FREE SPEECH OR SEDITION? SHARI GOODMAN ****
http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.8937/pub_detail.asp
Islamism: Free Speech or Sedition?
Shari Goodman
Sedition is still a crime under American law, so why are Islamists allowed to call for the overthrow of America, its democracy and government. Is this free speech?
During the middle of January the Muslim Student Association (MSA) held an Islamic Conference with about 700 students in attendance. Two featured speakers were radical Islamic clerics with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. One cleric in particular, Amir Abdel Malik, asked the students to recite a restatement of the Muslim Brotherhood pledge.
“I pledge: Allah is my lord, Quran is my guide, Jihad is my spirit, Righteousness is my character, and Paradise is my goal. For I command what is right and forbid what is wrong. I will fight against oppression and will die to establish Islam.”
Recognizing that the Muslim Student Association is an arm of the Muslim Brotherhood which began to organize here in the United States in the early 60’s with the intend to create an Islamic Republic on our land, our Calabasas-West Valley ACT! For America chapter believed the recital of the pledge was an act of sedition. We chose to take action. We gathered over 1000 signatures in support of a petition that sought the removal of any group from the UCLA campus that advocates the overriding of our Constitution and our government.
We received a lot of support from mainstream Americans who are frustrated at seeing their tax funded universities being used as indoctrination centers under the guise of free speech to incite violence if necessary for the “establishment of Islam”. The verbal and physical assaults on Jewish students and Jewish faculty members is very reminiscent of another time in history when Jews in Germany during the1930’s were the target of similar assaults by Nazi Brown Shirts.
Yet, there was criticism from the usual elite academic establishment and First Amendment defenders. The irony is not lost on those of us who took notice that the First Amendment defenders were very quick to take away our First Amendment rights by asking for the withdrawal of the petition.
We are a country at war with radical Islamists. Since 9/11 there have been nearly 17,000 terrorist attacks around the globe with 58 attacks in 33 separate attacks on our own soil. In nearly all of the attacks, the perpetrators have been Muslims. While not all Muslims are terrorists, most of the attacks (if not all) have been perpetrated by Muslims.
Our American University campuses in particular have seen an increase in anti-Semitic attacks against Jewish students in direct correlation to the increase in the population of Muslim students at American universities, and the hostile atmosphere created by the Muslim Student Association on over 1000 college campuses. Many universities are the recipients of hundreds of millions of Arab petro-dollars given in exchange for a biased Middle East curriculum favoring an Arabist foreign policy and a vilification of Israel.
For the last two decades attacks against Jewish students, Israeli speakers, and Jewish institutions have been relentless. These anti-Semitic attacks are unprecedented in American Jewish history where Jews have had a safe haven since the birth of our nation. But the times are a changing. The influx of Muslims into our nation has also brought forth their religious and cultural hatred evidence throughout the rest of the world. We are now forced to ask if our political correctness has left us with an inability to defend ourselves.
The following are just a few examples of the numerous attacks that have taken place in recent years. The University of Michigan has seen an increase in physical attacks on Jewish students. At one of their Conferences held there, Muslims chanted in Arabic “Annihilate the Jews”. At the University of Wisconsin last year, Jewish students said they felt threatened after a Muslim from the MSA assaulted a Jewish student during a celebration of Israel’s Independence Day.
Recently a Jewish student at the University of California at Berkeley who was attacked by a Muslim student last year has filed suit against UC Berkeley for failing to provide a safe atmosphere. Her suit charges UC Berkeley for policies that “fostered and encouraged” pro-terrorist incitement, “turned a blind eye to the perpetrators of illegal activities,” and “failed to effectively discipline the MSA [Muslim Student Association] and SJP (Students for Justice in Palestine) for their pro-terrorist programs, goals and conduct; despite having ample notice that such violence was foreseeable.”
Hopefully many more students will come forth and press charges against those who not only perpetrated the crimes but against the universities who failed to protect them.
With numerous assaults on Jewish students, attacks against Jewish institutions, and a campaign to not only delegitimize the state of Israel, but to incite violence against American Jews who have generally come to accept it as the norm, is it not time we begin to find our moral spine and declare “enough!”?
For many the pledge “to die for the establishment of Islam” was the last straw. We are now asking where does the right of freedom of speech end and the illegal action of sedition begin?
Our founding fathers were wise to realize that the freedom to criticize government is an integral component of a free society, but they were clear thinkers who also recognized that “overt acts” clearly crossed the line and were punishable.
Sedition is the crime of revolting or inciting revolt against government. However, because of the broad protection of free speech under the First Amendment, prosecutions for sedition are rare. Nevertheless, sedition remains a crime in the United States under 18 U.S.C.A. § 2384 (2000), a federal statute that punishes seditious conspiracy, and 18 U.S.C.A. § 2385 (2000), which outlaws advocating the overthrow of the federal government by force.
The Smith Act of 1940 “prohibited one to teach about the overthrow of the U.S. government”. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the act in Dennis v. United States, 341 U.S. 494, 71 S. Ct. 857, 95 L. Ed. 1137 (1951).
We rarely hear about sedition. The anti-war movement has been successful in burying the term within the annals of history. It is no longer part of our lexicon, but perhaps it is time we resurrected the term to remind Americans that the call for the overthrow of our Constitution is an incitement, and as such must be viewed as an illegal act of sedition. For many the First Amendment takes precedence; however, our Constitution is not a suicide pact. Fortunately, most Americans realize that without our Constitution there would be no First Amendment.
Family Security Matters Contributor Shari Goodman is Chapter Leader at Calabasas-West Valley ACT! For America, Calabasas, Ca. The views expressed here are hers and do not necessarily represent the views of ACT! For America or of Family Security Matters.
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