The goal is not to stop violence. The goal is to silence dissent.

There are anti-liberty elements on both sides that want to exploit acts of violence or murder to silence or even criminalize opposing speech.

I was personally blamed for the murder of George Tiller in May 2009, because of my rhetoric about abortion. I had said and written for 13 years that abortion is murder, so I am to blame for someone assassinating an abortionist in his church on a Sunday morning. The entire anti-abortion movement was to blame for the murder because of our "overheated" and "dishonest" rhetoric about abortion.

A little less than two years later, Leftists howled that Sarah Palin was to blame for the attempted assassination of Gabby Giffords in January 2011. Palin had put out a map with "bullseyes" on various Congressional districts, targeting the incumbent Democrats to be defeated in the 2010 election. Someone took that literally, Leftists howled, and tried to murder Giffords.

Many of the exact same people who defended the anti-abortion movement in 2009 and defended Sarah Palin in 2011 are now claiming that Joe Biden personally ordered the assassination of President Donald Trump by saying Democrats need to put a "bullseye" on Trump. Never mind that anyone with a little common sense and a little knowledge of political rhetoric knew that what Biden meant was Trump was to be targeted for political criticism of his rhetoric, record, and legislative agenda.

Biden was not the only one blamed. David French has been accused "feeding violence" against Trump because of his February 2024 editorial about violent threats from "MAGA." But French was right then, and he is right now. French himself got a number of death threats and horribly racist comments in 2016. Seeing alt-right (alt-Reich?) trolls post photo shopped memes of your adopted black child in gas chambers has an effect. That's only one thing French had to deal with, and Ben Shapiro was also targeted with harassment and threats from the so-called "alt-right." The idea that French is to blame for the attempted assassination because he pointed out actual violent rhetoric and threats from the extreme right is utterly absurd, hypocritical, and dishonest.

Look, people. There is plenty of criticism to be made of rhetoric. But we need to cool down and take a step back from the accusations that criticism of President Trump (or President Biden) is to blame for an evil man attempting to assassinate either of them. If someone tries to murder President Biden, will we blame people changing "F*** Joe Biden" or being cutesy by saying "Let's Go Brandon" - which means the exact same thing? If someone attempts to murder President Biden, then Dinesh D'Souza is directly responsible for the crime, by his own standard. The same goes for many others.

There is a very real danger in blaming political rhetoric for acts of depraved violence. The goal is not to "hold people accountable" for truly wicked things they say and write. (And believe me, there is plenty of that, and it does deserve condemnation.) The goal is to eliminate dissent. There are anti-liberty elements on both sides that want to exploit acts of violence or murder to silence or even criminalize speech that criticizes someone on their side or an issue they hold dear. Remember, Christians are under intense pressure to be silent about transgenderism (including mutilation of healthy genitals by corrupt so-called "doctors") because transgender youths are committing suicide.

There is plenty of political rhetoric absolutely deserves condemnation. Lies, half-truths, threats of violence, racist harassment and more should be condemned by both sides without employing "whataboutism." But if we value free speech and democracy, we need to be very careful not to case a wide net blaming all of our political opponents for an act of violence. That standard, once established, can be used against us just as we use it against others. We need to look beyond the end of our nose and realize that that "standard" that is expedient today will be used to silence or even imprison us tomorrow.