The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy has published my latest law review publication titled “The Right to Rage: Free Speech and Rage Rhetoric in American Political Discourse,” 21 Geo. J.L. & Pub. Pol’y 481. The work explores rage rhetoric and some of the areas addressed in my forthcoming book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.
Here is the description from the introduction of the article:
This article explores the treatment and value of rage rhetoric. It will challenge the continuing hold of functionalist rationales, including the Court’s view that some speech can be more susceptible to criminalization than others because it is more “virulent” or has a greater influence toward criminal conduct. These underlying rationales can be traced back to early seditious libel cases. This article explores how rage rhetoric has been treated historically and legally, including recent efforts to criminalize “toxic ideologies.” The article briefly explores our history of rage rhetoric in the English and colonial periods, including defining moments in United States history like the Boston Tea Party. It then explores how rage rhetoric has been addressed by the courts from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries. The article looks at the rationales applied by courts in criminalizing rageful or radical rhetoric within First Amendment jurisprudence. Many of these decisions continue limiting principles articulated in early English law by figures such as William Blackstone. The residual or lingering elements of those views continue to be expressed in judicial opinions. Finally, the article explores how the January 6th riot revived those residual elements in calls for new legislation and prosecutions.
I wish to thank all of the law students at Georgetown who helped prepare this law review for publication.
In the spirit of Professor Turley’s latest articles and forthcoming book, I present the following scene from the 1976 motion picture “Network,” with screenplay by the great Paddy Chayefsky, superb direction by Sidney Lumet, and a brilliant performance by Peter Finch (among other great acting performances). It’s 47 years old now, but like many a great work of art still rings true today:
“The Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy has published . . .”
Congratulations.
Criticize a judge and get barred. Our judiciary is The Most Evil Enemy we have ever faced. They steal and betray and remove our rights with impunity while America sleeps. Jon, PLEASE, do something.
There is only one reason for removing Trump from the ballot in Colorado, and that’s because they think the people will vote for him.
So the Colorado Supreme Court voted to deny the right of the citizens of their state to vote as they see fit.
Someone explain to me how that is not tyranny.
It’s not tyranny in Bizarro World, where up is down, in is out, and black is white. But here in the REAL world, the character Filby in HG Wells’ The Time Machine said it best:
“You can show black is white by argument,” said Filby, “but you will never convince me.”
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/7455433-you-can-show-black-is-white-by-argument-said-filby
This is meaningless. CO stayed there own decision essentially until well after the primary is over.
This is virtue signally and headline grabbing with no actual effect.
Colorado actually did NOTHING. They published an opinion that huffs and puffs but has no actual effect.
They engaged in partisanship and nonsense not tyranny.
They embarrassed themselves and their state.
While I did not envision this specific decision, I did watch the Federalist debate on the issue. The Federal Judge arguing against this made a huge point at the start. He said that very few judges – state or federal would be likely to actually rule against Trump.
It is incredibly difficult to get judges to rule against the status quo. It is especially hard when there is no clear harm.
He predicted that Most judges would rule for Trump – and that while there were better and worse reasons to do so they would not cvare much about the reason – just getting the case out of their court. That if the case got to SCOTUS, that Roberts would dismiss this as a political not legal or constitutional question, and the domain of congress regardless.
This Colorado panel has found a way to rule against Trump – While ruling for him.
It is virtue signally nothing more.
“Disqualification under Section 3 of 14th Amendment requires federal criminal conviction—with evidence beyond reasonable doubt, unanimous jury, and conviction upheld on appeal—for rebellion or insurrection under 18 U.S.C. § 2383.
Anything short is illegal.
And very dangerous.”
🇺🇸 Mike Davis 🇺🇸
@mrddmia
More off-topic (because it’s about the LAW and not Turley’s book promotion for Christmas):
“Colorado Supreme Court disqualifies Trump from 2024 ballot, pauses ruling to allow appeal”
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/19/trump-ballot-challenge-decided-by-colorado-supreme-court.html
Curiously, the Colorado Supreme Court reached the decision that Trump is disqualified for inciting an “insurrection” despite never having been charged with inciting an insurrection.
It’s not hard to guess that all seven justices of the Colorado Supreme Court are DEMOCRATS.
@Anon
Saw that too. Praying the higher courts set precedent, because barring someone from a state ballot is straight up fascism. Unbelievable, and very grateful I did not move to CO as it was a consideration last year. But for the Western Slope, that state is lost, and it’s very sad. Right along with Iowa and Minnesota. Wake up, people. 😐
Sharyl Attkisson also has TWO late-breaking articles about it at her website, where I also posted comments (under my REAL name because that’s the ONLY site on the web where I can do that).
But apparently I’m not allowed to link to those articles here, or to my comments there, having tried and failed.
Anyway, Ms. Attkisson HAS to be the hardest working reporter in the business.
Trump was not actually barred from the ballot. The CO SC stayed their own decision, If Trump appeals it, which he certainly will, then the stay is permanent. This is just virtue signaling.
Possibly, but it also sends a signal to poll workers that they can dispose of (aka not count) Trump votes with impunity. Who’s gonna prosecute them if it keeps Trump out of the White House? — not Merrick Garland or Chris Wray, and not the state of Colorado. This sets the stage for massive voting fraud by democrat poll workers in Colorado, and it will likely spread unless SCOTUS steps in with a very strong 9-0 reaction.
I do not want to discount election malfeasance. It is very real and very dangerous.
But election fraud is dangerous to both the republic and all those associated with it.
Committing large scale fraud and not getting caught is very very very difficult.
The larger the scale the greater the risk of getting caught.
Our elections are not even close to the integrity necescary to trust a close election. The closer the election the less reason to trust it.
I strongly suspect that the outside limit of the TTV 2000 mules estimates regarding 2020 election fraud is correct – about 2M ballots in 6 swing states.
I have little doubt there will be fraud in 2024. We have not fixed enough of the problems introduced in 2020. But I do not think that the scale of the fraud in 2020 can be repeated without getting caught.
The left does not have the same control of the narative today as in 2020. The media is less trusted than ever, Twitter is uncensored politically.
It only takes a single story, a single image a single bit of damning evidence to gain broad public attention – and the whole of the democratic party comes crumbling down.
Trump was down 2pts int he polls on election day in 2020. He is up by 2-4 now, in some swing states the change has been 10pts.
Democrats can not pull off 4pts of election fraud – that is far too much to not get caught.
That is part of the reason for the democratic panic right now. If Biden can remain within 1/4 pt in several swing states – Democrats can count on Election fraud to carry him accross the line. But they can not fix a 4pt deficit without getting caught.
And get caught red handed ONCE and the whole pile of horseschiff collapses.
Further lets say Democrats engage in large scale election fraud and Trump still wins – which right now is likely
With near certainty a 2025 Trump DOJ is going to delve into that thoroughly.
Democrats are rightly despondent right now. The prospects of Trump taking office, cleaning house at the top tiers of govenrment and bring in people who are committed to finding and exposing the rampant malfeasance of democrats should be terrifying.
Democrats are right now getting a taste of their own medicine in the house. Republicans have a razor thin majority. They are not entirely unified. They are also NOT engaged in the blatant rule breaking of democrats previously. But they are absolutely deaf to democrats crying bias as republicans apply to democrats the rules that democrats created.
Republicans have NOT behaved as badly as democrats did. At the same time they are relentlessly moving forward against Biden, and against the democratic party as a whole.
Democrats are and should be terrified that Trump as president will treat them half as badly as he has been treated.
I expect that in Jan 2025 Trump will dismiss the entire top tier of the DOJ, the upper echelons of the FBI, that he will fire Jack Smith.
That he will demand and get large numbers of investigations of the Bidne adminstration.
Contra the left – the goal will NOT be to send people to jail. But it absolutely will be to expose the misconduct and corruption.
2025 will NOT be 2017. In 2025 Trump has Firm control of the GOP. Republicans in the house and senate and accross the country will be behind him. He will have better ability to put people who will carry out his agenda into position. He will have a much larger portfolio of people that he can trust to draw from, and he will have the support of house and senate republicans in doing so.
The 2nd term of presidents is complex.
On one hand they are lame ducks from day one. Even within their own party everyone starts preparing for the next election knowing for certain that the President will NOT be the candidate.
On the other – presidents are mostly unfettered. They will not be running for re-election. They are focused on their legacy.
Trump’s legacy in 2025 has two major components – building on what he did 4 years prior, and proving the malfeasance of those who have targeted him for the past 8 years.
Further the Republican party has a vested interest in doing the same. The tactics used against Trump are the culmination fo decades of alynskite development by the left. Any republican in the future faces the same attacks as Trump unless those tactics are exposed and defanged.
(1) “With near certainty a 2025 Trump DOJ is going to delve into that thoroughly.”
The same problem from 2016 still exists — that Trump needs Senate approval of any Attorney General nominee, and there are MORE THAN ENOUGH corrupt RINO senators to stick Trump with another Rod Rosenstein or another Bill Barr.
So to that extent there may not be any “Trump DOJ,” because precisely NONE of the Senate corruption problems from his tirst term have been recitified.
(2) “Twitter is uncensored politically.”
That’s false. Twitter is as censored as ever, but the garbage media isn’t reporting it.
(3) “He is up by 2-4 now, in some swing states the change has been 10pts.”
That can easily change simply by Joetard dropping out — probably very late — and being replaced by someone like Michelle Obama, with the media fauning all over her and democrat voters being stampeded to vote for her without ever arguing issues and policies. I think you’re misapplying logic to a situation that can easily turn on emotional decisions. The DNC is NOT going to sit back and be steamrolled by an honest election.
(4) There are many issues that you’re overlooking, and they’re all tied to a dishonest election and a DOJ that will never prosecute election crimes because even if Trump wins, the Senate will never give him an honest Attorney General.
Remember when Biden made it clear, using a blood-red backdrop and US Marines, that Trump supporters are: “An extremism that threatens the very foundation of our Republic”?
Biden belongs in prison along with his entire filthy corrupt family of degenerates who sold out this country to our enemies.
Make no mistake. Democrats, RINOs and the deep state will never allow Trump into power again.
The Law won’t stop them from destroying anyone and everything that is in their way.
We are not fighting corruption.
We are fighting evil.
John, it takes a lot of time to demonstrate fraud and criminal activity. By that time, one could be talking about the next election in 2028. The Republicans don’t get it or get it but are part of the problem. Though I think the Democrats will lose the Presidency in 2024, I find them more motivated than the Republicans because if they fail to defeat Trump, they have to worry about the long arm of the law. That can incentivize them to be more reckless since a loss can expose them. Such recklessness can lead to increased criminality. The Democrat mindset is that everyone acts as criminal as they do, which is a fallacy.
If the Republicans win Congress and the Presidency and enough RINOs disappear, we might be able to reverse things, but that is a longshot.
Perhaps not as Christmassy as the Professor plugging his own book in time for the holidays, but a bit more news-worthy related to a legal blog:
“Jordan subpoenas AG Garland over DOJ spying on Congress”
https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/jordan-subpoenas-ag-garland-over-doj-spying-congress
The odds of any House committee getting useful testimony out of Garland are pretty slim in the absence of some sort of Christmas miracle.
The relationship between Garland and congress is getting testier, and Garland is in trouble.
It is my view that Garland should have been impeached before Biden.
Regardless, nearly all the reasons that are typically used for refusing to answer congress are norms, they are NOT law.
Outside of executive privilege which only applies to communications with the president, and national security, there is no reason for refusing to answer congress that congress can not waive.
There are good reasons to defer to an honest DOJ when they say it is policy not to answer.
There are also reasons when policy is NOT sufficiently good a reason. Garland knows this too.
There is also a great deal of reporting of conflict between Garland and Biden.
Garland thinks of himself as a good and moral person. He is not. He does not understand that morality is how you act in difficult circumstances not your feelings. You can not spin yourself into morality.
While I do not think Garland has quite come to grasp the fact of his own misconduct, I strongly suspect he has embraced the left wing nut notion that he is a victim. That he has been the good and loyal servant protecting Biden – within the law, and that he is increasingly pushed to go beyond the law.
The fact is he went beyond the law long ago, and that regardless of what is coming from the Whitehouse – whether explicit pressure or
just expectations, Wishing you did not have a choice. Knowing that there is a conflict between what is right and what is expected and doing what is expected is YOUR choice.
I do not know for certain, But I think Garland may be close to cracking. I do not know what form that will take – he may resign.
That will not change the fact that he will have to answer congresses questions.
Regardless, this is going very badly for DOJ and this admin.
Whether you beleive it is proven that the Biden’s are guilty of public corruption or not. It should be absolutely clear to everyone that there has been a solid basis for investigation for more than a decade, and that to the very limited extent that investigation has reluctantly taken place, at every turn nearly every decision has favored the Biden’s. That DOJ left on its own would have burried this as deep as possible.
That is important. It means that house republicans have a legitimate bribery investigation.
But it also means they have a legitimate investigation of possible obstruction of justice – either by DOJ acting on its own – or by Biden and the WH.
Garland is going to be asked about his own conduct with regard to the investigations he supervised, and in an impeachment inquiry the the ongoing non-investigation of Hunter Biden is inconsequential compared with the congressional investigation of the president and DOJ.
Congrats, Professor. Looking firward to your book. 😊
I hear there’s an entire chapter devoted to the proper way to spell “forward.”
@Turley,
What’s interesting is that just before reading your blog, I read an article about a Palestinian student who got arrested for protesting at UofC.
Seems that today’s students need to learn that the heckler’s veto isn’t free speech and that while you wish to be heard, the other party (administration) may not want to hear your ill informed rhetoric.
Of course the same is true that these students don’t want to learn the actual history or that Hamas is the cause for all of this heartache.
Those who are Jewish and are progressive liberals… you need to pick new friends.
I suggest you go back and talk to your more conservative Jewish friends who are either independents or Republicans.
-G
I applaud Professor Turley’s efforts. It can be difficult to market even the best books – but they do make great Christmas gifts!
https://www.amazon.com/Full-Circle-Seasons-Turn-Book-ebook/dp/B07LD87P3F/ref=sr_1_2?crid=26LCL7JRU0837&keywords=e.e.+kellogg&qid=1703011941&s=books&sprefix=e.e.+kellogg%2Cstripbooks%2C109&sr=1-2
Not just for Christmas, but also for belated Hanukkah or Beethoven’s Birthday gifts:
https://www.amazon.com/Once-Upon-Two-M-Books-ebook/dp/B07KV3VDHT/ref=sr_1_7?crid=3V1QBWGOBEV71&keywords=Once+Upon+A+Two+A.M.&qid=1703013107&s=books&sprefix=once+upon+a+two+a.m.%2Cstripbooks%2C95&sr=1-7
People tend to forget the TRUE meaning of Christmas in these postmodern times, when everyone seems to focus on Jesus, good will toward men, and all that rubbish, and forget the TRUE meaning of Christmas — self-promootion and selling products.
Once again, it takes a lawyer to remind us all what Christmas is REALLY all about, not to be confused with this silly propaganda:
Greatest work ever written in the English language. Makes Shakespeare look like a junior high school dropout. PLUS it cures scabies AND baldness.
Translation: It’s not hard to tell who the hired trolls are in this comment section.
Translation it doesnt cure stupidity
The history of free speech early in our Republic was a seesaw motion. It hit an extreme of govt. regulation with Adam’s Alien & Sedition Act. Jefferson swung to the opposite extreme, unrestrained ad hominem infowarfare, which led to the disastrous Hamilton-Burr duel. The nation, repulsed by the killing of Hamilton, drew back from the Jeffersonian extreme by implementing defamation court as a more humane and orderly deterrent to character assassination than pistol dueling.
The Sullivan vs. NYT decision (1968) weakened that deterrent, expanding the freedom of the press to run with biased-narrative-driven falsehoods. This new “speech freedom” is exemplified by the push-poll that was used by “W”‘s primary operatives to torpedo John McCain in South Carolina (suggesting he had fathered an illegitimate biracial daughter). More recently, it witnessed a savvy group of Shiite Iraqis dupe “W” into deposing their arch enemy, Saddam Hussein, at an enormous cost of blood and treasure lasting 8 years.
The freedom to dupe is now part and parcel of our political culture. The question is, how many more colossal blunders will our country make blinded temporarily by deceptive infowarfare? We keep electing incompetent Presidents, the level of professional opinion-shaping having overtaken neutral standards-based journalism.
There are calibrated corrections we could be making to reestablish responsibility and accountability in the political infospace — for example repealing Sullivan, speeding up defamation due-process, and expanding civil torts to allow the public to sue dishonest actors for Public Frauds. These measures smartly avoid handing govt. the power of prosecution, keeping power in the hands of citizens to define the acceptable limits of free speech, and empowering citizens to deter candidates and campaigns from lying their way to winning elections. Fast-response Public Frauds Courts would allow the People to deter a Mike Morrell pushing our a laptop coverup narrative 3-weeks before an election, a Jussie Smollett from waging a theatrical infowarfare hoax, or Trump/Giuliani from claiming he lost due to massive, organized ballot fraud.
I’ll take a look at Jonathan’s book, hoping he can balance speech freedom and veracity. I hope his book is not a roadmap for the most clever, compelling liars to dominate what was once a free society. A quick look around the globe indicates this is a common occurrence in a democracy when the People lose the ability to thwart deceptive infowarfare — whether the liars are already leading govt. or aspiring to.
Wordy steaming turd^^^^^
@Anonymous
Darren? Oh, Daaaaren?
I would suggest reading “Girls lean back everywhere”
https://www.amazon.com/Girls-Lean-Back-Everywhere-Obscenity/dp/0679743413
While the route to free speech has had setbacks – you noted Adam’s alien & sedition act which lasted all of 5 minutes and was not enforced, which even Adams knew was unconstitutional, but we have had innumerable road blocks – the conviction of Eugene Debbs, MacCarthy and HUAC and now this nonsense from the left.
Garcia fundimentally deals with the obscenity aspects of first amendment history.
Regardless the point that his hundreds of pages makes is that with setbacks progress has been towards greater free speech not less.
Hopefully the left today will be remebered much as Sen. MacCarthy and the blacklists are – as the excorable tyrants that they are.
Mill demonstrated 2 centuries ago, that unfettered free speech is a necescity for the improvement int he human condition and good government.
Nothing has changed.
One of the many problems with restricting speech – is who decides. The wisest people of nearly every generation have been clear – that is a task that is beyond them.
Most of us have had an object lesson in that problem with Covid, as well as the Biden laptop.
We were told many things by purported experts – atleast some of which were sincere. They were severally wrong.
Today most of us look with pity on the few who are still out in public wearing cloth masks.
Massive amounts of power were used to censor those in disagreement with the alleged truth. Fortunately – though successfull in slowing the spread of heterodox information they did not have the power to stop it. Today the FACT that we know that the alleged experts were wrong – and in many cases were lying, is only the case because their power to supress was not infinite.
We also have the Biden story. You can choose to beleive the evidence against The Biden’s is not damning. But only a few left wing nuts beleive the conduct of the Bidens was laudable, moral and ethical.
Dennis, Svelaz and others repeatedly say that the Biden’s conduct was legal. We can disagree, but is that the standard ?
Do we want someone as president whose conduct has been just inside the law – but is otherwise immoral and unethical ?
Who is actually defending the conduct of the Biden’s ?
Who is TODAY saying that Joe has been truthful about his conduct and that of his family ?
Who is saying that Pres. Trump was Wrong to ask Zelensky to look into the conduct of the Biden’s in Ukraine ?
We were told in 2019 that you can not investigate a political rival – those who said that in 2019 – where are they regarding the Biden’s political investigations of their enemies ?
Democrats impeached a sitting president for looking to investigate an unarguably immoral and unethical former vice president.
The media, social media, government, Biden, Democrats all conspired to censor the truth about the Biden’s
They were successful enough to eek out an election victory.
These are the people that you think should be in charge of deciding what can be said and what can not ?
Congratulations Professor.
And Georgetown medical students are posting vile antisemitic caca on Twitter–oh, I mean X. Really, free speech is one thing, but for them to say they don’t want to treat Jewish patients is another. Shame shame. Now I know how German Jews felt in the 1930s albeit like many today, they really didn’t think the worse would happen. That it would blow over. It won’t this time. Never again is everyday.
“Now I know how German Jews felt in the 1930s …”
You don’t have to go back to Germany in the 1930s. It’s the SAME treatment that hospitals here in the USA were giving to the “unvaccinated” in 2021 — no shirts, no shoes, no fake vaccination, no service.
Congratulations on the completion of your latest endeavor. I’m sure it feels like a Christmas gift to have this work of love, finished and available for all.
LOL LOL LOL
Funny, when I read the title of this post I assumed that Georgetown was publishing something that lacked input from the professor; Turley free! Congratulations professor!
Congratulations professor!
Keep up the good work!
Every day I am grateful for the work you do.