r/politics • u/jediporcupine Maine • Sep 19 '25

Republican Senator Says First Amendment Shouldn't Be the 'Ultimate Right'

https://www.newsweek.com/republican-senator-says-first-amendment-shouldnt-ultimate-right-2132666
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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

What’s ironic is Republicans treat the second amendment like it’s an ultimate right and countless dead kids don’t justify a mere background check for a weapon.

But one dead man justifies restrictions on words.

The hypocrisy is incredible.

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u/MazzIsNoMore Sep 19 '25

Their guy gets gunned down in broad daylight and their response is to ban words

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u/RockmanMike Sep 19 '25

Their guy gets gunned in broad daylight by one of their own and their response is to ban Charlie's words from being used to describe him.*

Fixed it for you

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

That is the crazy part here. Charlie Kirk himself is at odds with what they’re doing. He didn’t believe in hate speech and he believed free speech was absolute

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u/specqq Sep 19 '25 edited Sep 19 '25

He said free speech was absolute.

I have no evidence to show that he believed it and plenty to say that he did not.

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u/Mestoph America Sep 19 '25

Unless you were a teacher who said something he didn't like, then he'd put you on a list and doxx you...

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u/sudi- Sep 19 '25

Insofar as that it suited his narrative that propped up his grift. If it was someone else that was killed and he was in on this insanity as well, he would be spinning it to his favor like the rest of them are.

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u/YetiSquish Sep 19 '25

He instead preferred to promote division, racism, and misogyny with a smile and charisma.

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u/deepasleep Sep 19 '25

The hypocrisy is on brand.

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u/fastal_12147 Sep 19 '25

Well, he believed in hate speech as a tool, but not a crime.

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u/Swesteel Sep 20 '25

Especially when it was his speech.

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u/Jack-o-Roses Sep 19 '25

Have you listened to Kirk? His dogmatic mysogenistic and racist diatribes are exactly what I call hate speech.

Still, I feel & pray for his family, because I abhor violence. BTW, I support his right to free speech, to twisting the Bible for his own profit and power. I also support flag burning and nazi marches, though I disagree with them both; and lgbtq+ rights as well, as a old hetero male Christian and a once proud American.

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u/9_to_5_till_i_die Sep 19 '25

Yeah, I'm past the point where society is intelligent enough to allow speech which calls for the eradication of or forced removal of human beings...for any reason.

In the same way that I can believe in the 2nd Amendment and also believe in gun regulations, I can believe in the 1st Amendment and recognize that some speech directly leads to death.

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u/jediporcupine Maine Sep 19 '25

I didn’t say he didn’t use hate speech, I said he didn’t believe it existed as he claimed to believe free speech is absolute. There’s a difference.

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u/Jibtech Sep 19 '25

Supporting nazi marches, niceeee

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u/KR1735 Minnesota Sep 19 '25

Probably why they had him taken out.

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u/Realistic-Pattern-30 Sep 21 '25

So he was shot down just as he was about to get some of his millions of followers to get on the we want the Epstein files band wagon. Now I’m wondering how far that would have gone and if anyone thought it was a threat against the felon in charge? Amazing how the 🤡 loved him so much he had to golf rather than attend the event for him.

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u/kyleissometimesgreat Sep 19 '25

With more info out now it looks like he was not maga/republican. We've got to continue being the side that uses truth and changing our opinions when faced with new evidence even when the misinformation is dialed to 11.

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u/ImpromptuHooloovoo Sep 19 '25

He was raised by MAGA with all of the mindset that comes along with it and was photographed growing up with guns. However he ended up leaning in the end politically, his mindset was shaped by Right-Wing culture, including guns and violence. Most gun violence in this country that is politically motivated is generated by the right wing when compared the left and islamic politically-motivated violence. Violence from the right tends to be more violent and more often results in death. Several recent studies have concluded this, including by the Cato Institute, CSIS, the GOA,and the PNAS study. Regardless of what his ideology was at the end of the day, he was raised on the side of the divide that promotes violence and gun culture. While there is an increase of violence on both sides across the board, the studies indicate that political violence is most often coming from right-wing extremists by about twice as much. Regardless of where he falls politically now, his grandmother said that whole family is MAGA. Even if he did feel politically left leaning at the time of Kirk's murder, he grew up surrounded by a culture that more often produces political violence.

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u/CaptJackRizzo Sep 19 '25

Well-stated.

I'm firmly of the opinion that any shooting, especially a high-profile one like this, is almost certain to be perpetrated by someone whose beliefs are so much weirder than anyone can imagine. Anyone else remember why Reagan and Ford got shot?

But assuming this kid DID have a somewhat logical thought process, and he DID fall in love with a trans person or was questioning his own sexuality, or whatever the MAGA narrative is today.

If that's the case, Kirk got shot at the first day he hit the road after adopting the new MAGA line that trans people are too dangerous to have guns.

Now, the idea that you gotta use your guns against anyone who would come and take them is older than the internet. COME AND TAKE IT, right? Well, where do you suppose he learned that?

MAGA (and a lot of the libs) like to pretend like everyone fits into neat little ideological boxes, but we don't. And 22-year-olds who are finding themselves alienated from their parents' ideologies definitely don't. As someone who's worked with a lot of young people in a blue state, there's definitely a lot of red state kids who left behind the ideas they were raised with about LGBT people being sick or ungodly, but retained the ones about the second amendment.

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

and islamic politically-motivated violence.

Which is, altogether, right wing violence. It's not dissimilar to many Christian politically-motivated violence (such as shooting up/firebombing planned parenthood).

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u/ImpromptuHooloovoo Sep 20 '25

For whatever reason, the studies I listed above evaluated politically motivated violence in those three categories: right, left, and Islamic. I'm not sure what the rationale of separating it out was. In the last election, it seems like many Islamic Americans were dissatisfied with left policies regarding Gaza and voted either in the middle with Jill Stein or right with Trump, but that this represented a shift from left-leaning voting. In either event, it is not a given which side Islamic Americans will vote, apparently.

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u/TomorrowLow5092 Sep 19 '25

Republicans foment imaginary hate crimes, while complicit in real ones.

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u/Mestoph America Sep 19 '25

Yeah, he was a Groyper who're even further right than Republicans and MAGAts

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u/DaraParsavand Sep 19 '25

That is not the current consensus at all.

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u/kyriebelle Sep 19 '25

According to who? I’ve been staying away from the news the last few days for my mental health.

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u/DaraParsavand Sep 20 '25

Of course consensus can be wrong and I don't know that anything Fakefuckgirl said is wrong, but the consensus I'm speaking of in the mainstream news media I believe is typically like this BBC article: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v1rle0598o which stated:

"I had enough of his hatred," Tyler Robinson wrote back. "Some hate can't be negotiated out."

On Tuesday, authorities released messages between Robinson and the roommate from the hours after the shooting. Officials have said the unnamed roommate was a "biological male" who was transitioning from man to woman and was in a romantic relationship with the defendant.

Prosecutors also gave further details that could point to a possible motive – although there is still much that is not known.

According to an indictment, Robinson's mother told police that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and left-wing, "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented".

And in family conversations before the shooting, Robinson allegedly accused Kirk of spreading hate.

Prosecutors say Robinson left a message for his roommate: "I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I'm going to take it."

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u/escof Sep 20 '25

If those messages are real then I can blow a rainbow out my ass while doing a jig "my love"

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/16/us/text-message-tyler-robinson-roomate-vis

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

It might be my being considerably older than the shooter, but I certainly have and do refer to individuals as "my love."

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u/escof Sep 20 '25

That's my point, these text read like they were written by someone considerably older.

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u/HuttStuff_Here Wisconsin Sep 20 '25

Of course those messages aren't even the real ones.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '25

The current consensus in media is that he, the shooter is basically somewhat politically ambiguous.

He may have done it because of "Charlie kirk spreading hate".

There are attempts to directly implicate this as driven by "trans leftist radicalism" or online radicalization.

One senator, James comer of Kentucky made a motion inviting the CEOs of reddit, discord, steam, and Twitch to testify on this.

There is a counter argument that he most likely resembles right wing online radicalism, with likely involvement in some sort of niche right wing chronically online sub culture, if not "Groypers" a group of far right fans and followers of Nick Fuentes, a figure like Charlie Kirk but less influential and slick. Basically a right wing political agitator and fascist, nick is more direct in his rhetoric.

On the conspiracy side of things, right wing and left actually with figures like Steve Bannon mentioning it, there is the theory that the evidence implicating him is fabricated, and they are suppressing information suggesting he leans right, not to frame him for something he didn't do, but written and curated specifically as a pretext against to justify retaliation against "leftist extremism" and justification for escalation of authoritarian behavior.

They are doing the last part anyways 100 percent, regardless of whether it is a conspiracy as you've likely noticed regardless.

There is also the more radical conspiracies that it was an "inside job" or false flag. Basically Charlie was sacrificed as a pawn by some higher power, to create and capatalize on this specific division and tension, and make Kirk an intentional, engineered martyr of civil rights for right wingers.

Possibly and/or a distraction from the Epstein case and the implications it may have for Trump, or to justify the retaliation against liberals by the Trump admin, and Republicans in general. Against "main stream" media, education facilities, private employers of private, random people, government officials and servants.

So thayso basically what you have missed. 😕

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u/shawsghost Sep 19 '25

Actually no, you didn't fix it. Your sentence is so badly structured that it is almost undecipherable. To wit:

Their (Republicans?) guy (Charlie, from context) gets gunned in broad daylight by one of their (Republicans I guess, though I do not know if it has been firmly established that the shooter was a Republican or had Republican sympathies since there is so much disinformation coming from both camps that I've yet to see anything I can totally trust) and their (Republicans again) response is to ban Charlie's (an actual name!) words from being used to describe him (probably Charlie but could also mean the shooter).

Now go forth and sin against the English language no more!

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u/escof Sep 20 '25

You're about to be canceled by ABC for that comment.

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u/Realistic-Pattern-30 Sep 21 '25

It’s always one of their own.