“Charlie Kirk was shot for exercising his freedom of speech” “No one deserves to die for their beliefs” What belief, the belief that all minorities should die? What freedom of speech? Whose freedom of speech?

There is a concept called the Overton window, which describes the range of ideas considered “acceptable” in mainstream political opinion. Speech is usually conducted within this range. Ideas that fall outside this window are considered “extreme”.

Needless to say, in the United States this window has shifted into the fascist box. The government openly calls immigrants “aliens,” politicians make dehumanizing statements about transgender people, calling them pedophiles and calling for transgender genocide (the image attached to this post is a completely free speech by a pro-Trump influencer with over 600,000 followers on Twitter, written before the identity of Kirk’s shooter was determined). All other minorities such as people of color, gay people and women are of course not out of the picture.

So what is shaping the fascist Overton window in the US? It is giant media corporations like Fox News, Elon Musk who is constantly distorting the Twitter algorithm to prioritize fascist content and training his AI Grok to spit out fascist-smelling replies, it is political lobbying organizations funded by millions of dollars, it is the most influential politicians, including Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA. Kirk himself is a man with enough power and a large media platform to use his “free speech” to move this window, spread conspiracy theories, and legitimize hate speech.

“Speech” does not come from a vacuum, and by defending “free speech” in this case, he is defending only the tool of power used to oppress minorities and the power structure that created it. If libertarianism had any sense, it would know that defending the freedom of speech of a fascist is digging a grave for everyone’s freedom, but unfortunately, reason is too short-sighted.