John,
Charlie Kirk once said,
"When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war ensues ... What we as a culture have to get back to is being able to have a reasonable disagreement where violence is not an option.”
But how do we do it?
To some, the answer is to crack down on offensive speech. You certainly will not hear any complaints from No Labels about the people – including teachers – who were fired in the past week for celebrating Kirk’s assassination. That is called consequences.
But others want to go further – they want a government crackdown on “hate speech.” That is called censorship, and that is the beginning of the end of our democracy.
We have been headed down this road for a while. During and in the years after the COVID pandemic, we now know the Biden White House colluded with social media companies to suppress speech in a far-reaching affront that one federal judge called potentially the “most massive attack on free speech in United States history.”
On day one of this administration, President Trump signed a free speech executive order to ensure that “no federal officer or resource is used to abridge” Americans’ First Amendment rights.
But that is exactly what we saw from his cabinet officials this week. Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to use the DOJ to crack down on “hate speech." FCC Chair Brendan Carr sounded like a mafia boss as he threatened a federal crackdown on media companies unless they “take action” on Jimmy Kimmel in the wake of his remarks on the Kirk assassination.
This flies in the face of everything it means to be an American and everything the Supreme Court has said about the First Amendment.
There is no “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. Government may punish only true threats and incitement of imminent lawless action. That is the line the Supreme Court drew in Brandenburg v. Ohio, reaffirmed when it protected vile protests on public issues in Snyder v. Phelps, and stated plainly in Matal v. Tam, which praised the First Amendment for protecting “the thought that we hate.”
In America, we punish threats, but not speech.
That rule only matters if we apply it the same way every time. Here is what that looks like in practice. This week, New York authorities arrested a Texas man for allegedly making death threats against mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, hinting that his car might explode the next time he started it. That is an incitement of lawless action. That can and should be prosecuted.
But having to deal with selfish, divisive, and offensive people mouthing off on social media and on the airwaves is the price we pay for living in a free country.
This does not mean we need to give hate a free pass in our lives as citizens. We should stand up to it and call it out whenever we see it. We should remember the words of No Labels’ late cofounder Senator Joe Lieberman who once said, "The surest way to defeat the message of hate is to hold it under the harsh light of public scrutiny."
Hate speech is not a problem for government to solve. It is on all of us – and on our leaders – to solve it by the ways we treat one another and live our lives.
So let us be specific about what we should expect from people in power. Every elected leader should condemn political violence quickly and without qualifiers, no matter who is targeted; defend the First Amendment rights of opponents and allies alike; refuse to use public office to pressure platforms, broadcasters, or institutions to punish lawful speech; and speak in ways that cool their own supporters, not inflame them.
Today we are asking you to sign our petition to send a message that we expect nothing less from those who claim to represent us.
