Posted on 12/07/2007 8:23:13 AM PST by Sopater
Prosecutors in Wisconsin on Wednesday decided not to press charges against a teacher who praised the Columbine High School shooters in a blog comment intended to make conservatives look bad. The decision drew praise from the conservative blogger the teacher had hoped to smear.
Washington County (Wisconsin) District Attorney Todd Martens announced Wednesday he would not pursue a case against James Buss, who posted comments on the blog Boots and Sabers that were laudatory of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who carried out the 1999 shootings at Columbine High School in Colorado, in which 12 students and one teacher were killed and 23 people wounded.
"Weve (sic) got to get in back of the kids who have had enough of lazy, no good teachers and are fighting back," the commenter "Observer" said in a response to a post about teachers' salaries. "Kids like Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold members (sic) of the Young Republicans club at Columbine."
"They knew how to deal with the overpaid teacher union thugs. One shot at a time!," the commenter said. "Too bad liberls (sic) rip them; they were heros (sic) and should be remembred (sic) that way."
Police, tipped off to the comment by a West Bend School District employee, traced the Internet Protocol (IP) address assigned to "Observer's" computer and arrested Buss on Nov. 29.
He could have faced charges of disorderly conduct and unlawful use of computerized communications systems. But Martens concluded that the "patently offensive speech" was protected by the First Amendment.
Owen Robinson, operator of Boots and Sabers, praised the decision even though he had been the target of Buss' satirical comments. Buss told investigators his goal "was parroting anti-teacher statements he has heard on radio programs to see if any anti-teacher readers would agree with him."
"For me, the arrest is kind of dubious," Robinson told Cybercast News Service Thursday. "I am happy that the DA decided not to press charges against him."
"I believe in robust speech, robust debate, and I think that if we start going around arresting people because they engage in poorly thought out parody and ridiculous speech we'd have to arrest pretty much half of America and that's not a place we want to be," Robinson said, calling Buss' comment "idiotic and offensive."
"Now that we kind of know the whole story and what he was trying to accomplish I think, again, what he did was stupid, but I'm fairly certain the First Amendment doesn't delineate between stupid and intelligent speech," Robinson said. "It protects it all."
Robert Bluey, director of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the incident serves a reminder that "any time you post a comment on the Internet ... there's always a risk of it being exposed, especially when you're dealing with political subjects or, in this case, something as sensitive as Columbine."
Bluey, who works to connect the 34-year-old Heritage Foundation and the conservative principles it furthers with the new media "blogosphere," said he wasn't surprised that Robinson would back Buss. "For the most part, I've found that bloggers definitely come down more on the side of free speech," he said.
"Bloggers themselves are acting as communicators," Bluey said. "They're more likely to come down on the side of free speech than, in this particular case, having somebody go to jail."
He suggested that the hostile atmosphere of blogging in the United States is a product of the perspective that blogs are good for advancing a political or social agenda.
"You're going there to advance a particular agenda, and I think that sometimes you can really get carried away," Bluey said, "and that's why before anybody hits that submit button they have to realize there can be consequences."
I’m a little confused... “Criminal use of computer systems”? Not on HIS blog, not on his time, not on his computer. Nope.
I think a lot of people missed his point though. He was talking about the TEACHERS union, which is why this was an issue.
Yep, the poster was taking the ‘Li’l Abner’ approach, paroding conservatives as sub-literate, squirrel-eating morons.
The guy who runs the blog comes off as articulate, literate and open minded. The nitwit teacher comes off as a knee-jerk bonehead with a very limited capacity to make an argument.
But if that was a crime we would not have enough prisons.
“I’m fairly certain the First Amendment doesn’t delineate between stupid and intelligent speech,” Robinson said. “It protects it all.”
Or all liberals would be in jail.
I’m not sure that free speech includes solicitations to murder people.
And it’s all the dirtier since he did it to spread hatred of supposed conservative bigots.
It’s virtually certain that the misspellings were deliberate. He was pretending to be an ignorant redneck, and he assumed that conservatives are too dumb to spell correctly.
The Left has set up the legal machinery to prosecute people for "hate" crimes. Then the liberals themselves commit the "crimes" and try to frame or discredit the middle class white folks in America for being "racist." Or they pound the drums for even more stringent "hate" crimes laws. I've seen happen many times.
And he should be fired.
I certainly wouldn’t tolerate this.
He’s a liberal playing a sick game, so they excuse his behavior as the right to self expression. If he had actually been a conservative just expressing his opinion, I doubt they would have been so quick to invoke the First Amendment. They would have fired him summarily and would never have forgiven him.
If he wasn’t a member of the NEA, the MSM would be going NUTS over this story.
I agree that public disgrace is enough of a punishment. On the other hand, if it wasn’t investigated as a crime, we’d never have known the facts.
It's not a crime to be stupid, but it sure makes life a lot harder. The troll thought he was being clever and delivering a withering blow to the anti teachers union neaderthals. It didn't occur to him that that the cops would show up and perp-walk his ass.
Stupidity isn't a crime but it sure has a price.
Agreed. I can’t believe personally that they even thought about bringing criminal charges. Fire from job I can understand, but criminal charges? Hate it when I have to defend people I don’t agree with.
This reminds me of the ‘minorities’ that hang nooses on their own dorm doors, or write racist graffiti on public buildings to ‘call attention’ to white racism when they can’t find any valid true samples of it handy.
they do not understand conservatives at all.
Actually, squirrel tastes pretty good. Damn good, in fact. Like any other food, it has to be prepared properly.
Yup. If you want to use clever rhetorical devices that involve deliberate errors, you have to prove your prowess at spelling and grammer so the deliberateness is clear if you don’t want to come across as a dolt—well, unless it’s absolutely brilliant rhetoric:
“We was robbed!” stands out as a shining example of enallage, even though boxing managers are not known for good grammar.
Check.
I like your thinking.
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