Yesterday, I wrote that I generally agreed with Jack Shafer and the piece he wrote about violent rhetoric in our political discourse. To show you how conflicted I am about a lot of this, I also generally agree with Noam Scheiber who wrote a rebuttal to Mr. Shafer's piece. (At least, I think the piece is by Scheiber. It's in Jonathan Chait's blog section.)
I don't think too many people, if anyone, are suggesting that there be any sort of legal-type ban on political speech…although I do note that one Congressman today says he's introducing legislation to ban the use of rifle cross-hairs in campaign ads. That's just for show and will never go anywhere. There are also unofficial bans that decent people loosely enforce with their responses. In many circles these days, you don't compare your opponents to Hitler because, if you have a lick of sense, you've learned that you automatically lose the argument with much of your audience. It's kind of assumed that if you're so desperate that you have to liken someone to ol' Adolf, your points are invalid and you're kind of a putz. So you don't do it. It would not chill the First Amendment in any way if audiences started reacting the same way to gun imagery or cross-hairs in ads or even suggestions to "take out" a political foe.