I am happy to announce the publication of my latest law review article, which appears in 65 William & Mary Law Review 1409-1506 (2024). The article titled Rage Rhetoric and the Revival of American Sedition explores sedition-based charges from the British Crown to current prosecutions. The article questions the purpose and need for sedition-based crimes in the modern American criminal justice system.
I originally saw the law review article as an opportunity to further develop ideas about sedition after my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage. It turned into a roughly 100-page law review article.
Here is the abstract:
We are living in what Professor Jonathan Turley calls an age of rage. However, it is not the first such period. Professor Turley explores how the United States was formed (and the Constitution was written) in precisely such a period. Throughout that history, sedition has been used as the vehicle for criminalizing political speech. This Article explores how seditious libel has evolved as a crime and how it is experiencing a type of American revival. The crime of sedition can be traced back to the infamous trials of the Star Chamber and the flawed view of free speech articulated by Sir William Blackstone. That view continues to resonate in “bad tendency” rationales for criminalizing what Professor Turley calls “rage rhetoric.” An advocate for a broader theory of free speech, Professor Turley suggests that the United States should break this cycle and reject a crime that it is not only superfluous in many cases, but the product of the anti-free speech theories extending back to the seventeenth century. The elimination of the crime would fulfill what Professor Turley believes is the original and revolutionary view of free speech articulated by some figures at the start of the Republic. It would finally slay what James Madison called the “monster” lurking in our political and legal systems for centuries.
I want to thank the editors and staff of the William & Mary Law Review for their extraordinary work on this article. It is greatly improved due to their efforts and I am greatly in their debt.
Prof. Turley,
Thank you very much.
I wish that I did not feel like you were spitting into the wind.
The US has long had the strongest free speech in the world.
It is the core to our success.
But maintaining and advancing that has been a struggle from the colonial period to the present.
Today we are in a unique period of retrenchment.
The left has done a 180 on the most important value of this nation – free speech.
In the 60’s the students taking over campus buildings were often from the Berkeley Free Speech movement.
Today the left is taking over buildings to silence those whose speech they do not like.
After more than 2 centuries we are losing rather than gaining ground on free speech.
Because the Left were NEVER for free speech. Not a single entity in the world, who agreed with their direction, ever came close to backing free speech, just the opposite – they jailed opponents.
They used the first amendment to gain their free speech.
I’m good with that. I want them to have free speech. I want Hamas and all I despise to have the freedom to tell us who they are and what they want for the country, the world and me.
This time, finally – I want us to listen….
I told u, u need ur own show. Do u have any idea how much demand u r in? U wouldn’t have been the most popular guest offering your legal opinions throughout the media if u weren’t a superstar.
I would say the only modern true sedition was the Russia hoax. It was designed by a singular person and expanded to US government appointees. It was wide and deep, involved the silent cooperation of a hostile nuclear competitor and the instigators walked away laughing.
BTW, what is the statute of limitations on the crime of the millennium?
“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America.”
– Barack Obama
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“We will stop him.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI paramour Lisa Page
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“[Obama] wants to know everything we’re doing.”
– Lisa Page to FBI paramour Peter Strzok
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“I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy’s office — that there’s no way he gets elected — but I’m afraid we can’t take that risk It’s like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before 40.”
– Peter Strzok to FBI parmour Lisa Page
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“People on the 7th floor to include Director are fired up about this [Trump] server.”
– Bill Priestap
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The Obama Coup D’etat in America is the most egregious abuse of power and the most prodigious crime in American political history. The co-conspirators are:
Kevin Clinesmith, Bill Taylor, Eric Ciaramella, Rosenstein, Mueller/Team, Andrew Weissmann,
James Comey, Christopher Wray, McCabe, Strozk, Page, Laycock, Kadzic, Sally Yates,
James Baker, Bruce Ohr, Nellie Ohr, Priestap, Kortan, Campbell, Sir Richard Dearlove,
Christopher Steele, Simpson, Joseph Mifsud, Alexander Downer, Stefan “The Walrus” Halper,
Azra Turk, Kerry, Hillary, Huma, Mills, Brennan, Gina Haspel, Clapper, Lerner, Farkas, Power,
Lynch, Rice, Jarrett, Holder, Brazile, Sessions (patsy), Nadler, Schiff, Pelosi, Obama,
Joe Biden, James E. Boasberg, Emmet Sullivan, Gen. Milley, George Soros, John McCain,
Marc Elias, Igor Danchenko, Fiona Hill, Charles H. Dolan, Jake Sullivan, Strobe Talbot,
Cody Shear, Victoria Nuland, Ray “Red Hat” Epps, Don Berlin, Kathy Ruemmler, Rodney Joffe,
Paul Vixie, L. Jean Camp, Andrew Whitney, Lisa O. Monaco et al.
The stated goal of Barack Hussein Obama is to “fundamentally transform the United States of America.”
Barack Hussein Obama is the direct and mortal enemy of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
Obama did a great job. You can’t walk down the street safely because the police are neutered, and unlike the old west the surveillance state prevents you from doing anything about it. A once great nation is now a nation of sheep. At least China, Russia, and Iran are clear thinkers when it comes to crime.
The crime there was the knowingly false report to the FBI.
Knowingly false reports of crimes to law enforcement are crimes pretty much everywhere.
Barring prosecution for sedition does NOT bar prosecution for other criminal acts that are ALSO seditious
I wouldn’t believe Turley if he said today is Thursday and that the month is May. And, this lack of confidence in his integrity is self-inflicted. If Turley wrote this piece to try to beef up his bona fides as a legal scholar–it won’t work. I’ve seen what he will write and say for money, and as far as I’m concerned, he has permanently lost any credibility, especially when his purchased advocacy is to spin the facts and laws for the benefit of a dangerous sexual predator and habitual liar.
Whatever will NUTCHACHACHA, the queen of the generational welfare state beneficiaries, do when the “free stuff” and “free status” are gone?
Whatever will NUTCHACHACHA do when she/he/her/it/what/dang/whoa receives the bill for nearly two centuries of alms and largesse, oh, and the cleanup?
Be sure to thank him for providing a forum for you to run your mouth.
Which is not dissimilar to prevaricating, propagandizing, defrauding, brainwashing, and indoctrinating.
Further evidence you cannot and will not ever attempt to explain why your hero, Billy boy Clinton, aided and abetted the houlocaust in Rwanda. You are a total disgrace. You and all your fake identities who repeat everything you state.
Aside from defaming Turley – do you have a specific criticism about his law review article or the abstract Turley provided ?
I have not read the article – but historically seiditon has been pretty much universally used – in the US in the past, in the present, in other countries as a means to supress political speech by those out of power.
In 2025 Democrats are likely to be out of power.
Should Republicans do to democrats what Democrats have done for the last 8 years to republicans ?
Should DOJ go after Tony Podesta as they did Paul Manafort ?
Should Republicans go after Marc Elias the way the left went after Sidney Powell or John Eastman ?
Should Republicans go after Anythony Blinken the way Democrats went after Gen. Flynn ?
Should Republicans go after Ex-president Biden and his familiy in Florida, and Georgia, and Texas the way that Democrats have gone after Trump.
Should Tara Reade sue Joe Biden for Rape and defamation in Texas ?
Should DOJ go after pro-choice protestors the way Garland went after pro-life ones ?
The Bidens wrote checks with misleading notes on them – loan repayments where there are no loan documents and no evidence of any actual loan. Should that be prosecuted as felony business document fraud ?
Stormy daniels funneled payments for the Discovery Documentary through shell corporations to avoid paying the Judgement she owes Trump – Should she be prosecuted for Fraud ?
Leticia James overvalued the a New York Brownstone by Millions – thousands of percent – and someone actually lost millions as a result – should she be prosecuted for Fraud ?
Turn about is fair play – is that what you want ?
Turley is correct – Sedition laws have no place in the US.
The US left – once the Champion of Free speech, has become the most potent advocates of supression of views they do not like.
Nearly everyone in this country wants to “Make America Great”.
We just do not agree on what American greatness is.
Trump means one thing.
I mean another.
What is it that YOU mean ?
A critical aspect of american greatness for me is that this country was once the freest nation on earth.
It is still for the moment the freest large nation on earth.
A major part of that freedom is that the US more so than anywhere else in the world has the most free speech int he world.
John Stuart Mill almost 2 centuries ago argued that Free Speech is absolutely fundimental. Not only it is important to political expression, but
the extent to which people are free in their speech, their nation is successful in all else.
The american tradition of free speech comes from Europe, from England. But WE – the US is the pinnacle of that freedom.
And that multi-centuries long tradition of the greatest free speech in the world is why the US is the worlds dominant economy, the sole superpower, The most properous large nation in the world and at the top of prosperity for ALL nations.
Entire DNC must be prosecuted for seditious conspiracy
Actual Americans stand admonished in duty.
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“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.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
Sedition applies within the exercise of free and fair elections. Any government can be dissolved. So it shall be done…
The ETs are waiting with the metal, paper, plastic dissolve rays.
Congrats, Professor. W&M is doing something right for a nice change of pace.
Fine job, Mr. Turley!!
Sedition is not limited to political speech is it? Isn’t it seditious to thwart a sitting duly elected President from performing his duties? Frivolous lawsuits, fraudulent investigations and such?
The POINT is that we do not WANT prosecutions for Sedition.
While it is of critical importance that we reign in political lawfare – we can not do so at the expence of free speech – not even the speech of those we hate the most.
Perhaps no need for me to add congratulations, as everyone else is, but your views on sedition are something i’d not thought much about before. Yes! Let’s knock the idea of sedition to the ground. Expand free speech and protect it. Without it no other civil liberties can even be articulated safely.
Congratulations!
It is always wonderful when more people are exposed to Turley’s wisdom, congratulations.
When will we see an analysis of how Barack Obama got away with spying on Donald Trump’s campaign?
Perhaps Barry has not yet escaped, who knows what the future holds for Barry?!
Excuse me, Gentlemen.
Abraham Lincoln would like to say a few words.
Mr. Lincoln, go ahead.
“Ahem…”
“If all earthly power were given me, I should not know what to do, as to the existing institution [of slavery].”
“My first impulse would be to free all the slaves, and send them to Liberia, to their own native land.”
“[Should blacks be made] politically and socially our equals?”
“My own feelings will not admit of this, and [even] if mine would, we well know that those of the great mass of white people will not … We can not, then, make them equals.”[5]
– Abraham Lincoln, Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854
Congratulations!