6 months in prison folowed by 12 months supervised release, too harsh?

musicprnt
Sun, 20 Sep 2015 18:47:45 +0000

"1st Amendment.

You don’t have to like the “speech”. I sure don’t.

But isn’t that the point of the 1st Amendment? Speech you agree with needs no protection."

This isn’t about free speech or agreeing with what someone said. If the kid said “blacks are inferior, they are X, Y and Z”, that is free speech.

But if the same kid at a rally of frat boys says the same thing, then advocates violence or other activities against blacks, or if he stood outside a black frat house with a group of buddies, and yelled nasty things at them, that can be considered threatening, like holding up nooses or burning a cross, it isn’t first amendment, it is harassment and intimidation which the law doesn’t allow.

Want proof? Stand outside your neighbor’s house and yell things at him, stand out there brandishing a baseball bat, or telling him what you want to do with his wife, and watch what happens.

Speech that is deemed harassing or intimidating is not covered by the first amendment, the same way if you say things and it incites people to do things, you are going to be charged with incitement to riot. If speech is threatening or harassing (like my example of you screaming at your neighbor like that), if the intent of the speech is to harass or intimidate other people, it is not covered, because there is a discernible harm. Your right to say something ends when it hurts someone else, when it is being used as a weapon. Expressing white supremacist speech is protected, expressing white supremacist speech by yelling at someone who is black, telling them what you want to do to them, is not.

In this case, if they had put a noose on the figure of Jefferson Davis, it likely would not have drawn the same charge, it would be considered vandalism or trespassing, because the image of a noose on Jefferson Davis has no implicit meaning. If whites had a long history of being lynched, if Jefferson Davis was someone who stood up to black oppression in a black majority society, if he as James Meredith did had risked his life, including being lynched, for doing what he did, it would be a crime…but given Jefferson Davis was a symbol of white supremacy, of the people who lynched rather than was lynched, it would hold no implications towards whites, especially if the kid who did it was white (if he were black, there potentially could be charges, if it was determined he reason for doing it was to show hate towards whites, which would be a long stretch, the rope alone wouldn’t be enough). I suspect the two who did this showed other signs of white supremacy, had demonstrated other hate, that tied into this. usually when you plead guilty they give out rather lenient expenses, especially if this were first offense, I suspect there is something more to the judge’s sentence…but the one thing, whatever the penalty, this had nothing to do with the first amendment, harassment and intimidation are not legal uses of free speech, never have been.