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Comment by Crito | Hacker News Reader

"Inspired" violence is a pathetically low bar that should be rejected by anybody with any interest in free speech. Scorsese's Taxi Driver inspired John Hinckley Jr, but no reasonable person that believes in a free society would think Scorsese in any way or capacity responsible for the assassination attempt on Reagan.

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Apologies, I'll be less nuanced for you. Hitler would have got nowhere if he was mute.

I'm not saying that speech cannot be used to organize great crimes. I am saying that the bar for responsibility or fault is nowhere even near "inspired".

"goad"? "facilitate"? What's the boundary?

Either of those, or "inciting", seem like reasonable boundaries when it is goading/facilitating/inciting specific illegal action.

So "somebody should do something about those Jews" or "I'd be one among many cheering if a bunch of these Jewesses burned alive" - not specific, so it's not inciting?

Either of those, while absolutely vile, should not be restricted speech.

I believe that while the standard currently used by US courts (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action) is not ideal in all circumstances, it is largely functional and has not caused a great deal of harm. In practice, the way it plays out is that it gives hate groups enough rope to hang themselves in the court of public opinion. See: The WBC.

Hitler would also have gotten nowhere if there had not been lots of antisemitism, racism, nationalism and the urge to take revenge for the treaty of Versailles among german people. If Hitler would have been mute, he could still have written "Mein Kampf", he probably would not have done the speeches but could be easily replaced by Göbbels, Himmler or someone else. Contrary to a lot of contemporary documentaries and so an, the danger of national socialism wasn't a single person but the ideology and a society which was all too open for it.

Thank you for this comment. Let's not pretend we can blame a single person for any atrocity. Genocide requires the complicity of a lot of people. And people can be inspired to comply by speech. Free speech is a worthy principle, but it carries a price we should never ignore.

Thanks, the funny thing for me about discussions like this is that in my home country, Austria, (extreme) right wingers are often the first ones who argue that there freedom of speech is too restricted because it's a criminal offense to - for example - deny the holocaust there. That makes it a difficult topic for me. I sincerely want to believe in freedom of speech but reading about history and watching the rise of neo-fascist movements in some areas of Europe has taught me that too often the better argument looses against fear, demagogy and violence. I still think that enlightenment, which depends on free speech, is the best solution in the long run but it becomes difficult if you have to deal with things like violent racism in the short run.

> Hitler would also have gotten nowhere if there had not been lots of antisemitism, racism, nationalism and the urge to take revenge for the treaty of Versailles among german people.

And these things were also drummed up by years (or centuries) of propaganda.

I can't even tell if you two are actually disagreeing about anything, or just escalating for the pure joy of it.

They're disagreeing about whether or not you're allowed to say anything bad about speech.

No, I am pretty sure that we agree with each other entirely in that case.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law

Godwin for the win :D

You don't see too many people bringing Leopold II.. Except for a recent article which made me go "Yay ! Finally !"

I love that people can even link to the law, but still have demonstrably no idea what it is.

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