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Comment by Ferrotin

4 years ago

The constitution (and court interpretation) overrides statutory law.

GP was likely aware of this but didn’t explicitly state why imminence was important.

Where does it specifically say in the US Constitution that you’re allowed to incite violence? :-)

Usually the answer here is going to be someone cites the 1st Amendment, and a persons right to free speech. From that we have Brandenburg vs. Ohio, and also then Hess vs. Indiana, and subsequent cases which use those precedents from the Supreme Court, these hold that 1A protection does disappear where someone is calling for “imminent violence”.

Many of the internet hellholes hiding behind Cloudflare have significant quantities of unmoderated and extreme discourse where participants do call for imminent violence against another party and that is not 1A protected behavior.

There are plenty of laws that prohibit speech used that is a call for violence.

>Under Texas law, any threat of violence to either person or property can be the basis of a terroristic threat charge. However, that threat of violence must be accompanied with criminal intent to either follow through with the threat or terrify another into believing you may do so. There are six specific types of intent covered by Texas law, and the prosecutor only needs to prove you had one of them to obtain a conviction.

cause a reaction of any type to his threat by an official or volunteer agency organized to deal with emergencies;

place any person in fear of imminent serious bodily injury;

prevent or interrupt the occupation or use of a building, room, place of assembly, place to which the public has access, place of employment or occupation, aircraft, automobile, or other forms of conveyance, or other public places;

cause impairment or interruption of public communications, public transportation, public water, gas, or power supply or other public services;

place the public or a substantial group of the public in fear of serious bodily injury; or influence the conduct or activities of a branch or agency of the federal government, the state, or a political subdivision of the state.