[Previous entry: "On the Eve of Wojtyla"] [Next entry: "So, who is representing me?"]
04/07/2005: "Words and Actions"
I am troubled by the recent arrests involving threats made against Michael Schiavo in the aftermath of this whole ordeal down the road. Dera Marie Jones was arrested today for making threats on an AOL chatroom. Another man was arrested a week ago for allegedly claiming that he'd pay someone to do it.
I'm not sure if its the Patriot Act that allowed this new form of censorship, but I hope that the people being arrested are more obviously guilty of anything save for saying something dumb in a chatroom. But, this is based upon the premise that these people are sane. You see, we hope that we live in a society where, people might say things that they ordinarily wouldn't do. This is to say that someone might make a threat that he or she might never, in principle, act upon. But I cannot presuppose that the far right is in any respect sane more often than not.
Bottom line: Words are words. Actions are different. If people are guilty of foul or degrading speech, so be it. But, most importantly, doesn't the FBI have anything better to do than cruising chatrooms?