If you tell people that your enemy is mutilating kids, it hardly matters if that's true or not.
A certain percentage of people are gonna believe you, and because they believe you -- a certain percentage of them are going to feel comfortable using any imaginable level of violence to stop what they think of as a credible threat.
When we talk about "stochastic terrorism" as one of the products of hate speech, this is what we mean.
In my more naive, younger days I used to ask the annual Pride protestors a couple of questions. Not a debate question, or any kind of gotcha.
I'd just ask, "What is your goal here?" And they'd usually say something vague about making sure people know about Jesus and sin and forgiveness, yadayada.
And then I'd followup with, "Do you think this is an effective means of achieving that goal?"
nmw their answer was, you could always tell that they hadn't really thought about it in those terms.
And back then, I (naturally) drew the wrong conclusion back then. My conclusion was that these were mostly harmless idiots with a bad plan.
Now I understand that I was wrong - because I presumed they were honest about their goal.
But I see now the goal never was about changing minds. Their goal was always to make sure that queer people felt nervous and unwelcome. But, formerly, with a veneer of respectable concern for their souls.
All they've done, recently, is just pull off that veneer.
There's a reason #FoxNews doesn't air in #Germany because they would've been on the hook for inciting.#StochasticTerrorism multiple times if they did air here...
For example, the whole #DebtCeiling bs should be abolished as it's the legislative equivalent of forcing someone to run through a minefield at gunpoint whilst being blindfolded and handcuffed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIbkoop4AYE
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