“Words are not violence. Violence is violence.” Governor Cox said this just hours after Charlie Kirk’s assassination at UVU. Yet President Trump took a very different view, stating in his Oval Office message near the same time that Kirk’s death was the result of the way the “radical left” spoke about Kirk and his viewpoints.
If you believe that Kirk’s words were words, not violence, the same has to be true of what so-called leftist groups have to say.
President Trump is now escalating his threats to investigate left-leaning groups. Many of us here in Utah have truly tried to “disagree better” through peaceful protests over the past several months, but are now afraid of what will happen from here. In these unprecedented times, the fact that we have not done anything violent or illegal is not as comforting as it ought to be. To many of us, it sounds like Governor Cox’s admonition should have been “disagree at your peril.”
Free speech matters, even when you don’t like the way others use it. Choosing kindness over hatred in this moment is a good thing, to be sure. But weaponizing Charlie Kirk’s assassination to suppress dissent is ironic at best, given his stated goal to increase dialogue between people who disagree, and should be frightening to anyone who sees free speech as foundational to what makes America America.
Mark and Sarah McConkie, co-founders of Indivisible Utah County
Eagle Mountain