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incitement to violence is a problem. so's yelling fire in a crowded theater, to wax cliche for a minute. on the latter, it is evident that the premise of the thread is wrong: not all speech acts are equivalent (and, to be pedantic about it: speech in general is not at issue).
yelling fire in a theater is a clear example of something over a line.
speech that incites violence may or may not be--but this seems a matter that should be the subject of vigorous debate were this a democratic polity---but it kinda isn't one, so we do what we're told. anyway, "incitement to violence" is not typically something that is advanced on it's own---were it advanced without context, there'd be no particular problem with including it in a set of statement types that are problematic at the least--but often incitement to violence is a consequence of another order of statement. to take a particularly repellent example, the use of radio in rwanda to incite genocide was couched in a politics of ethnicity. things get ugly here: if all that was at issue was the type of statement, would you argue that what mattered was the incitement to violence--in which case an argument could be made to suppress it---or would you argue that what mattered was the fact that these incitements were couched in a political argument? if the latter, this would open you up for problems of linking political claims to potential for violence, which would quickly become an excuse to ban political speech that you don't like.
fact seems to be that the ethical problems concerning, say, rwandan radio emerge from the consequences. ethics is left enabling you to say "o. that was bad." and very little beside.
so it seems that this ethical question (what types of speech should not be allowed) is a properly political question (what types of speech should be marginalized)....
does marginalization amount to censorship?
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a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
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