David Cole writes:
The night of the anti-Milo riots, I got into it on social media with a bunch of those “speech equals violence” nutcases. They bombarded me with bullshit essay after bullshit essay from reality-disconnected leftist “philosophers” to “prove” that hateful speech is no different from physical violence. So I issued a challenge, the same challenge I always issue to anyone who claims that language equals violence. And it’s a very simple challenge: Come with me to a hospital, any hospital, and find a victim of physical violence. Someone who’s been shot in the face, or stabbed in the eye, or similarly maimed. Now stand in front of that person and say, “Someone called me a bad word. That makes me a victim of violence just like you.”
Amazingly, no one took me up on my offer. My streak remains unbroken; I’ve issued that challenge to a good hundred people in the course of my life, and not a single “language equals violence” cretin has ever taken me up on it. (…)
The devil comes to conservatives and says, “Ban flag desecration! It’ll lead to commies being beaten and imprisoned!” Ban passes, and five years later, pro-lifers are in the dock in Northern California for putting a fetus on a flag, and conservatives are like, “Wha happen?”
