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I find This whole "incitement to violence is bad" thing to be nonsensical. Political speech is practically always incitement to violence: According to Weber,

I find This whole "incitement to violence is bad" thing to be nonsensical. Political speech is practically always incitement to violence: According to Weber, the state is a "human community that (successfully) claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory." [1] And political discussions are about what the state should do (executive decisions, laws, etc), that is, in which cases it should coerce people, who should it coerce, and what should it do with the result of that coercion (e.g. taxes). Coercion ultimately leads to violence if the coerced individual doesn't surrender. So, I can't take this "incitement to violence is bad" thing seriously. Because if they truly believed that, then all political speech should be banned. [1] https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-monopoly-on-violence

originalvichy 6y ago
This is a Michael Jordan in Space Jam level stretch. Speech is also just vibrations of air and text is just electric charges on circuits.
radford-neal 6y ago
"Political speech is practically always incitement to violence". Yes, but also for a somewhat different reason than you give. What happens when a party gets elected, has control all the levers of government for the next four years, and enacts a law that some people object to? Well, the objectors may march around the legislature chanting "we won't stand for this!". What could they mean, since they have no power to do anything until at least the next election? Such protests happen frequently, by people of all ideologies. Implicit in these protests is the idea that even when a party has control of all parts of government, they still are sensitive to public opinion, just as absolute monarchs are, since there is always the possibility that the people will revolt - either violently, or by lower-level forms of civil disobedience. One major justification for democracy is that it minimizes the chance of civil war, by having the election result mimic the result of a civil war (in which numbers on each side presumably count for a lot), at far less cost. But sensible democratically-elected leaders realize that an election victory does not perfectly mimic the result of civil war (or of less violent forms of struggle), and that even if it did, it may be that their opponents will not judge their chances of success realistically.
effable 6y ago
At that level of generality, a lot of things are political since one of the definitions of politics, according to Merriam-Webster [1] is: "the total complex of relations between people living in society". Does this now mean that if I hang out with a friend, this may, under this very broad definition, be considered political? Is your suggestion then that me asking my friend to hang out is in some way an incitement to violence? I feel like these sorts of categorizations based on broad definitions of terms almost never arrive at anything substantive. Categories are generally always fuzzy on the boundaries and using strict definitions to demarcate them is a complicated process (see, for example, the Judicial System). Also I find this opinion preposterous because the incitement to violence in this instance has nothing to do with "political discussions about what the state should do". The President certainly did not have a political discussions with his supporters about what the state should do - rather, people in a state voted to decide who should lead, according to rules that ostensibly most of the citizens agree with, which the losing party then tried to contest by trying to wield violence themselves. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics

originalvichy 6y ago

This is a Michael Jordan in Space Jam level stretch. Speech is also just vibrations of air and text is just electric charges on circuits.

radford-neal 6y ago

"Political speech is practically always incitement to violence". Yes, but also for a somewhat different reason than you give. What happens when a party gets elected, has control all the levers of government for the next four years, and enacts a law that some people object to? Well, the objectors may march around the legislature chanting "we won't stand for this!". What could they mean, since they have no power to do anything until at least the next election? Such protests happen frequently, by people of all ideologies. Implicit in these protests is the idea that even when a party has control of all parts of government, they still are sensitive to public opinion, just as absolute monarchs are, since there is always the possibility that the people will revolt - either violently, or by lower-level forms of civil disobedience. One major justification for democracy is that it minimizes the chance of civil war, by having the election result mimic the result of a civil war (in which numbers on each side presumably count for a lot), at far less cost. But sensible democratically-elected leaders realize that an election victory does not perfectly mimic the result of civil war (or of less violent forms of struggle), and that even if it did, it may be that their opponents will not judge their chances of success realistically.

effable 6y ago

At that level of generality, a lot of things are political since one of the definitions of politics, according to Merriam-Webster [1] is: "the total complex of relations between people living in society". Does this now mean that if I hang out with a friend, this may, under this very broad definition, be considered political? Is your suggestion then that me asking my friend to hang out is in some way an incitement to violence? I feel like these sorts of categorizations based on broad definitions of terms almost never arrive at anything substantive. Categories are generally always fuzzy on the boundaries and using strict definitions to demarcate them is a complicated process (see, for example, the Judicial System). Also I find this opinion preposterous because the incitement to violence in this instance has nothing to do with "political discussions about what the state should do". The President certainly did not have a political discussions with his supporters about what the state should do - rather, people in a state voted to decide who should lead, according to rules that ostensibly most of the citizens agree with, which the losing party then tried to contest by trying to wield violence themselves. [1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/politics