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Thought Crimes Come to Minnesota

Amy Curtis
Amy Curtis  |  July 24, 2026 4:00 PM

Tim Walz once said the First Amendment protects neither "hate speech" nor "misinformation," and yesterday, a jury in Minnesota seemed to agree with him. Shiloh Hendrix was found guilty of disorderly conduct for saying the N-word to Somalis who were harassing her in a public park.

This is not a defense of what Hendrix said, of course, but of her right to say it. It's a word that offends some people but that's not a crime, or it wasn't up until yesterday. It also reminds us—once again—that when the Left, who run Minnesota, talk about defunding the police and abolishing our prisons, they don't mean for everyone.

They just mean for criminals like Corey Durrell Ruiz, the Madison man who had 42 prior arrests that included felony convictions. Ruiz was just let out of prison in May, failed to comply with the parameters of his supervised release, and pulled a knife on police who stopped him on Wednesday night. He was shot and killed. 

Francesca Hong, the Democratic Socialist who will likely be the Democratic nominee for Wisconsin governor, called the shooting an "execution" about five minutes after it happened and called for the dismantling of the police.

But the police will be necessary to arrest people like Hendrix, who said a no-no word to a protected group.

But it somehow gets worse. The man who harassed Hendrix, and his brother, were both charged with sexual assault of an underage girl. Those charges were dismissed "in the interest of justice."

Last I checked, there's no Constitutional right to sexually assault underage girls, even if that's part of your twisted, backward religion. There is, however, a Constitutional right to free speech, even if the person in question is saying things you don't like.

Then again, in Portland, a black man stabbed a white man, who then called the black man the N-word. For that, the black man—who actually committed a crime—was acquitted.

Not because he was innocent. But because he was insulted after stabbing a man.

Realize where we are.

Don't look at what the communists who are itching to abolish our Constitution, our courts, and our government say, look at what they do. As I pointed out the other day, Angela Davis—the mother of the "abolish prisons" movement—refused to advocate for communist objectors locked behind bars. They, she said, deserved it.

There's also a reason why the Left says violent crime is not actually violent, but an "artificial construct," as NYC Mayor Mamdani did not too terribly long ago. Meanwhile, James Talarico and his fellow Democrats have a whole new slew of things that are violence: pollution, poverty, and prisons. We can safely assume things like deadnaming a trans person, objecting to Islam, hurting a leftist's feelings, or saying a racial slur are on that list, too. 

I mean, these are the same people who argue that "silence is violence" when you don't speak up for their pet causes adequately enough. 

They're laying a permission structure to attack you over poverty, pollution, and calling Ellen Page a woman, while making sure rapists, murderers, and thieves walk free in the name of justice.

This was a wholesale violation of Hendrix's First Amendment rights, and it should be treated as such. You have a right to say offensive things. The First Amendment wouldn't be necessary if it just protected speech we all liked. It protects the speech people don't like, and that includes racial slurs. Do not stand for this and do not remain silent.