In the wake of the horrific rampage in Tucson, a lot of people are looking for ways to lower the hatefulness of the political rhetoric.

But one way not to go is to legislate more restrictions on free speech.

Already, Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Robert Brady says he’s going to introduce a bill to make it illegal for people to make statements that could be construed as death threats against judges or Congresspeople.

He strongly suggests that his bill would have made it illegal for Sarah Palin to put up her hideous posting of Congresspeople in the crosshairs, including Gabrielle Giffords.

But as much as I despise Sarah Palin for her reckless rhetoric, I don’t want to criminalize it.

Look, it’s already illegal to make a direct, intentional death threat against an elected official—or anyone else, for that matter.

But to pass a law that would limit metaphoric and idle— not real and willful— threats would be to criminalize some common, everyday political speech.

If Rep. Brady’s bill would become law, people could get picked up by the government and thrown into jail for saying such things as:

“I wish Dick Cheney dropped dead.”

“I hope that bastard dies soon.”

“I hope my Senator gets hit by a bus.”

“That Senator deserves a kick in the ass.”

While I don’t admire any of those statements, I don’t believe they should be criminalized.

The Supreme Court recognized, decades ago, that it was more important to allow “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open” political debate than to outlaw a casual death wish, even against the President.

The 1969 case of Watts v. President concerned a man, Watts, who was initially convicted for saying that if he were ever inducted into the Army, which he vowed he never would be, "the first man I want to get in my sights is LBJ.” Though a lower court convicted him, the Supreme Court overturned that conviction. It ruled that Watts’s threat was idle—that he had no intention whatsoever of carrying it out. And then the Court reiterated its position in New York Times v. Sullivan (1964) that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials."

The government already has enough power to round people up. It doesn’t need more.

Yes, Sarah Palin should be held accountable for her grotesquely irresponsible language, and so should others like her.

But they should be held accountable by a public shunning, not by imprisonment.

If you liked this story by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive magazine, check out his story "Shame on Sarah Palin."

Follow Matthew Rothschild @mattrothschild on Twitter