Below is my column in The Hill on the increasing justification of violence by the left on our campuses by declaring speech itself “violence.” It is part of the license of our age of rage for many who want to silence opposing viewpoints. There is, however, a way to end this anti-free speech movement sweeping through higher education.
Here is the column:
“Silence is violence.” When those words became a popular mantra years ago on college campuses, I wrote that the anti-free speech movement was moving toward compelled speech while declaring dissenting views to be harmful.
Today, it isn’t just silence that is considered violence on college campuses. It is also speech, as both faculty and students are actively shutting down opposing views on subjects ranging from abortion to climate change to transgender issues.
Recently, many people were shocked by a videotape of Hunter College professor Shellyne Rodríguez trashing a pro-life student display in New York. Most were focused on her profanity and vandalism, but there were familiar phrases that appeared in her diatribe to the clearly shocked students.
Before trashing the table, she told the students, “You’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
The videotape revealed one other thing. At Hunter College, and at other colleges, it seems that trashing a pro-life student display and abusing pro-life students is not considered a firing offense. Hunter College refused to fire Rodríguez.
The PSC Graduate Center, the labor organization of graduate and professional schools at the City University of New York, supported that decision and said Rodríguez was “justified” in trashing the display, which the organization described as “dangerously false propaganda” and “disinformation.”
Rodríguez later put a machete to the neck of a reporter, threatened to chop him up and then chased a news crew down a street with the machete in hand. Somewhere between the machete to the neck and chasing the reporters down the street, Hunter College finally decided that Rodríguez had to go.
Rodríguez denounced the school for having “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.” She explained that her firing was just a continuation of “attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”
The redefinition of opposing views as “violence” is a favorite excuse for violent groups like antifa, which continue to physically assault speakers with pro-life and other disfavored views. As explained by Rutgers Professor Mark Bray in his “Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook,” the group believes that “‘free speech’ as such is merely a bourgeois fantasy unworthy of consideration.”
As one antifa member explained, free speech is a “nonargument…you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.”
When people criticized antifa for its violent philosophy, MSNBC’s Joy Reid responded to the critics that “you might be the fascist.”
Faculty members have followed this sense of license to silence others. Former CUNY law dean Mary Lu Bilek even insisted that disrupting a speech on free speech was free speech. (Hunter is part of the CUNY system.)
The same week as the Rodríguez attack at the State University of New York at Albany, sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display and then allegedly resisted arrest.
Just last week, the Pride Office website at the University of Colorado (Boulder) declared that misgendering people can be considered an “act of violence.”
This week, University of Michigan economics professor Justin Wolfers declared that some of those boycotting the store Target over its line of Pride Month clothing were engaging in “literal terrorism.” (He insists that he was referring to those confronting Target employees.)
Faculty have also justified attacks on pro-life figures. At the University of California, Santa Barbara, feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display.
She pleaded guilty to criminal assault, but the university refused to fire her. Instead, some faculty and students defended her, including claiming that pro-life displays constitute terrorism. The University of Oregon later honored Miller-Young as a model for women advocates.
Likewise, at Fresno State University, public health professor Dr. Gregory Thatcher recruited students to destroy pro-life messages.
Other faculty have called for or countenanced violence against Republicans and conservatives. Professors have shouted down speakers, destroyed property, participated in riots and verbally attacked students.
University of Rhode Island professor Erik Loomis defended the murder of a conservative protester and said he saw “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence. He was later elevated to the position of director of graduate studies of history.
As faculty commit or support violence, students are assured that others are the violent ones. Recently, at the University of Texas at Austin, Professor Kirsten Bradbury tested her students on psychology by asking them “which sociodemographic group is most likely to repeatedly violate the rights of others in a pattern of behavior that includes violence, deceit, irresponsibility, and a lack of remorse?” Of course, the answer was wealthy white men.
The lesson took with students. A recent poll shows that 41 percent of college students now believe violence is justified to fight hate speech. At Cornell, a conservative speaker was shouted down, met with the common mantra that “your words are violence.” At Case Western, the student newspaper editorialized against university recognition of a pro-life group because its pro-life views are “inherently violent” and “a danger to the student body.” At Wellesley, student editors declared that it was time to shut down conservative speakers and that “hostility may be warranted.” They added, “The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.”
Those views did not spontaneously appear in the minds of these students. At one time, tolerance for free speech was the very touchstone of higher education and a common article of faith for students. These students are the product of years of being told that free speech is dangerous and harmful if left unregulated. From elementary school to college, they were taught that they did not have to be “triggered” by the speech of others.
We are still (thankfully) drawing the line at machete attacks. But it is the underlying views of Rodríguez that are the true threat, and they are being replicated throughout the country. We are raising a generation of censors and speech-phobics.
If we want to stop or reverse this trend, Congress must act. I have proposed legislation that would deny federal funding to schools that do not protect core free speech principles. We are funding schools that are taking a machete to the defining right of our democracy.
It is akin to the recent resolution of the case of an antifa member who took an axe to Sen. John Hoeven’s (R-N.D.) office in Fargo. Thomas “Tas” Alexander Starks, 31, was given probation…and his axe back.
We may not be able to deter people from speaking through machetes and axes, but we can at least stop subsidizing the hardware.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law for George Washington University.
The Left distract from their acts of violence by using sophistry re: words = violence
It takes a special type of coward to physically beat senior citizens. It takes a special type of coward as an Attorney General to enable violent pro-abortionists to perpetuate violence against Catholics, pro-life centers, churches and desecrate Catholic statues. This isn’t the first time Catholics have been violently attacked by pro-aborts under Biden’s regime of terror, and they know they can do so with impunity again and again and again, just like ANTIFA
Two Pro-Life Supporters, 80 and 73, Beaten Outside Baltimore Abortion Clinic
May 31, 2023
One of the victims has been identified as 80-year-old Mark Crosby. ….Crosby’s “plate bone in his upper right cheek is completely fractured” and “is bleeding from some unidentified area behind his eye, and the bone eye orbit is completely shattered and will have to be replaced with metal,”
https://thetablet.org/two-pro-life-supporters-80-and-73-beaten-outside-baltimore-abortion-clinic/
Worse yet, this is the kind of violent behavior they expect to be ‘tolerated’ when they do it, ‘intolerable’ when others reciprocate in kind. Zero self awareness is their ’cause of the day’.
JAFO,
They re-lable it as they are demonstrating or protesting. Expressing their fiery but mostly peaceful 1stA rights, while businesses and lives are gone.
Then it is okay when they do it.
Estovire- if we are talking about left-wing heroes, let’s not forget those people who chased Sarah Huckabee Sanders and her family out of a restaurant.
Edwardmahle,
How about Brett Kavanaugh getting chased out of a Washington DC restaurant and some leftists offering up a “bounty” for the whereabouts of conservative justices?
All us normies would call that threatening and intimidation.
They would hide being the 1stA claiming intimidation is a 1stA right.
For anyone who thinks free speech is harmful if unregulated, then by all means they should have it regulated to be made then to witness and experience just how much more and even greater harm is done.
Turley’s proposed legislation is appropriate. The Constitution safeguards our inalienable right to political free speech on matters of public concern, and just as government cannot introduce any laws which curb the freedom of speech nor should it keep itself from requiring the same of institutions it funds.
@Ron,
We have many examples in the history of the world.
Taking a megaphone at full volume and placing it next to someone’s ear… That’s speech as violence. Not the topic but the volume and intent to cause hearing loss.
But that’s not what people are talking about.
What they are saying is that its ok to silence you and your view at all costs because they can’t debate you and know that they will lose the argument.
They also don’t believe that there will be any consequences to their actions.
The minute you throw the book at them… they will start to learn the message.
“Anonymous”, destroying someone’s eardrums is a tad different…don’t ya think? Moron.
If men can be women, and pregnant, then I don’t see why speech can’t be violence. Reality is what we say it is, right? Welcome to postmodernism. By that logic, your money isn’t really your money, your rights aren’t really your rights, they’re privileges, and we’re already seeing that. This is what the whole trans agenda has always been about, with hapless confused people as sacrificial lambs to the idea that reality is what we tell you. If you can get people to question something as basic as the fact that there are two sexes and they can’t be changed, then everything else is up for grabs. And grabbing is exactly what the people behind this nonsense want. Again, the screamers are just pawns. They’re told to scream, they’re told what to scream, and they do it. We are hostages to intellectual toddlers in the hands of demonic puppetmasters.
The lesson took with students. A recent poll shows that 41 percent of college students now believe violence is justified to fight hate speech. At Cornell, a conservative speaker was shouted down, met with the common mantra that “your words are violence.” At Case Western, the student newspaper editorialized against university recognition of a pro-life group because its pro-life views are “inherently violent” and “a danger to the student body.” At Wellesley, student editors declared that it was time to shut down conservative speakers and that “hostility may be warranted.” They added, “The spirit of free speech is to protect the suppressed, not to protect a free-for-all where anything is acceptable, no matter how hateful and damaging.”
Every last one of these lunatics should be drug tested.
They are clearly under the influence of psychotropic drugs and have rendered themselves incapable of having a rational debate on any subject.
Mix years of psychotropic drug use and being conditioned to emotionally respond to any type of stimuli have produced a generation of intellectually stunted children posing as adults.
We as a nation will reap the barren harvest we have sown.
And this is why we need to start taking names and expelling these students until they learn their lesson.
“As one antifa member explained, free speech is a ‘nonargument…you have the right to speak but you also have the right to be shut up.’”
– Professor Turley
_______________
Res ipsa loquitur: “The right to be shup up??”
What!!??
Antifa is a violent, criminal organization which has been left unprosecuted.
Antifa and the failed, derelict prosecutors are direct and mortal enemies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans and America.
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“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Rodríguez denounced the school for having “capitulated” to “racists, white nationalists, and misogynists.” She explained that her firing was just a continuation of “attacks on women, trans people, black people, Latinx people, migrants, and beyond.”
Marxists have a long and documented history of wrapping themselves with the cloak of groups of individuals whom they purport to represent, but in reality speak only for themselves. They are self-serving, egomaniacs. There isn’t a single Hispanic whom I know who cares for, nor embraces, the insulting Latinx term. Likewise, immigrants, migrants and beyond are my people, while Ms Shellyne Rodriguez, MFA, fired Hunter College adjunct instructor, is decidedly not mi gente. My Latino patients wouldn’t be caught dead anywhere near her violent actions of aggressively assaulting Pro-Life students nor chase men down a street with a machete. She likely wouldnt be caught dead serving my patients because she has nothing in common with them, nor speaks Spanish.
Hispanic immigrants come to this country in search of work, in spite of having no marketable job skills nor English language communication skills, and what money they do earn, a portion is sent back home to support their distant families. Violence is not part of our ethos, though outliers exist in every group.
It is always the same paradigm: agitprop leaders that drone on about rights and freedoms ala Lenin, Stalin, Fidel Castro, Nicolas Maduro, Manuel Noriega, et al, but they are never seen serving the people they claim to represent.
Shellyne Rodríguez is a black Marxist, and as such esposes the black Marxist talking points of grifters like Black
LivesLies Matter, ANTIFA and apparently the DNC.Ya basta. Enough. Stop giving these agitprop leaders any mileage. Call them for what they are, Marxists, and treat them accordingly: with scorn. Marxists are the enemies of families, parents, children, freedom and yes, life itself. They will do to Americans just like Stalin did to Soviets, Mao did to Chinese people, Castro to Cubans, Maduro to Venezuela, etc
¡No mas, ya basta!
Very well stated, Estovir!
Behold the black Marxists in the US Congress who stated they support defunding the police, as recorded on video. Believe Kamala Harris when she stated:
it is outdated, it is wrong-headed thinking to think that the only way you’re going to get communities to be safe is to put more police officers on the street
“…wrong-headed thinking to think that the only way you’re going to get communities to be safe is to put more police officers on the street.” Though for better or worse, it does work everywhere and every time it’s been tried. The riff-raff don’t like police presence in any quantity. Minority neighborhood leaders beg for more visible law enforcement in those areas, yet their own city ‘leadership’ continue to deny those who can’t move away from crime-ridden areas even simple relief, like more frequent patrols. I truly empathize for those who want safer neighborhoods but get only the proverbial finger from their town and city councils when they speak up.
Why do the minorities vote for these wack jobs?
Perhaps it’s Pavlovian?
Well said!
Wait!
LGBTQ,
Communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs),
and other direct and mortal enemies of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans and America,
but not
“…racists, white nationalists, and misogynists?”
“THE CHIPS ARE DOWN”
______________________
FREEDOM OF SPEECH ET AL.
V.
“DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT”
___________________________________
“Today we are engaged in a final, all-out battle between communistic atheism and Christianity. The modern champions of communism have selected this as the time. And, ladies and gentlemen, the chips are down—they are truly down.”
– Joseph McCarthy, February 9, 1950
______________________________
“[Alger] Hiss was convicted [of perjury related to espionage]…[o]n January 21, 1950, he was sentenced to five years in prison, ending an important case that helped further confirm the increasing penetration of the U.S. government by the Soviets during the Cold War.”
– FBI
____
Alger Hiss was emblematic, but the tip of the iceberg, of the insidious corruption of the Roosevelt administration by communists.
______________________________________________________________________________________________________
Alger Hiss
During the era of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal, Hiss became a government attorney. In 1933, he served briefly at the Justice Department and then became a temporary assistant on the Senate’s Nye Committee, investigating cost overruns and alleged profiteering by military contractors during World War I.[10] During this period, Hiss was also a member of the liberal legal team headed by Jerome Frank that defended the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA) against challenges to its legitimacy. Because of intense opposition from agribusiness in Arkansas, Frank and his left-wing assistants, who included future labor lawyer Lee Pressman, were fired in 1935 in what came to be known as “the purge of liberals”.[11] Hiss was not fired, but allegations that during this period he was connected with radicals on the Agriculture Department’s legal team were to be the source of future controversy.[citation needed]
In the meantime, Hiss also served initially as “investigator”[12] and then “legal assistant”[13][14][15] (counsel) to the Nye Committee from July 1934 to August 1935.[16] He “badgered” DuPont officials and questioned and cross-examined Bernard Baruch on March 29, 1935.[17][18][19][20] In 1947, Baruch and Hiss both attended the burial of Nicholas Murray Butler. In 1988, he called Baruch a “vain and overrated Polonius much given to trite pronouncements about the nation”.[21]
In 1936, Alger Hiss and his younger brother Donald Hiss began working under Cordell Hull in the State Department. Alger was an assistant to Assistant Secretary of State Francis B. Sayre (son-in-law of Woodrow Wilson) and then special assistant to the director of the Office of Far Eastern Affairs. From 1939 to 1944, Hiss was an assistant to Stanley Hornbeck, a special adviser to Cordell Hull on Far Eastern affairs.[citation needed]
In 1944, Hiss was named Director of the Office of Special Political Affairs, a policy-making entity devoted to planning for post-war international organizations. Hiss served as executive secretary[22] of the Dumbarton Oaks Conference, which drew up plans for the future United Nations. In November 1944, Hull, who had led the United Nations project, retired as Secretary of State due to poor health and was succeeded by Undersecretary of State Edward Stettinius.[citation needed]
In February 1945, as a member of the US delegation headed by Stettinius, Hiss attended the Yalta Conference, where the Big Three, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Joseph Stalin, and Winston Churchill, met to consolidate their alliance to forestall any possibility, now that the Soviets had entered German territory, that any of them might make a separate peace with the Nazi regime. Negotiations addressed the postwar division of Europe and configuration of its borders; reparations and de-Nazification; and the still unfinished plans, carried over from Dumbarton Oaks, for the United Nations. Before the conference took place, Hiss participated in the meetings where the American draft of the “Declaration of Liberated Europe” was created. The Declaration concerned the political future of Eastern Europe and critics on the right later charged that it made damaging concessions to the Soviets.[23]
Hiss stated that he was responsible for assembling background papers and documentation for the conference “and any general matters that might come up relating to the Far East or the Near East.”[24]
Hiss drafted a memorandum arguing against Stalin’s proposal (made at Dumbarton Oaks)[25] to give one vote to each of the sixteen Soviet republics in the United Nations General Assembly. Fearing isolation, Stalin hoped thus to counterbalance the votes of the many countries of the British Empire, who he anticipated would vote with Britain, and those of Latin America, who could be expected to vote in lockstep with the United States.[26] In the final compromise offered by Roosevelt and Stettinius and accepted by Stalin, the Soviets obtained three votes: one each for the Soviet Union itself, the Ukrainian SSR, and the Byelorussian SSR.[27]
Hiss was Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on International Organization (the convention that created the UN Charter),[28] which was held in San Francisco from April 25, 1945 to June 26, 1945. Allen Weinstein wrote that Andrei Gromyko, the Soviet delegate to the conference, praised Hiss to his superior Stettinus for his “impartiality and fairness”.[29] Hiss later became full Director of the State Department’s Office of Special Political Affairs.[28] In late 1946, Hiss left government service to become president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he served until May 5, 1949, the end of the presidential term to which he had been elected, when he was forced to step down.
…
– Wikipedia
I hope your proposed legislation is taken up by congress, Dr Turley.
Jonathan: What else is in the news this Monday morning? A lot. This morning Trump lawyers John Rowley, James Trusty and Lindsey Halligan were seen entering the Justice Dept. building. This probably means SC Jack Smith has wrapped up his investigation and charging decisions are imminent. Smith’s grand jury has not met since early May. But Smith is calling them back this week–probably to vote on indictments in the Mar-a-Lago docs case against Donald Trump.
Jill Wine-Banks, a prosecutor in the Watergate scandal, predicts Trump is “toast”. The final nail in Smith’s investigation was obtaining an audio recording of Trump admitting he had classified docs in his possession–that had not been declassified. Wine-Banks says: “There’s nothing as compelling as hearing a defendant in a criminal case say words that show his criminality. And these words certainly show that he knew that he hadn’t declassified documents that he still retained”.
For those few on your blog who think Trump would never be indicted I have news for you. You are about to be hit by Jack Smith’s “Train of Justice”! Your only hope is that the grand jury won’t indict. Good luck on that one!
Real President Donald J. Trump enjoyed and continues to enjoy the freedom of speech to enjoin his supporters and to consult with officials of all levels of government:
“I know that everyone here will soon be marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
“Please support our Capitol Police and Law Enforcement. They are truly on the side of our Country. Stay peaceful!”
“All I want to do is this, I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.”
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
1st Amendment
Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech,…or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Real President Donald J. Trump enjoyed the executive power of the executive branch.
Classification, declassification and archiving of material is solely and entirely a function of the executive branch and president.
No legislation by the legislative branch that usurps the power of the executive branch is constitutional.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Article 2, Section 1
The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.
Dennis – I know you are getting excited, but, if I were you, I would not put too much reliance on this document, Forbes says:
“Former President Donald Trump’s attorneys have been unable to locate a classified military document Trump said he held onto after his presidency, according to CNN, suggesting the document could be missing after Trump’s attorneys responded to a federal subpoena over its disappearance earlier this year.
Donald Trump’s attorneys have reportedly been unable to find a classified military document he said …
Prosecutors issued a subpoena in March after Trump indicated in a recorded 2021 meeting that he had held onto a classified Pentagon document regarding a possible Iran strike, before requesting his attorneys to turn over the document and other classified material Trump may still have, sources told CNN.
Trump’s attorneys were reportedly unable to locate the document, and it is unknown whether it was ever returned to the National Archives.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tylerroush/2023/06/02/classified-trump-iran-document-missing-trumps-attorneys-unable-to-locate-classified-military-file-report-says/?sh=1adc13fc4ab0
Reading between the lines, it is not clear if the document is in Trump’s possession or, if it once was in his possession, it has been handed over to NARA, or, whether it ever even existed. However, it is telling that when you read about this supposed document, you immediately thought of how it could be used against Trump, not the fact that Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was apparently recommending the commencement of a new world war. It appears that “that bad man Trump” rejected this brilliant advice.
And Why exactly would it be problematic that Trump retained this document ?
Classified is supposed to mean informationt hat will make the US less safe if made public.
NOT information that would embarrass military leaders.
We all KNOW that the US came very close to war with Iran during the Trump administration.
We all KNOW that Trump fortunately backed down at the last minute.
None of this is “secret”. Who held which positions is NOT a matter of national security, it is just a matter of personal embarrassment.
There is plenty of caselaw that already exists covering the fact that Marking a document classified is NOT sufficient to create a crime.
That the possession, and release of Classified documents – when the information they contain has already been made public is NOT a crime.
Aside from the presidents defacto power to declassify, when information is made available publicly, it is DECLASSIFIED.
Ultimately the violation of the law is NOT about specific papers or markings, it is about Information that is both secret and harmful to national security.
Once it is no longer secret – there is no crime possible.
And this is separate from the FACT that classified or NOT. JW v. NARA – and a long list of cases that lead to it establish that the president, can take possession of any WH documents that he please – classified or NOT. That they are HIS PROPERTY.
To Win against Trump Smith must:
Not merely get JW V. NARA overturned – but get the courts to say it NEVER was a reasonable decision and Trump was NEVER entitled to rely on it.
Get arround the fact that all executive powers – including declassifying are constitutionally the presidents.
Get arround the fact that NARA/DOJ/FBI went through a convoluted process to carefully AVOID having to directly confront all the above in a court wherte they likely would have lost.
And these are just the the elephant int he closet problems.
There is the entirely separate problem that to large portions of this country – CORRECTLY will conclude that if Trump is prosecuted when Clinton, and Biden whose conduct with classified information was more egregious ere4 not – that we no longer have the rule of law or trustworthy governmet.
You nailed it, j. Well done.
We have heard bogus predictions regarding Trump- for years – none have panned out.
Asside from MASSIVE legal and constitutional – problems – any legal theory of Trump’s guilt requires rejecting mutiple decades or even hundreds of years old legal principles and precedents – as well as doing to RETRACTIVELY.
You might – and probably can get a GJ to do so. Your might and probably can get a DC judge and Jury to do so.
It is highly unlikely that you can get appelate courts, the supreme court and ultimately the people to accept that.
While the majority of people are not capable of sufficiently nuanced reasoning to get that the president can declassify anything they want, and that it MUST be that way, Or that the President can take ownership of anything produced in the WH, what ordinary people ARA capable of understanding this that the conduct of Biden and Clinton is significantly more egregious than Trump.
Games regarding legal quirks does not change that.
Core to YOUR and typically all left wing arguments – including all the J6 nonsense, And the Collusion delusion nonsense,
it that Wrong Think is a crime – or atleast proof of a crime.
It is NOT a crime to wrongly believe your own innocence and vigorously use every legal means to assert that.
And the Trump case is far stronger than that – you have atleast 3 major constitutional and legal hurdles which you can not to get to
Trump wrongly beliving he is innocent rather that the FACT that he is actually innocent.
1). By the current caselaw – the documents classified or not are Trump’s property – and NARA/DOJ and the Biden WH have DELIBERATLY ducked that issue in trying to Frame Trump.
2). The president has the total unrestircted CONSTITUTIONAL power to declassify at whim – and you can not get past that. While declassification requires an ACT – not mere thought, ANY act is sufficient.
3). Even if 1 and two were somehow rejected – you have to RETROACTIVELY reject them – because in the US relying on valid prior legal precedent can NEVER be a crime.
You should KNOW that not only are you in trouble – but that your arguments are wrong and immoral by the extraordinary efforts you must go to to thread the needle.
Criminal conduct is conduct that all of us intuitively know is criminal – without knowing the details of the law.
That is a fundimental aspect of the rule of law.
When the courts say “ignorance of the law is no excuse” they are actually saying that the law rests firmly un underlying principles of right and wrong and you KNEW
your conduct was WRONG.
People get off by legal technicalities – we NEVER convict people on legal technicalities – or we have violated the rule of law.
I do not think there is a person on this blog that thought Trump would not be indicted.
We are all well aware of how politically corrupt DC GJ’s and DC just in general is.
You do not seem to grasp that an Actual GJ indictment of Trump and a prosecution will do nothing beyond enforcing the FACT that the left is politically corrupt and lawless.
The core question is NOT whether the GJ will indict – there is no doubt that if Smith wants them to indict they will
There has NEVER been any doubt of that.
The core question is about Smith – not the GJ. Does he want to be remebered as even more lawless than Mueller ?
There is Zero doubt Smith can get the GJ to indict – that has NEVER been in doubt.
But the has a garbage case, Both at the macro legal level and the micro level Smith has significant legal problems.
And Finally he has a massive perception problem.
If Smith goes after Trump – while Clinton and Biden are allowed to get away with far more egregious violations of the same law – while He MIGHT get a conviction that is upheld – he will DESTROY peoples faith in the rule of law and govenrment.
Those of you on the left do not seem to grasp how enormous and dangerous a problem that is.
But Go for for it if that is what you want.
I personally doubt Smith will proceed. I do not think he is stupid. He is obviously aware of both the Horowitz, Durham and Mueller investigations,
I think he knows that he has far more to lose than win.
But I could be wrong.
Smith could be the new Lavanti Beria.
As to YOU – what I would suggest is thinking about the fact that “the god’s often punish people, by giving them what they want”.
You seem to beleive that an indictment and prosecution of Trump would be good for the left, for democrats.
It will not.
If you are ” Triggered” by a ” Microaggression” and need a ” Safe Space” you are a PU**Y. Grow the F**K UP!!!
What kind of person would call for the murder of their opposition. How about Johnny Depp and Jane Fonda. I can remember when we held such people in disdain. Now these people calling for the murder of those with opposing views are deified. They should however be allowed to speak as they may no matter what discomfort may be caused. I call for their right of free speech even in the face of their attempted elimination of mine. History shows us what a nation will become when free speech is eliminated. Would such a nation be somewhere that you would want to live? Be keenly aware that there are forces that want your knee to bend.
TiT,
Good point.
We also have people declaring the Republican party is racist, white supremacists, even calling Republican presidential candidate Tim Scott a Uncle Tom.
Check out this black Texas Congressman, Rep. Wesley Hunt, at the recent House Judiciary Committee hearing call a spade a spade: Merrick Garland’s DOJ is protecting ANTIFA violent insurrectionists while creating a toll free hotline to target the parents of children who protest at school boards. Great poster board photos of ANTIFA violence in action
Estovir,
That was good!
To those in a cult everything outside the cult is evil.
Biden sanctions Iran tech firm for censorship while remaining silent on censoring US citizens
https://justthenews.com/nation/free-speech/biden-sanctions-iran-tech-firm-censorship-while-remaining-silent-censoring-us
I thought that we already had the First Amendment, as well as case law that “the heckler’s veto” (shutting down speech) wasn’t itself speech.
Meanwhile, if you haven’t watched this 30-minute video, you may want to. Explains what is underlying this. Very good:
https://youtu.be/y6rk1mYiOAw
There’s more ‘case law’ on the 1st amendment than Horatio every dreamt-of between heaven and earth.
No new laws are needed, imho. see also @ the Durham Report ‘nothingburger’
*re link; centrally-planned economies and the ‘evils of excessive centralization’ are also well documented .. . but I would not, necessarily, lay them entirely at the foot of Marxs’ ‘das Capital’ or ‘socialism’ – untethered capitalism run amok in an unfettered ‘free-market place’ has had its share of malefactions.
It’s just a matter of how you’re using it and the intent to enrage others for malicious purposes.
BS. Speech, in all its forms doesn’t cause harm. It’s up to the individual receiving it and how they interpret it. It’s why bullying works on the immature mind. They haven’t developed the capacity to counter the speech they are receiving. When they do, the bully either resorts to physical force, moves on to find another immature mind, or quits. So if you perceive speech as violent, that perception is all on you.
Jonathan: Back to your attacks on Antifa for its alleged “violent philosophy”. You just won’t let that bogeyman go. The facts belie your claims. All of the recent mass violence was not caused by Antifa. The attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6 did not involve Antifa. It was led by the right-wing paratrooper groups and supporters of Donald Trump. Antifa was nowhere to be seen. The violence at Charlottesville was led by neo-Nazis. About a year ago 10 Black shoppers were shot down at a supermarket in Buffalo by a white racist–not an Antifa follower.
Then last week the trial began of Robert Bowers, the white shooter who killed 11 worshippers at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh. The deadliest anti-semitic attack in US history. Bowers was not motivated by Antifa “violent philosophy”. He just hated Jews!
Wherever we look the increased violence against Jews, Black people and the LGBTQ+ community has nothing to do with Antifa. It is being fueled by neo-Nazis, anti-semites and other far-right groups and individuals. Your proposed legislation won’t solve that problem. Banning “machetes and axes” will not address the recent mass violence where many of the shooters used AR-15 style guns. You won’t address that issue because it would violate the 2nd Amendment rights of citizens. I guess you think more weapons of mass murder is the answer–not the problem. Do you really think banning “machetes and axes” is the answer to mass violence? Bizarre!
I am also curious about your “proposed legislation”. I thought legislation was the prerogative of Congress–specifically the House–not professors who teach at GWU. But maybe you think your prominent position among House Republicans will give you cache to actually get a member of the GOP “Freedom Caucus” to carry your bill. Now that’s Chutzpah!.
You seem to be equating the assertion that “(a)ll of the recent mass violence was not caused by Antifa” with the assertion that “none of the recent violence was caused by Antifa”.
Why do you hate logic so much?
Dennis – what do you mean by “recent”? This article comes from 2021. Is that too far in the past?
TITLE: U.S. Attorney: Antifa caused $2.3M in riot damage in Oregon – and that’s just to federal property
” Portland, Oregon was one of the hardest hit cities by riots, destruction, and violence since the in-custody death of George Floyd in May of 2020.
While many thought that all of the chaos would calm down after President Joe Biden was sworn into office, it sadly has not, proving that those taking to the streets do not have any purpose other than wreaking havoc across the city.
Clearly those who are choosing to destroy and loot on the regular have no regard for the amount of money it will cost to put all of the pieces back together once the dust settles.
The U.S. Attorney for the District of Oregon has estimated the cost of repairing the damage caused to federal buildings in Portland by the terrorist group Antifa to be roughly around $2.3 million.”
https://www.lawenforcementtoday.com/antifa-caused-2-3m-in-riot-damage-to-federal-property-in-oregon/#:~:text=The%20U.S.%20Attorney%20for%20the%20District
Now the incessant assault on the 2nd Amendment comes into clear focus doesn’t it?
I believe Turley is setting the free speech movement up for defeat by defending its excesses. For society to work and have longevity, conflict must be managed for creative synthesis. If conflicting ideas are suppressed, you get no creativity. If conflict is allowed to grow into hatred, alienation and paranoia, you also suppress creativity through the negative ad-hominem emotions. There is a sweet spot somewhere in between. Teams thrust into complex and daunting challenges (e.g., the moon landing, the Human Genome Project, building a winning Indy 500 racecar)
and their leaders have to manage divergent thinking for synergy — which means preserving team cohesion while considering competing ideas. Team leaders have to set the groundrules for debate, and then enforce them diligently.
Managing a country like the United States over the long haul is an exceedingly complex challenge, and our Constitution places that responsibility in the hands of The People.
Our longevity as a free society requires maintaining a healthy, productive, and reason-based political culture.
If free speech is defined so expansively that it permits carefully-crafted public frauds, we lose. If it permits conflicts to escalate into ad-hominem vitriol, mutual paranoia, and tribalistic infowarfare, our ability to discover clever solutions to gnarly problems will be short-circuited. If political discourse devolves into tribal loyalty-signalling, and spectacles based on eye-poking the “other”, creative energy will be expended on pointless attacks and counter-attacks — with no productive result (except vicarious entertainment — the rubbernecking effect).
My sense is that our nation needs to directly take up the topic of productive conflict, and the railguards necessary to manage divergent thinking within synergistic boundaries.
This will mean casting aside militant, manipulative and deceitful approaches to public discourse as abnormal and unacceptably coarse and unethical. In other words, as a nation we need to resolve to discipline political dialog toward goodwill, mutual trust and meritocratic persuasion. These guardrails will then define the style of communication protected by the 1st Amendment.
If, as JT approaches the topic, we try to defend militancy, incivility and manipulative fraud as protected free speech
right up to the point of violence or threat thereof, what we will have for public discourse is militancy, incivility, paranoia and manipulative fraud drowning out goodwill, mutual trust and meritocratic persuasion.
So Anonymous, I read your post with great interest. Then I came to the sentence where you stated that we must be protected from carefully-crafted public frauds. The question that comes to mind is who gets to say if something someone says is a carefully-crafted public fraud. Please explain. Do you consider those who protest abortion to be people carefully-crafting public fraud. Do you consider people who protest the mutilation of underage children to be carefully-crafting public fraud. Do you consider people who stand up for what they believe in that doesn’t coincide with your view of the world to be carefully-crafting public fraud. You wrote extensively and eloquently defending the need for censorship in some cases. I’m sure that soon you will grace us with your opinion concerning what speech is allowable. You provided a long treatise in support of censorship and I must admit that it was indeed carefully-crafted.
*Like* – I noticed the same clarifications you observed, were missing.
>”There is a sweet spot somewhere in between.”
Unless I am personally involved, I’d prefer everyone keep their sweet spots and pronouns in their pockets.
Nothing wrong with the quite in an ‘age of rage’ .. . and a pocket full of mumbles.
‘Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence’
*S&G, Sound of Silence
Free speech is a right in this country. I just feel that there are certain venues that are more appropriate for all of us to exercise our first amendment rights.
1930 Film, Oliver Hardy “Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into”
Why have any government funding of education beyond K-12? Are the enrollees not considered Adults? Why should any American have to fund another’s education? Isn’t an advanced education (University/College) another rung in the latter of life? A single statistic from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that 61% of high school students enrolled in colleges and universities in 2021. Why should the 39% not enrolling have to fund the 61%?
Universities research funding should be halted. If government wants to have research, there are other avenues. The US has numerous National Labs, Livermore, Oak Ridge, Sandia, Los Alamos, HFTO, NREL, just naming a few. This total nonsense must stop before we go totally broke, coddling mindless fools bent on the destruction of the basic fundamentals of the Constitution.
GOOD DAY!
@George
I would add: the research coming out of modern universities is worthless, anyway, a modern Phd might as well be what was formerly a high school equivalency. It’s throwing money down a hole – our money. Let the alma mater in denial foot the bill.
What like Worms flourish in dirt?
Worms are actually productive and a necessity for a healthy soil ecosystem.
Cannot say the same for some of these university grads.
Touché 😉
ATLAS SHRUGGED