Possibly. But the ACLU still wouldn’t have to defend you in court. They can make their own rules, and I think they’re on good grounds with this rule. Even if they’re not, you’d need someone else to argue for your rights in court. This isn’t about throwing you in jail. This is about the ACLU not giving a flying fuck and not running in to defend you.
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It’s true that the ACLU isn’t a bus - it doesn’t have to pick up every passenger who happens to be standing at the bus stop.
And this is a problem they’ve wrestled with repeatedly over the years. If you take a relatively uncompromising view of “civil liberties,” you’re sometimes going to end up on what appears to be the wrong side of justice. Simple answers are tough to come by.
Just renewed my ACLU membership, BTW.
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True, but that is kinda the reverse of what I was getting at I was saying. A mob can kill people just as dead with fists as with firearms. I have mixed emotions on this because well I don’t like the idea of censorship I think it is a little easy for me as a white male to dismiss these actions as “just words” when they are in fact intended to threaten and terrorize non-whites and other minorities whose extermination these groups are advocating. When you have a mob of people chanting for your ethnic cleansing and chanting motos of a group responsible for the murder of millions of people they labeled undesirable there is at best an inplicit threat there of “we are here, you arent wanted, yoiu arent safe.” And for all the talk about how there are laws against threats or “incitement” given the law enforcments own history in race relations in this country and the use of stochastic terrorism, as noted by others on this board, by the likes of Alex Jones or Limbaugh with little too no legal consequences I can see why some of the targets of these groups aren’t exactly confident those laws will be used in any sort of proactive manner to protect them.
I don’t know sorry if that was rambly, its because as I said I have very mixed feelings on this.
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Is it? So if I threaten to murder a federal judge to intimidate him that is perfectly legal?
I understand what you’re saying, and I understand why you deliberate. But I’m coming the opposite side. I have no mixed feelings on the ACLU’s decision here.
And violence that erupts is a different issue. This decision is simply about intimidation by armed protesters. And I agree. If that isn’t suppression of free speech, I don’t know what is.
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Inasmuch as a UVA employee had a stroke after being injured by a blow from a tiki torch, can they also reject clients who protest with torches?
Depends. Is that a real Tiki Torch, or is that a Sears tiki torch?
Similarly, I think it can be difficult to draw a principled line between a crowd and a demonstration. But local authorities reserve the right to draw that distinction and issue or deny a permit accordingly. I think that is unfortunately erosive of the right to free speech and assembly, but practically, it’s necessary. This is a great example of how local jurisdiction differs fundamentally from, say, Constitutional law: local/municipal policy tend to be guided more by pragmatism than principle. A whole country is almost an abstraction. But to residents and officials, a city or town is in many ways a closed circuit, where cause & effect are often quite visible, tangible, and proximal. I think that as we have access to more information, we might look at the country and world more as a mayor sees her city than as a king sees a map of his sprawling domain, with the most of its corners forever unknown to him except as sources of tax revenue.
Along with a permit, come terms & conditions. If it is legal to deny a permit – denying the right to assembly – then it should also be legal to stipulate the sort of reasonable conditions that the permitting process exists to impose. If local jurisdiction can override First Amendment rights in the interest of public safety, then absolutely it should have the authority, on a case-by-case basis, to suspend the Second (rather, the state laws that overbroadly interpret the Second).
I’m pleased that the ACLU has made this decision. But there can be no doubt that armed groups will find other representation. I just hope it isn’t pro bono.
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Sorry I guess I’m still not being clear. I’m not conflicted about them not defending armed protestors. I’m conflicted about them defending protestors advocating mass murder and genocide who are marching to terrorize vulnerable populations as if it were just the same as any other form of speech. And pensive of the fact that since I’m not the target of those threats it is easy to dismiss them as just words as opposed to a threat of violence backed by this nations long bloody history of just that sort of violence.
I’m suddenly struck by remembering that line often associated with sundown towns of “Don’t let the sunset catch you in this county, n-word.” I mean should something like that be considered protected free speech or an implicit threat? And if a threat how is that different from groups marching advocating genocide and mass murder under the banner of groups that have perpetrated those crimes? And how much credence do we have to give to these groups wink and a nudge denials of that being what they are advocating?
If carrying a firearm was “speech”, firearms wouldn’t need to have their own amendment.
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I see, yes. And I’m at fault. I didn’t read your comment up above carefully enough. But now that you’ve gotten it through my thick skull what you mean, I have to say that I wish the ACLU didn’t have to do that myself. But I fear they do. If you’ve got free speech you’ve got free speech. Only alternative is what was recommended above, institute hate speech laws as in Germany.
In my secret heart of hearts I know I wouldn’t mind that. But I can’t advocate for it. It’s against what the country stands for. And it’s a very slippery slope.
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Yeah, I see that point as well. I think ACLU´s decision to not defend people who are carrying loaded weapons was in part political, and not entirely consistent with their stated mission. OTOH, armed militia brandishing assault rifles parading in front of counter-protesters does seem to be intended to suppress free speech, not protect it.
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No, And you know it (or at least you should).
On the other hand, calling a federal judge a Mexican in order to intimidate him is just fine. Ask President Trump if you don’t believe me.
There is a significant difference between threatening violence or physical harm to someone and saying mean things about about an ethnic, racial, or other group.
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Except, we already have laws about threatening people or terrorizing people or harrasing people. I guess part of me doesn’t see how the fact that it is a mob of people making the threat changes that. But another part recognizes as you say that it can be a slippery slope, hence the mixed feelings.
But we aren’t tallking about people saying mean things, we are talking about people advocating ethnic cleasing at best and genocide at worse. We are talking about people calling on this country’s history of bloody racial violence to intimidate with at best a wink and a nod for cover. So to return to the original questions does that meaning threatening a judge with violence is acceptable so long as the threat is only implied? Or is a wink and a nod enough cover?
Edit: Why is it acceptable to limit speech with regards to threats, veiled or otherwise against agents of the state, but not against those less powerful in our society?
It’s difficult to implicate a whole group with the threatening language and violent actions of some of them. “We’re gonna git you” is clear enough, but “Blood and Soil,” while creepy, may not clear the bar for intimidation or even hate speech.
I think a lot of people, because of ideology, regard white nationalism as somehow illegal. Indeed, there’s correlation between hate groups and criminality, but I don’t think it necessarily follows that the ideology itself is any more criminal than Communism or anarchism – and we don’t want to go back to where we treated those as criminal affiliations. The fact is, neo-Nazis can believe whatever they want, and they can express their views within the bounds of the law. We can only prosecute Nazis for crimes, not Nazism. This is a matter of principle but also of practicality: the WN underground, in and out of the corrections system, is much more dangerous in its secrecy than this newish wing of the movement is on the street, the car attack aside. The last thing we want is to turn the alt-right into a hardened gang, and the fastest way to do that is to treat them like one.
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I guess when you get down to it that is the bit I’m trying to come to terms with in my mind. Where do we draw that line and are we being consistent in where we draw the line. Particularly in situations like this where we, as in the state, don’t have a particularly good history of protecting the rights and at times even the lives of those being targeted.
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The Supreme Court has long recognized that the First Amendment is not absolute and sanctions the right of government to impose reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the First Amendment. Consistent interpretation would hold that the Second Amendment is not absolute and would allow reasonable restrictions on the time, place and manner of carrying guns.
As somebody pointed out above, open carry at a rally is not consistent with the First Amendment right of the people peaceably to assemble.
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I became a monthly contributor to the ACLU, along with Planned Parenthood and the SPLC, when Trump was elected. I am pretty much of a first amendment absolutist, but I was very disturbed by recent events and the fact that the ACLU played a part. My heart agrees with the notion of distinguishing hate speech from other speech, but my head tells me that is not always as clear cut as some would have us believe. For now, I will continue to make my small donation - I am reassured by the fact that most of the people who hate the ACLU are people I disagree with, so I think I am on the right side.
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That is the hopelessly murky area between advocacy, which is protected speech no matter how abhorrent, and incitement that produces a clear and present danger, which is not protected. Whether speech crosses that line will almost always be an after the fact determination. I think the ACLU has made the policy decision that open carry at a rally is de facto a clear and present danger and therefore not protected speech that they will defend.
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