Tucker on Macklemore’s Cancellation and the So-Called “Conservatives” Championing Censorship

Tucker Carlson (0:00)

Last Friday was the year anniversary of Charlie Kirk's murder, and the internet was flooded with remembrance of Charlie, and unfortunately, even more so, all kinds of predatory people trying to use the memory of a fallen man for their own political or financial purposes. That's kind of always the case. We sat it out because that was depressing to see. But you did see people who knew him genuinely well and liked him and weren't trying to profit from his death raise the question, how do we honor his memory? And that is a completely fair question. But it begins with a more fundamental question, which was what was his life about? If you were to remember Charlie Kirk, what are the first qualities of his that come to mind? Of course, the personal qualities, enthusiasm and decency and energy and intelligence. But his beliefs, well, someone who knew Charlie well, I would sum them up this way. He believed all kinds of things. The main thing he believed was Christianity. He was a sincerely religious man. He was a follower of Jesus. And politically, he believed a lot of things as well. Of course, he spent a life talking about them. But above all, he believed in free speech, the right of human beings to say what they think, to share their deepest beliefs.

And those two were directly related. Charlie Kirk believed in free speech because he believed in God and because he believed in God, he believed that each person was created by God with a distinct soul. God does not create communities, God creates individuals.

And because they are individuals, sovereign individuals created in the likeness of the Creator, each one has an inherent right to say what he thinks, to his own conscience, to make up his own mind and to express his conclusions. So that's where the belief in free speech comes from.

That's reflected, by the way, in the founding documents of the United States. These are inherent rights. They're not given to us by the state. We are born with them. And the purpose of the state is to protect them. And Charlie Kirk was an eloquent defender of this idea and a great explainer of this idea, not just eloquent and good at it, but really one of the very few left. There are not a lot of people explaining why free speech is important and what it is. But Charlie Kirk spent really the entirety of his public life doing that up until the day he was murdered.

We could have picked up a lot of clips to show you on the question of Charlie Kirk and free speech, but we just grabbed one and it's as good as any. Here's Charlie Kirk, I think last year, but it could have been any year, explaining what free speech is and why he defends it. Watch.

SPEAKER_2 (2:45)

I was wondering if you could talk about where you draw the line with free speech, hate speech and slander.

Charlie Kirk (2:51)

It's a terrific question.

My position is that even hate speech should be completely and totally allowed in our country. The most disgusting speech should absolutely be protected. And it's not a viewpoint that is held by the left. The ACLU used to hold this viewpoint. The American Civil Liberties Union, they sued so that legitimate Nazis could march through downtown Skokie. You remember this? Back in the 80s and 90s? Now, why would the ACLU do this? Because they said, as soon as you use the word hate, that is a very subjective term.

Because then all of a sudden, it is in the eyes or the, it is in the implementation of whomever has the power. So here's my belief, the more speech, the better.

Tucker Carlson (3:39)

Well, exactly. So not only is it answer good, the question actually reveals a lot too. So the question was, what's your view of free speech, hate speech and slander?

And Charlie didn't explain the difference between those three categories, but it's worth just pausing for a moment. So there's free speech, which as described, is inherent to every person. You have an inherent right, you were born with this right, you will die with this right, whether or not it's a bridge that still exists, to say what you think, to express your conscience out loud. There is a category called hate speech, which as Charlie just said, effectively means speech the people in charge hate. And there's a third category called slander, and that's a legal category. What's the difference between hate speech or ugly speech, speech I don't want to hear, and slander? What's worth saying, the difference is slander is by definition untrue. That is the legal definition of slander, is factually incorrect, you are lying, you are lying about somebody or some thing.