Free Speech or Sedition?

You just knew it was going to happen. After all, the Faux media has been encouraging the nutjobs and the freaks (my apologies to all you physical freaks. I don't mean you.) to get way extreme in their political views and take wildly reprehensible actions based on those half-baked beliefs.

And finally it has. Perhaps we'll find out it's just started, worst case. Or perhaps the recent actions will start to shock a few of the reckless loudmouths into the realization that their words have consequences, and there will be saner rants coming from the right - especially now that the attacks have been aimed at legislators, not "just" abortion doctors. But I'm not holding my breath. A few bricks through windows, cut gas lines, nasty phone calls and letters - they're hardly enough to cut through the crap of background noise and get people's attention. I fear they're more likely to encourage the worst of the worst. If these things garner headlines, what can be done to top them for the next idiot wacko's fifteen minutes of fame? I'd hate to find out.

I firmly believe any other person can hold their own political opinion, and speak it an any opportunity to whomever will listen. Just as I can. That's the basis of free speech. It doesn't say in the constitution that we have the right to express popular speech, or politically correct speech, or nice speech. Nobody has to agree with what you or I say. But we still get to say almost whatever we want.

There are limitations. Everybody's heard you can't yell, "Fire!" in a crowded theater. There are some things you can't say about another person that would constitute slander. You can't tell lies on the witness stand. Some forms of false advertising are illegal. You can't foment a riot. So while we tout free speech, most of us understand it's not completely free. And consequences are imposed for violations, for crossing those lines.

But we pussyfoot around when it comes to political speech, allowing a freedom that encourages complete license, and if unchecked borders on, if not actually becomes, sedition. Yep, encouraging the violent overthrow of our duly elected government, that's right. That kind of sedition. Quaint term. Kinda old-fashioned. So-o-o-o-o last century. Nothing like that happening here, no sirree.

Really?

Have you actually been paying attention?

I know it's nauseating, but have you listened recently to Glen Beck? Hannity? The drug-addled gasbag, Rush Limbaugh? Sarah Palin? It's impossible for the well-balanced individual to tell the difference between actual convictions and a say-anything-for-ratings ethic (ironic word choice) among these individuals and others. If we can't tell, how can the wingnuts tell? When the press covers a couple thousand protesting and ignores tens of thousands of immigration reform protesters or war protesters on the same day, where's the reality check on what this country really finds important? Where are the checks and balances that help keep the fringe extremes in check, knowing these are just ideas and opinions, not calls to action? Look at Palin's website where Democratic congressional seats are marked, not for hard campaigning to turn the fall elections, but with rifle scope crosshairs? And if that's still too subtle, there's her call to "reload".

It's not opposition rhetoric, it's revolution rhetoric, not about changing minds but destroying the opposition. It's domestic terrorism, and somebody out there is hoping for another Oklahoma City bombing or some such tragedy, hoping it'll put the Right back in power after they succeed in making the whole country afraid. With their lack of ideas, fear is the only tool left to them.

Of course, most of us are rational. At least that's what we tell ourselves. We know the difference between speech and actions, between dissent and threats. We think everybody else is rational too. We think maybe yesterday's vandalism is just rowdy pranks, nothing dangerous, just like we think all the vitriol is just talk. Harmless, hyperbolic talk.

Nobody really is preaching sedition, are they?

Are they?