06-01-2017, 09:39 PM
Now here is something ominous -- no further comments by me in this post.
How do we hold bombastic leaders accountable for violence done in their name? It’s a question with increasing relevance as right-wing populism rises around the globe.
Matthew Heimbach, a white supremacist, has been charged with assaulting protesters at Donald Trump campaign rally in the fall of 2016, claimed he was only trying to defend Trump’s constitutional rights — and answering the presidential candidate’s command to “get them [protesters] out of here!”
Heimbach insisted he’s not responsible for the assault, but that if he were, it’s only because he “relied on Trump’s authority to order disruptive persons removed and that Trump was legally within his rights to ask other attendees to assist in defending their constitutional rights against ‘protesters’ who were disrupting.”
In simpler terms, Trump was within his rights to order protesters out of his rally and therefore his supporters were within their rights to try and force those protesters out. Heimbach’s lawyers’ legal strategy is twofold — to both deny the assault, and to simultaneously justify the violence by investing it with someone else’s authority.
Meanwhile, a Philippine lawyer named Jude Sabio has filed a lawsuit against Pres. Rodrigo Duterte for mass murder over the course of three decades. It alleges that Duterte and 11 other officials are responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings committed against people they deemed to be drug dealers. While Duterte was mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, he vocally supported a notorious local death squad.
The killings are part of The Philippines’ bloody war on drugs. Human Rights Watch reported that 6,000 people, mainly slum dwellers, have died in the war. 2,250 were killed by police. Another 3,600 were killed by “unidentified gunmen.” Some of the victims were as young as 14.
Duterte ran as a law-and-order candidate, pledging to eradicate drug crime in The Philippines. His plan centers on vilifying drug dealers and drug users and openly advocating their murder. Before taking office, Duterte encouraged members of the public to feel free to kill “criminals.”
.......
In place of Duterte’s long list of alleged drug dealers, America now has VOICE — the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office. Among other things, the office aims to publish lists of crimes committed by immigrants, particularly undocumented ones.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s larger effort, guided by advisor Steve Bannon, to paint all immigrants as inherently criminal, dangerous and undesirable — and as threats to American values and security.
Duterte has explicitly labeled drug dealers and users as legitimate targets of violence, arguing that killing them makes his country safer. This essentially casts violence against these people as an expression of patriotism. Trump did the same for admittedly less-lethal violence against protesters at his rallies. And his administration has made clear that certain people, particularly immigrants and Muslims, do not belong in his America.
If you are committed to the idea of “making America great again,” and you recall your president’s boisterous advocacy of violence against protesters, what will you think is the patriotic way to respond to the undesirables allegedly invading your country?
The individual people who carry out the killings in The Philippines and the assaults in the United States are, of course, responsible for their own actions and should face justice. But given the surge in violence in both countries that has accompanied the rise of our outspoken presidents, it’s important to consider how these heads of state enable and encourage this kind of non-state violence.
Culpability is clear in cases where, for instance, Duterte has allegedly given direct orders to police to kill someone. That’s an illegal order, and both the person giving it and the person following it are guilty.
....................
Incitement is a crime in both U.S. domestic and international law. But in the United States, incitement has tended to be narrowly construed. It has to be directly tied to the actual act of violence, and has most often been leveled against activist groups and labor unions advocating revolutionary political change, not against major party candidates … and certainly not the president.
Likewise, it’s difficult to say definitely that any of Trump’s statements are what would legally constitute a true threat and not just hyperbole.
Incitement in international law tends to imply on incitement to genocide. That makes sense insofar as a lot of our current international law emerged in the aftermath of World War II.
However, as right-wing populism rises around the globe and leaders such as Trump and Duterte become ever more common, it seems increasingly important to wrestle with these questions, to determine where accountability lies for the increasing violence we suffer in our societies — and to seek justice.
The question of accountability gets muddier when politicians say inflammatory things in public speeches that may inspire individuals to commit crimes.
http://warisboring.com/when-your-preside...-violence/
How do we hold bombastic leaders accountable for violence done in their name? It’s a question with increasing relevance as right-wing populism rises around the globe.
Matthew Heimbach, a white supremacist, has been charged with assaulting protesters at Donald Trump campaign rally in the fall of 2016, claimed he was only trying to defend Trump’s constitutional rights — and answering the presidential candidate’s command to “get them [protesters] out of here!”
Heimbach insisted he’s not responsible for the assault, but that if he were, it’s only because he “relied on Trump’s authority to order disruptive persons removed and that Trump was legally within his rights to ask other attendees to assist in defending their constitutional rights against ‘protesters’ who were disrupting.”
In simpler terms, Trump was within his rights to order protesters out of his rally and therefore his supporters were within their rights to try and force those protesters out. Heimbach’s lawyers’ legal strategy is twofold — to both deny the assault, and to simultaneously justify the violence by investing it with someone else’s authority.
Meanwhile, a Philippine lawyer named Jude Sabio has filed a lawsuit against Pres. Rodrigo Duterte for mass murder over the course of three decades. It alleges that Duterte and 11 other officials are responsible for thousands of extrajudicial killings committed against people they deemed to be drug dealers. While Duterte was mayor of Davao City in Mindanao, he vocally supported a notorious local death squad.
The killings are part of The Philippines’ bloody war on drugs. Human Rights Watch reported that 6,000 people, mainly slum dwellers, have died in the war. 2,250 were killed by police. Another 3,600 were killed by “unidentified gunmen.” Some of the victims were as young as 14.
Duterte ran as a law-and-order candidate, pledging to eradicate drug crime in The Philippines. His plan centers on vilifying drug dealers and drug users and openly advocating their murder. Before taking office, Duterte encouraged members of the public to feel free to kill “criminals.”
.......
In place of Duterte’s long list of alleged drug dealers, America now has VOICE — the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement Office. Among other things, the office aims to publish lists of crimes committed by immigrants, particularly undocumented ones.
It’s part of the Trump administration’s larger effort, guided by advisor Steve Bannon, to paint all immigrants as inherently criminal, dangerous and undesirable — and as threats to American values and security.
Duterte has explicitly labeled drug dealers and users as legitimate targets of violence, arguing that killing them makes his country safer. This essentially casts violence against these people as an expression of patriotism. Trump did the same for admittedly less-lethal violence against protesters at his rallies. And his administration has made clear that certain people, particularly immigrants and Muslims, do not belong in his America.
If you are committed to the idea of “making America great again,” and you recall your president’s boisterous advocacy of violence against protesters, what will you think is the patriotic way to respond to the undesirables allegedly invading your country?
The individual people who carry out the killings in The Philippines and the assaults in the United States are, of course, responsible for their own actions and should face justice. But given the surge in violence in both countries that has accompanied the rise of our outspoken presidents, it’s important to consider how these heads of state enable and encourage this kind of non-state violence.
Culpability is clear in cases where, for instance, Duterte has allegedly given direct orders to police to kill someone. That’s an illegal order, and both the person giving it and the person following it are guilty.
....................
Incitement is a crime in both U.S. domestic and international law. But in the United States, incitement has tended to be narrowly construed. It has to be directly tied to the actual act of violence, and has most often been leveled against activist groups and labor unions advocating revolutionary political change, not against major party candidates … and certainly not the president.
Likewise, it’s difficult to say definitely that any of Trump’s statements are what would legally constitute a true threat and not just hyperbole.
Incitement in international law tends to imply on incitement to genocide. That makes sense insofar as a lot of our current international law emerged in the aftermath of World War II.
However, as right-wing populism rises around the globe and leaders such as Trump and Duterte become ever more common, it seems increasingly important to wrestle with these questions, to determine where accountability lies for the increasing violence we suffer in our societies — and to seek justice.
The question of accountability gets muddier when politicians say inflammatory things in public speeches that may inspire individuals to commit crimes.
http://warisboring.com/when-your-preside...-violence/
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.