The brutal assassination of Charlie Kirk is more than just a crime against one man; it is a strike at the very heart of American democracy.

As people consider the life and untimely death of Kirk, it becomes essential to examine where they sit within the ongoing debate about free speech — its protections, its boundaries and the way society responds to words it does not like.

His murder represents the ultimate form of censorship, one that undermines not only his voice but the principle of open expression on which this country is built.

Kirk was a polarizing figure. Many people admired his blunt, passionate style and believed he gave voice to ideas they felt had been ignored. Others despised his rhetoric and called it dangerous or hateful. That division is not unique to Kirk; it is the very landscape of public debate in a free society.

The First Amendment was designed to protect unpopular speech precisely because it is always easiest to defend voices with which we agree. Protecting speech means protecting everyone.

But in the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, the fault lines of our national conversation have deepened. His supporters blame his critics, pointing to the harsh denunciations and verbal attacks he endured.

His critics, in turn, insist that his conservative ideas and confrontational style sparked violence against him. This mutual recrimination misses the essential point: the First Amendment is not the problem. The problem is how we, as a society, choose to react to the kinds of speech we love and hate.

If Kirk’s words outraged, the answer was to rebut them with reason, humor, protest or the countless other forms of speech available to us in a free society.

Violence, however, is never an acceptable answer. It is the ultimate cancellation, the final silencing that forecloses debate entirely. To condone it — or even to excuse it as an understandable reaction — is to surrender the central principle that sustains our democracy.

Over the last decade, America has drifted toward a dangerous intolerance of dissenting voices. On both the left and the right, there has been a growing impulse to cancel or silence those who say things we find uncomfortable or offensive.

Social media has amplified this trend, rewarding outrage and reducing complex debates to soundbites and insults.

Kirk’s murder should be a wake-up call. We cannot afford to let violence become an acceptable response to speech, no matter how much we dislike what is being said.

Instead, we need to reclaim the lost art of resilience in public debate and recognize that our opponents in debate are still human beings.

We must reject the temptation to meet offense with fury, criticism with threats and words with weapons. Instead, we should embrace the nobler task: answering speech with more speech, guided by the better angels of our nature.

Kirk’s life and death tell us something profoundly American. He spoke his mind without fear, and in so doing, he exercised a right that belongs to every citizen. That right is fragile, because it depends on the willingness of all of us to uphold it in practice.

If we allow violence to dictate who may speak and who must remain silent, we will have abandoned not just the First Amendment but the democratic experiment it supports.

As the head of the First Amendment Foundation, I know how we fight for these goals every day and believe in them with all of our hearts. We believe the best way to honor Charlie Kirk is by recommitting ourselves to the principle that allowed him — and allows us — to speak in the first place.

Free expression is not easy, but it is the foundation of a society where disagreements can be aired, arguments can be won or lost and no one need fear for their life because of the words they utter. That is the promise we must keep alive.

Bobby Block is the executive director of the First Amendment Foundation.