This column was originally meant to explore whether the political right — like the political left — has a penchant for cancel culture. But that is no longer in question. The right does have a cancel culture problem.
This was crystallized with the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel’s eponymous late-night talk show over his commentary on the assassination of Charlie Kirk. His monologue was caustic, contained false statements (the killer was not, as Kimmel suggested, “MAGA”) and wasn’t entertaining (isn’t he supposed to be funny?).
Worse, it came at a point in the culture war when we should strongly consider mixing salves rather than deepening our profound wounds. None of Kimmel’s speech, however, was illegal.
U.S. President Donald Trump celebrated Kimmel’s cancellation,
“great news for America.” It is not. How the president of a country with strong First Amendment protections of free speech can find joy in their desecration evades all sense.
Brendan Carr, chairman of America’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the industry regulator, likely pushed ABC to suspend Kimmel’s show. As Carr made clear in
with Fox News, he believes Kimmel’s words were not in the “public interest,” and that the FCC needs to refresh its mandate of “enforcing that public interest obligation.”
Prominent right-leaning pundits and social commentators have been revelling not only in Kimmel’s cancellation, but in the
of mostly average people who’ve made grotesque comments following Kirk’s death. The right has made a sport of getting people fired.
Without a doubt, the comments being made about Kirk are misleading at best, and damned lies — accompanied by ghoulish celebrations of political violence — at worst. The bloodlust and inhumanity displayed by members of the political left over Kirk’s tragic killing is as mysterious to me as their desire to transcribe their depraved thoughts into words and release them to the public.
But let’s not forget the utility of unrestrained speech, which not only allows us to know what our detractors believe, but also allows us to defeat, through dialogue, their falsehoods and misguided convictions.
Is the phrase, “the antidote to bad speech is more speech,” not a mere platitude by now? Apparently not. We humans appear to need this most basic of principles broadcast into our psyches on an eternal loop.
In his book “On Liberty,” John Stuart Mill warned us what can become of our ideas when we refuse to discuss them: they languish and die.
“However unwillingly a person who has a strong opinion may admit the possibility that his opinion may be false, he ought to be moved by the consideration that however true it may be, if it is not fully, frequently and fearlessly discussed, it will be held as a dead dogma, not a living truth,” wrote Mill.
The political left, following its capture of our institutions and culture, has spent the past decade or more strangling any and all of its living, breathing truths into the dead dogmas that Mill warned us about. The far left destroyed their own credibility through their stifling of debate, silencing of critics and legal and social persecution of “heretics.”
Kirk’s assassination has presented the political right with a moment of cultural power — one that they are now squandering in a rash of unprincipled and blind rage. The temptation for revenge is eminently understandable, but giving in is equally as foolish.
It is at this juncture where a caveat is warranted: there is a line to be drawn in the sand. Those who incite, threaten or
, or call for more political assassinations, do, in fact, deserve to have their careers ended over their speech.
A teacher who showed the video of Kirk’s murder to
also deserves to be fired — but such insane behaviour falls outside the purview of free speech.
It is an unfortunate truth that fallible, emotional humans are tasked with drawing and enforcing such a line. By virtue of our nature, there will be constant skirmishes over its correct placement.
We already know that today’s political left cannot be entrusted with such a task, and now — post-Kirk — we must wonder if the right will be any better at it. The early signs are discouraging.
If we could broker a deal with the left — you leave us alone for stating simple biological facts, we leave you alone for finding joy in the cruel murder of a young father — then perhaps the events of the past week would be less worrying. As it stands, too many of us are hellbent on retribution.
Nearly everything in this life can be taken from us. Possessions, relationships, careers, money — all can be seized, stolen, broken or lost. Our principles, by contrast, cannot be. If we hold fast to our principles, we can take them with us all the way to the grave.
So why, then, would we simply give them away?
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