Power and status, sex and money. All deep human drives. How are you supposed to speak "civilly" about such passionate issues? And what constitutes "civil" speech? Shall we stop speaking of political "campaigns" or election "victories"? It's all BS.
As one shrink pointed out, harsh and violent words are an achievement of civilization. Instead of sticks and stones, we use names. Big improvement.
If passionate and metaphorically violent speech supposedly has the magical power to create a "climate of hate" --like the oft-used "chilling effect" in the opposite direction-- which then makes someone who is manifestly a paranoid schizophrenic --and who btw is less driven by outside forces?--go out and shoot a politician, then why not go all the way and proscribe the very dangerous ideas behind them, no matter how civilly expressed. In the end, isn't it the ideas and positions and attitudes which generate the problem.
Hate crime. Hate speech. Thought crime. BS.
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