A high school chemistry teacher allegedly left a comment on a blog. It got him arrested. Now local law enforcement are considering whether to charge him with “disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communication systems.”
What did the comment say?
The comment, left under the name “Observer,” came during a discussion over teacher salaries, after some writers complained teachers were underworked and overpaid.
Buss, a former president of the teacher’s union, allegedly wrote that teacher salaries made him sick because they are lazy and work only five hours a day. He praised the teen gunmen who killed 12 students and a teacher before committing suicide in the April 1999 attack at Columbine High School.
“They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!” he wrote, adding they should be remembered as heroes.
Seems pretty clearly tongue-in-cheek to me, but another teacher felt threatened enough to call the police. Yes, over a comment. On a blog.
Tell you what, I am a lot more troubled that someone charged with educating children would be so afraid of an anonymous blog comment that he or she would call the police than I am about the blog comment itself. I see shades of “Thought Police” and the kind of totalitarian regime where citizens are so afraid of each other that they rat each other out for minor things. Like writing potentially offensive things on blogs.
Once upon a time, an Irish priest wrote that his countrymen could cure their economic woes by allowing poor people to sell their babies to the rich, who could then eat them. I read that strange document in an English literature textbook when I was in high school. It’s a classic example of satire.
When people are so afraid that they cannot tolerate even the mention of violence, then we, as a society, are in trouble.
There’s an ancillary issue here, too. The only way someone could reasonably be fearful because of such a blog comment is if that person believed a reader or readers of the comment would be inspired to act in accordance with what it appears to say (discounting, for the sake of argument, the possibility that it was only satire). People put too much stock in words as a commanding, determinative power. Even if we assume that the blog comment was seriously suggesting that someone go out and start shooting teachers to take care of educational funding problems, then how exactly do we determine whether it actually causes any violence? Did that teacher who called the police really believe that someone who didn’t already have it in for teachers could read that comment and think, “By golly, I believe I’ll get myself a gun and do my duty as a taxpayer”? Or would the comment only arouse sympathetic passions in a reader who would think, “I’m not the only one! By golly, I believe I’ll get myself a gun and do my duty as a taxpayer”? Or would most readers recognize the comment as clearly ridiculous on its face, but substantially and satirically indicative of the dire nature of the problem for people who actually work as teachers?
That problem is addressed in First Amendment free speech law under the doctrine that such speech must classify as “advocacy of unlawful action” before the government can abridge it easily. Such speech needs to be an incitement to unlawful action, but it also needs to be sufficiently concrete and specific in its exhortation, so that there is a high probability that the unlawful conduct proposed will actually occur. It seems pretty unlikely (to me) that the blog comment here was sufficiently concrete and specific. He didn’t directly say that people should go get guns and shoot teachers; he just made a shocking comparison for rhetorical effect: people who oppose increased funding to schools are not likely to be the same people who want to go shooting teachers. Rather, it seems pretty clear to me that the author of the comment, if it was the arrested teacher, wanted those opponents to recognize the practical effects of their viewpoint for teachers; if you don’t pay them enough, you might as well just be picking them off, because the cost of living will eat them alive.
At any rate, for the teacher who called the police to act as he or she did, in my opinion, only “outs” that person as an irrational fear-monger and someone who should not be a teacher to begin with. Children do not need extra exposure to such people as role models.
December 4, 2007 at 10:38 pm
And as usual, it’s the fucking cops who can’t distinguish context and/or intent:
Ah law enforcement: blog comments = saying bomb in airport.
December 5, 2007 at 12:02 am
Yeah, well, god forbid a police officer have a nuanced thought now and then.
Anyway, police are just supposed to enforce the laws, not interpret them. Criminal defense lawyers almost always seem like slimeballs to me, but I’m sure glad they’re there, and that criminal defendants have a right to counsel. You need to have somebody showing up in court and pointing out that saying “bomb” in an airport is very different from leaving comments on blogs.
Like, for instance, that in an airport people are generally stuck there, within the immediate zone of danger, if there were actually a bomb, while readers of a blog, by the odds, are about as far from that situation as possible. If somebody on a computer in Florida posted a comment about fixing the legal system by taking out lawyers “one shot at a time,” on a blog maintained by somebody in Wyoming, and I read it in California, or Texas, or Singapore, or wherever I was, then would it be reasonable for me to have such a fear that I should call the police? No!
Of course, unlike teachers, who have managed to dupe the world into believing that theirs is the noblest of all callings, I have chosen a profession where people routinely make jokes about the wonderful blessing it would be if its members were dead. Also, disgruntled clients do show up in law offices with weapons and intending to commit violence probably with much greater frequency than disgruntled taxpayers show up at schools intending to harm teachers. I think I have a legitimate reason to be worried, but I still wouldn’t freak out if I saw a blog post saying that people should go to their lawyers’ offices and start shooting. On the other hand, if somebody suggested that clients of my firm should show up at our offices and start shooting, then I’d have a reason to call the police. (See, that’s the concrete and specific thing.)
Disgruntled students do show up at schools with guns every now and then, but does anyone really think those students are reading the kinds of blogs this guy allegedly commented on? Does anyone really believe students shoot teachers because they think teachers are overpaid? That this terrified teacher would call the police over a blog post is just ridiculous and irrational. I am more afraid of somebody inducing law enforcement to come arrest me without a good reason than I am of angry people writing comments on blogs. In other words, the teacher who called the police is, in my opinion, far more dangerous, both to individuals and to society, than the teacher who left the comment on the blog.
But, then again, god forbid teachers have nuanced thoughts, either.
December 9, 2007 at 6:30 pm
Whoa whoa whoa, wait a minute. I’m shocked that you’re both taking it as read that saying “bomb” in an airport is some sort of heinous crime. Does this count if some wigga says something like “yeah dog, that party last night was the bomb”? What if someone just stands up and says “Bomb”?
If someone says something concrest and specific, like “I’m boing to detonate a bomb on my plane” then there is obviously some case to at least detain them and search their luggage, but merely saying the word is NOT a crime. Also, I think it is quite likely that someone who WAS going to detonate a bomb would keep quiet about it
The fact that people are taken into custody for saying a particular word in a particular place is one I find very worrying. The fact that it is accepted is even worse. I might just go to my nearest airport and see if the British police have the same level of paranoia by randomly slipping the word into conversation.
December 9, 2007 at 7:58 pm
If you go into an airport and deliberately let slip the word “bomb” and the police haul you into an interrogation room, you have no one to blame but yourself.
The problem with saying “bomb” in an airport has less to do with the specific context of the statement and more to do with the fact that it’s a word to which people are attuned in airports, for the very good reasons I articulated above. If there is a mass of conversation around, so that no one can really hear the whole of anyone else’s conversation, but a word to which people are attuned and which in itself evokes a reasonable fear, appears in the mix, I think people are entitled to look further into the matter.
Besides, I have never heard of an incident where someone was arrested for using the word “bomb” in a non-munition context. It’s more like situations where somebody is just joking about having a bomb.
If you are so foolish as to go into a crowded place where people have limited means of escape and do something that is calculated to play to their reasonable fears, then you are just an irresponsible jackass.
It’s not so much a matter of civil liberties, but a matter of your own awareness of and consideration for other people. If you are arrested for uttering bomb threats in an airport, but all you were doing was saying something innocent, then you will have some kind of trial or hearing in which to state your case. However, if you are not making actual bomb threats, but saying things because you know it may cause a ruckus with other people, then you are still overstepping the boundaries of your liberty. Unfortunately, your overstepping really just amounts to being an asshole, but in some situations, where maintaining as calm an atmosphere as practicable is not just desired, but necessary to keep things working, such as an airport, being an asshole in such a way that you are likely to cause a disruption is something a reasonable society can prohibit.
Finally, you complain that it’s just a word, but what possible, meaningful, legally cognizable freedom could you have in merely uttering the word “bomb”? Is there anything so valuable to society that you absolutely must be able to say in an airport that cannot be said without the word “bomb”? In other words, being just a single word cuts both ways on this issue. If the prohibition was on saying things like “George W. Bush is a war-mongering buffoon,” then you may have a serious violation of rights on your hands. But just one word? That’s unreasonable.
December 10, 2007 at 10:49 pm
“Free speech means the right to shout ‘theatre’ in a crowded fire.†-Abbie Hoffman
“I may disapprove of what you say, but i will defend to the death your right to say it” Evelyn Hall comments on the writings of Voltaire (never actually said by Voltaire himself…just fyi, its a common misconception)
The last quote there means a lot to me. We live in a world where people have racist, malicious and hateful opinions about others. However, how can we ever change the minds of these people if they are not given a forum to express their views? How do we know these views are wrong if we never address them? How do we know if our views are right? I remind you that common opinion has often been mistaken and many people have consequently been forced to repent their views or suffer imprisonment and even death. I had thought that we had come a long way as a species since these times, now I’m not so sure that we have.
However, this is not my main concern. My main concern is that we as people continue to allow our government and authorities to insult our intelligence by telling us what we are and are not capable of hearing. I for one am entirely capable of contemplative thinking and refuse as a matter of principle to blindly accept the ideas of another person. We, as a result of divine intervention or evolutionary progression, have that one wonderful faculty of the mind, called REASON, that separates us from the rest of the worlds inhabitants. It is from this faculty that we derive our ability to think creatively, form opinions and be individuals. Any censorship makes a mockery of a rational person’s ability to form their own opinions and subsequently their own individuality. Words don’t harm people…actions harm people. Was it the anti-semitic rhetoric of the Nazis that killed millions of Jews? No, instead it was the decision to act upon such rhetoric. A decision that each person involved, no matter what their justification, is responsible for making.
December 11, 2007 at 8:52 am
What do you expect from a cop named “Toby,” really?
December 11, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Interesting. So inciting someone to violence is an utterly innocent act?
I would think someone who touted reason so strongly would be able to logically conclude that nothing happens in a vacuum.
December 11, 2007 at 6:05 pm
I’m not sure what the point of Jason’s comment is. Absolutely unbridled libertarianism or something? If so, that’s just ridiculous. Even my grandpa, who has tons of other flaws in the way he understands the world, knows that “your freedom begins where my nose ends.”
There are basically two ways your liberty can be limited: by the government or by other people.
When the government limits your liberty, there can be big problems. Sometimes government limits liberty solely for the increase of its own power and aggrandizement, which is a bad thing. Sometimes government limits liberty for a good reason. For instance, the government, through the Supreme Court interpreting the Constitution, has limited the liberty of police officers to obtain admissible evidence by beating people. Other ways the government limits liberty is by making it punishable to utter things like “fighting words,” which are basically words intended to cause a breach of the peace, but which are not constitutionally valuable words. You’re looking for things like “scurrilous epithets.” Our Constitution protects speech that is constitutionally valuable, which is speech that is necessary to maintain a free society where people engage in discourse regarding important topics. Saying things that are not constitutionally valuable discourse, but merely “scurrilous epithets” is something the government can prohibit, within the boundaries of the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by our Supreme Court. I think they are correct because that goes to the other way your liberty can be limited.
Other people can limit your liberty simply by existing, as my grandpa’s pithy phrase illustrated. There are all kinds of interesting arguments one could make for the historical, biological, sociological, or psychological reasons why it is important to respect the rights of others, but if you disagree that every person has a right to be free from unwanted abridgments of their liberty or other interests by another person, then I question whether you really understand how society works and whether you should be a part of this one.
This kind of limitation is the kind that might be expressed in terms of ethics (but in my opinion need not be). For instance, you have an ethical duty not to engage in conduct that could foreseeably harm other people. For instance, in light of the very reasonable fear of terrorist attacks in crowded airports, based on the fact that there are people who believe our entire society should be (and will be) completely destroyed and airports are a good place to catch people who are captive, create loads of fear, and have a major effect on our transportation infrastructure, then going into an airport and joking around about something that has absolutely no value except to test the system, or to assert some imagined liberty to be a jackass, is, in my opinion, unethical.
Furthermore, our system of law is built up from such ethical ideas. We realize that conduct is unethical because it abridges the rights and interests of other people, but we know that despite how reasonable it is to ask that people behave in an ethical way, they will not do it, and some people will be harmed. Thus, we create legal remedies that are based on describing the conduct of an offender—i.e., the “defendant”—in such a way that we recognize a breach of some duty, which is just a way of saying, “This person engaged in conduct that he knew or should have known could cause harm to another person, he could have taken reasonable steps to avoid that harm, and he did not. This resulted in the harm of another person, who now seeks redress.”
Limitation of your liberty by that method maybe looks like governmental limitation because it is meted out by the courts, which are a part of the government, but is it really? Or is it just that we have decided in our society that the most orderly way to achieve justice is to place that power in the hands of a unified (though not quite uniform) authority such as the judicial branch? In this way, we can build up a body of decisional law to help guide people in conducting their affairs.
Then we have taken it a step further with the legislature. We have created an instrument by which the people can elect representatives to come up with rules of conduct that adjust what the courts have said, or fill in gaps that the courts have not filled in. (You could also look at it the other way, with the courts as the gap filler. Personally, I think it has more to do with the level of sophistication in your society’s development than to do with anything intrinsic about the system.)
At any rate, when you are looking at a limitation on your liberty, you need to trace it back to one of those sources. If the limitation traces back to the aggrandizement of government power, for the sake of government power, then you are probably dealing with an unjust limitation. If the limitation traces back to your fellow citizens’ right to be free of your molestation, then you are probably dealing with a just limitation.
The problem with a lot of libertarians is that they fail to differentiate between the two sources of limitations and assume that any time someone in a government role is telling them they can’t do something, that there has been an injustice. That is simply not true. If that were the case, then all government, of any kind, would be fundamentally unjust.
Obviously, you can take that position, if you are an anarchist, but if you succeeded in implementing your views, where would you be? A bunch of people, many of whom will use their unbridled liberty to take advantage of others in less well-protected positions. What will those people in less-well protected positions do? They will form alliances. Then the others will form alliances. The society will coalesce into opposing forces. You will get wars. Then people will grow tired of wars and engineer a peace. How will they do that? They will have to start making rules, recognizing rights, figure out a way to enforce those rights.
The solution to our problems is not in political ideology, where we try to mold the government to fit some ideological form, including no government at all. No government has ever shown itself to be indestructible. Human society has been in a state of constant flux throughout all of history. People agree to abide by rules, then other people get to enforce the rules and start abusing that power. What is the common thread in all of that constant change, constant abuse, growing up of powers, and falling of governments?
I submit that it comes back to something very, very simple, that I already mentioned in this comment: Recognize the individuals around you, that they have the same wants, needs, and fears as you, and that your conduct might have adverse effects on their lives. Try not to engage in conduct that you know could have such effects, and if you do engage in such conduct, do whatever you can to rectify the situation. Do you need government for that? No. Does it limit your liberty? Yes. But it’s the right thing to do.
December 12, 2007 at 12:57 pm
If you recognize all the “fears of other people” you truly will never be able to exercise any of your own liberties, because people these days are paranoid, conformist sheep. They fly into hysteria at the least thing because scare-tactics are constantly used to control people; too many of them want to defer to authority to feel secure and they’re too stupid to realize that ‘authority’ is what’s causing them to be that fearful in the first place.
December 12, 2007 at 2:19 pm
If your politics are based on assuming that your fellow citizens are “paranoid, conformist sheep,” then you are little more than a fascist without any power. If you cannot recognize other individuals as something more than two-dimensional caricatures of irrationality, then you are not fit to be in society with those individuals.
December 12, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Christ dude, first the libertarian saying there should be no government because we’re all autonomous reasoning creatures. Then, the crazy, wacked out, anti-PC, ultra-conservative, “everybody is stoopid” reader.
I’m starting to wonder if you aren’t sock-puppeting your own blog just to push your real readers towards the middle ground. =P
Where do you find these extremists?
December 12, 2007 at 3:36 pm
Taking fascist, or even ultra-conservative, from what I posted is a huge stretch. I’m especially not really sure how you interpreted that as fascism. Arresting a man over a stupid, but relatively harmless statement, is the only version of fascism I see. Also, how can I look at people as anything but two-dimensional when they felt so alarmed as to involve the police in what only amounts to a difference of opinion?
Oh well, I can live with being wacked-out and not fit to be in society with those individuals, at least the ones who think that way.
December 12, 2007 at 5:03 pm
I was hasty with my characterizations and for that I apologize.
Perhaps it was an apt mirroring of your hasty generalization of the point in question.
To which people do you refer when you say “people these days are paranoid, conformist sheep.” I’m assuming you’re a person and not some random AI roaming the internet. Are you a paranoid, conformist sheep? It seems you contradict your point by being able to make that observation.
You say that “If [we] recognize all the ‘fears of other people’ [we] truly will never be able to exercise any of [our] own liberties…” That’s a pretty extreme idea. So you’re saying that if I go about my daily activities, keeping in mind the concerns and fears of those around me, I’ll be completely unable to function? It’s really not as complicated as you’d like us to think it is. In fact most people are taught how to do it when they’re young. Respect others and do unto others as you would have them do you; a shortened version of the social contract that Peter described above.
And if you step on someone’s toes, they have a right to inform you. I don’t see society crumbling if we take into consideration the thoughts and ideas of others.
December 12, 2007 at 6:45 pm
SKD,
First, you need to go back and read my comments above because they already address much of your criticism and I am not in the mood to repeat myself.
Second, how exactly are you going to achieve true liberty for yourself if the rest of us must achieve our own liberty by stepping on you? You appear to propose a kind of zero-sum society, where absolute disregard of others ought to be the norm. Followed to its logical end, then ultimate liberty would be one person destroying everyone else. Finding him- or herself alone on the planet, he or she would have ultimate liberty, I suppose. Except for things like laws of physics, the need for food, water, oxygen, and the weather. Our poor ultimately liberated person would have to sacrifice some portion of his or her liberty in recognition of the fact that those problems need to be addressed. How free is a person who needs to eat? And if the basic elements of existence must always be recognized, then why shouldn’t other human individuals, who have similar intelligence and consciousness, also be recognized?
December 17, 2007 at 11:04 pm
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