It's About Ordinary Decorum

Merriam-Webster defines "decoerum" as "agreement with accepted standards of conduct". In light of the renarkable rash of suspensions and terminations being visited on people who publicly celebrate Charlie Kirk's assassination, some people like intellectual welterweight Glenn Reynolds are saying, "I mave doubts about these firings. . . . The courts can sort it out later, just like they did (sometimes) when so many people on the right were being cancelled."

He concludes maybe the courts will sort it out -- well, he's a law professor. But this isn't really a legal issue. What's happening is that ordinary standards of decorum are being reestablished. If you think about it, before anything else, Bud Light's Dylan Mulvaney campaign, in which a leading national brand endorsed transsexualism, was a violation of decorum. You don't talk about people's plumbing in a national media environment; even if children can't drink beer, they see the ads.

So it is, or at least used to be, with de mortuis nil nisi bonum:

The Latin phrase De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est, "Of the dead nothing but good is to be said." — abbreviated Nil nisi bonum — is a mortuary aphorism indicating that it is socially inappropriate for the living to speak ill of the dead who cannot defend or justify themselves.

Before anything else, celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination is indecorous. It indicates that a person lacks ordinary restraint, but beyond that, if the person has any standing in the community, leaving the quetion of employment aside, it's a sign of poor judgment and poor leadership. But if such people in any way represent their employers, it reflects poorly on them as well. Thus Office Depot stepped in a big problem:

Office Depot is facing backlash and even boycott calls after a Michigan store allegedly refused to print a poster of slain conservative commentator Charlie Kirk for a vigil, with a GOP official blasting the company online and calling the move censorship.

Matthew DePerno, an attorney and Republican activist, said the Kalamazoo County Republican Party ordered the poster at 2:24 p.m. Friday from the Office Depot in Portage, MI, for a vigil honoring Kirk scheduled for that evening.

But around 5:30 p.m., DePerno said a store print supervisor named “Beryl” called and told organizers the order would not be completed because the poster was “propaganda.”

. . . “Hey @officedepot @OfficeMax do you think this is acceptable?” DePerno wrote on X, posting video taken inside the store and a receipt for the canceled order.

The attorney shared a clip of the encounter alongside a photo of a receipt that shows payment of $56.17. It is unclear if Office Depot refunded the money.

DePerno said the group then went to FedEx, where staff apologized and printed the poster free of charge.

It appears that the store manager, who according to the video wasn't at work on that Friday, was unaware of the situation and didn't hear about it until it went viral and corporate got involved, left a mealy-mouthed phone mail message with one of the customers offering to help fulfill the order -- but the prayer vigil had already taken place, and FedEx had already stepped in to print the posters. Office Depot corporate nevertheless issued this obtuse statement:

Upon learning of the incident, we immediately reached out to the customer to address their concerns and seek to fulfill their order to their satisfaction. We have also launched an immediate internal review and, as a result, the associate involved is no longer with the organization.

Clearly this didn't fix things, and a national boycott is starting. All this has The Guardian up in arms:

Reactions on social media to the murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk have cost multiple people their jobs as authorities in numerous states clamp down on critical commentary.

Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a secret service employee and a worker for a prominent NFL team.

. . . Pete Hegseth, the defense [sic] secretary, meanwhile, has ordered staff “to find and identify military members, and any individual associated with the Pentagon, who have mocked or appeared to condone Charlie Kirk’s murder”, NBC News reported Friday.

The outlet, citing two defense department officials, said several members of the military were relieved of their duties because of social media posts – and that “dozens” more, including civilian Pentagon employees, had been “called out on X”.

. . . Two educators in Clay county were removed from their classrooms and placed under state investigation on Thursday, one an elementary school teacher who posted to her personal social media account an article about the shooting, and the words: “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but it is a close second for me.”

. . . Most of those who have been fired or suspended, however, are people in regular jobs whose comments displeased their employers or were otherwise exposed.

The problem is that even in the examples we see, like the Office Depot supervisor, the employees brought their employers into the dispute. A schoolteacher is a member of the commkunity who is expected to set a personal example, in or out of the classroom. The teacher who posted that she would have preferred the victim were Trump was breaching decorum in a very serious way if nothing else. The same app;lies to college deans or asasociate deans, who owe their prestige in the community to their positions in the institution.

Somehow, sanity is making a comeback.