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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   27235 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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The line from Trump's speech to the riot is that Trump's speech is a but-for cause of the riot. If Trump doesn't assemble the mob and tell them to go to the Capitol, they don't go to the Capitol. No mob, no riot.

Even if (arguendo) I accept that as true, it does not matter. It is not sufficient for President's Trump's speech to have caused a lawful action that was a necessary precursor to the riot. His speech must have been directed towards causing the riot.

And that's true in the sense of ordinary meaning as well as the law.

Growing up in the UK, our pro-free speech tradition has tended to rely on John Stuart Mill's On Liberty for the moral (not legal) limits of free speech in contexts that look like incitement.

In the UK, your pro-free speech tradition ranges from absent to extinct, and that is itself a cause of the United States's pro-free speech tradition.

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