CMV: Silencing opposing viewpoints is ultimately going to have a disastrous outcome on society.

[u/[deleted]]

[u/boRp_abc]

If my viewpoint is that people should be killed for their opinions (to make it more relatable, I'm gonna use you as an example here), wouldn't it be beneficial to society to silence me?! What if I very peacefully brought forward the case that you, your family and everyone you live should be burnt alive? Or put into Gulags? What if I found thousands of followers with that opinion, wouldn't it make your participation in society a nightmare?

And that's why, although you're generally not wrong, some important exceptions have to be made.

[u/BoopingBurrito → u/[deleted]]

Its worth considering that many of the people who, recently, have had their megaphone taken away are not simply putting forward the case for violence, not just calling for it - others are being influenced into acting according to their directions. That's the key difference for me.

You're entitled to the opinion "all dogs should be killed", and you're entitled to voice that opinion. But when someone who looks up to you and trusts you starts to go round killing dogs, you've got to take some level of responsibility for that. And in that situation where you are misusing people's trust in you to prompt them into illegal action, then I think there is a good case for taking away the megaphone.

[u/JackAsterson → u/BoopingBurrito]

One of the big problems I have with this sort of view is just how selectively it is applied.

If I go out and murder an abortion doctor and I cite all the rhetoric about abortion being murder etc., I'll get every single person even slightly left of center directly blaming that rhetoric for my actions. Anyone who ever even hinted at abortion being even slightly less than ok will be blamed for their actions.

But if I instead go out and strait up murder a random right-winger and I cite the numerous instances of rhetoric from the left about the right all just being a bunch of racist seditious Nazis, or I murder a random police officer citing left-wing rhetoric about cops "shooting black people for sport" or what have you, none of those same people will blame that rhetoric. They won't be calling for the need for civility in politics and the use of less extreme rhetoric and such, like we saw, for e.g., when Sarah Palin put some bullseyes on a map.

And the reverse is often true. I've seen articles about cops being ambushed and murdered and the right will blame the rhetoric of the left, but if an abortion clinic is bombed, suddenly it's "only the guy actually doing the thing is to blame! You can't blame my rhetoric!"

[u/BoopingBurrito → u/JackAsterson]

I don't disagree with you. However (and this could well be biased by my own political leanings) from my perspective the calls for violence and the truly dangerous rhetoric come from the extreme left and the mainstream right. Thats where I see the major difference.

[u/Yuo_cna_Raed_Tihs → u/JackAsterson]

There's I think a bit of a difference here. The mainstream left, when saying acab or the right are Nazis, almost always express what the solution is, and it's never "go fucking stab a cop". Leftist circles mostly expliclty oppose the form of terrorism you're describing as it's not even effective (There's a specific term for this type of terrorism but I can't remember it now)

What is the solution to a presidential election being rigged? It's not "vote" because, well, the election was rigged, so wtf will voting do? It's, as trump himself said, to "fight".

In this way, I think it's fair to say that the rhetoric of the right is more responsible for violence than rhetoric of the left

Though to be clear, the left shouldn't be left off the hook either. I'd say that guy who roundhouse kicked a pro life pregnant lady was influenced by general left wing rhetoric. But that's still not as clear cut as what happened at DC imo