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Newt Gingrich Says Visiting An ISIS Or Al Qaeda Website Should Be A Felony (techdirt.com)
flopsquad writes: Following the July 14th terror attack in Nice, France, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has called for U.S. Muslims to be tested for their belief in Sharia law, and if so, deported: "Western civilization is in a war. We should frankly test every person here who is of a Muslim background and if they believe in Sharia they should be deported," Gingrich said in an interview with Fox News' Sean Hannity. While the cleverest few might try to defeat such a test by answering "No," Mr. Gingrich laid out additional steps to shore up the plan: "The first step is you have to ask them the questions. The second step is you have to monitor what they're doing on the internet. The third step is, let me be very clear, you have to monitor the mosques. I mean, if you're not prepared to monitor the mosques, this whole thing is a joke." Gingrich also opined that "Anybody who goes on a website favoring ISIS, or Al-Qaeda, or other terrorist groups, that should be a felony, and they should go to jail. No word on the First and Fourth Amendment implications of his proposals, nor on where Gingrich plans to deport U.S. citizens who fail his Sharia test. Gingrich went on to say: "Any organization which hosts such a website should be engaged in a felon. It should be closed down immediately. Our forces should be used to systematically destroy every internet based source..." Mike Masnick from Techdirt writes: "Merely visiting a website should put you in jail? What if you're a journalist? Or a politician? Or a researcher trying to understand ISIS? That should be a felony? That's not how it works. This also assumes, idiotically, that merely reading a website about ISIS will make people side with ISIS. It's also not, at all, how the law works. Same with the second part about it being a felony to host such content."
What a retard. How do these people even get into government?
I always find it interesting when I see someone complaining about Sharia law, and the person doing the complaining has no problems at all with the idea of shoving Christian law on everyone.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Doing nothing is preferable to lashing out like a scared toddler.
How easily the lessons of history are lost upon the ignorant. When you threaten to imprison people for:
1. Having certain thoughts
2. Belonging to a specific ethnic, religious, or social group
3. Viewing, possessing, or accessing information
This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to totalitarianism and genocide. That is not to say that the dissemination of certain ideas are not dangerous (e.g. incitement to mass murder), or that certain forms of information/content should not be illegal to possess or distribute (e.g., child pornography). Yes, ISIS materials and websites that promote terrorism are awful, but merely *accessing* these, in of themselves, should not and cannot be regarded as criminal, since you would not only criminalize their supporters and sympathizers, but you'd criminalize anyone attempting to investigate them for the purposes of covert surveillance or academic research.
Terrorism, by its nature, is not the incitement of terror in a society for its own sake; no. Terrorism is a strategy by which individuals seek to overthrow a state by attacking its civilians; who, in their fear, appeal to the state to protect them through ever-increasingly draconian policies, such as those proposed by Mr. Gingrich. The state, whose interests are not to protect the people but to consolidate power and wealth into its own hands, makes the deliberate choice to restrict freedoms, until the people become so oppressed that they overthrow the government. This is how terrorism wins.
If the world wants to defeat ISIS and the like, the solution is to prevent their ideas from having any appeal. By threatening the same people that ISIS is trying to attract, all in the name of "national security," those who run the government are sending a very clear signal to anyone with a brain that in fact, they are not interested in stopping terrorism, but are all too happy to leverage fear as a way to gain power.
People are dying. Mass murder has been made popular by ISIS and there have been several in just the last few weeks.
And there will be more.
Ok, so you don't like what Newt has to say. What is your solution?
Or is your solution to do nothing and ignore it?
I'm about as anti-ISIS as you can get, and a Republican. I also have a lot of respect for Newt for the way he reigned in the budget in the 90's, for which Bill Clinton gets a lot of credit. I'm completely fine with investigating ISIS sympathizers or those who identify as actual members, so long as it's not a witch hunt just because of someone's religion or country of origin, and based on actual leads. ISIS is a known terrorist and criminal organization, and I'm pretty sure there are laws on the books against aiding and abetting criminals or enemies of your country.
But what the fuck... A felony for looking at a pro-ISIS website? Does he not see the irony in adopting the same sort of tactics that a member of ISIS might propose - meting out punishment for anti-Islamic behavior or speech? Aren't we supposed to be better than that?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
No, he's actually intelligent. He is not saying this because it would be a smart thing to do, he is saying it to get press coverage and help with some strategic goal for his personal brand or for one of his current projects.
That's the difference between intelligence/cleverness and wisdom, right there.
Take a power-hungry, shallow, irritating, belligerent douchebag, and somehow give him more intelligence. What's the result? He becomes more effective at being a power-hungry, shallow, irritating, belligerent douchebag. Give him a little wisdom somehow and he might be inclined to put his intellect to a more worthy and less self-centered use.
My first thought is, is he trying to tempt trump into switching to him as the VP choice?
I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every minute of it!
Ok, so you don't like what Newt has to say.
Nothing wrong in pointing out that Newt is a retard for suggesting something unconstitutional. And that doesn't mean that the OP has to come up with a solution that satisfies you.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
Newt's "personal brand" is in the shitter. Can you imagine that you're not good enough to be Donald Trump's running mate? For that matter, I hope they have Chris Christie under suicide watch. He was last seen picking up Trump's dry-cleaning and sobbing into a grande caramel mocha frappuccino. With sprinkles.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The only way to end the threat of Islamic takeover of the world, next year or in 20 centuries, is to annihilate Islam root and branch. Turning Iran into a radioactive wasteland would be a good start.
Congratulations, you've just become an ISIS propaganda poster.