Republican lawmakers have had enough of the First Amendment in the aftermath of the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Representative Clay Higgins said Thursday that he planned to use his congressional seat to convince tech platforms to go after anyone who “belittled” Kirk’s death.
Kirk was fatally shot during a “Prove Me Wrong” table event at Utah Valley University, where he’d invited college students to debate him. Kirk’s final words were in a debate about gun violence in the United States.
“If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities, armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution … those profiles must come down,” Higgins wrote on X.
“So, I’m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER,” he continued. “I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked.
“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination,” he said. “I’m starting that today. That is all.”
Ironically, Higgins was the subject of social media censorship in 2020 after he posted on Facebook threatening Black Lives Matter protesters, writing that he would shoot and “drop any 10 of you where you stand.” Higgins’s post was removed for inciting or facilitating “serious violence.”
Kirk seemingly supported the free expression of political ideas—no matter how controversial.
Now lawmakers disturbed by his horrific death want not only to curb free speech on the internet but to punish it too.
Already, the notorious hate account Libs of TikTok has launched a doxxing campaign targeting apparent Democrats who made callous comments celebrating Kirk’s death on the internet, as part of a newly declared “war” on liberals.
Republican Representative Anna Paulina Luna also called on social media platforms to remove the videos of the shooting, and Representative Lauren Boebert agreed.
“He has a family, young children, and no one should be forced to relive this tragedy online,” Luna wrote on X. “These are not the only graphic videos of horrifying murders circulating—at some point, social media begins to desensitize humanity.”
Boebert replied, “Thank you!!! I agree completely! I NEVER want to see that again!! I hate that I saw it at all.”
Lily Tang Williams, a Republican congressional candidate from New Hampshire, also responded: “I respectively disagree. Freedom of speech includes content we don’t like or hate,” she said.
“It hurts to watch the video, but we must defend free speech as the foundation of our Republic, no matter how horrible it is,” she wrote. “Where would you draw the line? Who decides what people can see? Censorship is one of the primary tools of authoritarians for a reason—always couched in terms of safety or sentiment. Censorship is not the answer.”
Williams wrote that Kirk “would want us to speak the truth, protect free speech and practice civil discourse which he did!”
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