Indiana’s AG Makes It Clear He’s Going To Target Anyone Who Isn’t Reverential Enough Of Charlie Kirk’s Corpse

Free Speech

from the being-brigaded-out-of-their-jobs dept

Apparently, it’s no longer acceptable to speak ill of the dead. Not that it bothers the dead. But it certainly seems to bother a bunch of people who are still alive and who have nothing better to do with their time but snitch on anyone who doesn’t treat Charlie Kirk like an American hero who died to protect our freedoms.

In other words, it’s the same old shit from the people who think free speech is just the hateful stuff that comes out of their mouths and definitely isn’t allowed to be extended to anyone who disagrees with them. To be fair, that’s the best way to “honor” the late Charlie Kirk, because he felt the same way about free speech. “Debate me, bro” was nothing more than a handy phrase to justify Kirk’s bigotry, allowing him to frame his hate as the very essence of any “freewheeling” (read: staged) debate in the marketplace of ideas.

Lots of people are getting suspended or fired because his fans are scouring the internet for any comments not sufficiently deferential to a dead man and converting this amateur sleuthing (if you can even call it that) into external pressure on numerous entities, including plenty of colleges and universities.

The problem isn’t necessarily the pressure or the witch hunts. The real problem is that these entities are caving so quickly, allowing a loose confederation of hecklers to decide who gets to remain employed.

Some are caving well ahead of even being pressured directly, like Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who has apparently decided the First Amendment no longer applies to negative comments about Charlie Kirk and/or his murder.

AG Rokita’s letter to state superintendents and public university administrators claims many public employees have greeted this killing with “callousness and celebration.” He also claims he’s received “hundreds” of complaints from parents and other state residents about these statements, which he terms “poisonous, divisive, and troubling.” While that could certainly double as Charlie Kirk’s epitaph, AG Rokita thinks it’s time to strip what little remains in terms of First Amendment protections for public employees on behalf of the cooling corpse, because ensuring Kirk is celebrated for his bigoted existence is apparently now priority one at the AG’s office.

As he gets cooking on his “why it’s okay to fire people for using their free speech” justification, these are some of the examples he uses as speech that is so far out of line, any firing would be justified, despite all of these comments being posted on teachers’ personal social media accounts:

In one post, the teacher wrote, “with all due disrespect Charlie Kirk can suck it. He became exactly what he said was ok and acceptable in order to have gun rights. I call that manifestation. I’m not saying it’s right, but I’m saying it’s only fitting.” In another post, the teacher reposted content that described Kirk’s assassination as “ironic” because of his support for Second Amendment rights. In a third post, the teacher reposted content that said that the “same people calling for sympathy because ‘he had children’ don’t care when the victims ARE children.”

This is some weak ass sauce. These don’t celebrate Kirk’s death. All they do is point out that Kirk’s vociferous support of gun rights didn’t do him any favors the day he was killed. Nor did his support of gun rights ever manifest itself in a way that might have indicated he actually cared one way or another how many school shootings occurred.

Nonetheless, Rokita keeps going, claiming — without any basis in established law — that the First Amendment simply doesn’t apply to things AG Rokita and his “hundreds” of complainants don’t like. Tellingly, these are the only examples the Attorney General uses as examples of “crass” disruptive speech, which means the “hundreds” of other complaints are about social media posts by teachers that are even more innocuous than those listed above.

We can, of course, ridicule Rokita all we want. The problem is that our ridicule can’t match the vindictiveness of a state AG. And it’s certainly no match for institutional cowardice, which has been on continuous display since the shooting of Charlie Kirk.

Ball State University has already removed an employee who posted to their own personal Facebook account (a private page at that) the following super-inflammatory words:

Let me be clear: if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.

His death is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for his wife and children.

I believe in the Resurrection, and while it’s difficult I can and do pray for his soul.

Charlie Kirk’s death is a reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed. It does not excuse his death, AND it’s a sad truth.

The shooting is a tragedy, and I can and do feel for a college campus experiencing an active shooter situation.

The deaths of Melissa and Mark Hortman, the children shot and killed in Minneapolis last month, and the children shot in Colorado today are all tragedies that also deserve your attention.

Charlie Kirk excused the deaths of children in the name of the second amendment.

This post was clipped, highlighted, and delivered to the general public like a head on a stake by AG Rokita, who chose to preface a thoughtful and emotional post by a Ball State University employee as nothing more than a hateful spiel by someone who wanted Kirk dead. Nothing could be further from the truth and yet, this is how Todd Rokita chose to put it on blast:

What a vile comment. So many hateful people are exposing themselves.

Now is the time to oppose political violence – not justify it. Comments like these are outrageous and should make people question someone’s ability to be in a leadership position.

There’s a hateful person exposing themselves here. And it’s not the person being stupidly targeted by an attorney general who cares more about punishing people for not siding with him personally and politically than actually respecting the law and the Constitution. This asshole basically doxxed someone for simply stating their concerns and their feelings following this shooting, none of which could be remotely called “vile” by anyone with a single honest bone in their body.

AG Rokita is a GOP stooge — a worthless, spineless sack of shit who gets to be a bully because the people he likes are running the nation at the moment. He’s not even worthy of the comments made about Charlie Kirk in this supposedly “vile” post, which not only condemns the killing but expresses sympathy for his survivors. He’s getting his ass handed to him in the comments, which is heartening. But this is sickening: the most powerful prosecutor in the state is bullying people simply because they don’t happen to agree that Charlie Kirk was a credit to this nation, rather than the blight on humanity he chose to be right up until someone else decided he’d no longer be able to exercise this privilege.

Filed Under: 1st amendment, censorship, charlie kirk, free speech, social media, trump administration