Posted on 09/20/2025 8:40:09 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
The murdered Charlie Kirk was a martyr to free speech and the belief in the power of reasoned argument to overcome lies and evil. “Hate speech does not exist legally in America,” he wrote on X in May of 2024. “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.”
There is much to admire in Charlie’s devotion to those principles, but his murder put those principles to the test as the basis for a free society and showed that they fail. For those of us with the intellectual and moral courage to face our post-September 10th reality, this so-called “First Amendment absolutism” died with Charlie Kirk.
The absolutist understanding of the First Amendment was born from a mid-twentieth-century alliance between anti-anti-Communist progressives and the former Klansman Justice Hugo Black. Both had personal stakes in ensuring that a free society was disarmed of the legal ability to resist hateful lies.
In a series of decisions unanchored in the text of the Constitution and defying 150 years of precedent, the Supreme Court, beginning in the 1940s, adopted an absolutist free speech position based on bad social theory. One assumption, which turned out to be utterly false, was that truth could win over hateful lies in the marketplace of ideas without the assistance of public power.
Another assumption, equally false, was that if the government and government schools could be prohibited from indoctrinating patriotism and respect for our law and our institutions, they would not be captured for indoctrination in hatred of our country and disrespect for its ways.
In the world, the free speech absolutists have imposed on us by judicial fiat, the collapse of honor allows mainstream figures to broadcast hateful lies. These hateful lies incite murder, as they are intended to do—to quote the transgender conservative Blaire White, “They call you a Nazi so they can kill you.” When the murderers act on what they hear, we are told by “principled conservatives” and “classical liberals” that nothing can be done because “hate speech is free speech.”
“First Amendment absolutists” invariably erase the first five words from the First Amendment. Nothing in the actual First Amendment, which begins “Congress shall make no law,” prohibits state hate speech laws or federal assistance in enforcing them.
Such “First Amendment absolutists” would therefore more honestly be renamed “Incorporation Salafists.” They claim that the Fourteenth Amendment’s guarantee of “equal protection” means that the First Amendment binds the states (which it does not mention) as much as it binds the Federal government it was intended to restrict.
The effect of this absurd inversion is, in place of guaranteed equal protection, to deny to all of us the “protection of the laws” from hateful libel and murderous incitement.
Reversing this jurisprudential nonsense does not make such state hate speech laws prudent, effective, or wise, but it does make them constitutional if we aim to apply the Constitution we actually agreed to and not the perversions the judges have foisted on us. Censorship isn’t easy and can easily backfire.
In fact, insofar as we outsource our thinking and perception to the media, censorship is as delicate as more literal forms of brain surgery. But if we are to defeat the wave of lies, incitement, riot, assault, and murder that powerful progressive and mainstream leaders and their nonprofit, academic, and media allies have unleashed on us, we need to consider the use of every tool constitutionally available to governments. The right to speak ought not to extend to a right to indoctrinate or direct assassins.
Charlie Kirk gave his life trying to reason peacefully with those who violently disagreed with him. We owe it to his memory to learn from his murder. A society that cannot or will not use the law to stop hateful lies and incitement to political murder is a society that has lost the ability to reason together.
The force of the law must be applied carefully, thoughtfully, and without flinching to make every part of this country, red and blue, taverns and campuses, a space where peaceful debate is once again possible. In the aftermath of September 10th, all people of goodwill must come together to make the haters renounce violence—and listen.
Speech is one thing. Actions, not so much.
True.
RE: Speech is one thing
What about speech that incites actions?
For example: KILL ALL JEWS!
Really bad idea. Sounds like something written from the far left.
Incitement is already illegal.
No.
They won.
Which is why they scare you.
The Left decided that speech was violence. They also decided that violence was speech. Burning down cities is speech protected by the First Amendment. Frowning at a rainbow flag is violent hate speech.
I have problem with "hate", because it has a social media presence independent of any objective or legal meaning. Hate plus whatever can be applied to anyone you oppose.
RE: Incitement is already illegal.
Ok, where do we draw the line on incitement?
Does portraying a group as subhuman or existential threats to the country , constitute incitement? ( e.g. Joe Biden’s September 2022 Philadelphia speech which says: “ Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.”)?
That would include almost everyone here in FR.
That’s right.
I disagree with the author’s main premise. Who in their right mind would ever trust ANY level of government to regulate speech “appropriately?”
"Congress shall make no law..."
It was intended to limit the power of the federal government; State governments were not mentioned. Unfortunately, the ratification of the 14th Amendment, rather than further limiting government power by incorporating the "make no law" provision against the States, seems to have opened the floodgates of government regulation, via the all-powerful central government on the Potomac...
Once again, a talkinghead opines with ignorance:
“America must confront hate and incitement with lawful strength, not naïve trust.”
Um...
“Definition of Terrorism
Noun
The use of violence, threats, or intimidation to incite fear, or to coerce action, for political purposes.
The use of violence as a means of achieving a goal.”
I do not react well to grouping my ‘hate’ of their terrorism WITH their terrorism.
In contrast to Conservatism - particularly those of us who took an oath - the key difference is that WE defend the U.S. Constitution, the law of the land and founding documents...
...whereas they seek to destroy it (and us).
This ‘hate speech’/’haters’ crap - recently telegraphed by the idiot under the blonde cap at DOJ - needs to stop. NOW.
What gross misunderstanding and misinformation.
First, the 1A is a REMINDER TO THE FEDS that they are not to "INFRINGE" upon the PRE-EXISTING RIGHT of free speech (i.e. the Constitution delegates no power to the feds regarding free speech. Therefore, free speech is constitutionally out of bounds to the feds.
Second, the 1A is directly pointed at the federal gov't ("Congress") and nowhere else. Originally understood, the main point of the 1A is regarding the freedom of FREE POLITICAL SPEECH.
The Constitution and 1A does NOT give the feds power to control the speech of free individuals or free enterprise. Control and governance of free speech is up to the free governance of individuals, free enterprise, and local gov't including the states, but NOT the federal gov't.
RE: They won.
How did they win?
As an example, Just because the Romans crucified Jesus and executed the leading apostles did not mean that they won.
I agree with what you just wrote, but how is this statement of the author’s:
“There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment.” a gross misunderstanding and misinformation?
I’m having a hard time trying to see how it contradicts what you just wrote.
Lies are actionable.
Actions have legal consequences
Citizens screaming that they hate the government is Manna for our Republic.
Let them reveal themselves.
Folks can respond in kind.
RE: Who in their right mind would ever trust ANY level of government to regulate speech “appropriately?”
Do you agree with the regulatory threat made by FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr against Disney and ABC following comments made by Jimmy Kimmel about the MAGA movement in relation to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk?
Don't acquiesce to the utterly unconstitutional "Incorporation Doctrine" spawned in the pit of hell and promoted by hell's legions, the Left.
As Judge Robert Bork, considered the leading constitutional scholar of his time, the correct interpretation and application of the 14A depends on the INTENT OF THE RATIFIERS, not the equivocal writers of the 14A. And clearly, the states that ratified the 14A had NO intent to grant the feds the sweeping powers the incorporation doctrine gives the feds.
The 14A is a Civil War Reconstruction Amendment intended to give former slaves full citizenship. Period. No other intention.
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