When speech becomes a death sentence

I keep writing this and deleting it… so I’m going to just go stream of consciousness and publish what follows. Otherwise, I fear I won’t say anything at all—and feeling like I’m silencing myself scares me more than speaking up and potentially offending the wrong people. So, apologies in advance for any rambling or fragmented thoughts or typos. This is the best I can do in my current state of mind.

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Yesterday, Charlie Kirk was assassinated while speaking on a college campus in Utah.

I’m still trying to wrap my head around the magnitude of it—not just what happened, but how people responded.

If you’ve spent any time online in the last 24 hours, you’ve seen it. An avalanche of mockery, celebration, and outright joy from people who see themselves as morally righteous. They joked. They cheered. They said he deserved it. Some are even calling it justice.

But Charlie Kirk was not a violent man. You don’t have to agree with his politics to acknowledge that. He wasn’t a militant, he wasn’t storming buildings, he wasn’t making threats, he wasn’t even a politician. His entire brand—whether you liked it or not—was based on IDEAS.

Charlie’s entire public persona was built on speech, debate, confrontation via words—not violence. He literally set up tables on college campuses under tents that said "PROVE ME WRONG." He invited discourse. He invited disagreement. That was the whole thing. And now he’s dead for it.

This is one of the last photos taken of Charlie—yesterday, September 9th, in Utah—at the event he would be killed at.

When speech becomes risky to use, or deadly to witness, what does that do to the social contract?

This should terrify you. And you should really take some time to seriously consider what becomes of that social contract. Because this isn’t just about Charlie. It’s about the direction this culture is heading. Where speech is increasingly treated as violence, and actual violence is treated as catharsis.

What’s even more disturbing is that you can’t even express outrage about it without getting slapped with some label. Say this was horrific, and suddenly you’re a fascist sympathizer. Say you believe in free speech, and they say you’re a Nazi. Say you want the murder of a political figure to be condemned unequivocally, and you’re told you’re part of the problem.

This is where we are. We’re trapped in a cultural slop loop where the desire to be morally clean overrides the instinct to be human. Where tribalism has quite literally swallowed empathy. Where violence, so long as it’s aimed in the right direction, isn’t just tolerated—it’s aestheticized!!!

And it’s not just isolated celebration either. I’ve seen people circulating lists—actual lists! of other political figures, commentators or influencers they want to see “next.” As if assassination is now open-source. As if this is some kind of a game. That is not just sick. That is pure evil.

This shouldn’t be about sides. This isn’t a partisan issue. This is about free speech—one of the most fundamental things about being an American. And the fact that so many people can’t see that anymore is asbolutely devastating.

I’m not saying Charlie Kirk was perfect. I’m saying he didn’t deserve to die for speaking.

And if your first reaction to hearing someone was murdered is to pull up their voting record or old tweets, you might want to ask yourself what you’ve become.

We can’t afford to be silent about this. Not out of fear. Not out of branding. Not because we’re afraid of what label might get attached to us for saying something as simple as: "He didn’t deserve that"

Because if we lose the ability to say that, we’ve already lost much, much more.

My heart is absolutely shattered thinking about his wife and 2 children... I don’t know what else to say.

Rest in peace, Charlie 🇺🇸

—S