BQ78 said:

---

Disagree

---

I can see why you might. There is definitely a reasonable argument for this to be a free speech issue.

BQ78 said:

---

Disagree

---

Perhaps I am misunderstanding your OP which I interpreted to be more about sedition charges, which seem to be quite rare in modern history. Have the capitol rioters been charged with sedition yet? I have only seen articles stating that it was under consideration.
As to "how bad can it get" in regard to government crackdown to political speech, Cointelpro is an example of the FBI interfering and infiltrating domestic political organizations, even leading to outright assassinations. There is a movie coming out next week about the killing of Fred Hampton which is a prime example of this.

It's more about the laws not the charges. But I will say it may have not been called sedition but there were laws created during World War I that amounted to sedition laws that were enforced and many people prosecuted and jailed under them.

I find it interesting that at the time of World War I the divisions in the country were not unlike today. The East Coast liberals were all in on the allies and the mid-west with a lot of German heritage was more pro Triple Entente. The East Coast elite wanted any middle America dissent crushed.

Quote:

---

In our time we've seen the Patriot Act.

---

Irrelevant to the discussion of sedition. It did absolutely nothing to prevent Americans from protesting the war, expressing their views, etc.

Really, I would argue that the increased government surveillance it authorized would make people be careful about their freedom to speak and I easily see that as being a big part of the current administration's way of going after the right today.

The Act also made it illegal to service a terrorist groups even if your services were legal and not intended to aid a terroristic act. The definition of "terrorist group" was also changed by the law and could easily be applied today to the right's "insurrectionists" and "white supremacists."

Not blatantly a seditionist law but like the World War I laws, disguised as well meaning but still on the slippery slope to controlling the message by the government, IMO.

Quote:

---

I would argue that the increased government surveillance it authorized against people who have warrants on them related to a suspicion of terrorist connections would make people be careful about their freedom to speak

---

Fixed it for you.

Carter Page says fix it again.

I know this is an old thread, but I was cogitating on the folks who compared Facebook memes with electioneering.

I still maintain that the 1st Amendment specifically protects political speech, and short of advocating for an armed overthrow, you ought to be able to say whatever you wish.

As I said before, the only way I would entertain even the investigation into posting memes, was if it could be proven that the people posting them were spreading disinformation while pretending to be federal, state or local authorities. For example, me posting on a Twitter of Facebook account that all Democrats vote on the Wednesday after election day, is simply a joke. Me putting it up on a fake website, pretending to be the Texas Sec of State, that's a different level.

I wanted to further state that things posted online have zero comparison to electioneering. Here's the main reason: The total disconnect between the "speaker" and the "listener". I can post fake memes all day, and I will never know who say them, or if they believed them. The people reading the memes, if they have IQs above room temperature, know that people lie in memes all the time. They don't know me. I have no power over them.

They are under no obligation or duress to take me seriously.

Now let's talk about electioneering. For that, I would have to go physically to the polling place. I would state my lies in front of them. I could bully or harass them. They might be my employees, or I might be a police chief or school board member. They might have been black in a small town in the South in the 1930s. Or they might be white at a polling place "guarded" by Black Panthers in 2016.

Completely different level. The subject of the OP is not electioneering.

CanyonAg77 said:

---

I know this is an old thread, but I was cogitating on the folks who compared Facebook memes with electioneering.

I still maintain that the 1st Amendment specifically protects political speech, and short of advocating for an armed overthrow, you ought to be able to say whatever you wish.

As I said before, the only way I would entertain even the investigation into posting memes, was if it could be proven that the people posting them were spreading disinformation while pretending to be federal, state or local authorities. For example, me posting on a Twitter of Facebook account that all Democrats vote on the Wednesday after election day, is simply a joke. Me putting it up on a fake website, pretending to be the Texas Sec of State, that's a different level.

I wanted to further state that things posted online have zero comparison to electioneering. Here's the main reason: The total disconnect between the "speaker" and the "listener". I can post fake memes all day, and I will never know who say them, or if they believed them. The people reading the memes, if they have IQs above room temperature, know that people lie in memes all the time. They don't know me. I have no power over them.

They are under no obligation or duress to take me seriously.

Now let's talk about electioneering. For that, I would have to go physically to the polling place. I would state my lies in front of them. I could bully or harass them. They might be my employees, or I might be a police chief or school board member. They might have been black in a small town in the South in the 1930s. Or they might be white at a polling place "guarded" by Black Panthers in 2016.

Completely different level. The subject of the OP is not electioneering.

---

You make good arguments and I tend to agree with you.

Again, this case has nothing to do with sedition.