In 1984 there was a vociferous group of tax protesters that claimed that US citizens had no obligation to pay their income taxes. They suggested that the income tax was somehow illegal and unconstitutional despite the fact that the income tax is enshrined in the 16th Amendment to the US Constitution. The 16th Amendment reads: “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.” I was a young American History teacher and challenged the idea that Americans, especially patriotic Americans, had no obligation to pay taxes to support the services and functions of government. My outspokenness on the issue led to a counter challenge, one of the tax protesters from Sioux Falls dared me to debate him on the issue, and so I did. Truth be told and without hubris, I wiped the floor with him. The media was there and were impressed by what they heard and saw so then asked me when I planned to run for office. It was the beginning of my political career.
It was also the beginning of the various death threats that I would receive over the course of the next thirty years. The first came from the Posse Comitatus, which promised my death out of the blue without further warning via a high-powered rifle because of my stance on the legality of the income tax and the fact Americans have a legal, not to mention a patriotic, duty to pay it. This being my first death threat, I was understandably concerned. I reported it to the police. I would learn over the next couple of decades I spent in public life that people who tell you they plan to kill you – don’t, usually.
I voted on a number of abortion bills when I was in the State Legislature. Roe v. Wade has been the law of the land since 1973, reaffirmed with some modifications in the years since. I voted against a number of restrictive abortion bills knowing they were unconstitutional, would cost the State lots of money to defend and were sure to lose in the courts after raising some people’s hopes and wasting everyone’s tax dollars, which is exactly what happened every time. That didn’t stop the true believers, the fanatics and the seriously unhinged from threatening me and other legislators with various consequences. It got so bad one session that the Highway Patrol parked one of their cars with an officer in it on my street. The officer was protecting South Dakota Supreme Court Justice George Wuest and me; I live on the east end of the block and Justice Wuest lived on the west end, the trooper parked in the middle of the street and kept an eye on both of us. The law was wending its way through the legislative process and everyone knew it was going to the courts for final adjudication. Apparently Justice Wuest, and other members of the Court, had been threatened as well.
My favorite death threat came from an anti-death penalty advocate. This threat was issued in the halls of the Capitol in front of witnesses (one of which got a couple of Highway Patrolmen because they were so concerned for my safety). I am a death penalty advocate. I think murderers should die the same way their victims did or, as an alternative, go feet first into a wood chipper. I recognize there are miscarriages of justice and the 8th Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment but I refused to outlaw the death penalty in South Dakota law whenever a capital punishment repeal reared its ugly head during the legislative process. This stance enraged an anti-death penalty advocate to the point he threatened to kill me right there on the 2nd floor of the Capitol in front of God and everybody. When the Patrolmen got there I was collapsed in laughter at the absurdity of someone who thought life was so sacred that the State had no right to take it away from someone who had willfully, maliciously and with malice aforethought taken it from another but in order to defend that position would willfully murder. I was laughing, the Patrolmen were scowling while the anti-death penalty advocate was fuming and frothing at the mouth in a frenzied rage. I refused to press charges and the anti-death penalty advocate was summarily escorted from the Capitol.
I’ve had other death threats regarding other topics over the years but the only threat I ever took seriously was when a man who called himself “The Phantom Child Molester” left me a note on my Senate desk telling me what beautiful children I had and telling me some details about their lives he had no business knowing. That threat, albeit veiled, I took very very seriously.
People always have had sincerely held positions on issues, some of which they consider to be non-negotiable questions of morality. We used to be able to discuss these differences with a modicum of calm and civility. No longer, now we yell at each other and consume only the media that just agrees with what we already believe. It seems like Americans feel that the 1st Amendment applies only to them and their positions but not to people of the other party or those who hold an opposing opinion. Not everything is a life and death issue. Political “debate” should not equate to a shouting match. Disagreement need not be disagreeable. Our democracy rests on the idea that that we are all free to express our views, participate in the governmental process and to do so peacefully without harassment or threat. We have to get back to the ability to listen to each other and to disagree about things without intimidation, the threat of or actual violence. If we don’t, we will cease to be a democracy. Try to remember that and count to ten the next time you’re tempted to tell someone to “drop dead”.