1970's to today. Will rhetoric entice violence?

Echoes of the 1970s in Today’s Anger

The calls for violent retribution following the death of Charlie Kirk stopped me short. I never followed him closely, except for occasional quotes that struck me as offensive, un-Christian, and deliberately provocative. (1) But in a way, that may be the essence of our times. Outrage has become a currency. Say something hyperbolic enough, and you will be noticed—and paid.

On Brooks and Capehart this week,(2)David Brooks reminded viewers that even if only 1% of Americans believe in violence as a solution, that still means about three million people who might turn to guns or bombs. He recalled that in the winter of 1969–70 there were some 4,000 bombings in this country. That figure startled me, though I do remember those years—1968 through 1971—as among the most turbulent of my lifetime. Assassinations, riots in cities across the country, the police riot at the Democratic convention, Kent State, and a constant backdrop of Vietnam.

When I checked, I found the FBI had counted 2,500 bombings in just 18 months between 1971 and 1972—an average of five a day. RAND reported 1,470 incidents of terrorism during the decade. (3) Groups like the Weather Underground openly argued that violence was the only way forward. Airline hijackings became almost routine, on average once a week.

I lived through that era. It felt as though the country might tear itself apart. And yet, somehow, by the mid-1970s, we stepped back. The rage ebbed. The bombings slowed. The republic endured. It helped that the war ended.

That memory gives me perspective now. Today, we inhabit a digital culture where attention depends on being loud, cruel, or extreme. Even the president  revels in incitement. It feels combustible. And yet, I can’t forget that half a century ago, America pulled back from the abyss while in the 1850's we did not We are capable of restraint, of choosing not to let anger consume us.

Whether we will do so again is the question hanging over us now.

(1) Some Kirk quotes: "If I'm dealing with somebody in customer service who's a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?" (I assume he did not feel that way about Clarence Thomas so perhaps this is more misogynist rather than racist.

"WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian" gets treated better than a United States marine.”

(2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08aQ1uNPnPM

(3) https://www.rand.org/pubs/commentary/2015/07/the-1970s-and-the-birth-of-contemporary-terrorism.html.

“By the mid-1970s, airline hijacking and airline bombings worldwide were occurring at the rate of one a month...In that decade, 1,470 incidents of terrorism unfolded within the nation's borders and 184 people were killed.”  “A startling trajectory of terrorism has materialized since the 1970s.  Terrorism is a reality Americans live with, but we need not live in  fear. The republic has survived worse in its history while preserving  the values that sustain it as a nation.”

 

Should Kimmel sue? What would Thomas and Alito do.

 I read an opinion piece in Politico4 that argued Kimmel would have a very good chance of winning in the Supreme Court should he sue Trump, Carr, the FCC, and Disney and ABC.  My interest was tweaked and I decided to poke around.

Chatgpt and Gemini were both quite useful in locating quotes, but I checked the validity of each one and read through each case. I think that if Kimmel, or anyone else, for that matter, who’s job was lost because they said something offensive about the Trump administration, would stand a very good chance of winning, assuming it ever got to the Supreme Court. I suspect that merely the act of filing a lawsuit would force a settlement in their favor as Trump cannot afford to be deposed. 

Deposition is what led to Clinton’s impeachment.The president is not immune from civil lawsuits while in office thanks to the ruling in Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. 681 (1997). The Court held unanimously (9–0) that a sitting President is not immune from civil litigation for acts done before taking office and unrelated to the presidency. “We have never suggested that the President, or any other official, has an immunity that extends beyond the scope of any action taken in an official capacity. It is settled law that the separation-of-powers doctrine does not bar every exercise of jurisdiction over the President of the United States.” (Clinton v. Jones, 520 U.S. at 694–95) The ruling cleared the way for Paula Jones’s lawsuit to proceed while Clinton was President. In the discovery process, Clinton gave testimony that led to revelations about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, which ultimately contributed to his impeachment in 1998.

Clinton v Jones must be distinguished from Nixon v Fitzgerald 1982 ini which the president was given immunity from civil lawsuits for any official acts. And this was, of course, followed by Trump v. United States (603 U.S. 593, 2024) which muddied the waters even more by declaring even former presidents had complete immunity for official acts while in office.  Clinton and Jones had done their thing before he became president.

Here’s a nice little chart showing the distinctions:

Now back to our regularly scheduled issue. The concept of government coercion to suppress speech is a key area of First Amendment jurisprudence, and Supreme Court justices have frequently addressed it. The central principle is that while the government can engage in its own speech and even forcefully criticize certain views, it cannot use its power to coerce or intimidate private parties into censoring or punishing disfavored expression on its behalf. The conservative justice are on record making statements condemning government coercion in suppressing speech so they may find themselves in the awkward position of wanting to help Trump while having their previous decisions thrown back at them

Examples:

““government officials may not coerce private entities to suppress speech.”  Justice Samuel Alito made that statement in his dissenting opinion in the Supreme Court case Murthy v. Missouri, which was decided in June 2024. The case involved allegations that government officials had coerced social media platforms to suppress speech related to the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020 election. While the majority of the Court ruled that the plaintiffs lacked standing to sue, Alito's dissent argued that the case was "one of the most important free speech cases to reach this Court in years." He argued that the actions of federal officials in pressuring social media companies had all the "hallmarks of coercion" and amounted to a "covert scheme of censorship." He believed that the Court's decision to dismiss the case on a procedural issue (standing) was a mistake because it allowed "the successful campaign of coercion in this case to stand as an attractive model for future officials who want to control what the people say, hear, and think."

Justices Thomas and Gorsuch also dissented. Justice Clarence Thomas's views on government coercion of speech are consistently rooted in a broad and firm defense of the First Amendment. He has expressed deep skepticism about government actions that pressure or intimidate private entities to suppress certain viewpoints, arguing that this indirect suppression is just as dangerous as direct censorship.1 

Some cases related to government coercion to suppress speech.

 Near v. Minnesota (1931): This case is a foundational pillar of free press and free speech. The Court struck down a state law that allowed officials to shut down a newspaper as a "public nuisance" for publishing "malicious, scandalous and defamatory" content. The ruling established a strong presumption against prior restraint, meaning the government has a very high burden to justify censoring something before it is published.

Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan (1963): This case is a crucial precursor to the modern debate over government coercion. The Court found that a Rhode Island commission's practice of sending lists of "objectionable" books to distributors with a warning of potential prosecution was an unconstitutional form of "informal censorship." The Court held that even without a direct legal order, the government's threats and intimidation were a form of suppression that violated the First Amendment.

Nixon v. Shrink Missouri Government PAC (2000) was a case about campaign finance limits.  In his dissent Thomas provided a ringing endorsement of free speech protection.Thomas began by stating that political speech is the "primary object of First Amendment protection." He argued that a self-governing people depends on the free exchange of political information, and this exchange should receive the "most protection when it matters the most—during campaigns for elective office." He champions an interpretation of the First Amendment that allows for virtually unlimited spending in political campaigns, believing that the marketplace of ideas, not government regulation, should govern political discourse.

National Rifle Association v. Vullo (2024): In this unanimous decision, the Court reaffirmed the principle of Bantam Books.  The justices found that a New York state official's alleged threats of  enforcement actions against private entities that refused to  disassociate from the NRA could be considered unconstitutional coercion.  The Court drew a clear line between a government official's right to persuade and their inability to coerce private parties into suppressing disfavored speech.  Justice Gorsuch said, “Today we reaffirm a well-settled principle: “A government official cannot coerce a private party to punish or suppress disfavored speech on her behalf...“Ultimately, the critical” question is whether the plaintiff has “plausibly allege[d] conduct that, viewed in context, could be reasonably understood to convey a threat of adverse government action in order to punish or suppress the plaintiff ’s speech.”

Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission (2010) Speech is not less free because of the speaker's identity: The Court asserted that "political speech is indispensable to a democracy," and this is no less true when the speech comes from a corporation rather than an individual. They rejected the idea that the government has a compelling interest in limiting the speech of corporations to prevent the "distorting effects of immense aggregations of wealth."  In his concurrence Justice Thomas raised the peripheral issue of government or private entity retasliation for speech (in this case conservative speech) writing: I cannot endorse a view of the First Amendment that subjects citizens of this Nation to death threats, ruined careers, damaged or defaced property, or pre-emptive and threatening warning letters as the price for engaging in “core political speech, the ‘primary object of First Amendment protection

And in other news:

“[Alito] wrote the court’s opinion in Saxe v. State College Area School District (3d Cir. 2001) striking down a public school’s anti-harassment policy. Alito asserted that there is “no question that the free speech clause protects a wide variety of speech that listeners may consider deeply offensive, including statements that impugn another’s race or national origin or that denigrate religious beliefs.”3  BUT on the other hand in the controversial Snyder v. Phelps (2011), about anti-gay protests at a military funeral he wrote, ““Our profound national commitment to free and open debate is not a  license for the vicious verbal assault that occurred in this case.”

I couldn’t find much from Thomas that laid out his feelings with regard to whistle-blowers or others who might have been fired for taking political positions outside of their normal duties with one exception. In a speech Thomas came down hard on the First Circuit for siding with a school district that fired a teacher for making what they said were homophobic and racist comments on her social media. In what would seem an ideal parallel to Kimmel although from the opposite political spectrum, Thomas said, ““This case is the latest in a trend of lower court decisions that  have misapplied our First Amendment precedents in cases involving  controversial political speech,” Thomas wrote in a statement. If  left unchecked, this number will likely increase, Thomas warned, and in  many cases, government employers may find it convenient to attempt to  restrict “disfavored or unpopular speech in the name of preventing  disruption.”5 The case was not granted cert for other reasons so we don’t know how the sextuplet would have ruled.

Fascinating

 

1. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/603/23-411/#tab-opinion-4907764

2. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/602/22-842/#tab-opinion-4896609

3. https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/samuel-alito-jr/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

4. https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/18/jimmy-kimmel-supreme-court-first-amendment-lawsuit-00570697

5. https://www.courthousenews.com/justice-thomas-sounds-alarm-on-courts-misapplying-first-amendment-in-political-speech-cases/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 

 

 

 

 The Honorable John G. Roberts, Jr.
Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court of the United States
1 First Street, NE
Washington, DC 20543

 

September 19, 2025

Dear Chief Justice Roberts,

I am writing to respectfully express my deep and growing concern regarding the Supreme Court’s increasing use of the “shadow docket.” The expansion of this procedural shortcut to address major legal and social issues, which would traditionally be heard through the regular docket, is a troubling departure from the deliberative process that is a hallmark of this institution.

The "shadow docket" has operated with a concerning lack of transparency. Orders issued through this avenue are often unexplained and are made without the benefit of full briefing, oral argument, or the detailed, written opinions that provide crucial legal reasoning. This opacity gives the appearance of decisions being made in haste and without full consideration, which can, in turn, undermine public trust in the Court as an impartial arbiter of justice and provide the appearance of decision made for purely political reasons.

Furthermore, the lack of well-reasoned opinions from the shadow docket creates a significant challenge for lower courts. Without clear and consistent legal guidance, judges are left to interpret these terse orders, which can lead to confusion and inconsistency in the application of the law. This uncertainty not only complicates judicial administration but also fails to provide the stable legal framework that the American public and the legal community depend on.

The regular docket's process of full briefing and open deliberation is essential for upholding the rule of law and ensuring the predictability of our legal system. I respectfully urge the Court to return to this traditional practice for all but the most truly exigent of circumstances.

Sincerely,

 

[signed]

Letter to Brendan Carr re Jimmy Kimmel

 September 18, 2025

 

Commissioner Brendan Carr

Federal Communications Commission
 45 L Street NE
 Washington, DC 20554

 

Dear Commissioner Carr:

 

I object to your blatant attack on free speech and the partisan use of your office.

 

Jimmy Kimmel is a comedian. Comedians traditionally use humor and satire to ridicule those in power. That this ridicule often displays the truth makes it all the more effective. Your attack, blackmail better describes it, under the guise of community values sets a dangerous precedent. Ironically, it's the antithesis of what Kirk claimed to stand for:  liberty, open discourse, and critical thought.

 

You, who publicly claim to be a  champion of deregulation and limited government interference, have exposed yourself as a hypocrite whose campaign to eliminate regulation and governmental interference is now exposed for what it is: a blatant, partisan, attack on speech you and your boss do not like. Censorship disguised as a moral duty, a return to Comstockery.

 

Your threat to pull the licenses of companies who program "objectionable" speech is simply ideological blackmail. Substitute community values for communist and you have a return to McCarthyism. What's next, tattling on friends,  next – jailing TV writers for scripting “inappropriate” jokes?

 

You have repeatedly called TikTok a national security threat – but have done little to meaningfully address it. Apparently, in your mind, Jimmy Kimmel’s jokes are more dangerous. If that’s your priority, we’re in trouble.

 

And where were you when Kirk was spewing rhetoric that any reasonable person would recognize as hateful and inflammatory? Where were you when Democrats in Minnesota were gunned down? Silent. Absent.

Let’s not forget what Kirk himself has said: that educated Black women – including Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – supposedly lack the “brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously,” and “had to go steal a white person’s slot.” *This isn’t just offensive. It echoes 19th-century pseudoscience used to dehumanize and degrade. What did Kirk think of Clarence Thomas, I wonder? Or maybe it’s just women he can’t stand. Seems clearly offensive and a violation of the most basic norms. Where was you then? No where to be found.

 

It is shockingly ironic – and deeply troubling – that you are now doing precisely what you have accused Kimmel of joking about: using Kirk’s death to push a political agenda designed to suppress free speech and independent thought. 

 

And shame on Disney and ABC for caving to this nonsense. Bowing to fear is not leadership – it is cowardice. 

Sincerely,

[Signed]

 

*Charlie Kirk made the comments about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson on September 10, 2025, during a segment of his show. In this segment, he questioned the qualifications of several prominent Black women, including Jackson, suggesting they lacked the "brain processing power" to be taken seriously and implying they were only in their positions due to affirmative action.

Dietrich Bonhoffer's Uber die Dummheit

 Alan Johnson has written a timely piece * in which he reviews Bonhoffer's thoughts on the rise of Hitler's authoritarian government.  Bonhoffer's first paragraph reads:

The complete text of Bonhoffer's essay can be found here.
 

*Johnson's entire essay can be downloaded for free from https://www.academia.edu/143970069/Bonhoeffers_Discussion_of_Dummheit_?auto=download&email_work_card=download-paper