Charlie Kirk's murder and the response to it have provoked a needed debate over his life passion: free speech.

That debate seems to have thus far produced three categories of speech status, two fairly distinct and one rather ambiguous in nature.

The first is noxious speech that is protected by the First Amendment from governmental suppression or punishments. However appalling and revealing of moral sensibilities it might be for leftists to celebrate Kirk's murder, there is nothing that government, including Donald Trump and his minions, can do about it. As the founders wisely intended, political speech receives the most protection, with ugly political speech especially needful (as often noted, the true test of a commitment to freedom of speech is found in defending the expression of ideas you detest).

The second category involves private (non-governmental) punishment of unsavory speech. To reiterate, the government can't muzzle your speech or jail you for it, but your employers can fire you and respectable people ostracize you. As such, it is both appropriate and instructional that the celebrants of Kirk's murder be cast out of polite company and forced to spend the rest of their hopefully miserable days in the shadows. Social media might encourage toxic speech but it also allows us to keep a useful record of those spewing it.

And then there........

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