When politicians start talking about criminalizing speech I get a bit nervous, but I am willing to listen to the specifics on this:
Rep. Robert Brady (D-Pa.) reportedly plans to introduce legislation that would make it a federal crime to use language or symbols that could be perceived as threatening or inciting violence against a federal official or member of Congress.
Brady told CNN that he wants federal lawmakers and officials to have the same protections against threat currently provided to the president. His call comes one day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot, along with 19 other people, at a public event in Tucson. A suspect is currently in custody.
“The president is a federal official,” Brady told CNN in a telephone interview. “You can’t do it to him; you should not be able to do it to a congressman, senator or federal judge.” …
…Brady singled out the [Palin’s] map as the type of rhetoric he opposed.
“You can’t put bull’s-eyes or crosshairs on a United States congressman or a federal official,” he said.
So, what do you think? Should Palin be in jail? Should what she did be a crime? Should all federal officials have the same low-tolerance speech protections as the president enjoys?
Speech should never be criminalized.
See, this is exactly what pisses me off about the nutzoid right’s violent rhetoric. When one day they are directly responsible, we are all going to pay for it with some sort of speech criminalization. Rather than dialing down their rhetoric, we are all going to be screwed.
Exactly! Look at all the bullshit we have to do to get on a plane. Pretty soon we’ll be a nation of strip searches because of the actions of a few nutjobs. Now they are talking about Congress critters having the same security as the president. Who’s gonna pay for that? Millions of us are homeless, jobless and now our taxes will go to protecting these guys 24/7? How about no guns allowed at public events and/or a metal detector when Congress is in their home territory for public events?
This is the same kind of knee jerk reactions that brought us TSA, Homeland Security and the Patriot Act-all slowly doing away with our civil liberties.
Folks need to step back and take a breath.
I could see this kind of protection for federal judges only. Members of congress are politicians and should not have special protections from people who disagree with them because it works both ways. Potential threats should be investigated and crazies should be tracked and/or committed to an institution for treatment.
If someone articulates a specific and plausible threat against anybody, I’m pretty sure there are laws on the books against that already. Besides, any kind of speech criminalization law is almost impossible to enforce.
We have been able to erase ethnic slurs from acceptable discourse without resorting to laws. I think that’s the best approach here.
Pete King (yes, that Pete King) is on the case. The Congressman from O’Reilly Island says he is going to introduce legislation to make it a crime to have a gun within 1000 feet of any politician.
That’s just great, Pete.
What about the rest of us?
Nope. Ist Amendment. It does abridge speech.
That’s not a solution. The society has to make it’s disapproval known about hate and violent language.
In Canada and Britian, Palin would have run afoul of the laws there.
I think passing laws like this in kneejerk mode after a political shock is a really bad idea. In fact, laws like this are almost always a bad idea. I think about how some feminist activists managed to get laws passed against pornography in Canada in the 70s/80s, and that gay/lesbian literature was the first to be targeted. And we also have the so called “Patriot Act” to think about.
Better to talk back, to work to establish acceptable boundaries for discourse without legislating them. Pass a law like this and blogs like TBogg and Rumproast might be among the first ‘regulated.’ Then we would have even fewer ways to talk back.
Plain and simple, this is a bad idea. Understand the sentiment, but something like this is completely untenable.
If anything like this is ever done, terrorists win again. Another feather in the cap of the bad guys.
Intent to cause harm makes a threat an assault, which is already illegal.
I hardly ever see the need for a new law, but guess that’s what they do all day.
Rep. Steve Dreihaus could have filed assault charges against Boehner for his “dead man” remark, as well as any media that published it. Let them seek recourse in court like we little people must.
Aren’t we aiming for equal justice for all under the law? Unfortunately, bullets have long ruled the ballot box for us.
Besides being a slippery slope, how would one even begin to enforce such a law with the internet full of such language?
This is not something that will be settled politically. It must be settled with cultural change. When conservatives talk about a “culture war” they are not being hyperbolic. They intend to bring back the culture of their nostalgia, hell or high water.
Progressives must respond by taking this threat seriously and working to change cultural attitudes.
A good place to start with thinking about this is Susan Faludi’s books – Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women, Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man, and The Terror Dream: Fear and Fantasy in Post-9/11 America.
So much of the culture war has to do with the post-World War II social contract in the US and its betrayal over a generation (now two generations).
Under no circumstances do you criminalize speech. It is reprehensible, but it is not a crime.
Ot of this tragedy there is one positive thing. Beck and Palin are getting hammered for their moronic words. Maybe we will be rid of them soon?
One can hope.
One doesn’t have to criminalize speech to take away the megaphone from the likes of Beck, O’Reilly, Hannity, Coulter, Malkin, and Palin.
One needs only take away the financial reward for pushing extreme speech. They can speak from a soapbox on a street corner to their hearts content.
Refusing to give someone like these folks an exclusive microphone is not a denial of free speech. The way they shut off honest debate by controlling their microphones is a denial of free speech. It is the act of bullies claiming to be victims.
Bingo.
Could be> That’s anything!
What strikes me about this is the overweaning concern for members of Congress (specifically “Congressmen). Both this and Pete King’s “Don’t bring a gun within 1000 feet of me, but everyone else is open season” proposal.
It is another symptom of how narcissistic both party caucuses have become in their approach to policy.
The best way for them to shake this appearance (or is it an intense attitude of privilege) would be to take the first hit in budget cutting. But they won’t; they’ll probably raise their salaries and benefits in spite of the optics with the public. Setting Congressional salaries to the median family income until unemployment gets down to 5% would be an encouraging symbol–just so long as they are accurate about the figure for median family income.
Brady should come out of his bunker and start looking out for ordinary folks. And there are lots of ordinary folks with figurative bullseyes printed on them–whether for unemployment, tasering, airgate groping, or actual crime based on the neighborhood you are forced to live in.
Sort of off topic: I’d like to think of myself as an extremely amateurish beltway style (is that redundant?) reader of the national mood. For instance, when McCain “suspended” his campaign I told my friends it was all over: the national press couldn’t take him seriously anymore, he looked like a foundering nimwit, the end. I now have a strong feeling that Palin’s national ambitions, if she has them, are done. She can’t be the nominee. Not because she can’t still get substantial support, but because now competitors can openly and unashamedly discuss her unelectability as an established fact. This was already happening prior to this weekend, but now it seems inescapable. I confess to some sadness about this event, which dials back the freakshow element of the election I had so been looking forward to.
you underestimate how unhinged the right-wing is in this country right now. They are incapable of nominating someone substantially different from Palin. Whoever wins will have sold their soul to the Palinites to a degree McCain could only dream about. She doesn’t have to win the nomination because she has already captured the brain of the party.
That may be, however it will probably be someone slightly more slick than Sarah.
Brady told CNN that he wants federal lawmakers and officials to have the same protections against threat currently provided to the president. His call comes one day after Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot, along with 19 other people, at a public event in Tucson. A suspect is currently in custody.