DISQUS

mkhall · 3 months ago

You raise questions I've been turning over in my mind myself. In my mind, if it isn't a direct call for overthrow of the elected government outside of the Constitutional and legislative process, it's protected. (I'm assuming we are keeping to overtly political speech here, and not other forms of speech.) However, speech that directly threatens the health or life or another person and specifies means and time is no longer protected in most cases. Many sites have "threatening content" clauses in their TOS to protect themselves from legal action due to the speech of their users; I just recently had to invoke it on Twitter, myself.

So the "keep your guns" nonsense is protected. The crazy Newsmax (is that redundant?) essays is protected. And the odious Facebook poll question is protected.

That doesn't prevent all those people from being dimwitted asses, mind you. That's the nice thing about the First Amendment: It protects everyone's speech equally, the wise and the foolish alike.

Karoli · 3 months ago

I'm afraid you're right. Sadly right.

heartlandheretic · 3 months ago

"Where are your prayers for our President, Christians? Are you just selective about when you follow what the Bible says?"
They are just selective about when to follow the Bible. And they aren't even creative about following it edicts.
My mother was encouraged to pray for someone by her Pastor and she replied, "I do every day. I pray that he will meet his maker before I do!" Her Pastor said, "That's not exactly what I had in mind".

Karoli · 3 months ago

LOL. That's a great story. :)

Kyle Sellers · 3 months ago

Excellent article! It's been an ongoing issue over the last 8 years and looks like it will continue for the next 4. It's a very grey area, and it is probably actually a good thing that it is left as a grey area and dealt with on a case by case basis.

For example, there was a film made about George W. Bush's assassination, and while I loathed the fact that anyone would make it, I am glad that no legal action was brought against him. As objectionable as it was, it was protected. Similarly, I ran into some LaRoushies the other day at the post office and while I thought it was despicable that they were following a racist, ex felon Marxist who has lead the "Obama as Hitler" charge, I wouldn't want that liberty to be taken from them.

But where do words cross the legal line? Is it when someone declares they will commit a crime? Obviously it crosses the line. What if they try to incite others to commit violence? It PROBABLY crosses the line. What if they talk about a crime being justified, and hoping someone would commit it? Eek... now it's getting murky.

I hate so much of the current political discourse in America, but I am very defensive when anyone suggest silencing them through governmental action. Obviously, this is not what you are suggesting, so it is not targeted at you.

One of the grandest liberties in America is the freedom to be an asshat. On the up side, I have the greatest amount of freedoms on earth! On the down side, I have to deal with way too many asshats.

Karoli · 3 months ago

Thanks, Kyle. I'm unfamiliar with the movie you mention, but I assure you I would be as hard on it as I am on what I'm hearing now. Calling for assassinations and revolutions, coups and overthrows, is just wrong, no matter who is President. It's not just wrong, it disrespects our Constitution and the structure of our country as it has been for well over 200 years.

They may be asshats. They may be protected asshats. They are also a genuine blemish on a country that has so much potential for greatness.

Kyle Sellers · 3 months ago

Here's an interesting collection of posts regarding posters about Bush. The difference is, these were never reported on. As hard as the conservative protesters are being on Obama, nothing can compare to the hateful treatment aimed at Bush.

http://bit.ly/2Hl7G1

Karoli · 3 months ago

Thanks for the link, I did go through those and do have a vague
recollection of the movie now, though I recall it as a "what if" sort
of thing...along the same lines, sadly as the Facebook threat I
discuss in this post. I did do a search from 2000-2009 on death
threats via Google news on President Bush -- here's the link. Quite a
few results. http://bit.ly/2WF0Un

Without turning this into a pissing contest, no one is disputing that
the number of death threats has risen by a factor of 400 percent.
That's a shocking number.

In some respects I almost feel like it would be better if this stuff
went unreported. And then I don't. I'm torn. And honestly, I just wish
everyone would take a deep breath and figure out what the hell they're
doing.

Kyle Sellers · 3 months ago

I think that is a lot of the problem right there. Since the founding of the country, there have crazy nutjobs. They have typically been marginalized, though. Now, with the battle for ratings and a largely agenda driven blogoshere (on both sides) hooting and hollering about each nutjob they find a picture of, things have changed.

Fox News and Rush Limbaugh talked about threats against Bush, CNN and MSNBC talked about threats against Obama. Both over-sensationalized and misrepresented these stories as "movements" in an attempt to assign guilt by association.

Before the digital camera and the internet would anyone have heard about any of these crazies? This is just a side effect of everyone being given a voice and able to make alot of noise on the internet. Alot of good comes with this, but the privilege can be abused.


----------
This is really an irrelevant side point, but that 400% number is completely without context (did it go from 1 to 4?), and being pushed by an anonymous source to the Southern Poverty Law Center who has been proven to just make things up when it fits their storyline.

Karoli · 2 months ago

Somehow my reply to you got lost in transit on this one. The 400% is not from an anonymous source. Here's the link to it: http://bit.ly/WnvSC

It was written by Ronald Kessler. Not nameless, faceless, or otherwise anonymous.

Angela D Olsen · 3 months ago

Just as one is not allowed to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, those with a public platform should not be excused for putting out incendiary commentary in the atmosphere of our nation which is already at a point where it is ready to flare up at the least bit of provocation. When these remarks are taken to heart by the less stable among their listeners and acted upon, these commentators should be held accountable just as that person who starts a stampede in a crowded theater. This division between freedom of speech and abuse of speech is something like auditory pornography. I may not can define it exactly, but I know it when I hear it.

Angela D Olsen · 3 months ago

Just as one is not allowed to shout "Fire!" in a crowded theater, those with a public platform should not be excused for putting out incendiary commentary in the atmosphere of our nation which is already at a point where it is ready to flare up at the least bit of provocation. When these remarks are taken to heart by the less stable among their listeners and acted upon, these commentators should be held accountable just as that person who starts a stampede in a crowded theater. This division between freedom of speech and abuse of speech is something like auditory pornography. I may not can define it exactly, but I know it when I hear it.

Karoli · 3 months ago

I like the term "auditory pornography". It feels violent and abusive to me, which sort of fits that definition. What I know, though, is that even if it feels like it should be prohibited, it more often is protected.

audaxviatrix · 3 months ago

I'd be surprised if sedition is protected speech - it's explicitly criminal, yes?

Marie Carnes · 3 months ago

Karoli, I basically agree with the others that the cases your bring up are protected speech. However, I am very glad you blogged about this in your usual articulate way. I hope you continue to blog about this.

What I would like to hear, and what a lot of people need to hear, is the cadre of conservative candidates running in the not-too-distant-future primaries, take the podium and forcefully and emphatically denounce that kind of speech and set straight the people who make it and their followers. Instead of SILENTLY counting those followers among their own.

On a side note: John McCain did a little of that in one of his pre-election town halls, but the signal was obviously much too weak to get through. (I can't recall the exact wording he was trying to refute, but whatever it was, was equally detestable.)

Marie Carnes · 3 months ago

It appears Newsmax has pulled the Perry article as the link is redirecting to the main page.

Karoli · 3 months ago

Marie, I linked the cached version in the last update. They did indeed
pull it. The McCain moment you're thinking of was the town hall he
held before the election where the woman said she was 'afraid of Obama
because he was a Muslim'. McCain told her he wasn't, but it was not
nearly forceful enough.

Ashleigh Burroughs · 2 months ago

"All it takes for evil to succeed is for good people to do nothing". By publicizing this distastefulness you allow others to join you in making a great noise and then Newsmax reacts and the column is gone.

Thank you (and Blogher for linking me to you)

Karoli · 2 months ago

Hi Ashleigh,

It's my hope that shining light on this stuff will sterilize it. But it will take all of us to lead that charge, because there's a ton of it out there. :(