Secret Service investigating university student |
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Secret Service investigating university student |
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![]() M.a. x. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Group: Member Posts: 1,913 Joined: Jun 2005 Member No: 148,641 ![]() |
Twenty-one-year-old Phillip Bailey is being investigated for suggesting President Bush being shot.
Bailey is chairman of the University of Louisville Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee. He says he posted a message on a Web site in response to someone else who suggested that looters in New Orleans should be shot. Bailey wrote that many people were simply trying to find necessities to stay alive. His posting called for shooting -- in his words --"every cop, national guard and politician who stands in your way, including George W. Bush if need be."' The Secret Service says it'll be up to the U-S attorney's office to decide if Bailey is charged with making threats against the president. That offense can carry a five-year prison term. ![]() The Link I looked this info up and well i hope you understand...well tell me what do you think
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*mipadi* |
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You have to look at it from the both points of view. Perhaps Mr. Bailey meant nothing by his statement, but keep in mind that the US Secret Service is tasked with protecting the president. They take any threat seriously, because not doing so can have dire consequences in regards to their mission. So if they find out that someone is suggesting the president be shot, they have to take the threat, even if it's a figure of speech, seriously.
Bailey may not have used the express words "I am going to shoot the President", but it's undeniable that he suggested that shooting the president would be appropriate. This constitutes a threat, and is one that the Secret Service must take seriously. I'm an advocate of free speech. I think it's one of the most important rights guaranteed in the US Constitution. But there are limits of responsibility on free speech. I can't go into a crowded movie theatre and yell "Fire!", for example; and I can't advocate violence against a public figure without being investigated. It's not a matter of free speech, in my opinion; no one is contesting that Bailey has a right to criticize the response of the federal government and the actions of the President in regards to the disaster in Louisiana. It's a matter of the responsibility of doing so, and how one should go about doing it. There would not be a problem if Bailey had said something like, "I can understand why there's looting and violence in New Orleans--you'd be desperate, too, if your home had been destroyed, and the federal government and the President failed to react quickly to the crisis." But saying that people should be shot borders on the irresponsible, especially in today's age. (It's also an overly simplistic and unremarkable way of expressing a thought, but that's not the point of my argument right now.) I don't think this is a matter of free speech. Even free speech has limits, and saying that it's inappropriate to make threats against the president is not trampling on a person's Constitutional rights. It's a matter of prudence. |
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