law, especially in at-will states, permits employers to respond to employees’ speech that is harmful to the workplace or public image.
Public employees may have some protections but still can face discipline if their speech interferes with their job performance or the employer’s mission.
Unlike the UK, where laws criminalize certain offensive speech with arrests, U.S. law protects free speech from government criminal penalties except for narrow categories like true threats or incitement to imminent lawless action.
Thus, advocating for consequences such as job loss or reprimands after harmful speech—including violent or hateful remarks after a political assassination—is compatible with free speech and reflects a healthy balance between liberty and accountability. This approach ensures society can uphold free expression without tolerating speech that damages public trust or safety, holding individuals responsible without resorting to government punishment or censorship.
This stance supports free speech without endorsing cancel culture, emphasizing respect and responsibility in public discourse while rejecting government overreach seen in other countries.
While I agree that professions such as nurses and K-12 teachers losing their jobs over certain speech can be a different matter as they’re caretakers of children/patients who rely on a direct bond of trust...professors, though, aren’t in that same role. Their job isn’t to nurture or protect in the same way; it’s to challenge, research, and push students—who are adults—to think critically for themselves.
When we hold professors to the same standard as K-12 teachers or nurses, we collapse that distinction and treat college students like children who need shielding rather than adults who can weigh ideas. That undermines the very purpose of higher education. Professors should be free to express controversial opinions on their own social media accounts without fearing they’ll be run out of academia (mid-semester/contract) for offending sensibilities. It’s about preserving the conditions for free inquiry. If the school decides to not renew the faculty member's contract that's a different story as well.
I appreciate your trying to nuance a tricky issue.
You recognize that free speech is a broad concept, while the 1st amendment applies only to the US and to the governments therein - a subset.
And you recognize that even non-government employees can face sanctions from their employers if their private free speech interferes meaningfully with the trust they need to inspire in the public - so for a medical professional who seems to endorse the death of a non-violent person they disagree with, might not inspire confidence in vulnerable patients under their care who might differ politically.
In that light, distinguishing college professors from K12 teachers is a credible attempt to refine the ethical (not constitutional) issues around free speech and employment.
We all have to be vigilant not to engage in the behaviors we find objectionable in others.
While I agree that it is not good for universities to censor or threaten the expression of controversial ideas by professors or students, it is not a first amendment issue. This is not about the government unless it's a state school. A private school can decide that a professor's ideas are so beyond the pale and not in keeping with their philosophy that they choose to let him or her go.
Of course the irony is that universities have been coddling leftist students for 30 years, creating speech codes, allowing professors to be fired for the mildest statements because an angry mob of progressive students lobbied to get rid of them, "trigger warnings" that should only be necessary for those so mentally ill that they don't belong in a university in the first place.
Yes, I'm finding it hard to be impartial since I'm so damn sick of the leftist witch hunts of the past decade or so. They've been mercilessly hounding people out of jobs and now whine when the tables are turned. So pathetic. Vengefulness aside however, I agree with the line being drawn on offensive speech when it comes to suitability for certain roles and public versus private employment. Many teaching jobs have codes of conduct that would be violated by publicly celebrating murder. Conservative and Christian children have the right to feel safe at school too, even though the concept that "oppressors" have any rights is apparently anathema to the social justice warriors. Infuriating as the woke whiners are, I'm trying hard to be careful what I wish for under the current administration. This post and comments are the most rational discussion on this I've read in days. I'm still furious about Kirk's murder and the grotesque reactions but hopefully cooler heads and our Constitution will prevail.
Yes I agree. Anyone should be allowed to say they didn't like Kirk or his ideas (I didn't), but anyone celebrating his death or calling for more is fair game for firing. After all, as the far left says, "Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences."
Nice try, but no. 95+% of the professors have one point of view. And they pretty much marginalize or worse, demonize the few conservatives. It's not like students are given much of a cafeteria of professorial opinions. They're given one and only one point of view. And woe to them if they write papers espousing a different one.
The gamut of opinions about the Kirk murder runs from ignoring it to praising it and calling for more. How many voices on most college campuses offer the opposite opinions? Heard about many? Me neither.
Should there be freedom of speech? Yes, absolutely. But it has to be able to come from all sides. It isn't. Why not? Because the left has been in control of who gets hired and what gets taught for decades. The time to change that has been a long time coming.
Now is the reckoning. When uncivil speech becomes the norm and inflames unstable people to violence, that's when it needs to be removed, root and branch. What we're seeing now is that reckoning. It has begun. And it is unlikely to change any time in the near future.
But let me offer another way o look at it. Consider what an NDA is--it's a non-disclosure agreement. In order to receive sensitive information, people are often required to sign one and abide by its terms. Nobody forces anyone to sign them. If they don't, they don't get involved in those projects. Similarly, a university or other her corporation can have a code of conduct that proscribes uncivil speech. If you don't like that, you can always go to a different university or work for a different company.
There needs to be a national suggestion that universities, being incubators of our futures, adopt such policies and enforce them. It's about our national ethos: we are civilized people, not savages. Too long we have endured incivility in the name of freedom of expression. Hopefully those days are over.
Finally, since it's impossible to upload images, take a look at this xkcd:\
https://xkcd.com/1357/
Says it all, in a nutshell.
And since we're celebrating free speech here I would like to say that like Charlie Kirk I believe there are only two sexes, male and female, and that there is no such thing as a gender identity.
Yes, but you'd get fired for saying that publicly in many teaching jobs. Rules for thee is the leftist way.
That's why I am doing it here. And I am self-employed.
<edit: meant to be a reply to Bronwyn's comment>
Who gets to decide what speech is violent or hateful or offensive? Employers? Social media? Plain ole' common decency?
The crux of the issue has never really been holding people accountable for their words, but rather how do we agree, as a society/community/nation, what kind of speech rises to a level that permits some sort of material punishment.
This is why the author spent so much time talking about the need for maturity when dealing with offensive speech, especially with college-age citizens. She argued that the bar has been set too low and needs a higher adjustment. Because rational and mature individuals are not nearly as "harmed" by speech as those less mature or reasonable. To put it frankly, some people just need to grow up.
In this age of eternal fetishization of youthful emotionalism, it's not a bad argument.
But this restructuring has to sweep across all students and all ideologies. If students are mature enough to handle a professor being glad that Charlie Kirk is dead, they should be able to hear literally anything else the professor says, even when it is their ox being gored. I am certainly not seeing any progress on this elsewhere.
That is the crux. I agree Elliot.
I think I’m in the “mourn Charlie but don’t turn it into a crusade.” I absolutely love seeing flags out, signs on cars and homes and billboards honoring Charlie. But I don’t want to “fight back.” I’ll “fight back” by just being more honest and real about what I think. I hear about people getting fired and people purposely exposing peoples’ behavior. And yes, I think it’s worrisome. But as someone who like Charlie…I’m finding it hard to have the energy to worry too much about it.
This is a very important perspective that must be the guideline.
Just a couple of caveats, though: while I don't think anybody should be fired for criticizing Kirk, celebrating his murder is a bit different. Most employers want employees of good character. An employee who publicly celebrates a killing isn't someone I'd probably want in my workplace.
And as far as the church thing, if I may: I think people go to church in part because they want answers for what they are going through. If they go to church heavy of heart or wondering what to think about an important event of the past week and the pastor doesn't even mention it, church seems irrelevant and less like a haven from a cruel world. Churches, in my experience, stay away from talking about difficult current issues because they are afraid of losing members by offending people. It really makes them seem weak, out of touch, and irrelevant. I definitely would expect and hope my pastor would talk about a prominent Christian being brutally killed a few days prior.
1) As others have pointed out, the 1st amendment only protects against govt. restrictions, not private ones. Nor against private consequences.
2) (Google "Prisoner's Dilemma" and "Tit for Tat"). It's NOT clear that the best way to support free speech is to always support free speech when one side does not always support free speech. The winning strategy (the one that best supports free speech in the long run) might be to retaliate, but make it clear that you will de-escalate when the other side de-escalates.
So, I'm not sure I have a problem with the right trying to silence dissent; what I do have a problem with is the lack of clarity of motives. It needs to be clearly "How do you like it? Perhaps we should both stop"
Thank you for the good and timely message to all of us.
Def nded!! Can you run for office? Or share this w govt leaders.
Thanks for reading!
Bravo - in the spirit of Nat Hentoff!
"For everyone screaming “gun control”: Charlie Kirk was assassinated with a single-round, bolt-action hunting rifle: Exactly the kind of gun that progressives keep saying they have no intention of banning …" is Jim Trageser's view on firearms proliferation on his Substack.
This comment merely muddies the water: Those of us "screaming for gun control" are looking to uniform gun registration laws and a computerized federal data base; bans on assault weapons (for the second time!) and bans on large magazines; ban on ghost guns, and strict control of silencers and ammunition purchases. Hunters can keep their bolt-action rifles and now, in 47 states, flaunt them in public along with their sidearms. But, the massive firepower of assault weapons does not belong in civilian hands -- only those of .a regulated militia and standing army. It's a start -- or has Jim yielded already to nihilism?
So what is your conclusion? How about all guns of all types be outlawed? Any shooting reminds us of the mass shootings which have become common place. While Kirk allegedly said that a few dead people are worth the Second Amendment, he failed to mention the dead school children. I have been unable to find Kirk's statements about dead school children. https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-says-gun-deaths-worth-it-2nd-amendment-1793113
Since 2000, there have been 515 school kids shot dead and 1,161 injured. Kirk thought a few dead people was acceptable, but he never mentioned hundreds of dead school kids. Why was Kirk silent about Sandy Hook? Why did didn't Kirk mention Sandy Hook when opposing gun control? Did Kirk speak out against Alex Jones? He did host Jones on his podcasts!
If Trump and the Alt Right were not making a saint out of Kirk, I doubt so many people would be bring up unpleasant FACTS about Kirk.
https://tinyurl.com/45x7mmts September 15, 2025, CityWatch, De-Register, De-Register, De-Register, by Richard Lee Abrams
This aphorism comes to mind: "Perfect is the enemy of the good," attributed to Voltaire, which advises against letting an unattainable ideal stand in the way of tangible progress or useful outcomes.
The majority of Americans may now be mobilized to do the things I have listed above: We're sick and tired of our children and neighbors being gunned down. The immediate hurdle is the cohort of elected officials held hostage by the gun lobby and 2A fanatics. (Marco Rubio, for example, received over $1 million from the NRA in 2016. The remainder of GOP legislators in Florida are terrified of being primaried from their right and so toe the mark of the firearms maximalists.)
Attempting to rid society of all firearms is not do-able except in a pipe dream. Our goal should be to narrow the odds, diminishing the possible harm that is possible by eliminating access to weapons of war and etc.
Kirk was assassinated. Not by my hand nor by my wish. His commentary is the stock in trade of many MAGA media figures and politicians, and this is what I opposed.
Kirk was a racist and misogynist based upon the record he created and left behind. For example, Kirk had every right to say on his broadcast that Michelle Obama was intellectually feeble despite her earning a BA from Princeton and a law degree from Harvard. But, listeners have every right to call him out -- which I believe would be the position of the late Nat Hentoff..
It's neither racism nor misogyny to criticize a particular black woman. It would be if he said all blacks or all women were stupid and inferior or similar, which he did not. Besides that, I agree with you on the gun issue.
Kirk's comment was occasioned by a 2023 court decision negating parts of Affirmative Action.
Kirk targeted four Black women including Obama who had access to better colleges due to AA: “Three weeks ago, if we would’ve said that Joy Reid, and Michelle Obama, and Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would’ve been called the racist,” Kirk said Thursday on his talk show.
“But now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us,” the far-right commentator continued. “They’re coming out and they’re saying, ‘I’m only here because of affirmative action.’ Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
He added: “You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/charlie-kirk-says-michelle-obama-212205680.html
Besides being racist and misogynistic, one has to laugh at a first-semester college dropout like Kirk imagining that he is intellectually superior to these four accomplished Black women. (This also says a lot about the mass of overwhelmingly white folks who made Kirk an "influencer.")
Yes, I'm familiar with the comment. We'll have to agree to disagree at least on a couple of those people. I'm not familiar enough with the others to comment. I can say I have personal experience with DEI hires at a former workplace, and I know exactly what he's talking about. When your ideology forces you to hire people because of their gender and/or skin colour, you're going to end up with unqualified people in some positions. Just the way it is when you have a limited pool to pick from that everybody's trying to go for.
BTW: John Ganz who has the popular Substack site on economics and whatever else is on his mind, also buys into the defeatism refrain: "We can't take back what has spewed forth from Pandora's box." No, we can't, John, but we can pick the the low-hanging fruit and try to put a dent into the mess created by firearms proliferation.
I see a book in your future. Titled Peachy Perspectives and maybe subtitled constitutional ideals (or something like that)
your succinct essay style is so rich.
Thank you!
Yes, Nancy Mace and the SC Freedom Caucus are completely out of control with their overreaching and need to be pulled back. I hope we actually do still have a functioning SCOTUS who will not allow anything like defunding Clemson to go forward because there's clearly no one in the executive or legislative branches who will do anything .
We all should be able to have a conversation, dialogue kindly, respectfully. Actually listen! Like we are all doing here. And we as a country seem to have forgotten that. Able to know we all are human and forgive. But still hv justice. Easy to see and read something too and jump to conclusions when we don’t know everything that happened/s sometimes. Strive for righteousness, justice, peace, equality, compassion, understanding of each other.
Idw to live in a country where we can’t be free to speak up, out for or against anyone, even and especially the government. We don’t want communism here. We should all want freedom of expression…but there should be guardrails. No should be afraid for their life because of what someone said abt them.
Thank you very good article!
What about when ppl or groups call on others to rise up and sometimes violently? And over and over again? And ppl have followed thru on physically hurting others. Should we be allowed to scold or warn…or how do we prevent injury, death? Wrongful one like this one. Have more security and rules of engagement….
The First Amendment draws that line clearly—incitement of violence falls outside its protection, but offensive speech alone does not.
Thank you
Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969) lays out the limits quite clearly.
https://www.oyez.org/cases/1968/492
Yes!!!!!!
Your article is at best very inconsistent. At worst, it is highly self-righteous and hypocritical. You claim free speech should be allowed even if a person is saying he or she is happy about a murder of a good man took place. But where is my free speech, as an owner of a company, to say to such a despicable person, "You're fired!"
Why should free speech be disallowed behind the church door. What’s even more disturbing is your accusation of idolatry and that Charlie put himself or that any who think he was a good man put him "above reproach." If his murder had happened in the days of the Book of Acts, he would have gotten his name in Scripture along side Stephen. And Charlie would have probably said the same thing, "Forgive them for they know not what they do!" You wrote, "Influencers declaring, 'If your church didn’t mention Charlie Kirk this Sunday, find a new church'” was idolatry and hero worship, is absurd.
In every debate Kirk had, he defended the Lord Jesus Christ and the Christian worldview.
Since when is it idolatry to say all Christians should speak against the murder of Christians because of their love for Christ and their Christian worldview?!
The service I attended on Sunday did not mention Charlie Kirk, not because mentioning him would have been cultic, but because the church I attend is more or less in its own little Christian "tribe" (i.e. - cultic) and disagrees with Evangelicals on various points. If the pastor had mentioned Charlie Kirk, even if it was a prayer for his widow and fatherless children, he could have been excoriated by some in the "tribe."
When it comes to college students, how can you even think that they can fight against what has more or less become Marxist indoctrination centers?! But watch, many more of them will now stand up for what they believe, even if they are insulted by a bully professor and given a failing grade.
The death of Charlie Kirk has revealed to me my own cowardice. I think Trump is doing a great job as president and I have a t-shirt with him raising his hand and the words, "Fight! Fight! Fight!" But I have been too intimidated and cowardly to wear it outside the house for two reasons. 1. Because people like you will call me a cultist or Trump worshiper, and, 2. Because of the "action" of those who have a passionate and unreasonable hatred for Trump might scratch up my car or want to kill me. Trump and conservatives have been called Nazis, fascists, Hitler, deplorable, irredeemable, etc., for years now, and there are people acting on such lies, false accusations, and deceitful propaganda. See Solzhenitsyn in his essay "Live Not By Lies" (2/12/1974) and you will understand exactly where we are today in America. Young people do not know what happened in the past. But us older folks do, and it is distressing to see it repeat itself! Charlie Kirk saw it and he spoke against it!
I would definitely have exercised my right to fire an employee whose heart was filled with such hatred for another human being that he or she was happy about a public murder.
Many of us have heard the cry of the child, "The emperor has no clothes!" Still, the parade must go on. I refuse to be a part of it!