Beyond the Control of Free Speech

How the death of Charlie Kirk exposed so much more.

A View From the Battlefield by Jamala Rogers —

The murder of MAGA-mentored youth icon Charlie Kirk intensified the country’s debate on free speech. What it is, who gets it, and who pays the price – sometimes, the ultimate price. Under authoritarian rule, all aspects of human behavior must be manipulated and controlled. The current wanna-be dictator has been giving us lessons since Day One of his administration. Just as he promised.

I ran across a YouTube video of an unidentified man responding to the Kirk phenomenon. When explaining his own views on the issue, he captured my attention with phrases like “strategic indifference,” “selective compassion,” and “selective sympathy” as it relates to how society views the humanity of people who differ from the status quo. The comments were matter of fact and compelling. It got me thinking about how the Kirk incident was being used to modify behavior using the most basic methods of reward and punishment. MAGA understands that to stay in power and minimize the opposition, you have to first manipulate the hearts and minds of a country using a fear strategy. The fear strategy pits families, neighbors, co-workers, parishioners, and anyone else perceived as The Other against each other. While we’re busy fighting one another, authoritarian power is being consolidated.

The hateful speech of Kirk and others like him is twisted to be protected under the First Amendment. Subsequent laws have been enacted to qualify and clarify speech in this country. Hate speech can lead to hate crimes, and targeted constituencies must be protected. These constituencies are often targeted based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, gender, political views, and economic status. Over the years, Kirk trashed all of them under the guise of free speech.

When people reacted to Kirk’s death and his life of spewing hateful, divisive speech, they were shut down, criticized, and attacked. The first grouping was the Democrats, whom the MAGA minions said owned the murder “100 %.” (More on this in my column, MAGA Blames Political Violence in the U.S. on the Left.) This opened the door for justified attacks on anyone considered to be left by right-wing crazies. The Left has been narrowly defined as anyone who doesn’t march to the MAGA drums. This definition puts most of us in danger.

The high-profile casualties of free speech initially included late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel and Rep. Ilhan Omar. It went on to include those in newsrooms and communications departments, like MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd and Charlie Rock, the Carolina Panthers’ comms person. There were numerous sightings of individuals who had been sanctioned or fired by their employers at lower levels. Somehow, the concept of freedom did not apply to their speech. Their public whoopings are examples of what will happen to you should you dare speak against the authoritarian regime. Without strong, organized opposition to the extremist right’s illegal power grabs and intentional manipulation, people will fall in line – the easy way or the hard way.

We who believe in freedom cannot afford to go down alleys and side streets in our struggle for civil and human rights; we must stay on the main road. With every misstep, the defenders of democracy lose valuable ground to the trump regime. We must intensify and focus on our strategic goals.

The No Kings2 national mobilization is on October 18. How can we replicate what the people in Italy did with their national strikes? Disruption of capitalism’s business-as-usual doesn’t have to be reckless acts of protest. We are in the phase where political violence by MAGA supporters is being encouraged and protected at the highest levels. We are also now in the phase where we are fighting, not just to save this democracy, but for our own lives.

Source: BlackCommentator.com