Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. urging others todo that

[Volokh, Eugene]

	Thanks to Hank for pointing me to the more complete quote, which
seems to be:  "Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson has suggested that
American agents assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his
country from becoming 'a launching pad for communist infiltration and
Muslim extremism.'

	"'We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has
come that we exercise that ability' . . . .

	"'We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you
know, strong-arm dictator. . . . It's a whole lot easier to have some of
the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.' . . .

	"'You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination,
but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really
ought to go ahead and do it . . . .  It's a whole lot cheaper than
starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.'"

	These certainly are pretty "strident" statements, as Hank
suggests; but they still seem to me to be quite different from the
Rushdie fatwa, for reasons I noted in my original post.

	Eugene	

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chambers, Henry [mailto:hchamber at richmond.edu] 
> Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 11:24 AM
> To: Volokh, Eugene; ConLaw Prof
> Subject: RE: Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. 
> urging others todo that
> 
> 
> Regardless of whether Rev. Robertson's statements are 
> protected or not, I think they were bit more strident than 
> suggested by the quote Eugene noted.  The quote I heard from 
> Robertson's mouth on tape this morning tracks what the 
> Sun-Sentinel reports.  See 
> 
>
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/caribbean/sfl-823robertson,0,5791
710.story?coll=sfla-news-caribbean
> 
> -Hank 
> 
> Henry L. Chambers, Jr., Professor of Law
> University of Richmond School of Law
> 28 Westhampton Way
> Richmond, VA 23173
> 804-289-8199
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu 
> [mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
> Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 1:29 PM
> To: ConLaw Prof
> Subject: Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. 
> urging others todo that
> 
> 	The quote from Robertson that I saw was "I don't know 
> about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we are 
> trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go 
> ahead and do it.  It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a 
> war . . . and I don't think any oil shipments will stop."  In 
> context, the "we" seems to be referring to the U.S. 
> government (partly because that's the likely "we" in "if he 
> thinks we are trying to assassinate him," and partly because 
> I take it that "doctrine of assassination" refers to the 
> legal rules related to U.S. assassinations).
> 
> 	It seems to me that this makes this far less 
> threatening than a fatwa that calls on all believers to kill 
> someone.  Among other things, it doesn't materially increase 
> the risk to Chavez (as the risk to Rushdie was increased by 
> the fatwa against him), since presumably the U.S. 
> government's assassinate-or-not decision is unlikely to be 
> that much influenced by one evangelist's suggestion.  Things 
> might be different if Robertson's followers seemed likely to 
> interpret the statement as a veiled call for them to do the 
> assassinating themselves; but I have no reason to think that 
> this is likely.
> 
> 	I should say that I don't think the U.S. ought to 
> assassinate Chavez (though from all I hear he's a pretty bad 
> guy).  On the other hand, I wouldn't rule out the U.S.'s 
> assassinating world leaders under certain circumstances 
> (which I stress again are not present here); and it seems to 
> me that citizens would be entitled to call on our government 
> to engage in such action, even if the legal rule had been 
> less speech-protective than the Brandenburg rule.
> 
> 	Whether the U.S. government should specifically disavow 
> Robertson's statements or whether it should dismiss them as 
> beneath comment strikes me as a question of what's good 
> foreign policy, on which I have no opinion.
> 
> 	Eugene 
> 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
> > [mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Bob Sheridan
> > Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 10:16 AM
> > To: ConLaw Prof
> > Subject: Robertson's Fatwa
> > 
> > 
> > Pat Robertson has issued a call for the assassination of Venezuelan
> > President Hugo Chavez on the ground that it is the duty of 
> > the U.S. to 
> > stop him from making Venezuela "a launching pad for communist 
> > infiltration and Muslim extremism," according to the 
> > Associated Press today.
> > 
> > I'm having trouble distinguishing Imam Robertson's fatwa from
> > the one(s) 
> > issued by the imams in Salman Rushdie's case for writing the 
> > Satanic Verses.
> > 
> > It looks like religious extremism has arrived on these shores
> > ahead of 
> > the Muslims; or perhaps Robertson has taken a lesson from the 
> > imam's book.
> > 
> > Fortunately, under Brandenburg, Robertson is protected in his
> > advocacy 
> > of assassination.
> > 
> > I don't suppose Robertson would consider protecting the
> > country against 
> > fundamentalist religious extremism by being more careful what 
> > he urges 
> > his followers to do.  Or that the White House would consider 
> > disavowing 
> > a statement that it didn't make, but one of its supporters did.
> > 
> > rs
> > 
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