Shaun McCutcheon: Point
Free speech is expensive; Charlie Kirk paid with his life
In the annals of history, free speech has always been a double-edged sword. It’s the lifeblood of our Constitution, the core mechanism by which ideas clash, truths emerge and society thrives. What happens when that sword turns lethal? When the cost of speaking out isn’t lost revenue or livelihood, but a bullet to the neck? That’s the grim reality we face with the murder of Charlie Kirk.
Kirk paid the ultimate price for free speech, forcing America to confront a chilling question of how far we let the enemies of open discourse go before drawing the line, or even better, holding it.
Kirk was no stranger to controversy. For years, he crisscrossed college campuses, debating progressive orthodoxy and challenging echo chambers that dominate higher education. He never shouted down opponents nor peddled hate, as revisionists are trying to claim. Instead, he directly proposed happiness.
Kirk believed in the power of dialogue. He armed young minds with facts, encouraged critical thinking, and let the chips fall where they may. In an era where universities often serve as indoctrination mills, Kirk’s approach of presenting the evidence, exposing the inconsistencies, and trusting people to decide for themselves was revolutionary. It was free speech in its purest, messy, provocative and profoundly American form.
Yet, for some, that purity was a threat. Kirk’s murder underscores a dangerous escalation. This was the inevitable outcome of years of inflammatory rhetoric that paints conservatives like Kirk as a danger.
Kirk was called a fascist, a white supremacist, a threat to democracy. Never mind that his “crimes” were hosting panels on free markets, critiquing identity politics or questioning the efficacy of social policies.
It is one thing to have cancel culture go after media companies, products and causes. Boycotts are the people’s prerogative in a free society. If you disagree with a viewpoint, you have every right to “vote with your feet,” to withhold your attention and your dollars. That’s how a healthy marketplace of ideas functions. Competition breeds excellence, and bad ideas wither away.
When the cost of producing content starts to exceed the revenue it generates, the decision to cancel is no longer political; it is financial. Free speech, in those cases, becomes too expensive to sustain. Inciting violence? Crossing into threats, doxxing and, ultimately, murder? That’s not dissent; that’s domestic terrorism, and it has no place in our republic.
Kirk’s killing has exposed the hypocrisy of those who claim to champion tolerance while practicing intolerance. Many on the left are still doubling down, even in the wake of this tragedy. Social media is ablaze with posts justifying the act, claiming Kirk “had it coming” for his “hate speech.” They’re being called out for it (rightfully so), but the lies persist.
They twist his words, claiming he spewed points of view with which they disagree. All Kirk did was try to have thoughtful dialogues with those confined to limited ideas, surrounded by echo chambers that affirm only one narrative. When presented with different opinions, facts and perspectives, their eyes were opened. It’s like stepping out of a dark movie theater into blinding sunlight — the shock is real, the adjustment painful. That’s the point of free speech: to illuminate, not to indoctrinate.
Kirk exposed truths that the establishment would rather not discuss. He highlighted our loss of values, the failures of globalist governments, the absurdities of woke ideology and the erosion of personal responsibility. He didn’t force conclusions; instead, he allowed others to reach them on their own, even while trying to prove him wrong. And for many, it was a revelation.
Students who continuously regurgitated progressive talking points began questioning them. Debates turned into discussions, and minds expanded. Kirk performed a vital service; he was no threat (except to those in power). In a world where elites control the discourse, Kirk used free speech to empower individuals, to break the chains of conformity. He reminded us that ideas should be freely tested in the open, not censored in the shadows.
The value of free speech is once again being thrust upon the American people and the world. Will we wake up to the indoctrination machine that’s churning out division and violence, or will we let it continue? The left’s political rhetoric has long advocated for “punching Nazis” and silencing “deplorables,” but now it has cost another life.
In the end, Kirk’s legacy is one of courage. He paid the ultimate price not because he was wrong, but because he was right and was unafraid to say it. As we mourn him, let’s honor his memory by ensuring that free speech doesn’t become a luxury few can afford. Because if it does, America as we know it will be lost.
Shaun McCutcheon is a free speech advocate and the founder of Multipolar. He was the successful plaintiff in the 2014 Supreme Court case McCutcheon v. FEC. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.n to both problems is the same: Pay people family-sustaining wages, wages they deserve, and no one will have to complain about onerous tips ever again.
Chris Mills Rodrigo is the managing editor of Inequality.org at the Institute for Policy Studies. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
James Rosen: Counterpoint
Lionization of
Kirk is all wrong
To hear his supporters now, following his murder last week at a Utah university, Charlie Kirk was a brave broker of competing ideas, an honest peddler of open debate who encouraged young people to examine all sides of any claim.
In truth, Kirk was a clever racist. How else to explain his view that the landmark Civil Rights Act was “a huge mistake” or his denigration of Martin Luther King Jr.?
Why did he single out Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and former Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, both Black women, in saying they lacked the “brain-processing power to be taken really seriously”?
In truth, Kirk was a charismatic antisemite who repeatedly blamed Jews for a range of problems. On his podcast in October 2023, he said that “Jewish donors have been the No. 1 funding mechanism of radical, open-border neoliberal quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions, and nonprofits.” Two weeks later, on the same podcast, he said: “Jews have been some of the largest funders of cultural Marxist ideas and supporters of those ideas over the last 30 or 40 years.” Just a week after that, Kirk defended Elon Musk for telling an X poster he’d “spoken the actual truth” in saying that Jews had promoted “dialectical hatred against whites.”
“It is true that some of the largest financiers of left-wing, anti-white causes have been Jewish Americans,” Kirk said on his podcast.
Kirk’s supporters bristle at comparisons of his views with Nazism, but his linking of Jews to Marxism eerily echoes frequent claims of Adolf Hitler. To cite one, Hitler wrote in “Mein Kampf”: “Slowly fear and the Marxist weapon of Jewry descend like a nightmare on the mind and soul of decent people.”
In truth, Kirk was an extremist with a nice smile who paid lip service to open debate but mocked those who disagreed with him.
At his campus gatherings, his frequent challenge of “Prove it!” to students who contradicted him was a rhetorical dodge that enabled him to avoid actual debate. And he failed to hold himself to the rhetorical standards he set for others.
Despite overwhelming bipartisan proof that Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential polling, Kirk was an election denier. That view allied him with the Jan. 6 insurrectionists who busted into the Capitol, erected a gallows outside it, and chanted “Hang Mike Pence!” after the then-vice president, in his role as Senate president, accepted the election results.
Small wonder that Kirk found an admirer in Trump.
Even as he claimed to be a moderator of political debate, Kirk’s Turning Point USA group helped register tens of thousands of young voters, a movement that Trump aides credited with helping him regain the White House last November.
“Charlie was very much a part of this family, and maybe the highest profile MAGA person outside of those that are working here,” White House chief of staff Susie Wiles told Scott Jennings on the radio show of the former President George W. Bush aide, now a CNN commentator.
Always quick to turn tragedy to his political advantage, Trump blamed “the radical left” for Kirk’s murder before anything was known about his alleged killer. White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller elaborated, saying the left “hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved” — a sorry example of using hate speech to condemn hate.
In an article two days after Kirk’s murder, Bulwark editor Jonathan V. Last wrote: “Political violence is a ribbon running through American history since the founding.” He cited examples going back to the colonists’ armed rebellion against their British overlords and including the 1960s assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.
As I came of age, far-left members of the militant Weathermen bombed the Capitol, the Pentagon and the State Department while far-right domestic terrorists bombed abortion clinics.
Trump’s awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Kirk dishonors the previous recipients, who represent the pinnacle of American life in entertainment, sports, the arts, politics, the media and diplomacy.
Charlie Kirk left no lasting mark in any of those fields. His main deeds were paying homage to Trump and helping the president get back into the White House.
James Rosen is a former political reporter for McClatchy who has received awards from the National Press Club, Military Reporters and Editors, and the Society of Professional Journalists, which in 2021 named him top opinion columnist. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.
