Manteca officially entered the Dark Ages this last weekend.

A physical threat was posted on social media.

Scratch that. A physical threat is sugar coating the issue.

It was a death threat.

Manteca Police are now involved as they should be.

But this is not an episode of Law & Order, Major Crimes, or NYPD.

Charges, should they occur, and the processing of it through the criminal justice system suspects doesn’t take 45 minutes or less squeezed between the vile that passes for political advertising those days or the expensive miracle drugs that overcome either the hand one has been dealt or how you played that hand.

The recipient of the death threat via Facebook was Manteca Mayor Gary Singh.

This is what you get when you deliberately turn up political rhetoric to boiling in a bid to defeat someone you disagree with or dislike or advance the election chances of your version of a knight in shining armor.

Whatever one does, don’t try to absolve oneself of any responsibility by saying “those” three words.

The words?

It’s just words.

Keep telling yourself it’s just words.

Pretend your goal is democracy or a better community.

The reality is words — especially those laced with innuendo, vile, implied conspiracies, and people with no boundaries unleashing artificial intelligence as a self-righteous weapon— have consequences.

Yelling “fire” in a theater is not protected free speech as referenced in an example in the 1919 Supreme Court decision of Schenck v. United States regarding a conviction under the Espionage Act of 1917 during World War I that free speech has limits.

In a nutshell, the First Amendment protects speech unless it poses an immediate threat of harm or incites imminent lawless action.

The words on the post since taken down and are the center of the police investigation, are vulgar in the bloody act they are calling for and need not be repeated.

Contending it was hyperbole doesn’t cut it.

You don’t joke with someone else’s life just because you disagree with their politics or are filled with hatred whether it is based on their ethnicity, their faith, or their vocation.

That speech must be dealt with.

The justice system employs as deliberate due process rooted firmly in the concept one is innocent until proven otherwise.

But that’s not the speech that is the most problematic. A threat using precise words is a threat.

It’s speech that “incites imminent lawless action.”

They are those out there in the echo chamber hiding behind pseudonyms and couching words to make insinuations by offering the weak defense you are only asking questions.

Stating a judge is a horse thief is a long way from stating Judge No Name stole $25 from the collection plate at St. Peter’s Cathedral on Aug. 1, 2025.

Keep stoking the flames of innuendo enough and someone will get burned.

It’s what happens when one plays with fire.

And if that fire you fan with day-in and day-out guilt by association arguments and innuendoes ends with burning a house down or someone’s death, you have culpability.

Yes, it is harder to proof that than it is a bold and precise threat.

But those fanning the flames still hold responsibility for the deranged actions that they incite.

It’s ironic, in a way, that folks that have been nipping at Singh’s heels — and those of other community leaders — believe that the ends justify the means.

It only will breed more chaos, more distrust.

It will lead to the most critical level of government — the local level that address the day-to-day services a community needs to function —being undermined.

Just look 10 miles to the north on Stockton where those attending City Council meetings have to go through metal detectors and search of items they carry into the meeting.

Those keyboard warriors should be taking bows for the chaotic campaign they have created.

The death threat is a milestone in Manteca politics.

Any threads of innocence are gone.

And for what?

Someone didn’t like the fact Singh clearly was the one who moved the dial the most to secure passage of Measure Q that is doing exactly what was promised and is elevating public safety, street upkeep, and advancing other amenities.

Or perhaps they are racists, even though they tell themselves that’s not the case although they reference “those people” or make snarky references to convenience store owners channeling South Park.

Intimidation using the threat of violence is not political speech.

And inciting people to threaten violence by an incessant flow of innuendoes, character assassination and such is a slippery slope.

Cloak it with the words “it’s just an opinion” all you want but when you contort reality enough that is leads it’s deadly consequences, you have graduated into anarchist territory.

That is exactly what the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court in 1919 in Schenck v. United States was all about.