It would be funny if it weren't so tragic that people vindicated in playing fast and loose with the idea of incitement.

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There's whataboutism and there's downright hypocrisy. People jump on the "dog whistles" of people they don't like and let it slide when it's people they do like.

What is true is that people can and do manage to put others into dangerous situations through seemingly innocuous language. Still, we have to be consistent and honest about how we understand this.

Yeah, it isn't and shouldn't be a crime to share somebody's address; but, in certain contexts, you know damn well that you're putting that person in danger. You can't tell me that MSNBC knew precisely what it would mean if they managed to reveal the identities of the Rittenhouse jurors - they'd immediately be flooded with credible death threats if they put in the correct not guilty verdict and it probably would have sparked a new trial.

If you're sharing the addresses of Supreme Court justices, you know what you're doing. You can say that you're only intending to get people to protest; but, you're lying. You know that among the people who show up at these people's homes, there's bound to be one or two pissed off people with weapons. Hell, Brett Kavanaugh has already been subjected to an assassination attempt.

If you're the kind of monster who wish that the assassin had succeeded, you've still got to realize that his wife and kids were around and you were putting their lives at risk.

Moreover, even if you're okay with anything that happens to any of these people due to one issue, these are complex human beings with a lot of ideas. If you're just posting addresses on the Internet, you're not controlling who sees it. If you're the kind of evil person who would like to see Clarence Thomas shot because of his Roe v Wade decision, how would you feel if he got murdered by some random white supremacist who saw your post on Twitter and decided to kill him because he was black and not for your cause.

Also, even if you're okay with that, what if you get the address wrong? That happened when Kathy Griffen doxxed Nick Sandmann. People showed up and harassed the wrong kid. How will you feel if somebody gets killed because you got the address wrong and some manic took that address, broke into the wrong house, and shot somebody?

There's this thing called "swatting" wherein people call in false hostage situations and such to police so SWAT teams will be sent to houses of people they don't like. This has resulted in people being killed several times. What a lot of you are doing isn't dissimilar.

During the Rwandan genocide, messages were repeated over the radio like "Clear the bush." and "Let not a weed escape the blade." Yeah, you might get away with it if you say, "Here's the address, do what you will with it." That doesn't change the fact that you'd be doing something deeply unethical.

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