THE SUICIDE OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY

As I watch the continuing saga of America’s attempt at installing a new president, I am bewildered by the seemingly continuous barrage from reporters on CNN, NBC, CBS, USA Today, NPR, KPFK, LA Times and You Tube, referring to the baseless claims of President Donald Trump. I am shown videos of the people in support of him, as well as those who don’t. I have seen interviews with a variety of folk on the street and attempts at interviews with certain politicians from BBC reporters. I have seen the impassioned press briefing from Republican Election Official Gabriel Sterling.

 

I have seen and heard the baseless claims and the demonstrations by Trump supporting zealots in the street and in front of the homes of election officials, and, in particular from politicians addressing the faithful from podiums. I have noted the deafening silence from the republican senators and congressional representatives, thereby consenting to the continued rhetoric of the baseless claims.

 

I have noted legal actions taken by the Trump team of lawyers being dismissed by the Courts with accompanying statements by the Judiciary.

 

All this baseless oratory and posturing is apparently tolerated because of the belief in free speech and a person’s right to challenge grievances before the courts.

 

How about enforcing some law? A novel idea, I am just wondering. There are in the United Kingdom a couple of statutes that I am sure may well have their equivalent in the United States. If not, there clearly ought to be.

 

Section 4 of the Public Order Act 1986

Fear or provocation of violence.

(1)A person is guilty of an offence if he—

(a)uses towards another person threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour, or

(b)distributes or displays to another person any writing, sign or other visible representation which is threatening, abusive or insulting,

with intent to cause that person to believe that immediate unlawful violence will be used against him or another by any person, or to provoke the immediate use of unlawful violence by that person or another, or whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked.

 

(2) An offence under this section may be committed in a public or a private place, except that no offence is committed where the words or behaviour are used, or the writing, sign or other visible representation is distributed or displayed, by a person inside a dwelling and the other person is also inside that or another dwelling.

 

(3)F1. . (repealed). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

 

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or a fine not exceeding level 5 on the

 

Factors indicating higher culpability

1. Planning

2. Offender deliberately isolates victim

3. Group action

4. Threat directed at victim because of job

5. History of antagonism towards victim

Factors indicating greater degree of harm

1. Offence committed at school, hospital or other place where vulnerable persons may be present

2. Offence committed on enclosed premises such as public transport

3. Vulnerable victim(s)

4. Victim needs medical help/counselling

 

Now let us look at the video evidence of protests outside the home of Jocelyn Benson, Secretary of State of Michigan. People. She said they were “…screaming falsehoods and obscenities into a bullhorn while my family was finishing hanging Christmas decorations and my four-year-old was setting in to watch ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas’”.

Now, I may be wrong, but the shouts and attitude exhibited by the mob in front of the house, some with guns, coupled with the screams and shouts, to intimidate Ms Benson into changing the results of an election, seems fairly threatening to me, as well as being aggravated by threats directed at the victim because of her job. She has stood up.

 

That mob went way beyond the right of assembly or the rights of free speech. Where are the authorities making the arrests? Where are the District Attorneys calling for indictments? Where is the Michigan State or Federal Law to deal with this malicious and pernicious uprising?

 

All this mob action, which is what it is - one can no longer call it peaceful protest - is being fuelled by The President himself and his various cohort.  “He should be taken out and shot” from one supporting politician in reference to someone actually upholding the law and the Constitution.  

 

That alone, on anyone’s view, is nothing less than Incitement, given the propensities of so-called Trump supporters. Again, in the United Kingdom, there is an Act of Parliament to deal with such criminal activity. I am sure there must be an equivalent statute somewhere in the United States. It comes in the form of the Serious Crime Act of 2007.

 

Serious Crime Act 2007

44 Intentionally encouraging or assisting an offence

(1) A person commits an offence if—

(a) he does an act capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of an offence; and

(b he intends to encourage or assist its commission.

(2) But he is not to be taken to have intended to encourage or assist the commission of     an offence merely because such encouragement or assistance was a foreseeable consequence of his act.

 

It is not a Statute intended to limit freedom of speech, nor is it intended to limit the right to assemble and protest, but it is intended to deal with behaviour that goes far beyond those criteria, and is therefore a serious crime. It is very carefully worded, and indeed the questions of ‘intent’ and ‘foreseeable consequences’ are very much a matter of interpretation.  But foreseeability and intent can be seen from an objective point of view. It is based on the behaviour, demeanour, actions and speech of the offender. That and the consequences for the victims of the offence. Paragraph 2 of the section leaves a lot of room for interpretation of ‘intent’.

 

Sections 45 and 46 further distinguish various forms of intent and belief.

45 Encouraging or assisting an offence believing it will be committed

46 Encouraging or assisting offences believing one or more will be committed

 

What I am getting at, is that when one sees and hears the various people addressing crowds of vehement hyped-up supporters, it is not difficult to interpret ‘intent; and ‘foreseeability'. Gabriel Sterling sees it, and in his anger said “This has got to stop!...someone is going to get shot!”

 

People have rights to free speech and assembly; they do not have the right to threaten and become a mob.  In allowing the President and his supporters to clearly go beyond the pale under the guise of rights provided by the Constitution of the United States, is to deny the very existence of that Constitution which was established to protect the citizen and not to facilitate the abuse of the citizen.

 

Under the rule of law, we all have a duty of care towards one another, which is why I am posturing that by allowing this nightmare to continue, allowing mob rule, and failing to enforce the rule of law, we are seeing the suicide of American Democracy.