I too am wary of rhetorically beating others about the head with the “hate speech” club, and especially when we’re talking about legal prosecution. That said, I have zero sympathy for those who have found themselves fired (or socially ostracized) after saying something indelicate regarding a murder. How many of us had a mother who said something along the lines of “If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all”?

But here’s what has really puzzled me this week: Let’s say that you sincerely disagreed with everything that Charlie Kirk said and believed in. And after he was killed, you jumped on social media to tell the world just how awful a person you thought he was. When your employer begins to get heat for what their employee has said, your HR office parts ways with you and sends you on your way.

You’ve been fired not for your thoughts, but for sharing your thoughts on social media. Regardless of the reasons for your firing, I would think that this would be a giant 2×4 to the forehead.

And yet…and I’ve seen dozens of these now….the first thing that some of these recently-fired people do is to go straight back to social media to tell the world that they just got fired.

I didn’t need to hear that you just got fired, the recently-unemployed didn’t need to share it, but by sharing it, the unemployed have done nothing but to make themselves more unemployable.

Battle of Sharpsburg
September 17, 1862
The Cornfield
On September 17, 1862, from 8 am to 9:30 am, during the Battle of Sharpsburg (Antietam,) the 1st Texas Infantry charged through Miller’s Cornfield slamming into the famed Iron Brigade and drove them back through the cornfield.
Some of the first men to enter Miller’s cornfield were from Pennsylvania and New York. As a part of Brigadier General Abram Duryea’s Brigade (Ricketts’ Division), these Federals were soon under Confederate fire from both the guns on Nicodemus Heights and Colonel Stephen D. Lee’s artillery batteries positioned near the Dunker Church, Waiting just south of the corn were regiments from Georgia that had men lying down and ready. When Duryea’s troops emerged, the Southerners released a devastating volley and for the next several minutes, the opposing sides struggled through the day’s first terrible confusion.
Elsewhere on the field, Union Generals John Gibbon and George L. Hartsuff entered the battle by moving their brigades out. Outnumbered and running low on ammunition, Duryea’s troops had been forced to withdraw. Gibbon’s men managed to make some headway as they continued toward the Dunker Church and Confederate Brigadier General Harry T. Hays placed his brigade of Louisianans on the eastern edge of the Cornfield. Waiting in a reserve position in the West Woods were two brigades of General John Bell Hood’s Division. Many of Hood’s soldiers were disgruntled at being forced into battle before they were able to sit down for breakfast.
Some of Hooker’s units approached to within a few hundred yards of the Dunker Church before Hood’s veterans exited the woods and fired into the Union lines. This effort drove the Federals back. While continuing to push this momentum shift, Hood’s forces split up as Evander M. Law’s Brigade approached the East Woods and William T. Wofford’s Brigade moved near the Cornfield. Pursuing the enemy, the 1st Texas Infantry ended up way ahead of the other regiments.
For nearly two hours, Hooker’s units had taken severe losses. In need of assistance to continue the attack, General Joseph K. Manstield’s Twelfth Corps arrived with fresh troops. While deploying his men through the East Woods, Mansfield fell mortally wounded and was carried from the field.
As opposing forces countered in the Cornfield, the advanced 1st Texas was hit with both artillery and musket fire. Losing 186 of its 211 men, this was easily one of the single highest casualty rates suffered by any regiment from either side during the war. Other units like the 18th Georgia, Hampton’s Legion (South Carolina), and the 4th Texas exchanged terrific blows across the Hagerstown Pike with Gibbon’s Federals. Before Mansfield went down, he had led the 128th Pennsylvania (Samuel W. Crawford’s Brigade) toward the action. Alpheus S. Williams took command of the Union Twelfth Corps as General George S. Greene’s Division arrived.
For a brief period, the fighting finally subsided on the north end of the field. Most Confederate units either fell back to regroup in the West Woods or on the west side of the Hagerstown Pike. Already, around 8,000 men from both sides had fallen in and around the Cornfield.