America, in its infinite ability to turn every tragedy into a grotesque carnival of hypocrisy, has found its latest corpse to rally around: Charlie Kirk. Yes, that Charlie Kirk — the baby-faced outrage vending machine, the campus troll who built a career convincing conservative donors that tweeting about gender-neutral bathrooms was a form of combat service. He was supposedly a “free speech absolutist,” the kind of guy who could turn a debate about cafeteria menus into an apocalyptic showdown over the First Amendment. And now, in the wake of his murder, America has managed to desecrate his memory in the one way that would actually matter: by using his corpse as a cudgel to silence speech.

Let’s be clear: celebrating a man’s violent death is ugly. Gloating over it is the rhetorical equivalent of eating a rat out of the dumpster behind the 7-Eleven and calling it fine dining. Even if you hated Charlie Kirk’s politics — and there was plenty to hate — the idea that his death is somehow a victory is revolting. He was a human being, he was murdered, and gloating about that is grotesque. That should be the baseline.

But the First Amendment doesn’t just protect good taste. The Bill of Rights was not drafted by your HR department. You have every constitutional right to say Charlie Kirk was a hack, a huckster, or that you’re glad he’s dead. And people have. Twitter/X has been a bonfire of edgy takes, ranging from “rest in piss” memes to long, pseudo-serious think-pieces declaring his death “karma.” That’s freedom.

And that’s also where the poo hammer drops.

Within 48 hours of Kirk’s murder, multiple people had been fired from their jobs — teachers, warehouse workers, even a random Taco Bell cashier who thought tweeting “Ding dong” was a good idea. Employers, terrified of bad press, decided to prove their patriotism by purging anyone who cracked the wrong kind of joke. Cancel culture, in its purest bipartisan form. Conservatives who once squealed like pigs about being “de-platformed” for misgendering someone are now cheering companies for firing minimum-wage workers who posted celebratory emojis. Liberals, never ones to resist a good firing, have joined in the schadenfreude. And the public square shrinks another inch.

Here’s the dirty little truth: the First Amendment only protects you from government censorship. It doesn’t stop your boss from firing you for being an asshole. It doesn’t stop your landlord from evicting you if you painted “LOL Kirk” across the garage. It doesn’t stop your bank from closing your account if they don’t like your politics. That’s always been the rub: free speech in America is theoretically guaranteed but practically useless if the social and corporate powers that rule your life can still crush you for exercising it.

Which brings us to the pièce de résistance of this tragicomic horror show: a Republican congressman — an unhinged backbencher whose name barely registers outside the Fox chyron crawl — is now proposing to strip driver’s licenses and internet access from anyone caught celebrating Kirk’s death. Think about that. No driving, no internet, no ability to participate in modern society because you posted a tasteless meme. It’s authoritarianism cosplaying as moral outrage, and it would be laughable if it weren’t gaining traction among the same people who claim to worship at the altar of the Constitution. Apparently “shall not be infringed” only applies to AR-15s.

And here’s the kicker: Charlie Kirk himself would have loved this, if the roles were reversed. His entire career was built on weaponizing speech as a tool of dominance. He screamed about cancel culture while demanding boycotts of Starbucks for putting a snowflake on a cup instead of “Merry Christmas.” He insisted conservative students were being silenced while leading smear campaigns against professors who criticized Israel. He was a free speech absolutist in the way Colonel Sanders was a vegan. The man made a fortune pretending to be muzzled, then calling for other people’s muzzling.

So in death, the irony is perfect. His allies are pissing on his grave by demanding the exact censorship he pretended to oppose. His enemies are pissing on his grave by treating his murder like a punchline. And in the middle, ordinary Americans are watching as the window for permissible expression closes another notch.

Do you have the right to say “Charlie Kirk sucked and I don’t care that he’s gone”? Yes. Do you also have the right to keep your job after saying it? No. But the real question isn’t about legal rights. It’s about what kind of society we want. Do we want to live in a country where expressing a crude opinion — however offensive — means economic annihilation, social ostracism, or the threat of losing basic civil rights? Do we really want to turn freedom of expression into a technicality that exists only in courtrooms and not in daily life?

Charlie Kirk’s message was garbage. He was a demagogue, a grifter, a condescending little televangelist for the Fox News set. But his murder doesn’t justify erasing the freedom he pretended to champion. In fact, it should remind us why we need it: because in a healthy society, bad ideas are beaten in argument, not at gunpoint, and tasteless jokes are handled with more speech, not less.

Instead, we’re proving once again that in America, the only real free speech is the kind that flatters power. The rest of us just get to watch as the grave dirt piles higher — not just over Charlie Kirk, but over the First Amendment itself.