From the Barrel of a Gun

Pages

▼

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Yup

Here's a diagnostic you can run on yourself. If you think a speaker is "provoking violence" by speaking, then you utterly fail to understand the difference between speech and violence. Violence can often justifiably provoke violence -- assault someone and he has the right to defend himself; assault him with deadly force and he has the right to end your life. But speech cannot justifiably provoke even a slap in the face. This is the law. But more than that, it is a founding principle of this nation.

The wonderful thing about speech, even of the vilest sort, is that it leaves everyone free to engage in more speech. Violence, on the other hand, leaves only the winners free to engage in more violence. And as a recent pair of would be jihadis learned the hard way, that violence thing doesn't always work out quite like you're expecting it to.

H/T to Miguel.
kahr40 at 12:51 AM
Share

No comments:

Post a Comment

‹
›
Home
View web version

About Me

My photo
kahr40
View my complete profile
Powered by Blogger.