It's right to say her name,
because we are all Mollie Tibbetts

Here in Iowa, we were horrified by the murder of college student Mollie Tibbetts. Millions nationwide share our determination that remedial public safety interest steps be taken to protect American citizens. 

President Trump and other elected leaders are devoting deserved attention to this. Their words and efforts are heartening. At long last, real and needed actions may be undertaken.

But not all that followed the Mollie Tibbetts tragedy has been positive.

England's Daily Mail reports that a second cousin of the late Tibbetts recently unleashed a Twitter tirade aimed at Candace Owens (and, by extension, all others who oppose illegal immigration and support President Trump). 

Owens had specifically cited the Iowa killing in her denunciation of open-borders advocates' hypocritical rhetoric.

Here's why referring to Mollie Tibbetts is proper, and why those seeking to stifle our doing so are both wrong and deleterious to American interests.

Members of a society have legitimate cause to speak of terrible crimes. General issues with which citizenries must deal are made up by individual circumstances. No one can reasonably claim familial association confers upon them special authority to stifle public conversation. 

Shutting down opposing voices is presently voguish among jack-booted agents of  the anti-Trump 'resistance,' but no free man need concern himself with the inclinations of would-be oppressors.

The Constitution guarantees our right to free speech. Open discussion of laws and government policies is to be encouraged in democratic society. It's one way we theoretically exercise control over civil government.

Attempts to shut down important dialogue, even when pursued by a crime-victim's relative, serve no positive, larger-picture cause.

Mollie Tibbett's murder was monstrous. But not explicitly citing it in common-sense challenging of policies that made it possible would be wrong. 

No longer theoretical abstractions, those policies have a face. Let's deal with them.