When do moral obligations also become legal obligations? This is a crucial question that free societies have to wrestle with.
The sentencing of Michelle Carter, a twenty-year old woman convicted of urging her boyfriend, Conrad Roy, to commit suicide in 2014 brings this question to the forefront yet again.
Carter, who was seventeen at the time, sent hundreds of text messages to her boyfriend, encouraging him to commit suicide. Finally, when she knew he was taking actions to do just that, she chose not to inform his family or the authorities. In fact, she urged him to get back into his truck, so that he could succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning.
Just reading small excerpts of the court proceedings, as well as considering the deep hurt of Roy’s family, is enough to make one see red when they consider Michelle Carter’s hateful, sadistic behavior.
Some will say she deserved an even harsher sentence than the two and a half years she was given (fifteen months of which she will still need to serve). The prosecuting assistant district attorney, Maryclare Flynn, pushed for a seven to twelve year sentence, stating, “She ended (Roy’s) life to better her own.”
The court was determined to set a precedent with Carter’s sentencing, in hopes of discouraging others from behaving in such hateful ways.
There is no question that Carter’s behavior was despicable and the court of public opinion ought to unapologetically vilify her.
However, there is an important conversation that we have missed. Is free speech only permissible when it is kind, helpful, or otherwise pleasant? Or, are people legally allowed to be jerks, say hateful things, and verbally hurt others?
How do we determine an act of murder has occurred when the criminal actions taken aren’t, in fact, concrete, tangible actions at all? Is the power of persuasion, no matter how heinously it is used, grounds for murder or manslaughter convictions?
No one should excuse the hateful, wicked ways in which Carter treated her then-boyfriend, Conrad. Society ought to speak out against such behavior and estrange such perpetrators.
Yet, the emphasis should be on societal alienation, rather than legal retribution for one’s choice to use malicious and ill-intended words. Conrad Roy was clearly battling enormous mental health issues. Michelle Carter preyed upon his already fragile emotions. She did not, however, force him to take his life. That heartbreaking choice rested upon his shoulders.
Once we start down the road of policing speech, outside the realm of libel, slander, or threats, we are treading into highly subjective waters that could one day come back to bite us. And that is the conversation we should be having when considering this tragic case.
Nauseating that NCCivitas would use this tragic case as wink and nod support of hate speech. Basically the writer is attempting to defend the behavior of our seriously ill president … NCCivitas should be encouraging “societal alienation” towards our president… But, naturally, that does not fit into their shallow and narrow ideological goals.
Good and thoughtful article. Thank you Civitas. One problem with labeling speech – aside from the constitutional aspect – who ends up deciding what speech is hate and what speech is not hate? I’m afraid it would be someone like George.
You know, I’m beginning to think George and Scott are the same guy; they each make the same kind of empty noise, and pretend that “NC Civitas isn’t saying things I want it to say” is the same thing as an actual argument.
As to the subject at hand, well, it’s my understanding Constitutional free speech allows you to say almost anything that isn’t a direct command to do harm. Case in point: George/Scott and any other leftist can accuse Trump of all manner of fantastic crimes and project all their own evils (racism, misogyny, sociopathy, etc.) onto him all they want without being punished; they can even, as George does above, advocate hatred (“social isolation”) toward him. What they can’t say without getting in trouble with the law, as a number of leftists have lately discovered to their sorrow, is “I wish someone would just shoot him outright!” (Here’s looking at you, Kevin Allred!) The call for illegal action is what gets you in trouble with the law: telling someone else to pull the trigger is as bad as pulling it yourself.
With Carter and Roy, I’d say this is the same standard: she could tell him he’s worthless, mock his sex and skin color, declare him sub-human while comparing him to various species of simians, and even tell him he’s got no reason to live and ought to kill himself, and that’s all protected free speech. What gets her in trouble is that part about [paraphrased] “Get back in that truck and die!” Specifically telling someone to kill himself is the crime, just like telling him to kill somebody else, and for the same reason.
I am beginning to think Pinto is Dinesh D’souza. He makes the same absurd claims about Muslims and the Left (although to D’souza’s credit he does admit that he has the same ideas about Liberals as radical Islam does).
On Trump, read here:
https://newrepublic.com/article/143586/trumps-russian-laundromat-trump-tower-luxury-high-rises-dirty-money-international-crime-syndicate
Independent Journalist have covered Trump corruption for years. The only reason they don’t have the paper proof to take Trump down is that they lack what Robert Mueller has, namely Subpoena power. And these Journalist have nothing to do with the DNC or Clinton despite the number of political lies Donald tells.
Like D’souza as well, Pinto paints the world in the most unrealistic way. The claims that only Democrats commit criminal acts is not only absurd, it is cause to look into the mental health of one who advocates such insanity.
When Pinto (like D’souza) then use Religion, and Jesus Christ to bolster their purely political claims, they step into fanaticism, and the occult. They are themselves, like ISIS, dangerous radical Religious people.
Great move Scott, you should go into politics, you probably are under your real name. I am intrigued by the Russian mobster story, it will make a great movie someday but likely will not pretend Trump is the mastermind. I knew Trump was a fighter, I didn’t know any details of the trials and tribulations he struggled through over the last 36 years. As any independent businessman knows the road of ups and downs can be treacherous and it takes courage, lots of courage and incredible fortitude to make it to the top. All those years Trump fought, lost and won as an independent businessman sounds like a true American inspiration.
Forgive me Civitas, Scott’s sneaky post is out of context to Carter’s story and I should have just reported him for spam but I couldn’t resist first exposing him.
Great move Scott, you should go into politics, you probably are under your real name. I am intrigued by the Russian mobster story, it will make a great movie someday but likely will not pretend Trump is the mastermind. I knew Trump was a fighter, I didn’t know any details of the trials and tribulations he struggled through over the last 36 years. As any independent businessman knows the road of ups and downs can be treacherous and it takes courage, lots of courage and incredible fortitude to make it to the top. All those years Trump fought, lost and won as an independent businessman sounds like a true American inspiration.
Forgive me Civitas, Scott’s sneaky post is out of context to Carter’s story.
Still too busy licking your wounds and obsessing over your last defeat to say anything about the subject at hand, eh, Scott?
My apology to Phillip and Pinto, I only posted because Pinto referenced me twice in his comment and Phillip, it was Pinto who was commenting completely out of context of the article, until he veered back to it at the end.
Answer what I wrote Pinto, or close your trap.
Our first amendment was written specifically for CONTROVERSIAL speech. Everyone can agree “aren’t the puppies cute”. We have in this country the freedom to disagree with a speaker, argue a counterpoint, walk away, or turn the channel. Granted, what she did was despicable, however he was the one that made the ultimate decision.
Now you’re going to pretend your refusal to read what I wrote is the same as my never having written it in the first place, eh, Scott? Until you learn that “My hands are over my eyes and I can’t see your arguments and therefore they don’t exist” isn’t an argument, you will continue to struggle against reality, and (like Jared Loughner and Floyd Corkins and James Hodgkinson, to name just a few of your fellow delusion-dwellers) you will continue to lose.
Agreed on both counts, Tarheel. Thanks for commenting.
I pretty much agree with Tarheel as well, though again, the one limitation we have on those free speech rights is speech that does clear and provable harm. “What she said putz the hurtz on mah feelz!” doesn’t qualify as such. Our country’s defamation and libel and slander laws deal specifically with statements that do quantifiable damage, such as lies that cost someone financially, or incite panic (e.g. you can be held liable if people are trampled to death because you yelled “Fire!” in a crowded theater when there was no fire) or incitements to armed insurrection, arson, murder, or rioting (e.g. “Rise up, comrades, and let us burn City Hall and slaughter all the capitalist oppressors therein!”) and the like. About the only thing Michelle Carter said that qualifies as such an illegal incitement was that part about her all but ordering Conrad Roy to get back in his truck and finish killing himself, and I’ll bet her defense lawyers have some plausible arguments to offer as to why even that might not be illegal.
Other than that, pretty much anything goes; for so long as a measure of sanity prevails in our courts, at least, PETA can’t punish you for “hate speech” for saying “Like puppies? Of course I like puppies: they taste just like chicken! They’re especially good on a bun with mayo and mustard.”