People often conflate freedom of speech with freedom from consequences.
Freedom of speech ONLY means that the government can't punish you for what you say. Other people and entities with whom you have relationships are free to ostracize you as a result of your speech.
i agree with you that people often do conflate those two.
however, that is not at all what my post was about nor what Matt Walsh talked about.
He said that you should ALWAYS oppose anyone getting fired over a controversial tweet (when it happened to team red). Now that it happened to team blue, he is for it.
The difference is they are endorsing actual murder.
At the time he probably did not think such thing would ever happen.
Got it. So the word 'always' actually had some contingencies built into it.
Also, saying that one thought someone was a monster after their death is not endorsing their murder. I hope you and I can agree on this?
I try to imagine if someone that I really dislike were to die (say someone like Craig Wright) and in response I post, good riddance the world is better off without him, that is not my endorsing his death (whether he was murdered or died of natural causes).
In this hypothetical that would mean I just don't feel bad that he died and think the world is a better place without him. But that doesn't mean I believe he should be murdered.
Matt was wrong. We are allowed to change our minds.
You live, watch other people celebrate the brutal assassination of an innocent man, and you learn.
For sure, there are some crazy ppl out there who celebrate bad things. On a positive note, I don't think there was a single prominent figure (anywhere on the political spectrum) who did anything but immediately condone the murder.
Lot of crazy incels sitting in their parents basements along with plenty of russian/chinese bot farms that make you want to believe people are broadly celebrating this murder.
I don't know about you, but I personally don't know a single person in real life who celebrated the murder or who even thought it was net positive regardless of their political leanings.
To that point, I know Zuck and Elon love promoting the super crazies on their platforms. It is literally their money printer for facebook and twitter. The more they push the crazy narrative, the more normal people get upset and reply saying its crazy, etc...
Just the way Jan 6 was a massive payday for them, so is Charlie Kirk's murder and so will be the next tragic event.
This is largely a social media problem imo. Most people in the world are pretty darn normal and we all tend to get along. If it weren't the case, and if what you saw on social media reflected real life, there would be nothing but mass chaos on the streets every day.
Yeah... about that whole "government can't punish you for what you say" thing you were talking about...
Attorney General Pam Bondi: "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...We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech."
https://video.twimg.com/amplify_video/1967754151389020160/vid/avc1/1280x720/l1kluxT1rgny5aam.mp4
