Urging the government to assassinate someone vs. urging others
todo that
Bob Sheridan
bobsheridan at earthlink.net
Tue Aug 23 12:13:33 PDT 2005
The role of religion in this is that Pat Robertson is a religious leader
and was before he became a political leader. He ran for president and
urges his religious and political followers to take political stances.
I wondered whether his statements, if uttered in 1917-1925, would have
got him 20 years in the federal pen a la Debs, Gitlow, et. al.
I was also interested in the distinction between fundamentalist calls to
assassination when uttered by Muslims as opposed to Christians.
Robertson's call (advocacy) seems to be such a great current example for
illustrating FA expression law. Debs was on the wrong side of
conventional thinking during WWI, while Robertson is oh, so true blue.
rs
Rick Duncan wrote:
> I agree with Eugene's take on this.
>
> Change the facts by making the date 1940, and a secular speaker says
> roughly what Robertson said, but about the US govt taking out Hitler.
> Strident, but understandable?
>
> Indeed, I don't see any religious references in Robertson's diatribe.
> This looks to me more like a secular political statement than a
> religious call to arms.
>
> Rick Duncan
>
>
> */"Volokh, Eugene" <VOLOKH at law.ucla.edu>/* wrote:
>
> 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 do! n'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 lik! ely "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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>
>
> Rick Duncan
> Welpton Professor of Law
> University of Nebraska College of Law
> Lincoln, NE 68583-0902
>
> "When the Round Table is broken every man must follow either Galahad
> or Mordred: middle things are gone." C.S.Lewis, Grand Miracle
>
> "I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or
> numbered." --The Prisoner
>
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