Since Charlie Kirk’s assassination the entire country has been further traumatized by an astonishing online horror show of human depravity.

It’s hard to grapple with the reality that so many Americans would not only personally celebrate the murder of a young man, but that they would proudly broadcast their joy across social media, unbothered by what it would disclose about their soulless cruelty.

Accepting that common decency doesn’t live in the hearts of others is one thing. Watching it die publicly on Instagram, set to music, is tragic and enraging. Like many of us, Congressman Clay Higgins of Louisiana posted his feelings of revulsion on his X account after watching the unravelling of otherwise normal people. I share them all.

Unlike most of us, however, the Congressman has political power, and he has promised in a September 11 post to his X account to use it to punish those who, “ran their mouth with their smartass hatred,” online.

“I’m going to lean forward in this fight,” he wrote, “demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER. I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

I hope the congressman will reconsider. Just one short administration ago, the Biden White House used its political power to get tech companies to deplatform those they called evil: the unvaccinated, mothers at school board meetings, Donald Trump.

If we allow our elected officials to use the force of government to shut down what most of us know to be truly evil speech (see author Stephen King’s recent posts about Charlie Kirk), some will inevitably use that same power to censor speech that is the opposite of evil (see All Lives Matter).

Bad people, misguided people, and people who are wrong get to drive and own businesses in America. They also get to shamelessly make the worst sides of themselves visible to the public. If they didn’t, Charlie Kirk would have been out of a job.

The government can’t stop evil speech, and citizens shouldn’t want it to.

The Congressman’s post appeared on the anniversary of 9/11, another day when evil visited this country. In response, Congress passed the Patriot Act which then President George W. Bush signed into law in October of 2001. It seemed like a good idea at the time to allow our government to expand its powers to keep us safe.

Perhaps in some ways it was. Collecting metadata, relaxing FISA standards for surveillance, and allowing for “sneak and peek” warrants likely helped our country catch terrorists. Unfortunately, these and other tools awarded to the government via the Patriot Act were soon used against American citizens.

Twenty-four years after 9/11 and the Patriot Act Mr. Higgins should be careful not to respond to the current manifestation of evil that took Charlie Kirk’s life by repeating the same mistakes. The most important of our freedoms — speech — was Charlie Kirk’s calling card, and we can’t violate it in his memory, no matter how satisfying it would be to live in a world where we never have to see our child’s middle school teacher doing a death jig on camera again.

Instead, maybe Mr. Higgins can honor the legacy Charlie Kirk left behind by asking his followers to donate $10 to Turning Point USA every time some jagged soul pops up on their feeds spewing toxic vitriol. Perhaps these “evil” people will stop celebrating when they realize they have become Charlie Kirk’s greatest fundraisers.

Then we can all post our own videos mocking those who thought their evil use of our sacred free speech rights would ever overcome the majority’s will to use them for good.