I take it you've dropped the notion that Stewart was just expressing "an opinion."
In case you haven't, here's a quote from Stewart's interview on CBS:
"I knew there was a possibility that the government would cut me off from [convicted terrorist Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman] for releasing this statement," she says, but*[the sheik] wanted this statement to get out to his people," she tells Wallace."
Opinion?
So, I say arrest people for what they do, in this country, that is against the law (law that does not violate the constitution), but do not prohibit free speech in an attempt to stop violent actions.
That's an example of reductio ad absurdum.
If you really want a constitutional amendment drastically curtailing the First Amendment (which a great many Americans aren't very fond of anyway, when it comes right down to it, believing as so many do in freedom of speech for those who mostly agree with them), just advocate for your position effectively enough:
...that criminals (blackmailers, stalkers, Mafia bosses, incendiaries, con artists) get to keep committing their crimes from behind bars if they can do it through speech, only being penalized when (if) caught for any individual act. Including terrorist leaders who have nothing to lose anyway -- even they get to continue exercising their influence over terrorist groups via conduits like Lynne Stewart.
If we catch bin Laden should he be allowed to converse with those under his influence at will?
Should criminals who commit their crimes over the internet, such as those who engage children in sexual conversation, be given computers with which to exercise their freedom of speech? and, since their surfing can't be monitored, only be punished if a parent catches them?
What is the punishment for terrorists and others behind bars for "what they do"?
Those whose ideology really does convert the constitution to a suicide pact will destroy the constitution in concert with those who already don't 'get' freedom of speech.
If it is a choice between freedom and terrorism I'll take a world with terrorism in it.
How many Americans dead by terrorism did you propose on BB would be acceptable to you before extraordinary security measures (presumably similar to those in the SAM) would be justified iyo? Was it a million? |
