Don't Be Stupid

Don't Be Stupid

From the June 24, 2009 New York Times:

WASHINGTON — An Internet radio host known for his incendiary views was arrested Wednesday in North Bergen, N.J., after federal officials charged that his angry postings about a gun case in Chicago amounted to death threats against three judges.

In a case that tests the limits of free speech, the Justice Department charged that the radio host, Hal Turner, had crossed the line into hate speech.

Mr. Turner, regarded by civil rights monitoring groups as a white supremacist, an anti-Semite and a “maestro of radio hate,” posted commentaries on his blog denouncing a ruling by the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, in Chicago, that upheld two local bans on handguns.

“Let me be the first to say this plainly: These judges deserve to be killed,” Mr. Turner wrote in a blog entry on June 2. “Their blood will replenish the tree of liberty. A small price to pay to assure freedom for millions.”

He said the three judges, William J. Bauer, Frank H. Easterbrook and Richard A. Posner, should be made “an example” of in order to send a message to the rest of the federal judiciary: “Obey the Constitution or die.”

Mr. Turner also posted the judges’ photographs, phone numbers, work addresses and courtroom numbers.

A year or two from now, the Supreme Court will have overturned this idiotic Seventh Circuit decision--and Hal Turner will still be spending money defending himself on a criminal charge. Don't be stupid. You can politely disagree with Bauer, Easterbrook, and Posner. You can rudely disagree with them. But calling for their assassination--and then providing information that might be used by some confused malcontent for that purpose? Bad manners, criminal, and incredibly stupid.