Hating the haters: Americans have a right to be nasty

"We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech," Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a Monday podcast. Later, she tweeted that "hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It's a crime." Bondi wrote.

People on the left, right and center united to say: No, you can't prosecute "hate speech." It's free speech. They quoted Charlie Kirk, who pointed out that what's hate speech is subjective. He tweeted:

 "Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free." -- Charlie Kirk

Yesterday, Bondi backed way down, saying she was talking about "credible, violent threats."

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that all sorts of hateful speech is protected by the First Amendment, unless it is "directed to and likely to produce imminent lawless action," write Aaron Terr and Angel Eduardo.

Murder is bad, writes Mike Solana on Pirate Wires. Anyone who wants to prevent more political violence should try to reassert "a strong cultural taboo against the celebration of political violence." The center-left needs to take the lead, or it won't work.

He worries about recent surveys that show a growing minority of young people think political violence may be justified.

In a YouGov poll just after Kirk's murder, most Americans condemned political violence, Solana writes. "However, 16% of liberals thought a 'feeling of joy' about the death of their political opponents was usually or always acceptable," compared to 4 percent of conservatives and 7 percent of moderates. One quarter of the "very liberal" said political violence could sometimes be justified.

Solana thinks people who celebrate political violence -- not just criticize Charlie Kirk -- should be fired. It's necessary to maintain the taboo, he argues. "Because if we fail to course correct here, this troubling lust for violence we’re observing on the young left will be mirrored throughout our culture."

Of course, the calls to get people fired have gone beyond the nurse who claimed she loves to see cis white men die -- perhaps problematic -- to people who thought Charlie Kirk was a racist, trans-phobe, etc. There's blood in the water.

It would be nice if people observed the taboo against speaking ill of the dead, but apparently that ship has sailed (and been torpedoed).

Tyler Robinson killed Charlie Kirk because he had “had enough of his hatred,” he wrote in a text message to his romantic partner, released by prosecutors yesterday. The 22-year-old was charged with murder. "Some hate can't be negotiated out," he wrote. I guess that means he thought the penalty for hate speech should be death. Or perhaps his own hate couldn't be "negotiated."

It's an odd series of messages, even if it was designed to exonerate the partner, who was transitioning from male to female. Robinson seems to be more worried his father will be mad about him losing his grandfather's vintage rifle -- with an expensive scope -- than he is about the whole murder thing.