In a withering column for National Review Online, a senior editor unloaded on Turning Point USA president Charlie Kirk for botching an attempt to explain a Supreme Court decision on free speech in a Newsweek column that the NRO editor bluntly called "illiterate and counterproductive," before adding that Kirk is a "mediocrity."
In unsparing terms, NRO's Charles Cooke took aim at Kirk's "Free Speech for Satanism?" op-ed published earlier this past week, saying the far-right gadfly's words were nothing less than "butchering" the 1st Amendment to make a point that is flat-out wrong by claiming the government can ban Satan worship.
According to Kirk, after referencing the 1969 decision Brandenburg v. Ohio, the court cleared the path whereby a "state could only limit speech that incites imminent unlawful action, 'that it will bring about forthwith certain substantive evils that the United States constitutionally may seek to prevent.'"
Kirk then got to his point in the very brief column, by asserting, "Satan worship is not what the Founders had in mind when they extolled the 'fruits of liberty.' There is no perceivable public benefit to protecting it. True freedom is the pursuit of the good, the virtuous and the beautiful."
Not so fast, wrote NRO's Cooke.
Calling the Newsweek op-ed, "one of the most foolish, self-serving, hypocritical, illiterate, and counterproductive columns I’ve read in a good long while," Cooke tore Kirk's argument apart.
"Certainly, one can comprehend why a person might abhor Satan worshippers — especially when their idolatry intersects with abortion, as it so often does. But then most normal people would also abhor the speech involved in the Brandenburg decision that Kirk references," the columnist wrote. "Throughout, Kirk uses the term 'substantive evils' to imply that Brandenburg conceded that some viewpoints were beyond the pale. But, of course, it did no such thing. Instead, it determined that speech of any perspective must be left alone unless it is likely to imminently incite behavior that is already against the law. There is no subjective morality test within our First Amendment jurisprudence, let alone one liable to be administered by mediocrities such as Charlie Kirk."
"There is no 'everyone can agree' clause, either," Cooke sneered.
"One might have thought that a man who claims to 'support free speech, and free religious exercise, both in spirit and in the letter of the law,' and who has 'spent years railing against leftist censorship in all areas of society, especially on college campuses and social media' would have thought twice..." Cooke stated before dismissively adding, "But in order to think twice, one first has to think once — and, on this topic at least, it is not clear that Kirk has even gotten that far."
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