In November, I wrote about people who advocate assaulting people they call Nazis. Bad as they are, they aren’t in the same league as people whose political views include endorsement of murder. This group is on the fringe, but it needs to be strongly repudiated.

A report that caught my attention recently says that “The man who allegedly opened fire at a country club in Nashua, N.H., last fall, killing a restaurant patron and wounding two other people, later confessed to the shooting and told investigators he wanted to kill the rich.” Many people on the left admire Luigi Mangione, who has been charged with killing insurance executive Brian Thompson in cold blood. Posts on social media express enthusiasm for France’s Reign of Terror, in which about 17,000 people were executed. The Chicago Teachers Union posted on pre-Musk Twitter applauding a death threat in the form of a mock guillotine.

I didn’t see much outright celebration of Charlie Kirk’s death, but the outburst of hatred following his death was far out of proportion to his views and inappropriate to the occasion. Last September, I posted about one aspect of that reaction.

These are people who believe individual human lives have no significance. If they can improve “society” by eliminating some of its members, they’re all for it. In previous generations, people with similar views cheered the killing of millions by Stalin and Mao.

These people have the right to express their views, so long as they aren’t directly threatening people. What they don’t have is the right to be considered anything better than human dirt. Teachers who applaud guillotines should be pariahs in educational communities. Talk show audiences who cheer for Mangione should be kicked out of the studio. People who post to social media advocating a new Reign of Terror should have their accounts suspended. People who believe in human rights in any form should make it clear they have nothing to do with admirers of murder.