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It's amazing how quickly this goes from tolerating someone who says disparaging things about gay people, to emboldening those people, to actual violence to the
by jdoliner 9y ago
It's amazing how quickly this goes from tolerating someone who says disparaging things about gay people, to emboldening those people, to actual violence to the conclusion that Sam's essay is DANGEROUS. It's the thinnest of arguments but this seems to be how a lot of people think about speech today. I find it to be very off kilter with reality, I don't think that anyone is preventing violence by branding someone a heretic, quite the opposite in fact.
- bthornbury 9y ago> I don't think that anyone is preventing violence by branding someone a heretic, quite the opposite in fact. This is very interesting and I believe I tend to agree. When a person is branded as a "heretic" for their ideas, doesn't it increase the division between those two groups? The winning group (the one doing the branding) begins to dehumanize and rage towards the losing group. The losing group has to find other ways to fight back or remain in insolent silence.