Silencing opinion is its own form of violence

He’s both a politician and a political junkie. And he should be breathless about the coming political year, when top Georgia posts are completely up for grab.

But state Rep. Barry Fleming, R-Harlem, is dreading what the political discourse might become.

Fleming told the Downtown Augusta Kiwanis Club Monday that a brouhaha involving Democratic candidates at a liberal convention this summer is an ominous harbinger.

Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans are two Democratic women running for Georgia governor. But at the pro- gressive Netroots Nation confab in Atlanta in August — after Abrams was “was treated like royalty,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution — Evans was shouted down and largely prevented from speaking. And in a civil society, preventing others from speaking, particularly when they have the floor, is its own kind of violence.

What should happen is more than just the rote and often forcible removal of the belligerents. The offenders, who are acting in a wholly premeditated and calculated way — often coordinated with others in the room and sometimes with prior training in disrupting political events — should be absolutely hammered by the courts.

Fleming believes existing law is well-suited for the chore, if only enforced. Perhaps. We wonder, though. Is an hour in the pokey and a $100 fine for disturbing the peace sufficient to deter such behavior? We hardly think so.

The only way to protect political speech going forward is to protect it with the full force of new law — and, in our view, massive fines for disrupting speeches and similar public events. And we mean massive. Five-figure territory.

How much is free speech worth, after all? What price, civil discourse?