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This 7 minutes interview on NPR nicely summarizes the main points and conflicts in free speech today, all being considered upon the death of Charlie Kirk.
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/17/nx-s1...e-kirks-legacy
As for people losing their jobs for showing whatever degree of approval about Kirk’s assassination, sure, that is “cancel culture” according to my view.
That doesn’t mean an employer has no right to “cancel “their employees’ public speech that affects the employer.
I was going to write about this on the thread we have here about First Amendment rights and free speech, but since the conversation is organically taking place here, I’ll just drop a few thoughts.
i’ve been watching with alarm what’s going on in the UK. There, they are further ahead in the game of punishing people for expressing their thoughts than we are. I’m seeing too many reports coming from that country of people who have disparaged others, whether an individual or a group, and the speaker is hauled into police custody and possibly jailed.
Graham Linnehan is the latest victim of UK government overreach. Graham is a provocateur, a big mouth, a comedic actor, and he is likely reveling in this new status. ( And yes, he considers himself canceled from his chosen profession due to his political views,) But reading exactly his words, it’s not clear to me this is speech that incites violence. And that said I don’t know that the UK standard calls for hate speech to incite violence to be an arrest-able offense, I don’t think it does.
My country, the United States of America, should not go in that direction. I don’t want us to be where the UK is. I am looking at you, Pam Bondi.
I think there is plenty to be alarmed about in our country; you might want to start by reading here:
Professor Watchlist
yes the Professor Watchlist is covered in theQuote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
Ezra Klein interview mentioned by Tradd.NPR short piece I referenced in post #21 .This is not the government’s list, and college professors and other educators have always been rated on their performance in the classroom. I remember reading reviews of my professor friends on Rate Your Professor.
I just finished the Ezra Klein interview with Ben Shapiro, it was was really good. I had heard about 15 minutes of the Ben Shapiro monologue a few days ago, but this entire interview and discussion was good and in the spirit of Charlie Kirk.
Klein also mentioned the Graham Linehan incident as a cautionary tale.
I agree with Ben on at least 80% of his views but then he didn’t talk about social policy. He is strongly anti-abortion while I am not. but I’m not gonna agree with anyone about everything.
So I just read that ABC pulled Jimmy Kimmel off the air for comments he made on-air about Kirk's killer's motives.
Dampening effect, certainly. His list was targeting professors for years; people on the list were receiving death threats.
Catherine, here's a story about it from USA Today, hardly a left wing bastion.
The New McCarthyism.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tybee
I thought I identified the Kimmel clip that got him in trouble and it was all about Donald Trump’s lack of sadness over Kirk’s death as Trump prattles on about a new ballroom at the White House when asked about Kirk’s death. As usual with Kimmel,it was spectacularly unfunny but I am not sure I agree with taking him off the air, permanently anyway.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
But maybe that wasn't the offending clip.
Or, maybe it is more of the Kimmel overview that the network dislikes. Nexstar cancelled the Kimmel showing and I assume Nexstar represents most of the affiliate stations. What the affiliates want is a big deal at the networks.
I had NPR on while doing errands this evening and they played what Kimmel got into trouble over. I don't know if I caught everything, but what I heard really didn't seem that bad. Maybe some people didn't like it, but I found it less vitriolic that what I heard some politicians say recently. It hardly seemed worthy of the cancel culture he received.Quote:
Originally Posted by catherine
I thought it was interesting that virtually the day after Trump made his infamous statement about seeking retribution to the radical left, he sued the NYT for 15 billion. At least that was the news for a day or two and it's sort drifted into the background along with his case against the WSJ for his birthday card drawing. In Patel grilling today he vowed to have an expert verify the hand writing of the signature on the drawing.
EDIT: I thought it would be good to look it up,just to double check.
“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it,”
The network did not explain its decision, but the sequence of events on Wednesday amounted to an extraordinary exertion of political pressure on a major broadcast network by the Trump administration.