The right wing harasses, intimidates and threatens people online. They aren’t going to stop, because it works for them.
When you watch someone screaming and punching a flight attendant when they are asked to wear a mask, it changes what you might do when you see someone not wearing a mask.
When people show up with guns at school board member’s house they aren’t there using their 1st Amendment rights. it’s not a conversation about an issue. It’s a threat.
In today’s Justice Department oversight committee hearing, AG Merrick Garland was asked to re-edify Jamie Raskin’s colleagues on what the 1st Amendment protects and what it doesn’t protect. He said,
“What they are not allowed to do is threaten people with death or serious bodily injury.”
I admire the school board member who spoke out about her death threats, but how many people think, “I’m not going to be on a school board if it means getting death threats & people coming to my house with guns.”?
I’ve noticed that the media is very reluctant to push for any consequences for threatening speech. They get all balled up into questions of, “What is free speech?” and bend over backwards to give people the benefit of the doubt for their threatening speech.
The media never want to be seen as being against people’s speech. But threatening speech is not protected speech. When I use that phrase, it starts questions of definitions. What is the definition of a threat? What is “true threat”? What is actionable by law enforcement? What was the intent?
The justice system is slow. Social media & TV news is fast. When the media run threat stories, they usually can’t show any immediate legal consequences to the ones making the threats. Occasionally they can show people getting fired. Or kicked off social media. But often there are no negative consequences at all.
People are rewarded for their violent rhetoric with likes and shares. In some cases it leads to donations, electoral votes and political power.
If people are arrested, tried and punished for their threats, those cases can take years to be resolved. I think that the resolution of those cases should be widely publicized, but they are not.
I’ve been following up on cases of death threats to public health officials in Colorado, Idaho, California and Oklahoma from the start of the pandemic. Cases are still pending. The public hears NOTHING about what happened to the people doing the threatening until months or years later. But the impact on those threatened lingers, especially with no resolution.
There was a recent story saying that COVID lockdowns have made things worse.
Following the killing of Sir David Amess, there have been renewed concerns about whether lockdowns have created the conditions for a surge in hate, as frustrated extremists or people vulnerable to radicalisation hunkered down over their laptops and mobile phones.
‘Nastier than ever’: have Covid lockdowns helped fuel online hate? Guardian. 10-21-2021
Intimidations and threats to election workers, health care officials and politicians is all part of Trump’s legacy. I’ve seen multiple stories on Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes & Lawrence O’Donnell’s shows about this, but because they just happened, we can’t see the negative legal consequences to the people making the threat.
One way to address the slowness of the justice system regarding threats would be when the media runa a story about a NEW death threat, they could look at similar cases that have already made it through the legal system.
For example, do you remember the guy who called Rep. Ilhan Omar’s D.C. office on March of 2019 and threatened to shoot and kill the congresswoman? It made the news with the line that someone, “ought to put a bullet in her skull.” but few people know what happened next. I wrote about it here in May of 2019
What should people do about on-line death threats?
Patrick W. Carlineo, 55, of Addison New York spent a year in prison. He was released in March of 2021. The sentence could have been longer, but it wasn’t because of a request for leniency from Rep. Omar.
In a letter to U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci Jr., she had urged leniency and a restorative justice approach at sentencing, writing: “The answer to hate is not more hate; it is compassion.”
She said a lengthy prison term or a burdensome fine would “only increase his anger and resentment” while restorative justice would let him “make amends and seek redemption.”
In death threat case, court nixes penalty Rep. Omar urged, AP May 21, 2021
What has happened to all the men and women who have threatened AOC, Omar and others BEFORE 1/6? What about the people who threatened Dr. Fauci and multiple health care officials? How many have been charged? Are any in prison? How many were given a slap on the wrist?
When I’ve brought up the need for consequences for those making death threats and violent rhetoric I’ve suggested multiple responses. My preferred method is to cut their revenue streams. Others have contacted their employers and licencing boards.
Another way is to alert the people in their community and social groups they belong too. The key is to find the groups whose opinion they care about and who publicly will come out against death threats.
Is Carlineo Catholic? Get his parish priest to condemn the death threats to Rep. Omar. Make it clear that what Carlineo said was not protected free speech and they will condemn it. Does he call himself a Christian? Find his minster and ask what Jesus had to say about threatening to kill others.
“But Spocko, what’s the point? He was probably a member of a nutball church, Oath Keepers & Proud Boys! They love it when someone attacks a member of the Squad!”
Sure, it’s possible all the groups he belongs to are extremists, but most groups publicly condemn violent rhetoric, death threats and threats of physical violence. In fact, many of them have by-law’s and organizational rules against threatening speech. Until Trump became President, the Republican party would publicly condemn threats of violence.
Why bother getting statements condemning violence from the groups people like Carlineo belong to? To RE-NORMALIZE that making death threats is wrong.