It is interesting that your logic assumes and requires a critical mass of individuals who are willing or predisposed to act in some violent way if they are exposed to message X or message Y. The British are coming.
And if it can be shown in retrospect that message X or message Y constitutes "hate speech" by some officially contrived moral standard then the violent individuals are vindicated and the speaker culpable. Winner takes all. Moral inversion meets Kill the Messenger. Looks like we are back at square one. ________________________________ From: ARLO J BENSINGER JR <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, June 16, 2009 5:55:22 PM Subject: Re: [MD] An Observation From An Outsider [MK] If you can agree with this logic in general then I wonder how you might define "incites violence". [Arlo] I think that is precisely what the role of the courts are on this. And while it is problematic to define, I think a good start is with the phrase "the likelihood of imminent violence". In that phrase we see a scale. Telling your audience that "homosexuality is wrong" is likely low on the scale of "likelihood of imminent violence" against homosexuals. Telling them that gays are evil and god is punishing America for tolerating homosexuals rather than casting them out is probably higher up on that scale. Telling them outright that they should go out and tie gays to the back of their cars and drive away probably tops the scale at a high "likelihood of imminent violence" against homosexuals. In the same way, the expression of disagreement with Western ideology is likely very low on this scale, calling America "the Great Satan" and calling for its destruction much higher, telling your audience that they must strap bombs onto their bodies and blow them up in highly populated civilian areas, probably tops out this "likelihood of imminent violence" against American nationals. Again, I am not saying there is a precise line, but the courts are balancing this and hopefully with due legal process justice will be served. And as I said, I think prudence errs in the favor of freedom. But there are times on that scale when society has every right to intervene (IMHO). Another tangent to this might be the degree of fear certain groups must live in under such speech. If I was a black man in Alabama at the height of the KKK I would have been afraid every single waking and sleeping moment of my life; for my own life, for my kids, and for my loved ones. Is it "okay" for citizens of this country to live under such conditions? Or consider again the Jews in the Reich, faced with the "speech" that made them live with everpresent fear. This is why "hate crimes" are so powerful. They not only make people "nearby" afraid, but they make every person of a specific group no matter where they are "afraid". When a black man or a homosexual is tied to the back of a car and dragged behind to his death, every black person and every homosexual person in the nation is made afraid for their safety. (Yes, I know, the subject is "hate speech" not "hate crimes", but I mention this to illustrate the "fear" a population can be made to live under). [MK] Obviously the violence almost never comes from the speaker. [Arlo] Obviously. They are cowards. [MK] Who is responsible for the violence? If David Duke gives a speech at Berkeley is he responsible for the students who are "incited" to vandalize the administrative offices? [Arlo] I don't know the specifics, but I'd say "yes". If it was a Muslim speaker, and the incited students who vandalized were Muslims, would this matter? Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
