“Stand at Charlie!” That message appeared spontaneously all over the world after the unspeakable violent attack by an extremist. No, it was not the answer to the murder of Charlie Kirk this week.
It was 10 years ago and referred to the killing of staff in Paris -based satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. World leaders, including the French, German and Turkish presidents, joined a march for free speech despite their own speech investigation, including previous targeting of the magazine and the victims.
The editor -in -chief, Stéphane Charbonnier, had refused to silence the French government and stated: “I would rather stand standing than living on my knees.” He was the first person the shooters asked for in an attack at the office, and he was one of the first to be killed.
After the murder of KIRK, legislators respond to the deadly political climate: ‘Violent words precede violent actions’
At that time, me about The breathtaking hypocrisis and noted that one of the few surviving editors of the magazine refused to join the Mars with those who ruthlessly chased criminal investigations. After the Mars, France, Germany and other Western governments expanded their censorship laws and the prosecution of views that are considered inflammatory or hateful.
In the ultimate reminder of the memory of the Charlie Hebdo staff, the French officials then proceeded to use their own murders to justify raised speech losses.
The murder of Kirk in the United States on Wednesday is clearly different in one critical sense. There will be no “I am Charlie‘Left campaign. Some even celebrated the murder, while others, hate regret, attacked Kirk and suggested that he had brought this to him.
An editor for satirical French magazine “Charlie Hebdo” said his publication Mohammed will no longer draw. (AP)
That is hardly a surprise. Kirk spent his tragic short life exposing the hypocrisy and intolerance from the left, especially in higher education. They hated him for it. Universities and colleges have long been bastions from the left with the rinsing of conservative or republican faculties of most departments and the maintenance of an academic ultrasound room in classrooms.
Kirk all challenged that. He drove a lot of crazy by inviting them to debate about issues. The answer was often violence, including clearing tables that his group, Turning Point USA, founded on campus quads. He was eventually killed because he was heard.
Charlie Kirk attends a TPUSA event in Arizona in 2024. (Rebecca Noble/AFP via Getty images)
However, we are confronted with the same danger of self-examination a decade after that other Charlie shooting party. Some on the right call on people who have Kirk at the Kirk at the Kirk or celebrate his death to be fired. This varies from professors to public employees.
I knew Charlie. Although I cannot call myself a good friend, we spoke about the lack of freedom of expression on our campuses and the efforts to cancel or dismiss those with opposing views. More than anyone today, Kirk has exposed that hypocrisy brilliantly by jeopardizing himself and his group.
The way to honor Charlie Kirk’s life and legacy is not with hypocrisy and intolerance. That is what he died against.
To fire people on campuses because they speak out against Kirk, his work and his death would make a flute. It would be if the prohibition of LGBTQ groups in response to the murder of Harvey Milk in 1978.
Kirk wanted an unobstructed debate. He wanted people to be able to express themselves, regardless of how the majority found about their views. He was the victim, not the lawyer, of cancellation campaigns.
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There are cases where hateful views can increase areas for termination. Is a secret service agent investigated After rejecting the murder. Given the need to protect both conservative and liberal figures (including those in current administration), the bias in the messages can attract legitimate reasons for research.
Similarly, those who use their official, academic or business functions to embrace hateful messages, terminate the risk.
However, many of these people spoke as individuals outside their positions, and their hateful comments are not necessarily compromise or contrary to their positions.
Hate speech in the United States is protected speech. The action against hateful, inflammatory or intolerant that is considered hateful, inflammatory or intolerant is the signing of the left, exactly what Kirk campaign was on.
It is never easy to show restraint when you are angry or mourning. Many of those who today objected to these cases were, after all, were quiet or supported with conservatives for and outside campuses. They miss some self -awareness or shame in demanding protection that they rarely extend to others with opposing views. That is the value of an age of anger. It gives you a license to silence others and to attack their views, while you are the real victim.
However, we cannot become the ones with which we have been fighting for a long time in freedom of expression. What is even more important, we can’t be the ones who fought Charlie against the moment of his murder. We honor his legacy by protecting the thing that Charlie cherished the most. We must “stand with Charlie” and support freedom of expression.
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