Posted on 12/07/2010 4:28:10 AM PST by Gomer1066
Edited on 12/07/2010 5:24:47 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
Something is VERY rotten in the State of The Union.
It was apparently okay to post it when Bush was President...
Where is the ACLU screaming for his first amendment rights? Where are the movie directors slavering over turning his poem into a major motion picture? (crickets)
Poetic License?
Imagine if someone in Iran was sentenced to years in prison for writing a poem (probably, there is some such person). It would be universally seen as wrong.
McKinley told Spencer. “That’s an extremely dangerous thing you did.”
It’s dangerous writing a poem?
This does seem odd. The article doesn’t contain enough, in my opinion, to really get a grasp on the situation.
How can you threaten the President when he is not President? Do Presidential candidates also receive similar protection?
Did the man himself threaten to kill the President or was it just a poem about someone who does this? It seems there must be some type of freedom of speech issue to allow for that movie about an assassignation of Bush go off without any prosecution and this type of thing. Otherwise he had bad luck with the judge and/or his lawyer.
His excuse was ludicrous though.
Like Orwell said, “All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others.”
It may not be fair and there may be different standards, but let it be a lesson. Anyone who threatens a president is an idiot and should expect to be prosecuted and perhaps thrown in jail. We don’t know enough to know if he was jailed simply for writing a poem. This is a lesson in “being stupid can get you in trouble”.
It should be dangerous to hand down such a decision from the bench.
Agreed, and this is in Kentucky?
I can’t locate a complete copy of the poem, which seems to have disappeared down the Ministry of Truth’s memory hole, but I did get to read it some months ago, and I well remember that Obama was never mentioned by name and the date of publication was 2007.
It would appear Spencer plead guilty to something that would have been thrown out in a trial.
Clearly, his First Amendment rights were violated.
That sucks, I hope he can find a decent lawyer to appeal. And to think, we have another thread going where the Wikileaks guy is arrested, and the discussion there is if the guy really did anything wrong or not.
Hmm. Writing a poem gets 3 years in prison. Publishing year’s worth of secret, stolen government documents is “freedom of speech”. (Irrespective of the Wikileaks guy not even being American and all of the rights that bestows.)
If a poem gets a person 33 months, I wonder what some of the posts on FR might get the writer when it is alluded by some that they wouldn’t mind seeing President Obama “gone”.?
I guess it would depend on how graphic and detailed the poem was? I mean, these NAZI groups and other hate groups are full of nuts - but I have always found their presence, just like the liberal’s out protesting, a wonderful example of the freedoms that we as Americans enjoy.
Obviously it crosses the line when they commit crimes or perform violent acts. But a poem? And of course the Imam’s can preach all sorts of hate against America and incite bomb plots, shootings, etc. that actually occur, or get to the initial development - but they seem to get all sorts of passes.
Thoughtcrime doubleplusungood.
BUT SPENCER DIDN’T THREATEN OBAMA!!!
THE POEM WAS PUBLISHED IN 2007!!!
When any innocent man goes to prison in the USA, all Americans go to prison.
I agree.
This is a chilling attack on the First Amendment by the Obama controlled Secret Service.
SS, did say I?
Now haven’t we heard of their work in Europe during the 30s and 40s?
Chilling...
what about the people who wrote books and TV show scripts about assassinating President Bush?
WTH was this guy’s defense attorney on this?
You can write a book and make a movie about assassinating George Bush and thats fine.
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