Freedom is the freedom to say two plus two equals four, said George Orwell. By that standard, the US is hurtling towards unfreedom. Those who point out that the late Charlie Kirk was a Christian nationalist provocateur risk their jobs or worse. The official line is that the appalling murder of Kirk made him a martyr to God and American liberty. Dissenters to such hyperbole risk being branded as terrorists. In the post-Kirk world, two plus two equals five. 

Orwell is erroneously quoted as having said that at a time of universal deceit, truth-telling is a revolutionary act. Here is the truth about Kirk. He believed that the US Civil Rights Act was a mistake, that leading African-American women, including Michelle Obama, lacked “brain processing power”, that Joe Biden should be jailed or even killed for his presidential sins and that the US should have public executions. Readers can guess for themselves what Kirk thought of women’s place in society.

Under America’s First Amendment, pretty much all speech is protected by law. That is as it should be. Shouting “fire” in a crowded theatre endangers the lives of others. Booing the stage performance or claiming the tickets were a rip-off does not. Those who called out Kirk’s toxicity were as American as apple pie. As was Kirk. The right to say what you want dates to the country’s founding. Nobody should be prosecuted, let alone killed, for being obnoxious.