In case you missed it, there was a particularly acrid moment during a town-hall meeting hosted last week by U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey. A man from Northampton County, Simon Radecki, posed this question:

“We’ve been here for a while. You probably haven’t seen the news. Can you confirm whether or not your daughter Bridget has been kidnapped?”

The Bethlehem public broadcast station that videotaped the meeting scrubbed the audio of Radecki’s question, along with his explanation for asking it a few awkward moments of silence later: “The reason I ask is because that’s the reality of families that suffer deportation.”

The audio returns with Toomey’s reply: “That’s a ridiculous question.”

You can view the town hall meeting online at http://www.wlvt.org/blogs/town-halls-forums-and-debates/pbs39-town-hall-with-senator-pat-toomey/ Radecki’s appearance is 44 minutes into the recording.

Radecki was removed from the meeting. Bethlehem police said later they intended to charge Radecki with disorderly conduct and disrupting a public meeting. They said he would receive a summons in the mail but did not indicate whether he would face misdemeanor or summary counts.

We share the sentiments of DaWayne Cleckley, vice president of marketing for PBS39, the television station that hosted the town hall, when he called the question entirely inappropriate.

The incident reminds us of an earlier, gentler political era, the 1988 presidential campaign, when the Democratic nominee, Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis, was seen as the consummate pacifist-technocrat — his nickname was “Zorba the Clerk.”

During an infamous televised debate against Republican nominee George H.W. Bush, the unflappable Dukakis was asked the following question: “Governor, if Kitty Dukakis (his wife) were raped and murdered, would you favor an irrevocable death penalty for the killer?”

The question, asked by CNN anchor Bernard Shaw, stunned and angered many — a reaction similar to Toomey’s “That’s ridiculous.”

That wasn’t how Dukakis answered; instead, he said, “No I don’t” favor the death penalty, as if he were reading a policy paper. Analysts said the governor probably lost the election because of his bloodless response to Shaw’s shock provocation.

Radecki’s provocation of Toomey last week was every bit as tasteless as Shaw’s shot at Dukakis in 1988, but they differed in this respect: Shaw presented the question as rhetorical — a what-if scenario — while Radecki presented his as fact: Did you hear about what just happened?

Words that might incite panic are on the same level as yelling fire in a crowded theater, one of the few exceptions to an otherwise universal right to free speech.

If Radecki has a point to make, he’s made it. Now he has a penalty to pay for making the point, and he should pay it in full. Civil disobedience has never been free, or easy. By the same token, civility should be its own reward.