No comment? No condemnation?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

But even if it was also based on behavior then my point would still stand.

Has Joe Biden, while giving an interview, suggested his opponents should be murdered?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Yes. Associating the first name of Joseph with Goebbels. Do you associate all people named Joseph with Goebbels then? Do they first have to pass your criteria of whether they are fascist or not etc and then and only then do you make the association. I don't know how much clearer I can state this.

Only if, as DiGenova did, they make fascist remarks worthy of Dr G.

Try spelling out how incredibly distasteful it is to see a person possessing the name of Joseph, associated with Goebbels.

DiGenova made those "distasteful" fascist comments.

[rogue06]

Has Joe Biden, while giving an interview, suggested his opponents should be murdered?

Not that I know of but he has talked about a desire to physically assault them upon occasion

[Mountain Man]

Not quite the same thing.

Certainly it is. An explanation should not be unnecessarily complicated, and trying to blame the words of one for the actions of another introduces unnecessary complexity. "I punched my brother because he called me stupid!" is a child's argument.

I imagine you're going to bring up something about inciting violence, but making an obvious joke in a TV interview isn't the same same league as standing before a crowd and whipping them into a frenzy.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Not that I know of but he has talked about a desire to physically assault them upon occasion

Do you have the quotes?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Certainly it is. An explanation should not be unnecessarily complicated, and trying to blame the words of one for the actions of another introduces unnecessary complexity. "I punched my brother because he called me stupid!" is a child's argument.

I imagine you're going to bring up something about inciting violence, but making an obvious joke in a TV interview isn't the same same league as standing before a crowd and whipping them into a frenzy.

That is not precisely what the phrase Occam's razor is generally used to illustrate. I would also add that given the site upon which DiGenova was being interviewed, I suspect that his audience contained those who would endorse his comments, and some may even have contemplated putting them into practise.

[CivilDiscourse]

Of course they were his own opinions. He was an ardent Nazi and anti-Semite.

Ah at last.

That is irrelevant. According to your comment he only ever exercised his universal right.

Are you absolving Streicher from the violence directed against German Jews in the early 1930s?

And that exemplifies my comment that words have consequences.

Hence someone who professes to be an advocate should have had more sense given the tense situation within the USA at this moment.

From that remark I assume you agree that those who condemned DiGenova for his irresponsible use of language [with the concomitant risk of his suggestions being acted upon by some lunatic] were totally justified to do so.

As I have observed in the past, while free speech may be a universal right there are time when tact and discretion should be employed. For an individual to blurt out whatever comes into their head simply because they have the universal right to do so is not advisable.

No I am not asking for those things. I employed questions because I had not read anyone condemning DiGenova's lack of tact - or perhaps he too had a "senior moment".

Yet it is not. You have stated that free speech is a universal right. However, if someone makes an inflammatory speech against the residents of house number 1354 and members of their audience then go and smash up that house and terrorise its residents are you alleging that the speaker who made those inflammatory comments is absolved entirely of any responsibility? Adolph never beat up a Jew on the street or picked up a brick and threw it through the window of a Jewish shop. Joe Goebbels never set fire to any synagogues. Are you contending that they are exonerated?

I do not see the relevance as I have no idea who these people are.

1. You really should stop chopping up paragraphs. They form an entire argument, not sound-bites.
2. Whether he was acting as quasi-official part of the Nazi party DOES change his legal liability. (BTW I never said he was always acting under his universal right, that is a claim you made up on the spot.) If he was working as an official/semi-official cog of the governmental machine that was exterminating Jews, then it's no longer an issue of his free speech (as the speech isn't necessarily his). This is why the independence matters.
3. I did not "absolve" him of anything. I placed the ultimate responsibility on the person perpetrating the act. If I tell someone's boyfriend they cheated on him and that boyfriend kills them, the ultimate decision to murder is his, as is the ultimate responsibility. Now, whether there is moral guilt is an entirely different story. Did I know the boyfriend was violent? Was my story True? Etc? But in the end, it was that boyfriend's decision to act which bears ultimate responsibility.

[rogue06]

Do you have the quotes?

Back in March of 2016 Biden fantasized about being back in High School with Trump so that he could "take [Trump] behind the gym and beat the hell out of him." A year later Biden continued with the theme remarking that he thought that Trump was like "the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I’d smack him in the mouth."

[Mountain Man]

That is not precisely what the phrase Occam's razor is generally used to illustrate.

It is perhaps an uncommon application of the rule, but an appropriate one. If some nutjob decides to go out and kill someone because he heard DiGenova make a joke then it's the nutjob who should be held accountable and not DiGenova who, presumably, made his remark with the reasonable expectation that nobody would take him literally.

[Esther]

Only if, as DiGenova did, they make fascist remarks worthy of Dr G.



DiGenova made those "distasteful" fascist comments.

Not an "iota" less distasteful. The name of Joseph is very dear to many. If only they knew they had to first pass your fascist criteria test in order to retain their good name lest they get associated with Goebbels.

[shunyadragon]

Certainly it is. An explanation should not be unnecessarily complicated, and trying to blame the words of one for the actions of another introduces unnecessary complexity. "I punched my brother because he called me stupid!" is a child's argument.

I imagine you're going to bring up something about inciting violence, but making an obvious joke in a TV interview isn't the same same league as standing before a crowd and whipping them into a frenzy.

In the age of mass media it is standing in front of a crowd and whipping them into a frenzy.

[NorrinRadd]

Has Joe Biden, while giving an interview, suggested his opponents should be murdered?

Even apart from the clear (to many) hyperbolic rhetoric, I did not take Joltin' Joe's remarks as invitations to "murder," but as suggesting he should have been legally executed.

[Juvenal]

Even apart from the clear (to many) hyperbolic rhetoric, I did not take Joltin' Joe's remarks as invitations to "murder," but as suggesting he should have been legally executed.

Could you please be so kind as to name the referenced crime worthy of execution.
.

“Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.

[NorrinRadd]

Could you please be so kind as to name the referenced crime worthy of execution.
.

“Anybody who thinks that this election went well, like that idiot Krebs who used to be the head of cybersecurity [for Trump]. That guy is a class A moron. He should be drawn and quartered. Taken out at dawn and shot,” diGenova said.

Criminally treasonous stupidity, I suppose.

[Mountain Man]

In the age of mass media it is standing in front of a crowd and whipping them into a frenzy.

Okay, Mr. DiGenova did not do that. Unless he says otherwise, we can presume that he made his remarks with the reasonable expectation that nobody would take him literally.