Supporting Harassment Of People You Disagree With

There are a lot of Americans lamenting the lack of civility in our current political debate. However, many of those same Americans are not willing to look at some of the roots of that incivility.

On Saturday, The New York Post reported the following:

A left-wing activist group is offering $50 to anyone who gives them the location of the six Supreme Court justices who voted last month to overturn Roe v. Wade.

ShutDownDC said it would pay the bounty to anyone who shares a “confirmed sighting” of Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett or John Roberts.

The group will pay a whopping $200 if the justice was still in the location where they were sighted after 30 minutes, according to a Friday tweet.

This is not acceptable behavior, but I haven’t heard a lot of voices calling them out. The article includes a Tweet advertising that they will pay for a sighting of one of the conservative justices. Where are the voices calling for civility in American politics?

The article notes:

Twitter prohibits users from encouraging or calling on others to harass an individual or group of people, according to its rules and policies document. The platform hasn’t yet commented on why the bounties don’t violate its rules, Fox News reported.

ShutDownDC’s public bounty offer came after protesters affiliated with the group targeted Kavanaugh while he dined at a Morton’s steakhouse in Washington DC Wednesday evening. Kavanaugh was ultimately forced to flee the eatery through a back door.

This is a new low in American politics and needs to be discouraged strongly. This is harassment of people with opposing views. What we need is honest debate–not harassment.