- Top Features:
- War Room
- Glenn Greenwald
- Broadsheet
- Joan Walsh
- Camille Paglia
- Since You Asked
- Follow Salon:
Read other letters about this article
Shooter wrote:
So now you say inciting people to riot is protected speech? That's good to know. Then I guess we'll see if it comes to pass.
And you replied: In order: yes, it is. Yes, it is. Yes, we will.
Not quite so. One is perfectly free, per SCOTUS and the First Am, to advocate violence in the abstract as a necessary measure to counter whatever one thinks is wrong with the nation. But one may not directly incite others to violence -- that is a crime.
But that I know of, none of the parties arrested in Minnesota's Twin Cities were inciting anyone to violence (as opposed to civil disobedience, such as occupying streets, and per some reports, disabling buses of RNC attendees.) I've seen no evidence any of these protesters argued for riots and harming human beings physically.
Shooter is an authoritarian, proto-fascist. Why does anyone engage him?
