Posted on 06/06/2023 1:42:07 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Criticizing the law by calling for people to break it is an American tradition.
Federal law prohibits encouraging or inducing unlawful immigration for private financial gain. In March, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case, United States v. Hansen, that asks whether that law unconstitutionally abridges freedom of speech.
The law deserves to die on First Amendment grounds. As the Rutherford Institute and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression observed in an amicus brief they filed in the case, "expressing disagreement with laws through advocacy of their violation" is "part of a deeply rooted American tradition." That tradition includes abolitionists who urged defiance of pro-slavery statutes and civil rights activists who championed nonviolent resistance to Jim Crow laws. "Criminalizing mere encouragement of unlawful conduct," the brief warned, "would chill speech essential to movements advocating political and social change."
A modern hypothetical further illustrates the point. Assume that a self-described advocate of an open-borders immigration policy writes a book urging civil disobedience in the face of what the author argues is an unjust immigration regime. The book directly calls for undocumented immigrants to remain in the United States illegally and to fight for their rights.
The sale of such a book would seem to violate the plain text of the federal prohibition on encouraging illegal immigration for financial gain. Yet the First Amendment just as clearly protects the author's right to write and sell such a book. In that sort of contest between a federal law and a constitutional liberty, the Constitution always deserves to win.
During oral arguments, at least one justice seemed to concur. "Under this statute," Justice Sonia Sotomayor noted, "we're criminalizing words related to immigration. And I thought there were only certain statutes that were immune to First Amendment challenges," such as laws governing "obscenity" or "fighting words," while "everything else is subject to the First Amendment and strict scrutiny. So why should we uphold a statute that criminalizes words?"
This statute "criminalizes words," Sotomayor stressed once again a few minutes later. "Shouldn't we be careful before we uphold that kind of statute?" It was exactly the right question to ask. Let us hope Sotomayor does not find herself penning the right answer in dissent.
No more than encouraging bank robbery or ballot-voter fraud.
Encouraging illegal *anything* has been illegal going back to British common law, so I’m gonna say ‘no’.
Kind of like treason is protected by the First Amendment.
So, Freepers who were encouraging sheriffs, law enforcement not to enforce certain gun laws were breaking the law?
Were those people advocating a crime? Answer your own question.
The Constitution in Article I Section 8 gives Congress the power "To establish a uniform Rule of Naturalization... throughout the United States;"
The "free speech" argument should be the right of the people to advocate for a change to the uniform rules of naturalization or the changing of laws.
Advocating for breaking the law is not free speech and would also violate peaceable assembly (unless one can argue that breaking the law is a peaceful activity).
-PJ
And I've heard Freepers say, one should carry a gun, even if it's against law, because one's life is more important. That's advocating someone to commit a crime.
What about states where there is a law teachers can't tell parents a child is going to have an abortion or change sexes?
Your original question was vague enough to be a set-up.
Advocating illegal action is always wrong. And in this case should be considered treason.
I a not trying to set up anyone, just pointing out conservatives sometimes advocate ignoring laws we find unjust.
You mean like talking freely about the possibility that masks don’t protect against Covid? Or speaking about Covid jabs being less effective and more dangerous than herd immunity from avoiding lockdowns?
Things which made people get banned, put in social media jail and denounced by professional organizations such as medical and nursing ones?
That was that old time “freedom of speech.”
NOW they want to talk about things they agree with?
I live in CA, where "intentionally misgendering" someone is against the law. So, if I tell someone they should use people's real gender, you think I am a criminal?
Is someone a criminal if they tell someone to get a high capacity magazine, or if they "commit self defense?"
Aiding and abetting. Or even,dare I say, COLLUSION.
But those are protected by the 1st Amendment. I can sit around all day long telling people how great robbing banks is. I can write a book about my career as a pimp and how wonderful a life it is... in fact quite a few people have done those kind of things. I mean, “Goodfellas” is a true story, after all.
“Advocating illegal action is always wrong.”
So you think we should still be bowing to the British crown then?
Criticizing the law by calling for people to break it is an American tradition.
Nope it’s an unbinding amendment democrats playing with their trickenolgy toys again.
It's perfectly legal to say "this law is bogus, everyone should ignore it"... or to advocate violating the law in a general sense. It's even perfectly legal to describe, in detail, the methodology of exactly how to violate a law, or how to do so without being caught. That's all protected speech.
Where you run afoul of the law is when you start getting specific. If you say, for example, "we should rob the 1st National Bank on Main St, next Tuesday at 10 AM", then you are conspiring to actually commit a crime, and that's illegal. But until you get specific like that, you can always argue you were making a political statement, or talking theoretically, or speaking "purely for educational purposes", or making a joke, etc, etc. There are a thousand imaginable defenses to avoid a criminal charge, right up until the point where you are making a concrete and specific plan for criminal action.
Encouraging, and supporting someone to break the law is aiding and abetting.
So, if I tell someone not to bake a gay wedding cake, to get a high capacity magazine, not to pay taxes, or to misgender someone, I should go to jail?
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