> What speech laws were in place in Weimar Germany? What was Hitler advocating for before he took power? Without that this isn't the evidence you say it is.
Hitler's rise has many causes. One of those causes was that anti-semitic racism was part of everyday culture. It was a meme that was propagated across generations via speech. Then Hitler weaponized that meme (again, using speech) to rally support after the Great Depression + fears of Bolshevism + WW1 grievances made people's minds more pliable to scapegoating.
Weimar Germany did have hate speech laws, albeit not ones that were properly enforced. That's moot, though, since it's not my claim that a specific speech restriction is effective at preventing the hate speech -> genocide causal path. My only claim is that that causal path exists.
> Lone wolf terrorists seems a better example. I assume you're referring to school shooters. The problem is that's an issue of the US, not of speech laws.
I'm really referring to hate crimes perpetrated by lone wolves, of which shootings are a subset. For example, the supermarket shooter that wrote the N word on his gun barrel. I read his manifesto, and his grievances were ones that he'd adopted from online ethnonationalist forums.
Again, I'm not trying to claim that some speech law can stop hate crimes. Maybe they can, or maybe they'll backfire. I'm just claiming that this notion that speech that isn't direct incitement hasn't historically partially caused hate crimes and genocide is a fantasy. The above case is some evidence backing that position, and there are others like it.
Ideas are extremely powerful. They can inspire unhinged people to take drastic action on their own terms, when perhaps they may not have otherwise done so. They can be part of the fuel for the rise of demagogues. That's what appears to be the reality.
Hitler's rise has many causes. One of those causes was that anti-semitic racism was part of everyday culture. It was a meme that was propagated across generations via speech. Then Hitler weaponized that meme (again, using speech) to rally support after the Great Depression + fears of Bolshevism + WW1 grievances made people's minds more pliable to scapegoating.
Weimar Germany did have hate speech laws, albeit not ones that were properly enforced. That's moot, though, since it's not my claim that a specific speech restriction is effective at preventing the hate speech -> genocide causal path. My only claim is that that causal path exists.
> Lone wolf terrorists seems a better example. I assume you're referring to school shooters. The problem is that's an issue of the US, not of speech laws.
I'm really referring to hate crimes perpetrated by lone wolves, of which shootings are a subset. For example, the supermarket shooter that wrote the N word on his gun barrel. I read his manifesto, and his grievances were ones that he'd adopted from online ethnonationalist forums.
Again, I'm not trying to claim that some speech law can stop hate crimes. Maybe they can, or maybe they'll backfire. I'm just claiming that this notion that speech that isn't direct incitement hasn't historically partially caused hate crimes and genocide is a fantasy. The above case is some evidence backing that position, and there are others like it.
Ideas are extremely powerful. They can inspire unhinged people to take drastic action on their own terms, when perhaps they may not have otherwise done so. They can be part of the fuel for the rise of demagogues. That's what appears to be the reality.