It’s been pulled from Facebook, and the Secret Service is investigating, but when nutters feel so free to even make up such a poll, it’s a sad state of affairs.
From one of the other articles on the same site linked at the bottom:
^ This.
You gotta be pretty stupid to put a poll like that on Facebook. Well, anywhere on the Internet but especially Facebook.
Nothing new under the sun.
This one from a poll site is dated 2007.
I can’t imagine the Secret Service investigating all this dumb stuff. I guess the present one was investigated because Facebook is so popular.
It does provide for a good list of people for the CIA to keep an eye on. Lists like that are good for something.
I recall hearing somewhere that the Secret Service tries to investigate/interview just about anyone who publicly says anything even remotely like advocating the President’s death, and that it’s been that way for some time now.
That’s the First Amendment, dude.
Not sure what a “Bzoink” is, but that poll is equally ignorant and hateful. FWIW it shows only 34 responses.
The First Amendment has been show again and again not to be absolute. See: Shouting “FIRE” in a crowded theater.
Absolutely true, of course. Although I’m going to wait to see if the contemptible nutjob who posted the poll is charged with anything.
Moved from The BBQ Pit to Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share.
Gfactor
Pit Moderator
Might as well rename it “Should I be sent to jail?”
I don’t know. Is it a call to immediate violence? A clear and present danger? Or is it legitimate political discussion?
Put it this way: Had the poll been “Should Osama Bin Laden be killed?” or “Should Saddam Hussein be raised from the grave and killed again?”, would it then be socially acceptable? (Not directed at Facebook in particular; nobody appointed them Guardians of Liberty and they’re entitled to censor anything they want.)
Yes, “should the president be killed?” is extreme. But if I’m not mistaken, assassination is one of the only ways regular citizens can remove an acting president when Congress doesn’t want to impeach. If we can condone acts of violence upon foreign enemies and upon our criminal citizens, surely we can at least TALK about potential violence against politicians as a method of last resort, if only in the context of perhaps someday legalizing such violence – an execution for treason by public will.
No?
Fine. It wouldn’t be my preferred solution either. But to be altogether unable to discuss it for fear of the SS showing up? That scares me.
It’s worth pointing out here that nobody has been arrested or charged with a crime. I doubt anyone will be.
It wouldn’t be against U.S. law, that much is for sure. Especially for Saddam, who is already dead.
It’s one of the ways, yes. But it’s not one of the lawful ways.
Not relevant to this situation, as far as I can tell.
If you start talking about engaging in other federal crimes online, you can probably expect the FBI to be interested. This is definitely extreme but the outcome isn’t surprising, is it? Facebook isn’t exactly private. This is like skywriting the message. If you’re going to have a Secret Service at all, this is what they are going to do. Because you know what would happen if they deliberately ignored something once and that person went through on his or her threat.
I can’t imagine anyone serious about murdering someone would put it in a public forum so all this does is waste the Secret Service’s time away from actual threats.
You have to consider at least some percentage of the type of people who are threats really are that stupid, though, or else they’re trying to enlist like-minded folks to their cause, or any number of things.
Hell, my dad still gets mail occasionally from a fifth or sixth cousin, very distant relative by many marriages. Advertising his campaign for governor of PA. As the candidate of the WHITE MAKES RIGHT party. Mailed from jail. Where he’s still several years away from completing his term for assaulting a random black guy.
These are the guys that post it online and then go on to do something stupid anyway.
In my high school some kid used the school computer to make a threat of somekind towards Bush Jr. and within the hour there were people (I assume SS but it could have been police or something) hauling him out of the building for questioning. He was never charged or anything but they sure as shit investigated it which was the right thing to do in that situation.
I think we should allow public forums where anything and everything is discussed and pondered. Including the death/murder/random explosion/beautification/love-in/martyrdom/lottery-win president of the what-have-you.
Thought experiments are valuable and guaranteed by our constitution.
Write down a plan to kill ANYONE, have guns, knives, H!N!, the common cold, a rotten egg, a cactus- and have a provable to a jury likelyhood of attempted murder, and you should be in trouble.
I know more than 10 and less than 20 people who have stated in jest that they would have been more than happy to kill Bush.
I have heard more than ten times that number state it in all likelyhood NOT in jest.
I am all about their right to think he ought to be warcrimed and executed, but that desire is NOT criminal.
Neither is a poll.
Start one on me!
I would dig knowing who/what% thinks I should die. What if I start one on me 'cause I wanna know? Why is that OK or NOT?
I have heard more than three thousand individuals personally who have said at some random point that they would like to kill some public figure, and “what do you think?”
I think you are a dumbass who deserves the attention of a bum smoking a cig- you got more disposable time/income than me, so go fuck off and DIE!
Do I care? Yeah, I do. Gimme my headlines back, you bitch!:smack:
No one here has actually answered the question.
I’m going to go out on a limb here and say ‘No’.
THERE! Deal with the Secret Service yourself, SUCKAS!!!
Someone probably will be audited by the IRS for the rest of their natural life. NTTAWWT.