According to a new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center, this man is different than the [Ayo] Kimathi who has built a profile for himself as a public face at various events for the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a division of DHS. While Kimathi “fights for the little guy” at his day job, a former DHS supervisor told SPLC, “the Irritated Genie” spends much his time as a militant black nationalist preparing for what he calls an “inevitable clash with the white race.” In a website, called “War on the Horizon,” Kimathi has posted a variety of content telling his followers that they must prepare to “kill a lot of whites” and to engage in the “ethnic cleansing” of “black-skinned Uncle Tom race traitors.”…. Gay men and women were also a popular target. Kimathi dedicates an entire section of the site to warning against the “Effeminization of the Black Male,” which he calls a “weapon of mass destruction” used against the black community. It appears that Kimathi has also written a book on the topic of “white sex-assault”….
I’m not about to defend Kimathi’s “hobby;” it’s as offensive as it is racist and homophobic. That said, if I’ve said it once I’ve said it a thousand times: free speech can be- and very often is- ignorant, offensive, and/or disgusting speech. I may not agree with what you have to say, but I’m going to defend your right to say it. (I also reserve the right to ridicule what you have to say.) When we begin censoring free speech, the 1st Amendment ceases to have any meaning at all. There’s nothing even remotely defensible about Kimathi’s views or his writings, but in a free society one has the inalienable right to reveal oneself to be a racist jackass if one so chooses. And we have the right to laugh them off the island.
The other part of the equation is how much control taxpayers should have over the off-hours activities of a government employee. As far as I can tell, Kimathi may have insulted, degraded, and offended 99.36% of the population, but he’s committed no crime. You may not like what Kimathi has been doing with his free time (And why would you?), but it’s called “free time” for a reason. If he’s not on the clock (and not violating any laws), what he does outside of work should be of no concern to anyone. Which is where a certain opportunistic, selectively rageaholic former Alaska half-governor comes into the picture. Evidently feeling the need to convince the American Sheeple to pay attention to her, Caribou Barbie has taken to her Facebook page to vent her prodigious outrage over the audacity of a public employee expressing unapproved (i.e., non-Conservative) views. She doesn’t have to like what Kimathi has to say, but I find it disturbing that such a staunch defender of Constitutional rights is willing to proscribe someone’s 1st Amendment rights because she’s chosen to take offense over his views.
There’s nothing remotely redeemable about Kimathi’s view or his off-hours activities. Still, I’m not certain why an American exercising their 1st Amendment rights is something that should cause an intellectual and moral midget like Caribou Barbie to have her panties in a wad. No, she doesn’t have to like what Kimathi does with his free time; what reasonable person would? He’s an American, and unless he’s advocating violent revolution (he’s certainly close) or threatening the President or other public officials he’s entitled to the 1st Amendment protections that Caribou Barbie wraps herself in. You see, what Conservative opportunists like herself fail to acknowledge is that the 1st Amendment doesn’t come with a loyalty (or decency) test. Kimathi is free to express himself, and the rest of us are free to deplore his views and words. What we’re not free to do is to demand that he be fired from his job.
Drawing a government paycheck doesn’t provide the government or the public with the right to exercise control over what a person does with their free time. You can argue that government employees should be held to a higher standard…but that argument’s generally made by those who’d NEVER dream of holding themselves to that same standard. We may not approve of Kimathi’s views or his after-work activities…but what he does in his free time should not be subject to the approval of his employer or the general public. If that was to be the standard, how would any level of government manage to attract skilled, dedicated employees?
Selectively opportunistic outrage aside, we need to be careful about how we propose to treat government employees. Yes, they work for the American taxpayer, but they aren’t the property of the American taxpayer. Besides, if we start holding the activities of those drawing a government up to scrutiny, where do we draw the line? What’s to be considered acceptable or unacceptable behavior? More importantly, who gets to draw (and/or enforce) that line? If Kimathi isn’t breaking any laws, then he’s simply exercising his 1st Amendment rights. You don’t have to like what he does, but neither do you have the right to proscribe his access to free speech and expression. The 1st Amendment either is or it isn’t; no one should be able to decide what speech is politically acceptable and what isn’t.
Kimathi will have to deal with his own karma in his own time, but the fact that he’s a government employee doesn’t mean taxpayers get to control what he says or does with his free time. We may not like it, we may find it offensive and reprehensible, but the 1st Amendment is about free speech and expression, not what’s popular and/or acceptable. Caribou Barbie is really in no position to cast aspersions here. If she was held up to the same scrutiny and accountability she’s demanding of Kimathi, I’m not at all certain she’d like the result.