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Loretta Lynch: We will prosecute hateful rhetoric about Muslims that "edges towards violence"
Hot Air.com ^ | December 4, 2015 | ALLAHPUNDIT

Posted on 12/04/2015 7:13:52 PM PST by Kaslin

Via BuzzFeed. To be honest, I’m not sure my headline captures what she’s saying. Watch the clip and ask yourself if she’s talking about hateful acts or hateful speech. Not so clear, is it? She mentions speech and rhetoric and the First Amendment but she keeps coming back to prosecuting actions. If all she’s saying is that she’ll charge anyone who acts violently towards Muslims, that’s not newsworthy. That’s her doing her job. If what she’s saying is that she’ll charge anyone who speaks violently about Muslims, that’s something else. She could have spoken perfectly clearly on this subject if she wanted to. The fact that she didn’t means she intended to be vague. How come?

You have the right to say you hate a particular person or a particular group. You don’t have the right to try to harm that person or group. One is speech, protected by the First Amendment, the other is action. The gray area is when someone uses speech to encourage someone else to act violently. Even then, speech is usually protected. You can say, e.g., “let’s kill the atheists” without fear of going to jail. If you say that, though, to someone who seems like he really does want to kill some atheists and there just so happens to be some atheists nearby at that moment, then you can be prosecuted for saying it. That’s incitement. The rule courts follow in analyzing a case like that is whether the speech was intended to produce, and likely to produce, imminent lawless action. Because of that, it’s almost impossible to be guilty of incitement in most situations. If you’re addressing an angry mob, you’re in the danger zone. Anywhere else — especially if your speech consists of writing, not spoken words, since writing can’t trigger “imminent” action — and you’re safe. Threats operate similarly. If you say “the atheists should be killed,” courts will chalk that up to hyperbole or political grandstanding and refuse to let the state prosecute for it. If you say it, though, to a group of atheists while your hand rests uneasily on your holstered semiautomatic, well, that’s different. That threat seems real. You can go to jail for that.

So, with that as background, what does this mean?

"Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech," she said. "but when it edges towards violence, when we see the potential for someone lifting that mantle of anti-Muslim rhetoric or, as we saw after 9/11, violence against individuals when we see that, we will take action."…

"I think it's important that as we again talk about the importance of free speech we make it clear that actions predicated on violent talk are not America. They are not who we are, they are not what we do, and they will be prosecuted," she concluded.

Actions will be prosecuted? Yup, that’s typically how law enforcement works. Speech that “edges towards violence” will be prosecuted? That’s … sometimes how law enforcement works, if it meets the rule I described above about threats or incitement. If it doesn’t, though, then she’s talking out of her ass — or at least, she is for the moment. Some Democrats are jonesing for a new legal standard that would let the state charge people with “hate speech.” Is Lynch one of them? Is she going to try to prosecute someone for writing “kill all the Muslims” or whatever on Facebook, hoping/expecting that the Supreme Court will revisit its rules for free speech and allow that conviction to stand? Or is she just pandering to her audience (a Muslim advocacy group) by floating some legal gobbledygook about speech that “edges towards violence,” when in reality all she means are the threats and incitement that are already criminal under the law?

TRUNEWS VIDEO: AG Loretta Lynch to Prosecute 'Anti-Muslim Speech'


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government
KEYWORDS: 1stamendment; attorneygeneral; brandenburg; doj; firstamendment; hateful; highcrimes; incitement; lorettalynch; lynch; muslim; obama; rhetoric; treason; waronfreespeech; waronmuslimwomen
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1 posted on 12/04/2015 7:13:52 PM PST by Kaslin
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To: Kaslin

Muslims are killing us and the regime defends them.


2 posted on 12/04/2015 7:14:43 PM PST by marron
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To: Kaslin

One year to go with this BS, I hope we make it.


3 posted on 12/04/2015 7:16:25 PM PST by doc1019 (Out of my mind ... back in 5)
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To: doc1019

So do I


4 posted on 12/04/2015 7:16:55 PM PST by Kaslin (He needed the ignorant to reelect him, and he got them. Now we all have to pay the consequenses)
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To: Kaslin

Will she prosecute Franklin Graham for stating Islam is a evil religion?


5 posted on 12/04/2015 7:17:57 PM PST by Chauncey Uppercrust (CRUZ/TRUMP 2016 OR BUST)
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To: Kaslin

This regime needs regime change. They are fuching muslims.


6 posted on 12/04/2015 7:18:32 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; Not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: Kaslin

Hey Obama/Lynch, how about putting this much energy into the forelash(h/t to another freeper).

People are being murdered.


7 posted on 12/04/2015 7:18:40 PM PST by joshua c (Please dont feed the liberals)
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To: Kaslin

Farraknan first bitch


8 posted on 12/04/2015 7:18:56 PM PST by advertising guy (............Radical. Islamic. Democrats, yeah.......that's the ticket !l)
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To: marron

I’m guessing this gets close to the edge, wonder if she prosecutes dead people....

John Quincy Adams on Islam

In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the lineage of Hagar, the Egyptian, combining the powers of transcendent genius, with the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and the fraudulent spirit of an impostor, proclaimed himself as a messenger from Heaven, and spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust, by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST: TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE.

Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. That war is yet flagrant; nor can it cease but by the extinction of that imposture, which has been permitted by Providence to prolong the degeneracy of man. While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men. The hand of Ishmael will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him. It is, indeed, amongst the mysterious dealings of God, that this delusion should have been suffered for so many ages, and during so many generations of human kind, to prevail over the doctrines of the meek and peaceful and benevolent Jesus (Blunt, 1830, 29:269, capitals in orig.).


9 posted on 12/04/2015 7:19:14 PM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Islamophobia? It is not irrational to fear evil)
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To: All

FULL


10 posted on 12/04/2015 7:19:27 PM PST by TheTimeOfMan (Cruz / West 2016)
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To: Kaslin

Communist BS

Let her try to get a conviction where there’s no provable action or link such as conspiracy

She’ll be laughed out of court


11 posted on 12/04/2015 7:19:35 PM PST by Regulator
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To: Kaslin
"Now obviously this is a country that is based on free speech," she said. "but when it edges towards violence,

Edging towards violence? How about the killing of 14 people in the name of muslim extremism? Now THAT is violence. Shut up, do your job and round up violent muslim terrorists.

12 posted on 12/04/2015 7:19:36 PM PST by plain talk
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To: Kaslin

“but when it edges towards violence”

Can someone define “edges toward”?


13 posted on 12/04/2015 7:21:36 PM PST by TexasGator
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To: Kaslin

“Deeming” seems to be popular with this administration. If certain speech can be “deemed” violence, as in a trigger (another popular word these days)then they can prosecute. It’s not so much the words but the definitions. And who controls the definitions? Look how speech is being manipulated in academia.


14 posted on 12/04/2015 7:21:46 PM PST by tbpiper
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To: Lurkinanloomin
Huh. A n00b.

Welcome aboard Free Republic.

Warning: time consuming...

15 posted on 12/04/2015 7:22:31 PM PST by grey_whiskers (The opinions are solely those of the author and are subject to change without notice.)
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To: Kaslin

And in the meantime the hateful talk that edges towards violence from the Moosie set gets a big ole pass???

Methinks America is getting very close to the upchuck tipping point here. America still being mostly civilized, the answer probably will look at first like besieging Congress. And both Donald Trump and Ted Cruz will be stumping it hard.

But if the Barack cabal remains intransigent...


16 posted on 12/04/2015 7:22:46 PM PST by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: Kaslin
You're bluffing Loretta, and we're calling your bluff. All muslims MUST be deported now. I do not fear you. You can ruin my life or kill me and I still do not fear you. Go for it.
17 posted on 12/04/2015 7:23:20 PM PST by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin (Freedom is the freedom to discipline yourself so others don't have to do it for you.)
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To: Chauncey Uppercrust
Will she prosecute Franklin Graham for stating Islam is a evil religion?

Depends on whether that "edges toward violence." I guess she decides.

18 posted on 12/04/2015 7:23:40 PM PST by luvbach1 (We are finished. It will just take a while before everyone realizes it.)
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To: Kaslin

Because it’s possible to go through law school and pass the bar exam with a sub 80 iq if you’re a protected minority.


19 posted on 12/04/2015 7:23:52 PM PST by SpaceBar
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To: Kaslin

Problem with that is, anything an infidel says or does edges a Muslim towards violence. The mere existence of the infidel edges a Muslim towards violence.


20 posted on 12/04/2015 7:23:58 PM PST by Rusty0604
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