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How is that different from Charles Manson claiming that The Beatles were sending him coded messages telling him to start a race war, or David Berkowitz claiming
by Turing_Machine 4y ago
How is that different from Charles Manson claiming that The Beatles were sending him coded messages telling him to start a race war, or David Berkowitz claiming that his neighbor's dog was telling him to kill people?
Do we get to blame Karl Marx for the tens of millions who have been murdered by his followers?
- slg 4y agoIt is ironic that you use Manson as an example. He was convicted of murder despite not directly committing the murders or ordering the murders to be done. He is in jail for the how his speech inspired others to act. These are trials we are talking about. We don’t have to believe everything that is said. We can let a jury look at the situation and make a decision. A reasonable person wouldn’t consider any Beatles lyrics to be instructions to murder. A reasonable person could interpret some hate speech as instructions for murder.
- Turing_Machine 4y agoManson was convicted for explicitly ordering people to carry out specific crimes, not for some vaguely-defined "hate speech".
- slg 4y agoHere is the first paragraph of Manson's Wikipedia page: >Charles Milles Manson (né Maddox; November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an American criminal and musician who led the Manson Family, a cult based in California, in the late 1960s. Some of the members committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969. In 1971, Manson was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder for the deaths of seven people, including the film actress Sharon Tate. The prosecution contended that, while Manson never directly ordered the murders, his ideology constituted an overt act of conspiracy. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson
- Turing_Machine 4y agoThe jury apparently believed otherwise. Besides, the history of the legal system is rife with instances of juries going along with prosecutorial bullshit.
- slg 4y ago>The jury apparently believed otherwise. That isn't how that works. The jury can't charge someone with a crime beyond what the prosecution argued.
- Turing_Machine 4y ago> The jury can't charge someone with a crime beyond what the prosecution argued. No, but they can find someone guilty without reference to what the prosecution says. Neither the jury, nor the prosecution, nor me, nor even (likely) you believes that Manson was convicted solely on the basis of hypothetical speech. Tex Watson testified that Manson explicitly ordered the Tate killings. Manson was physically present at the scene of the LaBianca killings, and actually entered the house (again, according to Watson).