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Even Charlie Kirk would've disagreed with Pam Bondi about 'hate speech'




In the wake of Charlie Kirk's death, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Monday
declared that “hate speech” against the late right-wing activist is illegal and
that the government will go after those who criticize Kirk—a blatantly
unconstitutional action that Kirk himself would have disagreed with.

"There's free speech and then there's hate speech, and there is no place,
especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,"
Bondi said in an interview with Katie Miller, the podcasting wife of odious
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.

Bondi added, "We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are
targeting anyone with hate speech."




Of course, hate speech—while socially unpalatable—is not illegal. The First
Amendment protects your right to be hateful as long as you do not threaten
anyone with violence, incite violence, or veer into defamation.

Even Kirk said hate speech is constitutionally protected.




 



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"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," Kirk wrote in May 2024 in a post on X. "Keep America free."

Bondi's comment about hate speech wasn't the only absurd threat she made on
Monday. She also vowed to prosecute companies that refused to make posters
about Kirk.

"If you want to go and print posters with Charlie's picture on them for a
vigil, you have to let them do that. We can prosecute you for that," Bondi said
in an appearance on Fox News, adding that she had the Justice Department’s
“civil rights unit looking at that.”

But that, too, is incorrect. In 2018, the Supreme Court ruled that a cake
baker in Colorado was constitutionally allowed to refuse to make a cake for a
same-sex wedding.

Other right-wing commentators also criticized Bondi's misunderstanding of the
First Amendment.



"Someone needs to explain to Ms. Bondi that so-called 'hate speech,' repulsive
though it may be, is protected by the First Amendment. She should know this,"
Fox News analyst Brit Hume wrote in a post on X.

"In the last 24 hours, the Attorney General of the United States declared
hate speech is prosecutable and the DOJ will target small businesses that do
not want to work with individuals whose views they dislike. She must think she
is the Attorney General of the United Kingdom," right-wing radio host Erick
Erickson wrote in a post on X.




 



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The backlash to Bondi's idiotic comment was so swift that Bondi had to issue a
rare walk-back, though one filled with her own brand of incendiary rhetoric.

"Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected
by the First Amendment. It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the
radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political
violence. That era is over," Bondi wrote in a post on X on Tuesday, which
clarified little and still demonstrated that she doesn't understand the law.

Of course, Bondi isn’t the only Republican threatening people who have
criticized Kirk for spreading misinformation and bigotry.

Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana said he would introduce legislation to ban
anyone who "belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk" from social media.

"If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous
murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering
respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities,
armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution… those profiles
must come down," Higgins wrote in a post on X. "So, I’m going to lean forward
in this fight, demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent
political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER."

Dozens of other House Republicans, led by Rep. Chip Roy of Texas, are
demanding a congressional committee to probe progressive groups that they
baselessly blame for Kirk’s death.

And Vice President JD Vance sat for a podcast on Monday in which he said
anyone who criticizes Kirk should be fired from their jobs.

“When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder … call their employer,”
Vance said.



So much for his commitment to free speech.

For years, Republicans have railed against “cancel culture.” But they are
proving that they oppose cancel culture only when it is against people on their
side.



Click here to check out this story on DailyKos.com.
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