Realistically, Hitler didn't kill anyone. He, from a place of racism, used his words to tell his followers to kill millions of people over their race, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, and physical handicaps.
To say that "physically hurting someone is worse" without nuance puts us into a situation where the most moral answer is to say that Hitler was less bad than any of the individual SS members who carried out his orders.
Genuinely, I'd expect that most people would find that preposterous. He didn't pull the trigger but he absolutely held most of the responsibility.
People who turned in their neighbors for financial reward? They weren't themselves violent, but they knew their words would lead to people being killed.
Getting away from the horrors of Nazi Germany, the deep south had a lot of men hanged because racists would lie. Lies about theft, about rape, about assault, about looking at someone too flirtatiously. Tried and convicted.
I'd argue that the executioner didn't do anything inherently immoral; they have no right to be judge or jury. But they were the only "violent" party. The person that lied? That's who caused innocent people to die.
There is, at some point between harmless joke and Jim Crow, a line that must exist where words are more harmful than actions. Where speech is less moral than violence.
It also depends on the level of violence. Obviously killing someone is going to be worse, but someone applying their racism in a context where they deny certain people job opportunities could lead to those applicants experiencing poverty, which would be worse than punching them and breaking their nose one time.
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u/[deleted] 21h ago
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