Hate speech for some is hate speech for all
By Sandy . . . This was sent on December 8 to Mr. Dan Bongino.
Mr. Dan Bongino
info@bongino.com
Dear Mr. Bongino,
Mr. Bongino, we agree with you. Calling for the wholesale destruction of any group of people is an abomination and should not be supported, not even under the guise of free speech. It should be condemned, as you have said.
For those who need a little background, a little context, the New York Times ran a story about how three college presidents, when asked during a congressional hearing if students calling for the genocide of Jews violated their school’s code of conduct, would or could not give a simple “Yes” or No” answer. “[M]onstrous and antithetical to everything we represent”; “Unacceptable”; “[H]ate speech.” These were comments from various legislators and White House representatives in response to the issue and in their condemnation of the attempts of the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania, and MIT to allow some wiggle- room for freedom of speech and the importance of context. Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and current popular conservative radio host, responded to the situation in his usual manner on his talk-show December 6. At times becoming verbally abusive– in verbiage, tone, and volume level—he made his opinion crystal clear: The testimony of the presidents was “stupid,” “ignorant,” and “full of shit,” exemplifying the “cancer” that has “metastasized” on college campuses.
Mr. Bongino, calling for the destruction of any group of people is indeed harassment, criminal, and must be condemned. That is your clear, firm opinion, and NARSOL is in total agreement.
Our organization, the National Association for Rational Sexual Offense Laws, and the people whose civil liberties we defend are all too familiar with various forms of speech calling for the eradication of them as a group. Almost any online article about persons required to register on a sex offender registry—close to a million individuals with past convictions ranging from innocent but wrongly convicted to public exposure to rape—garners comments calling for exactly that: the wholesale killing of all registrants. Some who post these comments offer up themselves as willing perpetrators of such massacres. They offer the highest praise for the criminals who have sought out strangers and murdered them based solely on their listing on a state registry.
Our members, as well as their wives and husbands, children, and parents, have seen these comments and worse. They have seen the references to registrants being “easy targets” as they can’t have weapons with which to defend themselves. They see the bumper stickers and window decals and tee-shirts reading, “Save a deer; shoot a sex offender.” One threat level down from group annihilation, a message on Tik-Tok says, as a backdrop to music and dancing, “For extra cash consider robbing sex offenders, they’re [sic] address is easy to find and they don’t own guns.”
Mr. Bongino, we appreciate your indignation at verbiage that targets a definable group of human beings for wholesale destruction. We ask you to join us in public condemnation of language that targets persons with past convictions for sexually-based crimes—some convictions thirty or forty years old—and targets them based on those convictions alone.
May we count on your support? Will you invite a member of our executive board to be a guest on a broadcast? Will you publicly denounce these attacks on registered persons as hate speech, as stupid and ignorant, and as a cancer that has grown out of our nation’s sex offender registries?
Thanking you in advance,
The NARSOL Board of Directors
Hmmmmm……. let me guess, he won’t respond at all. I could be wrong.
I have been often told in many so called sex offender support groups that we shouldn’t compare ourselves with Jewish people, because they haven’t committed any crimes. So it’s OK for people to put our lives in danger from something that we were convicted of 35 years ago.
The response to that is that none of the crimes SOs may have committed are punishable by lynching.
In Nazi Germany, Jews were actually criminalized by selective enforcement of technicalities in the laws. Not unlike people of color in post-civil war Jim Crow era and even to this day. The over criminalization of our nation, aka The Land of the Free ™, began in the Confederacy as a way to thwart equal rights and to exploit the 13th Amendment. It’s nothing that was covered in our carefully curated primary education system for most of us, but it is indeed documented. The infamous Nixon Tapes are a prime example of this whereas the tapes link the War on Drugs to a mere means of oppressing minorities and hippies.
The War on Sex is not much different. People who have been convicted of heinous sex crimes tend to stay behind bars (not all, but most). The “released” people on the registry are made up of children who arguably should not be fully responsible for their actions, people who have downloaded images, people who have made nearly harmless (arguably, such as sex on a beach) mistakes and actual accidents (the classic peeing in public type stuff), and then of course there are some very legitimate crimes which make up a fraction of the registry. All of the above, once released, have completed their sentence. They are “free”, as were the Jews (and homosexuals, other undesirables, etc.) in Nazi Germany.
It’s pretty sad when people justifies harm and killing on others when the person has already served their time in prison. Being a vigilante is never a good idea to bring another Justice crusade. The law usually nips that in the butt. Because again it is unlawful and morally wrong.
I was in prison in NC, near Ft. Bragg. You know who is stationed there? Yeah, anyway I know ANYONE can be a RSO. Even Rambo.
This article is incorrect. Free speech means just that… free… uninhibited. Supporting free speech doesn’t mean you agree with it, but our constitution guarantees us the right to speak our minds. Hate speech is free speech.
Character limit now? Wow!
Even if the speech could reasonably lead to harm to others? What about yelling, “Fire!” in a crowded theater? What about the concept of there being an exception to everything?
Yes even hate speech is free speech. Used properly our constitution can still implement the principal “an unjust law is no law at all.” I refer you to Episode 71 of “Gracearchy with Jim Babka” which is easy to find on the web. Sandy, Thanks for writing this article, and I hope Dan Bongino responds with a guest invitation.
This is more of a political argument that we don’t need to have on this platform. This article is highly political in its nature. Btw, you might want to research the yelling fire in a crowded theater analogy. That’s never been illegal.
Nobody has ever passed a law specifically criminalizing shouting “fire” in a crowded theater, but it has been held forth as an example of something everyone agrees is not protected free speech.
Jeremy,
The right to remain silent is the bulk of free speech as it relates to sex offender registration. Sex offenses are considered anti-social behavior, and thereby America advertises the anti-social among the people. All kinds of anti-social media on TV and the internet. Its very popular in fact. Thus we are where we are. The world will not follow for long.
Don’t you know that we don’t have free speech except as is approved by the powers that be? Wake up and smell the coffee. Freedom of speech was abolished with the push for political correctness. Don’t hurt feelings, don’t tell the truth if it doesn’t agree with our agenda. Remove all reminders of our history. Don’t question those responsible for the indoctrination of our society. Keep them ignorant and lead them which ever way you want. Deny them the education that is required to conduct independent thought because that is dangerous. Just keep them as dumb as sheep and make them dependant on you and you can fully control them.
Can you say police state? Try it and you will be hitting closer to the truth.
Moderator –
I just tried replying to this thread. By WordDoc I used 349 spaces (not words, or characters – spaces) and was still told it was too long.
There were some glitches in the way it counted. We believe that it is corrected.
Jeremy, true, we do not talk partisan politics, but we do talk policy. And true again, yelling fire etc. is not against the law, but is it good public policy? Advocating for the anhilation of a definable group or people is not good public policy, and it would be bad policy no matter who supported it. I am not asking for a law to be passed forbidding it; I am asking for a public person who has announced loud and clear that such speech is wrong to extend that condemnation to speech calling for the death of persons on the registry.
That contradicts your article here:
“Mr. Bongino, calling for the destruction of any group of people is indeed harassment, criminal, and must be condemned. That is your clear, firm opinion, and NARSOL is in total agreement.”
Thank you, Jeremy, for your input. The word “criminal” was poorly chosen. I did not mean criminal in the literal sense–obviously, the speech being referenced is not criminal since, as far as I know, there are no laws forbidding it, nor would I wish there to be. I was speaking metaphorically, such as saying that very poorly cooked food is criminal. However–poor word choice. I repeat: I am not asking that legislatures enact laws criminalizing the spoken word. I am asking that this sort of language be recognized as dangerous as it can encite actions that harm our fellow man and that it be denounced and condemned as hate speech.
And I second that sentiment. It’s group condemnation and it’s harmful and hurtful, not to mention ignorant and anachronistic. As a enlightened morally evolved race we would be wise to refrain from the hateful rhetoric. IMHO
Someone to get sex offenders and their families to band to together and become more organized.
Arthur, Banding together would accomplish little. Currently I am on supervised release and I would be in violation and end up back in the joint if I was to participate in such activities. I would say that the majority of those of us who have survived the years of abuse behind bars don’t want to tempt fate.
But besides that, Banding together just creates a group of defenseless sheep as we are denied any way of defending our selves.
It’s a police state and the sooner people wake up and recognize it, maybe the better.
Sandy, before someone brings up the “we’re not a protected class” chestnut, one needs to understand that all humans have rights to live in peace and safety. Problem is, society is simply not outraged that SO’s are being castigated and marginalized. Society has selective outrage and selective empathy.
Rights are only what we have if they are granted and upheld by the powers and authorities of those in control. We keep quoting the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. If these are not upheld and supported by the courts then they mean nothing. When you have Supreme Court Justices that who are sworn to uphold this document, sit there and say that the Constitution of The United States is antiquated and outdated law and therefore doesn’t apply and rules on precedents and then is supported by the other liberal Justices, where does that leave you?
God given Rights can only apply for a God fearing nation and that is long gone in this country.
i heard on the news that one or more epstein associates are arguing their lives would be endangered if their names are released to the public. even without a formal conviction.
My son has been going through this. Right now another news article about a misdemeanor charge for writing a note asking how old a young woman was. He has been in probation for 7 years with no issues other than CORE not helping him at all. Now this local article has people commenting with threats and horrible bullying. We get no help with any of this from police or the newspaper. We have nowhere to turn so we close the drapes, stay home, and stick together when going out. There is no family therapy in our rural area and my son is without therapy right now in transition to another therapy group. Sitting in fear as a registered SO and our family with no help just makes us more unhealthy.