Literally every right we have comes with limits.
We have the right to free speech, yet I can’t libel people. I can’t (legally) threaten people with bodily harm. I can most definitely use inflammatory rhetoric, but I can’t use it to incite violence without facing criminal charges. I can’t yell obscenities outside at 3 am, apparently. I have first-hand knowledge about that last one, courtesy of the Houston Police Department and some pissed-off neighbors circa 2000. Continue reading
Article 33 of the Geneva Convention prohibits “collective punishment.” Simply put, it’s against the rules to punish someone for something they didn’t personally do. Makes sense at an innate level.
We understand basic fairness from the time we are babies. We cannot internalize cause and effect when we’re being punished for something that someone else did.
Instead, the cause and effect will shift away from the behavior being punished and toward something that makes more instinctive sense. Continue reading
How would the folks on the right have reacted if Kathy Griffin had posed with a fake, severed head of Hillary Clinton?
I doubt they would have been calling for her death, her deportation, or the downfall of her career. As I saw in a recent meme, they probably would have invited her to speak at the next Republican National Convention. That’s not too much of a stretch, given the White House invitation extended a few months back to Ted “Suck My Machine Gun” Nugent. Imagery of violence is okay for Republicans, as long as it’s aimed at Democrats. I kid! I kid! Kind of. Continue reading