Trump vs. First AmendmentFollow

Trump Says He'll Deploy Military To States If They Don't Stop Violent Protests



I dunno about y'all, but this is kiiiinda starting to worry me. Like a lot.

Here in Raleigh, over the past few nights, we've had white groups trying to instigate during the peaceful BLM protests. They've been tagging LGBTQ+ and minority-owned businesses with Odin's Cross. We had Boogaloos driving through fully-armed sitting in the back of pickups. We've had Proud Boys starting fires in local businesses. We've had groups of marauding white teens (god, I feel old typing that) throwing water bottles and rocks at riot cops, and then retreating into the peaceful crowd.

We're seeing it crop up all over the nation, where people who are explicitly not part of the BLM movement are causing mayhem. Why they're causing mayhem, feel free to speculate, my take is that a good number are trying to make the protests look bad. There are probably some that are just using the opportunity to live out some anarchistic fantasies.

Regardless, though, this is pretty concerning, and I'm really hoping people stop the President from saying these dangerous and inciting things.

If the November election is postponed, called off, taken over, defrauded or somehow disturbed, that would be very concerning. Trump is losing his bid for president for reelection pretty badly.

I'm up to season seven of The Walking Dead. The dilemma of the day always seems to be trust or don't trust, kill or save, unknown people. I think the lesson we're supposed to be getting is humans help humans. So to Velicenda I offer greetings and salutation and have three questions:

1. how many trolls have you killed
2. how many socks have you made
3. Why? Also, are you Varrus?

Not going to happen. He has happily surrounded himself with Yes men/women.

The President can't unilaterally deploy US military forces to sovereign states.

Calm your tits.

No mention of okra farming. No word for word script ripped directly from talk radio. Could it just be an old EQ player who had a mighty need to talk about current events?

It's not BT.

I'm all for the president sending in troops so long as their goal is to disarm police of all the military grade crap they've acquired over the years. If anyone needs that level of stuff, well, that's what the National Guard is for. Y'know, decent, moral people instead of power-hungry thugs.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there parts of speech that aren't covered under 1A? Such as threats of violence?

Also, I'm not necessarily saying they need to duct tape his mouth shut and disallow him to appear in public. I'm just saying that maybe they should vet his Tweets before he inspires more unnecessary violence in his fanbase.

Side note, are you disagreeing that him threatening military action against civilians is "dangerous"?

Freedom of speech does not include the right: ..."To incite actions that would harm others (e.g., “[S]hout[ing] ‘fire’ in a crowded theater.”).
Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919). "

I mean, he's not shouting "fire", but there have been cases where his speech has clearly incited violence.

Yes, I am aware these are extremist cases. No, this list is not exhaustive.

My point is, when we see him encouraging certain groups of people exercising their 1A right to peacefully assemble (such as the extremely armed white groups in Michigan during the first wave of COVID) while insulting and belittling other groups (calling BLM protesters "thugs"), he may not be saying, "Shoot the protesters", but that's the message he's conveying.

Yeah, he's talking out of both sides of his mouth, for sure. It's still not legally actionable under the first amendment.

You should really read up more Schenck v. United States. The phrase "shouting fire in a crowded theater" was added as rhetorical flair to uphold the conviction of a registered Communist under the Espionage act for distributing anti-draft flyers to draft-age men during WW1 as a way to protest the war. It's literally one of the most anti-free speech decisions in US history.

Except for the speech to qualify for that, it has to be very specific and intentional to the resulting action. Yelling "fire!" in a crowded theater is done with the intent of creating a panic. Saying "I think that <people we don't like> should be put out of our misery" to a crowd can be seen as a call to action and *might* qualify (depending on how seriously or sarcastically the statement is made). Simply expressing an opinion different than someone else, or some other group, and having some nut job somewhere decide on his own to take action against that person or group does *not* fall into this category. Ever. Otherwise, it's impossible to protect any speech at all. You could publicly say something like "I'm not a fan of the Patriots", and someone somewhere writes a manifesto in his basement that he's been inspired by your words to go assassinate member of the team, and by your rules, you'd be guilty of that crime somehow.

That's not how concepts of free speech work. There has to be an actual reasonable belief that the speech you made was intended with the result of inciting the harmful outcome for that to be true. And that's actually a pretty high standard to meet legally.



Except you're trying to define this based on political alignment rather than the actions of the people involved. The Michigan protesters, "heavily armed" or not, were actually peaceful. How many buildings were burned down? How many cars destroyed? How many people injured during those protests? Zero, right?

While most in the BLM protests are peaceful, not all are, and certainly those who are rioting and looting (regardless of actual ideology) are *not* peaceful. Those were the people Trump was talking about. So it's not a case of defending one "side" and opposing the other. It's about opposing violence. Period. Not sure why this is such a hard concept. When did we lose the ability to judge people by their actions instead of their skin color, political orientation, sexual orientation, religion, etc?

Judge by actions and it all makes a lot more sense.

Edited, Jun 15th 2020 5:45pm by gbaji

I mean, our country's history is filled with quite a lot of holes if you ignore all the times that violence, violent protest, and rioting have accomplished things.

Besides, when he gassed/shot rubber bullets at the PEACEFUL protesters outside the White House for his photo op, that kinda immediately refuted any argument about him using violence against ONLY violent protesters.

I've chosen poorer hills than this. Things are being done, aren't they?