I hate that Charlie Kirk was mercilessly shot down.
But I also hate some poisonous ideas he embraced and sought to sow among our nation’s youth.
So there, in the words right above, may be “hate speech.” And if Pam Bondi thinks so, it could be enough to get me collared.
At least, that’s how it seemed after a recent interview in which our attorney general told Katie Miller (wife of odious Trump consigliere Stephen Miller), “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech – and that’s across the aisle.”
She has since backed off a bit, but the mindset is clear.
The irony of it is glaring, since the otherwise arch-right Kirk himself once wrote, “Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
Kirk’s murder should repulse anyone who cherishes American – no, human – values. But threats by the leader of our justice system to handcuff those who indulge in (by her definition) hate speech is beyond troubling.
In fact, some of Kirk’s own words, protected by the First Amendment, are indeed upsetting:
– “Gun control, like vaccines, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it.”
– “I think it’s worth it… to have a cost of, unfortunately, a few gun deaths every single year so we can have the Second Amendment.”
– “Black women do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
– “I can’t stand the word ‘empathy.’ I think empathy’s a made-up new-age term that does a lot of damage.”
– “A man who calls himself trans is wearing ‘woman face,’ no different than I would wear Black face trying to be a Black person. It’s assuming an identity that isn’t yours.”
– “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be, like, “‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
According to reports by the New York Times, Kirk denigrated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and described the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. as an “awful” person.
The Times also noted that Kirk was a proponent of “replacement theory” – that Jews want to replace white Americans with non-white immigrants, and he accused Jews of controlling “not just the colleges – it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.”
Much of this, despite Kirk’s frat boy and faux-Christian bearing, is divisive enough that now, more than ever, we need national leadership dedicated to bringing us together, if that’s even possible.
It’s hardly likely, though, when we have a president whose daily discourse spews insults the likes of: totally phony, dumb as a rock, low-life, fraudulent, incompetent, dopey, sloppy, Bozo, dishonest, clown, dummy, third-rate, crazy, total loser, wacky, sleazebag, flunky, and low-class slob.
Not exactly object lessons on the hopes of the “awful” Reverend King, who observed, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.”
Shortly after the shooting, a college student interviewed by USA Today said he watched a video of what happened, and, “It just hit me hard that this actually could happen in this country.”
But it did. And hoping it won’t happen again, we must demand that those in power respect the core principles of our democracy – and, implausibly, words of Charlie Kirk himself – before widening a disunity that already begins to seem irrevocable.
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@cox.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal editor and columnist.
