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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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To: Kaslin

FULL! Traitor!


21 posted on 12/04/2015 7:24:42 PM PST by Jim Robinson (Resistance to tyrants is obedience to to God!)
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To: TexasGator

Some new legal term that allows subjective judgement.


22 posted on 12/04/2015 7:25:04 PM PST by Rusty0604
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To: Kaslin

I should correct myself. Nazi Germany had arguably the best educated and intellectual population in Europe in the 1930’s and yet they too fell to evil.


23 posted on 12/04/2015 7:25:56 PM PST by SpaceBar
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To: Kaslin

Muslims absolutely disgust me. I lived and worked for nearly two years in a 97% muslim majority country and they still disgust me. My property is now posted as a muslim-free zone. Come and get me.


24 posted on 12/04/2015 7:26:03 PM PST by GreyHoundSailor
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To: SpaceBar

Bingo! Our President is a prime example.


25 posted on 12/04/2015 7:26:53 PM PST by doc1019 (Out of my mind ... back in 5)
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To: TexasGator

Probably means “does something that it never has actually done”


26 posted on 12/04/2015 7:27:13 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: TexasGator

Probably means “does something that it never has actually done, but the Moose are screaming that they are expecting any moment.”


27 posted on 12/04/2015 7:28:14 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: grey_whiskers

I was a lurker for a very long time.
I still remember Pissant’s indefatiguable campaigning for Duncan Hunter in the 2008 primary.
FR can be very addictive.


28 posted on 12/04/2015 7:28:32 PM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Islamophobia? It is not irrational to fear evil)
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To: doc1019

A veritable cavalcade of mediocrity.


29 posted on 12/04/2015 7:29:43 PM PST by SpaceBar
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To: Kaslin

That pesky Bill of Rights!


30 posted on 12/04/2015 7:31:12 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: Kaslin
Clown on CNN, before the facts were in stated a right wing group had to be responsible.

CAIR blames Americans for violence.

Crickets from DOJ.

31 posted on 12/04/2015 7:31:17 PM PST by QT3.14 (Zero has compassion and American values for refugees. What about the 50k homeless vets?)
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To: SpaceBar

Mediocrity? He’s absolutely tops at being evil.


32 posted on 12/04/2015 7:31:21 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: TexasGator

She’s obviously never seen the tapes of King Samir Shabazz (or something similarly made up) saying black people needed to kill crackers. That more than edges toward violence.


33 posted on 12/04/2015 7:31:28 PM PST by Lurkinanloomin (Islamophobia? It is not irrational to fear evil)
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To: Kaslin

Just more the Obama people at war with US citizens.


34 posted on 12/04/2015 7:31:35 PM PST by stevem
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To: marron
Muslims are killing us and the regime defends them.

Flash!.. The regimes represents the Muslims not the American people.

Barky is ONE of them and his regime is acting accordingly.

35 posted on 12/04/2015 7:32:02 PM PST by VideoDoctor
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To: doc1019

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

Some will not make it. There will be more attacks like this one, until Obama is put out of office on Inauguration Day, January, 2017. Truly a dangerous twelve months ahead under this radical prezzie.


36 posted on 12/04/2015 7:32:17 PM PST by RitaOK ( VIVA CRISTO REY / Public education is the farm team for more Marxists coming)
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To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin

At a minimum, deport the family of any Islamic terrorist.


37 posted on 12/04/2015 7:32:21 PM PST by Tai_Chung
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To: Lurkinanloomin
Do not take this personally, but I don't trust you yet.

Just standard practice. FReep on, dude.

38 posted on 12/04/2015 7:33:16 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

If muslims kill someone, then they have an open-and-closed case that something you said caused violence.

Guilty. Next case.


39 posted on 12/04/2015 7:33:27 PM PST by marron
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To: SpaceBar

Mediocrity? He’s absolutely tops at being evil.

...

More advanced evil (I posit) doesn’t look like out and out viciousness. Out and out viciousness at least has the virtue of being honest about what it is. It looks like a bunch of dull, numbing lies and a general decline.


40 posted on 12/04/2015 7:33:33 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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