A local person, Troy Kelly, 19, was investigated by the U.S. Secret Service, and detained on charges of threatening the President, a federal crime. He faces five years in prison.
I am a libertarian upholding people’s freedom to do as they please, so long as no others are harmed.
This also makes me a purist about free expression. Curbing it being justifiable only by harm to others (which does not include giving offense).
Regarding Troy Kelly’s case: the Times Union reports that he posted on social media “promising to kill Biden if he got the chance.” The word “promising” seems too strong. And the “if” a very big if.
Here’s what Kelly wrote (responding to a presidential tweet supporting LGBTQ rights): “I really hope to see u old f—. Gonna put a bullet in your head if I ever catch you. Get the f— out of office.”
There were two further supposed “threats.” Investigators tracked him down, and a Secret Service agent went with a state trooper to interrogate him. Kelly called Biden “a disgrace.” When asked if he still wanted to kill him, Kelly allegedly responded, “If I could, I would.”
If.
State police did seize two rifles from Kelly’s home.
Kelly is an asshole. But people have the right to be assholes — as long as they harm no one else. They even have the right to wish the president dead.
But there’s no indication Kelly ever got within five hundred miles of Biden — nor even vaguely conceptualized an assassination plan. Threatening the President may properly be deemed a crime, but did Kelly’s conduct really constitute any such threat? Or just blowing smoke?
Doesn’t the U.S. Secret Service have better things to do than going after harmless assholes like this?
All the above was actually written before the Trump assassination attempt — and our learning just how feckless the Secret Service was toward a very real immediate threat to the former president. Making all the more absurdist their coming down on Kelly.
Prosecuting him is an outrageous overreach. That’s the real crime here. The kind of thing you’d expect in an authoritarian country, like Putin’s Russia. Or the one Trump promises.*
* I once wrote a blog post titled, “Would I Kill Him if I Could?” And carefully answered no. (https://rationaloptimist.wordpress.com/2022/01/27/would-i-kill-him-if-i-could/)
