5 ms·

Please give an example of speech taking someone's life.

by travisoneill1 6y ago

haswell 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy
d_e_solomon 6y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard
gerbal 6y ago
Hate crimes spring to mind. People tell lies about minority groups, give themselves permission structures to justify violence, and vigilantes take it upon themselves to "fix" the problem with violence. A lot of people have been murdered on as a result of hate speech. Emit Till, Michael Donald, James Byrd are a few. Also, the Rwandan Genocide, historical Pogroms, lynchings, arguably the holocaust. It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech.
- luckylion 6y ago
  > It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech. Eh, I'm not so sure about that. En masse, with coordination? Maybe, but speech is mostly about coordination at that stage. Would you say that everybody ever saying something untruthful or hatefull about the GOP is responsible for some lunatic storming the base ball practice of some GOP members of Congress with a gun and shooting at them? Speech is certainly involved in the actual act of a pogrom, but it's not the driving force (unless your definition of speech gets really vague and everything ever said since the beginning of time is part of "the speech"). You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline.
  - gerbal 6y ago
    > You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline. That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. In the case of anti-jewish pogroms the inciting factor was often speech by newspapers and officials. How should we account for anti-semitic newspapers that made a good business of concocting lies about the crimes done by Jewish people in the community? Consider the Kishinev pogrom where "the Bessarabetz paper insinuated that children had been murdered by the Jewish community for the purpose of using their blood in the preparation of matzo for Passover"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
    - luckylion 6y ago
      > That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. No, it doesn't at all. It says that there is animosity, but not why it's there or whether it's valid or not. You might hate your neighbor because he's more successful than you, makes you feel inadequate with his good deeds, because he's literally Hitler or because he just so happens to look like somebody that wronged you. The fact that you hate him says nothing about whether that's justified. But your hate makes you susceptible to all kinds of suggestions for terrible actions against your neighbor. All it takes is for somebody to suggest burning down his house, or telling your that he has attacked another victim (or posted the wrong thing on Twitter to stay on topic!) > In the case of anti-jewish pogroms to inciting factor is speech by newspapers and officials. Doubtful. We'd have to look at the very first pogroms. If you're looking at the last 150 years, you're closing your eyes to the fact that pogroms against Jews were recurring events and anti-semitism was always around. That's a problem, because you'll be surprised how these peaceful neighbors can turn into violent murderers practically over night. When you consider that they weren't peaceful neighbors right up until they became murderers, but that there was just a light cover over the hate for a while, there are much fewer unexplainable actions. The rumors are the spark that I mentioned. The long-existing anti-semitism is the wood pile that is ready to be set ablaze.
      - 6y ago

Please give an example of speech taking someone's life.

haswell 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Conrad_Roy

d_e_solomon 6y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Shepard

gerbal 6y ago

Hate crimes spring to mind. People tell lies about minority groups, give themselves permission structures to justify violence, and vigilantes take it upon themselves to "fix" the problem with violence. A lot of people have been murdered on as a result of hate speech. Emit Till, Michael Donald, James Byrd are a few. Also, the Rwandan Genocide, historical Pogroms, lynchings, arguably the holocaust. It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech.

luckylion 6y ago
> It's pretty hard to get humans to murder their neightbors without inciting speech. Eh, I'm not so sure about that. En masse, with coordination? Maybe, but speech is mostly about coordination at that stage. Would you say that everybody ever saying something untruthful or hatefull about the GOP is responsible for some lunatic storming the base ball practice of some GOP members of Congress with a gun and shooting at them? Speech is certainly involved in the actual act of a pogrom, but it's not the driving force (unless your definition of speech gets really vague and everything ever said since the beginning of time is part of "the speech"). You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline.
- gerbal 6y ago
  > You don't have pogroms without previous animosity. Somebody saying something might spark the fire, but the wood has been there all along, soaked in gasoline. That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. In the case of anti-jewish pogroms the inciting factor was often speech by newspapers and officials. How should we account for anti-semitic newspapers that made a good business of concocting lies about the crimes done by Jewish people in the community? Consider the Kishinev pogrom where "the Bessarabetz paper insinuated that children had been murdered by the Jewish community for the purpose of using their blood in the preparation of matzo for Passover"[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kishinev_pogrom
  - luckylion 6y ago
    > That presumes the victimized communities have done anything to warrant violence. No, it doesn't at all. It says that there is animosity, but not why it's there or whether it's valid or not. You might hate your neighbor because he's more successful than you, makes you feel inadequate with his good deeds, because he's literally Hitler or because he just so happens to look like somebody that wronged you. The fact that you hate him says nothing about whether that's justified. But your hate makes you susceptible to all kinds of suggestions for terrible actions against your neighbor. All it takes is for somebody to suggest burning down his house, or telling your that he has attacked another victim (or posted the wrong thing on Twitter to stay on topic!) > In the case of anti-jewish pogroms to inciting factor is speech by newspapers and officials. Doubtful. We'd have to look at the very first pogroms. If you're looking at the last 150 years, you're closing your eyes to the fact that pogroms against Jews were recurring events and anti-semitism was always around. That's a problem, because you'll be surprised how these peaceful neighbors can turn into violent murderers practically over night. When you consider that they weren't peaceful neighbors right up until they became murderers, but that there was just a light cover over the hate for a while, there are much fewer unexplainable actions. The rumors are the spark that I mentioned. The long-existing anti-semitism is the wood pile that is ready to be set ablaze.
    - 6y ago