Saturday, August 01, 2009

1st Amendment Double Standard?

A FoxNews item explained how rapper “T.O.” plead No Contest to threatening a pair of Lakeland police officers in his song, “Kill me a cop” .

“The 20-year-old rapper, whose real name is Antavio Johnson, began a 2-year prison term July 24.”

So what’s the problem; recalling how each and every person standing before a judge is offered an extensive opportunity to hear, “You understand the by pleading No Contest you will be found guilty…the you are doing so of your own free will without threat…” and so on.

““He wrote a song, the song is an expression, the First Amendment protects it,” attorney Joe Registrato said in the FOX affiliate’s report on MyFOXTampaBay.com.”

Sorry Joe, had your client identified the President of the United States as the target of his anger, “I’m gonna kill Obama” or some similar phrase in his song you can bet he’d have been hauled off for threatening the POTUS regardless of his inability to carry out such threats.

As for threatening specific individuals being protected speech under the 1st Amendment; I hardly think so. This gets back to the original foundation of thought; where do Rights come from? Rights come from God and it hardly sounds reasonable that God would have included threatening another of His children with bodily injury or death as part of “free speech”. The same holds true for pornography or what some call artistic expression; the opportunity to spit in the face of society in the name of “freedom of expression”; horse hockey!

I’ll likely have my file reviewed by the Department of Homeland Security for mentioning the POTUS in this article, some computer that goes over each and every printed word on the internet will flag me as a potential threat. Who knows, T. O. and T. F. could be cell mates one day, serving time for serious threat against another; I’d have to kill him since I can’t stand Rap.

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