What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
Rand Paul has stirred up the left by telling Sean Hannity that we might want to consider arresting or deporting people who hang out at events where the speakers are urging the violent overthrow of the United States government.
At first blush, that could strike a civil libertarian as a position at odds with the Rand Paul who opposes the PATRIOT Act. Now, I'm not a constitutional lawyer, and I can't speak for Paul, but I can go far enough to say -- as I do below -- that there's a live issue in the caselaw. There's a real difference between radical or even violent political speech and speech inciting insurrection or attack on the government of the United States.
Glenn Greenwald does a thorough job of making the case against Paul's remarks. But the last word on the subject may belong to the Supreme Court. Or, in the interim, Ricochet's resident legal eagles...
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Nov '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
Isn't the the seminal issue one of citizenship? Non-citizens, advocating the violent overthrow of the US government are persona non grata and should be deported or turned away. That's what I took from Rand Paul's statement and I agree wholeheartedly.
Love the Russia Today commentator. She could give the "babes" on Fox News a run for their money!
;-)
May '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
But does it mean we can finally get rid of Professor not so Emeritus Chomsky ?
Seriously, why not expel foreign nationals who attend rallies advocating violence against the Republic? How is this protected speech extended for non-citizens? Of course many candidates for expulsion may come from the religion of peace, and hence provoke outrage on NBC et al, but democracies need not facilitate their own destruction.
Why is Ms. Alyona attempting to smear Rand Paul, with a specious argument throwing around many inaccurate statements, and attributing them to Mr Paul and others as what they may say or would believe? Poor logic and lousy rhetoric.
Glad you got in the last word James, and reminded Alyona of her idealistic views on Gitmo have little place in the real world. Scooping up people off the streets, like the child catcher in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. Oh Please ...
May '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive... it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security."
Is that too radical? Would that qualify as an incitement to violence?
Nov '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
The central issue as I see it is not citizenship/non-citizenship, but the incitement of violence. Even J.S. Mill, softie that he was, argued that certain speech is not protected in certain contexts. It's not just that one can't yell "fire!" in a crowded theater, one can't even yell "off with their heads!" in front of an angry mob. Whether you are a citizen or not, whether the target is the government or not, speech that by its very nature puts others in imminent danger is not protected.
May '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
I stumbled across RT recently as I went to sleep. I had no idea what RT stood for, and I turned to my girlfriend and said, "This is communist propaganda!" It featured a learned professor from B.U. being interviewed(or led) into explaining how the "workers" and labor movement saved us from ruin during the great depression by taking the wealth from the greedy corporations thus restoring a little balance in the U.S..... Hah!
I had no idea how close to home I was, this station should be called "Soviet Today"
Oct '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
If memory has not failed me, The Alien and Sedition Act covered this topic.
The act has remained unused or repealed as of some decades ago.
Wonder how the Act would be used today....
May '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
But as our friend Mark Styen likes to remind us, if the theater is actually on fire one has a duty to call out. Even that addled idiot Oliver Wendell Holmes, who's line is misquoted thousands of time a day, wrote about "falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater..."
Nov '10
Re: What Punishment for Insurrectionary Speech?
Ryan Gaines
I stumbled across RT recently as I went to sleep. I had no idea what RT stood for, and I turned to my girlfriend and said, "This is communist propaganda!" It featured a learned professor from B.U. being interviewed(or led) into explaining how the "workers" and labor movement saved us from ruin during the great depression by taking the wealth from the greedy corporations thus restoring a little balance in the U.S..... Hah!
I had no idea how close to home I was, this station should be called "Soviet Today" · Jun 2 at 11:10am
Ahhhh... It is "Russia Today" -- a grandchild of Pravda.