Responsibility of elected officials against a backdrop of violence

[Crowley, Donald]

Being generally of the "more ideas the merrier sort" I can't believe I'm
about to say this, but, is there any chance we can get back to something
vaguely connected to constitutional law.  This "whose comments were more
irresponsible" discussion has become exceedingly tedious. Apparently
even the server thinks it has gotten tedious since it rejects new posts
as "too long".   Lets talk about who will replace Stevens or whether the
State Attorney Generals notion of the 10th amend is even vaguely
coherent or something.

 

Don

 

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Volokh, Eugene
Sent: Thursday, April 08, 2010 9:18 AM
To: 'conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu'
Subject: RE: Responsibility of elected officials against a backdrop of
violence

 

My point in my posts - which I take it Judge Boggs was implicitly
supporting - is that, no, those who claim that Republican officials are
behaving much worse than Democratic officials (with respect to the
supposed purposeful or reckless egging on of violence or vandalism) are
not right.  Neither set of officials is behaving particularly badly at
all.

 

Eugene

 

From: Mitch Berman [mailto:MBerman at law.utexas.edu] 
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 9:11 PM
To: Frank Cross; Kermit Roosevelt; Volokh, Eugene;
'conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu'
Subject: RE: Responsibility of elected officials against a backdrop of
violence

 

Well, yes and no, it seems to me.

 

Judge Boggs has surely captured something real and important.  But has
he captured everything that's real and important?  I'm not sure.

 

Surely it's not ALWAYS the case that the "right" posture (the posture
that is most true or objective, or that is morally preferable to
adopt-or anything roughly along these lines) is one of complete
even-handedness.   "The Nazis believed that X, and the anti-Nazis
believed that not-X" doesn't quite capture everything.  [Just to
forestall a foreseeable response: No, I'm not comparing anybody or any
party of present interest to Nazis.]

 

It seems to me that an unusually high percentage of pretty sane and
thoughtful people today believe, not only that "YOUR SIDE is behaving
much worse than MY SIDE," but also that that proposition is true.
Sometimes they are right about that. 

 

Are they not right about that now?

 

Mitch

 

From: conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu
[mailto:conlawprof-bounces at lists.ucla.edu] On Behalf Of Frank Cross
Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 2010 1:57 PM
To: Kermit Roosevelt; Volokh, Eugene; 'conlawprof at lists.ucla.edu'
Subject: RE: Responsibility of elected officials against a backdrop of
violence

 


Bingo!  And it's a little disappointing to me that such intelligent
thoughtful people as law professors so often fall prey to this.

At 01:35 PM 4/7/2010, Kermit Roosevelt wrote:

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I think Judge Boggs got it basically right in his analysis of this
thread.  But let me try a little elaboration.  I suspect that people
tend to think that arguably violent rhetoric by MY SIDE is bracing and
energizing tough talk, which we don't get enough of, while arguably
violent rhetoric from YOUR SIDE is frightening, because MY SIDE isn't
really capable of or interested in violence-there may be some loonies,
but they're not part of MY SIDE.  YOUR SIDE has a terrible history of
violence that is always barely contained.  And of course rhetoric has to
be evaluated with reference to what it describes.  Politicians on MY
SIDE may sometimes overstate things, but they're trying to alert people
to real and serious dangers.  Politicians on YOUR SIDE are trying to
mislead and scare voters.  And as for actual acts of violence, of course
they're undesirable, but the people on MY SIDE are reacting to true
injustices, while the ones on YOUR SIDE are using neutral or in fact
benign circumstances as an excuse.  (I think almost everyone would agree
that the Rodney King verdict and the passage of health care reform are
quite different examples of catalyzing injustice, though surely many
people would rank them differently.)
 
I should add, though, that I think all this is sincere-so I would
quibble with Eugene's characterization of the Democrats as trying to
suppress legitimate speech: I think they're more likely really
frightened of violence from the scary Republicans and Tea Partiers. 
 
Kermit Roosevelt
Professor  of Law
University of Pennsylvania Law School
3400 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia PA 19104
215.746.8775
 



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