Yes, saying whatever the hell you want no matter how ignorant and as long as no one is hurt is OK by me. America is cool like that. Your St. Thomas example is not applicable because the phrase was taken as an order which did in fact hurt someone.
And this differs from Palin et al calling for people to "reload" and "fire an M-16" how?
Second question: Firing a gun at someone is a violent act, even if no one has been hit intentionally or not. For the record, I have been shot at, and in case you are wondering, it's not very cool.
I know that. That´s why I picked the example.
If I fire a gun at you, I don´t hurt you unless you catch a bullet. If I call for you to be shot, I don´t hurt you either unless you catch a bullet. In both cases, it´s completely irrelevant if I was trying to get you killed - I was intentionally engaging in actions that had the potential to get you killed.
Quick caveat: When you open your mouth in public and you have a large a loyal public following then some discretion should be used in exactly how you word things. While I could say 'Those big gubbermint thieves needs to be strung up!' without incident, if someone with the status of Sarah Palin would say something similar then I believe she should be held accountable for that.
So yes, while I hold to my assertion that people should be able to say anything they want so long as no one gets hurt, those in power, political or otherwise, should exercise caution with what they say and how they say it and more importantly, how it could be perceived.
Now we´re getting somewhere.
What Palin et al are saying is
technically not a suggestions to commit murder, any more than "Nice place you have; would be shame if something... happened to it" is technically a threat.
These people are not morons. They know that calling Democrats traitors and unamerican and threats to society and "palling around with terrorists" isn´t simply a more pointed way of saying they disagree with people. They know that they are pushing certain buttons with people, and they know that these people are armed.
I´m NOT saying that it is their plan to get Democrats murdered... just that they are at a stage where, not having been able to get power through elections or lawsuits, they are ready to use ANY means to cause trouble to their enemies.
So should we always plan around the actions of the crazy? Should we ban the movie 'Taxi Driver' because some nut extrapolated murder form it? I think that's a few steps too far.
Taxi Driver is fictional. Only a nutter takes a fictional story as motivation for real actions.
Sarah Palin and her campaigning is not fictional. She is calling on people to do something.
See the difference?
