Indeed, Martin Luther King Jr. could have been prevented from speaking publicly because he “stirred up too much trouble”.
There’s no excusing Nazis going on here from me. But your description, Chimera, of what the Nazis did does not match the standards that First Amendment doctrine requires before speech loses its constitutional protection. “Constitutionally protected,” dos not mean “good,” or “right.” Indeed, most often the discussion of the boundaries of constitutional protection arises connected to odious, horrid speech.
But it can still be discussed. Not excused.
OK - do you have a cite that any threats of “imminent lawless action” came from right wingers who came in for the gathering? I haven’t seen that - if you have such a cite, by all means let’s see it.
Regards,
Shodan
To whatever extent localities can deny permits for public gatherings, I’m sure a group with a track record of inciting violence would quickly be blacklisted or required to put up huge indemnity bonds.
“For half an hour, three men dressed in fatigues and armed with semi-automatic rifles stood across the street from the temple.”
“Several times, parades of Nazis passed our building, shouting, “There’s the synagogue!” followed by chants of “Seig Heil” and other anti-Semitic language. Some carried flags with swastikas and other Nazi symbols.”
Don’t be coy and snarky. If you don’t think the above qualifies as threatening, just say so. “Oh me, oh my, you must not have understood me” without even commenting on the above is just intentional assholery.
OK - do you have a cite that any threats of “imminent lawless action” came from right wingers who came in for the gathering?
Regards,
Shodan
I’m not making a legal argument, and neither were you. “The synagogue received threats from the protesters?” you asked.
If your position is that there were no threats, say it. If your position is that there were threats, but they don’t qualify as “imminent lawless action,” why, then say that. It’s what the OP is asking about.
I have no idea if these or other threats qualify as “imminent lawless action”; I know nothing about the laws that relate to this, and haven’t done any research. I’m not making an argument that they do or don’t. I’m just observing that your contributions thus far are, as I said, coy, snarky, and obviously intended to be jerkish without actually contributing anything to the discussion.
You might want to read the OP, which reads
Perhaps you weren’t addressing the subject, but I was.
Then report it, and we will see what a real mod says. Also report the part where we accuse each other of intentional assholery. By “we” I mean “you”.
Regards,
Shodan
“If you ever hit me again, Philip, I’m moving out and filing for divorce.”
That’s a threat.
But it’s a legally permissible threat.
Eonwe, please tone done the way you’re addressing other posters, or take that part to the Pit. You’re walking a line of troll accusations. Thanks.
My point is that it was entirely reasonable for those in the synagogue to view the actions of the neo-nazis as threatening, and also reasonable if they saw the counter-protesters as protectors and possibly the reason the synagogue was not attacked.
Bricker, the threat question arose out of octopus’ comment and iiandyiiii’s response, neither of which, from my reading, have anything to do with the legal definition of a threat. octopus asked if there would have been violence if the protesters hadn’t been met by counter-protesters, and iiandyiiii responded that since the protesters threatened the synagogue, there might have been.
I am confused about why it would be necessary to reach a legal threshold in order to say that it’s possible violence could have occurred based on a group being threatening.
Does the OP not count as relevant context, Asimovian? Sort of hard to accuse Bricker of legalizing the issue.
Both of which arose in a thread that started with a post that asked, “If a group has a history of lying about their intentions under cover of nonviolent free speech, but routinely and/or predictably escalate to violence, how does the law address that?”
Yes, I’m aware of what the OP says. But I don’t think that gives it relevance to iiandyiiii’s statement. The question “Can a threat lead to violence?” does not require a legal answer. Saying that the threat in question does not meet a legal definition of “threat” is not an answer to that question.
If your intent was not to address** iiandyiiii**'s point, that’s fine, and I’ll accept that I misunderstood that.
My intent was to address iiandyiiii’s point in the context of the thread’s overall point. If it turns out that iiandyiiii intended to say, in effect, “But enough about this law stuff – can a threat lead to violence in general terms?” then I did indeed miss his point.
And to answer that point: yes, in general terms, a threat can lead to violence. This seems self-evident. The key (in my view) is distinguishing between cases in which the side proffering the violence is legally justified and cases in which they are not. But maybe the idea was just to discuss general triggers for violence in the world.
In the middle of a thread about law.
But unrelated to the law.
Not being a lawyer, I wanted to comment on some other aspects of the issue and get opinions.