On this Memorial Day, please remember those who died fighting for our freedoms - and those who died exercising them.

Let's honor 250 years of sacrifice by agreeing everyone has the right to speak, however noxious we may find what they say. The left has forgotten this truth. The right must not.

Not all vanquished heroes die in battle.

On this day when we remember the sacrifices of men and women in uniform, I find myself thinking about Charlie Kirk, who last September paid the ultimate price for exercising his right to speak.

No right is more fundamental not just to our conception of America but the reality of America than freedom of speech. And no right has come under greater threat in the last few years, mainly from the left.

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(Fighting for the First Amendment, always.)

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At first, progressives tried to cancel speech they didn’t like with “cancel culture” — a polite phrase for shaming rituals and firings. Eventually, though, those methods provoked a backlash. When the Biden Administration took over in 2021, it took the next step, using the power of the White House to silence disfavored views, a fundamental attack on the First Amendment. I felt that attack firsthand.

But that tack failed too. So more recently the left has taken the next and final step — permanently silencing messages, and messengers, it dislikes.

For almost 250 years, fierce and brave Americans have fought and died for our freedom. It’s up to us to honor their valor by standing up for those rights. I fear Charlie’s death has only coarsened our discourse. The only answer is to keep trying to tell the truth, to keep fighting in the marketplace of ideas, not to try to silence or shout down the people we don’t like.

We can’t all be heroes on the battlefield. We can admire those heroes for their valor, and honor those who have given their lives for us, but only a few Americans these days will ever serve in the military.

But we can all be Charlie, or try to be.

Let’s try.

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(The red, white, and blue)

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