{"id":158655,"date":"2025-09-18T14:54:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T18:54:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158655"},"modified":"2026-09-19T18:54:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-19T22:54:01","slug":"the-states-must-protect-our-rights-and-liberties","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/?p=158655","title":{"rendered":"The States Must Protect our Rights and Liberties"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center<\/a> on September 18, 2025.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

September 18, 2025<\/p>\n

By Marc Stier<\/p>\n

\n

The murder of Charlie Kirk was a terrible, appalling event. It was a blow not just to this young man and his family and young children, but to freedom of speech in the United States. Whatever one thinks of Kirk\u2019s views\u2014and I vehemently disagree with him\u2014our country is diminished by his murder. People of all views will now think twice about entering the public space to express views that might be controversial. And we are all poorer for that.<\/p>\n

The worst possible response to this awful event, however, is being contemplated by President Trump and Vice President Vance. Their recent statements threatening to punish and defund \u201cleft-wing groups\u201d<\/a> that they wrongly hold responsible for the murder of Kirk would be an even greater threat to freedom of speech and assembly than the murder itself. When Trump says, \u201cWe have some pretty radical groups and they got away with murder,\u201d he is blaming organizations that had nothing to do with Kirk\u2019s murder for the act of what appears to be one man.<\/p>\n

It may turn out that Kirk\u2019s killer was, influenced by appalling ideas\u2014though at this point we do not know whether that is true or if the ideas that influenced him came from the Left or the Right. But no murder can justify the curtailment of the freedoms of speech and assembly that Trump and Vance appear to be contemplating.<\/p>\n

Kirk once said that death by gun violence is an unfortunate consequence of the right to bear arms. By the same token, murder carried out by people with violent ideas is the unfortunate consequence of the right to freedom of speech.<\/p>\n

Sadly, Trump and Vance\u2019s statements yesterday have many precedents. By one count, Trump has issued more than 100 threats to \u201cinvestigate, prosecute, imprison or otherwise punish his perceived opponents.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

But what Trump and Vance were talking about yesterday is even more threatening to our freedom. While hosting the Charlie Kirk show, Vance denounced, \u201cthis incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years and I believe is part of the reason why Charlie Kirk was killed.\u201d He said, \u201cWe\u2019re going to talk about how to dismantle that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even if Vance\u2019s claim about the \u201creason\u2026Charlie Kirk was killed\u201d is true\u2014and he has provided no evidence for it\u2014the federal government simply has no business \u201cdismantling\u201d organizations that do nothing more than present, discuss, and disseminate political ideas.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s long record of threatening retribution for his political enemies has long made many of us worry that he and Vance were looking for the equivalent of the Reichstag Fire of 1933, which Hitler used as a pretext to enact the Reichstag Fire Decree which suspended civil liberties in Germany. The worst responses to the murder of Kirk would be a Charlie Kirk Assassination Decree suspending civil liberties in the United States.<\/p>\n

It is imperative now that we talk about how to stand up to these potential attacks on our freedom and liberties.<\/p>\n

The federal courts may delay some of the Trump administration\u2019s actions. But the Supreme Court\u2019s recent deference to Trump\u2019s violations of statute and the Constitution do not give us much reason for optimism.<\/p>\n

The other protection we need for our liberties must come from Democratic governors, courts, and legislatures in the states. As the rhetoric of Trump and Vance becomes increasingly threatening, we need officials in the states to step up now. Not next month or next week\u2014but now.<\/p>\n

They need to affirm that the rights to freedom of speech, assembly, press, and habeas corpus are inviolable in their states.<\/p>\n

They need to move forward with plans to defund the federal government by stopping the transfer of state tax receipts to the federal government if Trump and Vance move forward with their recent threats.<\/p>\n

The need to ensure that the leadersof the state national guards are absolutely loyal to them and will reject Trump\u2019s attempts to federalize them.<\/p>\n

They need to prepare state national guards to resist the entrance of federal troops or red state national guards into our states by force if necessary.<\/p>\n

I hope that the threats Trump and Vance used yesterday are just rhetoric that will not be followed by action. But we must take their threatening statements seriously and prepare to protect our liberties. For if their threats are serious, the worst thing we can do is to attempt to mollify Trump and Vance. Instead, state officials need to increase the costs of Trump\u2019s and Vance\u2019s actions to such a level that they have second thoughts about moving forward. And those officials have to make the threats to our freedom absolutely clear so that moderate Republicans recognize them and demand that Trump not continue down the path to the abridgement of our civil liberties and democracy.<\/p>\n

If we take the threats of Trump and Vance seriously, the United States may soon be teetering on the brink. As scary as it is to contemplate, it is not inconceivable that our country falls apart in the next year. The state governments that remain free need to be ready to protect our political rights, liberties, and ideals within their boundaries. Doing that is the best way to ensure that the forces that are contemplating an assault on our liberties hold back. And that is necessary to ensure that the fifty states remain united.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally published at Pennsylvania Policy Center on September 18, 2025. September 18, 2025 By Marc Stier The murder of Charlie Kirk was a terrible, appalling event. It was a blow not just to this young man and his family and young children, but to freedom of speech in the United States. Whatever one thinks of Kirk\u2019s views\u2014and I vehemently disagree with him\u2014our country is diminished by his murder. People of all views will now think twice about entering the public space to express views that might be controversial. And we are all poorer for that. The worst possible response to this awful event, however, is being contemplated by President Trump and Vice President Vance. Their recent statements threatening to punish and defund \u201cleft-wing groups\u201d that they wrongly hold responsible for the murder of Kirk would be an even greater threat to freedom of speech and assembly than the murder itself.\u2026 Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1896,"featured_media":158654,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"{title}\n\n{excerpt}\n\n{url}","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[291,217,288],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-158655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-post","category-my-work","category-penn-policy-center"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p35YuU-FgX","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/ProtectingOurRights.png?fit=1200%2C628&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1896"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=158655"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158655\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":158707,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/158655\/revisions\/158707"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/158654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=158655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=158655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcstier.com\/blog2\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=158655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}