Protests this week in Afghanistan against the Dove World Outreach Center’s Quran burning ceremony have led to more than 20 deaths. Pastor Terry Jones, leader of the Quran burning, has denied responsibility for the violence, and Internet chatter generally equates the Quran burning to burning the American flag, an act clearly protected under the First Amendment.

There seems to be at least a causal connection between Jones’ Quran burnings and the murders in Afghanistan: Quran is burned in the United States; video is broadcast on Internet via church website; violent extremists generalize from video that Americans hate Muslims; riots begin in Mazar-e-Sharif; lots of people die. This doesn’t imply in any straightforward way that Jones bears ultimate responsibility for the killing, but he obviously incurs some moral culpability for encouraging violence, given he knew the likely consequences of burning the Quran. The idea that all of the responsibility for these events falls on those abroad is ludicrous.

Very few situations warrant the limitation of First Amendment rights, and importantly so. But because more than just our political community is involved, and because of the emergent nature of modern communication, First Amendment jurisprudence hasn’t been fully worked out for a rapidly globalizing world. Brandenburg v. Ohio was the latest Supreme Court case to deal with restricted speech that causes imminent danger. This is speech akin to ‘shouting ‘fire’ in a crowded theatre,’ as Justice Wendell Holmes put it in 1919. Brandenburg established a test for restricting speech based on the danger it causes — it must intentionally incite immediate and likely lawless action.

Restricting speech like Jones’ on this basis would be a serious legal stretch, but it’s worth thinking about. The likelihood of violence was clear and known to Jones through warnings from as high up as the president, encouraged by his original plan in September. The protests began four days after Jones burned the Quran, but almost immediately after his speech percolated into the Afghan media. Jones didn’t specifically incite violent action, but it could be argued that he had the intention to incite violence given his indubitable knowledge of the consequences.

The main problem this reasoning runs into is the ‘heckler’s veto,’ a situation in which speech is silenced because of the reaction of an upset crowd. If First Amendment exceptions allowed this, negative reactions of bigots in the south would have silenced the civil rights movement. Any unpopular view could be restricted by the force of the majority — and unpopular views make democracy work. The ‘hecklers’ in this case are very far away, members of a clearly removed political community from ours — can the idea of ‘heckling’ even apply here?

Global political debate like we have in the United States is still an aspiration — Jones will never really dialog with Muslims in Afghanistan; a worthy yet unpopular view is unlikely to contribute to global political debate to the degree that it does in our domestic political community. Incendiary speakers can, however, cause murders of innocent people, even if much responsibility falls on interlocutors. This asymmetry between the relatively limited nature of the global political community and the gravity of human death might justify restriction of speech that knowingly incites sufficiently deplorable violence.

Giving Jones even the modicum of publicity of this page feels wrong, but it’s worth pointing out the consequences of incendiary free speech in a globalizing world. Jones is clearly responsible for horrible violence, and he ought to realize as much. Some brave district attorney might even work out an argument along these rough lines to turn the widespread condemnation of Jones’ speech into real punishment.

Scott Collison is a senior philosophy and physics major. His column appears every Wednesday, and he can be reached at smcollis@syr.edu.