I abhor the assassination of Charlie Kirk, CEO of Turning Point USA. I believe him to have been a righteous and moral voice for original American, constitutional, and Christian values upon which our great country was founded, and along with millions of patriotic Americans, who love this country as he did, I grieve for his loss. He was a true believer in the First Amendment.<\/p>\n
It is this inconsistency that I address today. The termination of employees in the public and private sectors for reacting contrary to the majority opinion on the assassination of Kirk is radically opposed to the very freedom that he espoused. Civil discourse is the foundation of our republic and contrary opinions and freedom of expression are two of the pillars on which our nation was founded. As abhorrent as I find opinions on social media that I strongly disagree with, I will defend the right of the publisher to express them.<\/p>\n
The bigger issue that we face in this \u201cinstant media\u201d world is the total lack of critical thinking skills. People feel free to throw out the first, poorly-thought-out, vacuous reaction to any news story — whether based in fact or fiction, and regardless of negative consequences. Social media has promoted this, by rewarding the first reactors to these news stories with \u201clikes,\u201d and re-publishing these reactions across the internet.<\/p>\n
We are in a toxic environment where people are adverse to express their thoughts face-to-face, but have no restraint about publishing damaging and destructive discourse online because there is no reasoned debate to their published opinion.<\/p>\n
Scott L. Stockton, Castle Rock<\/em><\/p>\n Up until this point, I agreed that the majority of cancel culture came from the far left. With the aftermath of the senseless assassination of Kirk, the calls for silencing those who call out his vile and divisive policy positions (including firing people), we are seeing cancel culture and First Amendment freedom of speech violations by the far right on steroids. If someone uses their employer\u2019s platform to say something vile about Kirk, ok free to fire people. Pointing out controversial positions Kirk advocated does not seem to me to justify firing.<\/p>\n But if it\u2019s an individual\u2019s social media account is otherwise not connected to their employer, that\u2019s cancel culture on the right and it is happening. Charlie would not want that or calls for retribution-driven political violence. RIP.<\/p>\n John W Thomas, Fort Collins<\/em><\/p>\n This has got to stop. All the outrage and blame directed at Democrats over the killing of Charlie Kirk by the president, vice president and his followers has got to stop.<\/p>\n Where was the outrage when Minnesota\u2019s Speaker of the House, Melissa Hortman was murdered in her home along with her husband and the family dog? That assassin went on to seriously wound a colleague of Hortman and her husband and had a hit list of forty-four Democrats.<\/p>\n What did Trump do? Nothing. He didn\u2019t order the flags at half staff for them, nor did he attend the funerals or even send a delegation. He couldn\u2019t even be bothered to call Minnesota\u2019s governor. Democrats didn\u2019t rant and rave then and call for retribution from the GOP.\u00a0 Where\u2019s the outrage for those murdered Americans? This has got to stop.<\/p>\n