Quote:
Originally Posted by valo403
When you start taling about intimidating people into not speaking you step onto shaky ground IMO. Blocking out an offensive form of speech through dilution or the like is one thing, getting into intimidation moves away from expression and towards threats and violence. By all means people should be free to express themselves fully, and if in doing so they effectively counter an undesirable viewpoint that's perfectly acceptable, almost ideal, but the use of intimidation and freedom of speech/expression are not the same thing.
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I didn't mean threats of violence. As far as I know there were no credible threats of violence explicitly made against Ann Coulter in Ottawa.
I'm merely talking about the intimidation through sheer presence and through rhetoric. I know I should never use the dictionary in an argument, but I'm going to do so anyway. I mean 'intimidate' as defined by Merriam-Webster: to make timid or fearful. The use of the word does not necessarily have to involve violence or threats of violence.
If a small number of Klansmen decide to have a rally somewhere in the Deep South or Midwest, and upon arriving at the scene of the rally see 500 tough-looking black dudes, peacefully protesting against the message of the Klan, they may choose not to rally. Indeed, there are many cases of anti-racists intimidating racists into abandoning a march simply through sheer presence. I'm sorry I keep bringing racist rallies into the discussion, but it's simply the form of political protest that I'm most aware of, off-hand.