The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.
Let's review some recent history.
1993 - during the service of a federal firearms warrant against the Branch Davidians, BATF agents were fired upon by members locked inside. The resulting seige ended on April 19, when the main building was destroyed in a fire.
1995 - The Murrah Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City, OK was firebombed by a rented moving truck filled with a homemade explosive, killing 168 persons inside, including many children in the office's daycare center. The culprits were apprehended, and Timothy McVeigh was executed by a federal writ in 2001.
1996 - One person was killed and several wounded in a bombing in the Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, GA. The bombing was later found to be the work of pro-life terrorist Eric Robert Rudolph, who was also linked to several abortion clinic bombings across the deep south. Rudolph was apprehended after it was discovered he had been living in the mountains of western North Carolina.
1998 - On October 23, 1998, Dr. Barnett Slepian was murdered in his home. Dr. Slepian was an administrator at a women's clinic that provided, among other services, abortions. A long-time target of the pro-life crowd, he was shot while working on dinner in his home after having returned from Friday night services at his synagogue.
2008 - A gunman entered Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universality Church during Children's Day services, and opened fire, killing two and wounding several more. The suspect, Jim Adkisson, gave a sworn statement which records the following:
During the interview Adkisson stated that he had targeted the church because of its liberal teachings and his belief that all liberals should be killed because they were ruining the country, and that he felt that the Democrats had tied his country's hands in the war on terror and they had ruined every institution in America with the aid of major media outlets. Adkisson made statements that because he could not get to the leaders of the liberal movement that he would then target those that had voted them into office. Adkisson stated that he had held these beliefs for about the last ten years.
In a letter Adkisson left believing he would die in his murder rampage, he stated that among other unreachable targets was the entire list of names in Bernard Goldberg's book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America.
2009 - On April 4, Richard Popalawski murdered three Pittsburgh police officers, fearing their part in a national conspiracy to enter his home and take his guns. Since the Presidential campaign the previous autumn, the National Rifle Association had been advertising that the election of Barack Obama would signal an increase in the regulation of firearms, including the eventual removal of personal firearms from people's homes.
2009 - Dr. George Tiller is murdered while serving as an usher at his Lutheran Church. Dr. Tiller operated a women's clinic in Wichita, KS, and was a long-time target of the pro-life movement, and the subject of many exposes by national media figures including FOXNews' Bill O'Reilly.
2009 - 88-year-old James von Brunn, a long-time figure of the anti-Semitic fringe, entered the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC and opened fire with a rifle. He shot one security guard, who, along with another, opened fire, wounding von Brunn.
OK, that's a partial list. On the left we have . . . The Unabomber who had not actually killed anyone in years, but was wanted probably more out of frustration at his ability to elude federal authorities for so long.
In the midst of all this violence, we have the ongoing assault of talk-radio and right-wing print media. During the 1990's, there were many staunch and ardent defenders of various semi-legal "militia" movements. After the initial confrontation at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, TX, talk-radio host and Watergate figure G. Gordon Liddy offered advice to listeners on how to murder federal law enforcement authorities, insisting that it is necessary to shoot them in the head because of body armor.
During the 2008 Presidential campaign, many on the right indulged in a variety of fantasies, from then-Sen. Obama's supposed hidden devotion to the faith of Islam and his attendance at a "madrassa" while a child living in Indonesia, to the on-going insistence that he is not, in fact, eligible to run for or serve in the office of President because he was actually born in Kenya, not in Hawaii. His political views have been variously labeled "socialist", "communist", "fascist", and an entire on-going dialogue has ensued pointing out the various ways policies enacted by the Obama Administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress are leading the United States toward some kind of authoritarianism. Infamously, talk-radio host is continuous in his expressed desire for the Obama Administration to "fail" in its goal of directing a national economic recovery and restoring respect for the law.
We have the Rev. Wiley Drake praying for the death of the President. We have the on-going insistence that the marriage equality movement will destroy the fabric of American society. What was once considered "fringe" beliefs on the far right are now mainstream topics of discussion on nationally syndicated radio programs, on nationally televised "opinion" programs on cable news networks, and on thousands of website and blogs on the internet. This festering sewer, it seems to me, is a breeding ground for people to act out defending their values from the alleged threat the current Administration poses not just to certain policy preferences but to the very heart of the American ideal.
I'm not saying this constitutes a "clear and present danger". I am asking whether or not we are willing to start drawing some conclusions as to the correlation between the swamp of disgusting, blood-lust and hate-filled right-wing screeching and the on-going, and increasing, violence of many on the right.
