The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, warming up to defend the band if it comes to that (it won’t), writes, “Puzzlingly, however, this is the first time the band has drawn the attention of government agents” for its staged slaughters. That’s a bit unfair: none of those other targets had been the the objects of real assassination attempts, nor were prominent individuals calling for Joe, Liz, Elon, Hillary, Kanye et al. to be murdered for real when their avatars were “killed.” That’s what makes the Trump execution unethical. FIRE writes in part,
“The obviously over-the-top theatrical context of Gwar’s mock execution, and the fact that the band has done the same thing to other politicians and public figures, make clear that they weren’t actually threatening the president’s life…Gwar’s onstage antics are First Amendment-protected speech. While true threats aren’t protected, a true threat is a serious expression of intent to commit unlawful violence against an individual. It doesn’t include hyperbole, satire, or artistic expression that simply references or depicts violence, however provocative it may be.”
“For years, GWAR would do whatever the fuck we wanted,” band member “BLÓTHAR” complained in a recent interview. “We would kill politicians from both sides of the aisle. We would kill famous people. We never had any backlash.” But when Trump was re-elected, he said, “people started getting extremely upset about politics and music and politics in art.” That’s because the enmity of the musicians and artists is all focused in one direction, and is accompanied by heavy Trump-Hate propaganda from the Axis of Unethical Conduct.
Never mind. FIRE is right: this is protected speech. Bad taste is protected, and even in this hateful environment created by the Left, a fake murder of the President on stage still isn’t “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” I have to assume that the Justice Department’s lawyers know this…it’s a simple concept, and the Federal agents are deliberately engaging in intimidation.
That’s an abuse of power, and more unethical than the GWAR grand guignol antics.
Ethics Alarms 
H/T to F.I.R.E.!
PWS
GWAR is mostly off my radar but I know one song (Slaughterama) and even managed to acquire a t-shirt. Never saw the show, which reportedly is full of crazy drama.
For those of you who wish to experience their tasteless yet funny camp / slaughter, this is a good place to start.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=453AdO5L_m8
The game show has three contestants, all of whom are killed on stage when they can’t compete effectively in the game show.
May the souls of the hippie, the art fag, and the nazi skinhead rest in peace.
charles w abbott
rochester NY
P.S.: methinks GWAR are superior space aliens who kill us for their sport. Or something like that. Wikipedia has myriad details.
P.P.S.: If you can’t hack the whole song, which has a good driving riff, even just the first minute gives you the picture.
“And what the people want could only be the senseless slaughter of the gutter slime that litters this nation for cash and prizes…”
GWAR is vaudeville in the 21st Century. Gwar skewers everyone.
jvb
Are the agents deliberately intimidating, or is there so much to investigate that occasionally they get it wrong? I cannot recall this much vitriol in politics. So many death threats are real and so many of our youth believe that political violence is justified. Their protocol is to investigate everything, just in case. If they made a call or two, this is overblown. If the band was interrogated under harsh lights – maybe a bit much.
There have been multiple attempts on the President’s life. If you publicly mock-murder him, you’re going to get a call – live with it.
I think the bigger story is that Gwar has somehow managed to retain enough of a fan base to still play live – talk about a micro-micro genre of music. It makes me smile to know they’re still out there doing their weird shows.
I think Frank Zappa would approve.
It’s not the bands or Springsteen or Kathy Griffin or De Niro that the Secret Service needs to worry about. Those people vent their feelings in a public format and, while most/all of them are TDS sufferers who have the mistaken notion that we love the sound of their voices as much as they do, the rants are where their rage ends.
It’s the others, who hear the desires for violence from these people as an actual “call to violence”, that the Secret Service needs to deal with. The true assassin doesn’t stand out in the public square, doesn’t make statements for a camera and microphone, and doesn’t disembowel Presidential dolls on stage.
Boringly, predictably pathetic.
It’s just so tiresome to read about this kind of transparent, face-plant level stupidity. Conservatives darken billions of pixels purporting to defend the First Amendment, and when their ox gets gored, demand investigations and prosecutions.
Weak, lame, unethical, immoral, idiotic, hypocritical…etc.
I guess non-partisan absurdity makes it a little better? I agree with your overall argument, but because of how many attempts have been made on his life and how there is probably secret coordinating going on, I think it’s fair to send in the Secret Service to check it out in nearly all cases.