People are being shot in the face by masked gangs of brown shirts, while they are on the ground after trying to administer aid, we're beyond "stochastic" terrorism at this point.
This concept is sophistry when deployed against Democrats just as much as it was when deployed against Republicans.
“Stochastic terrorism” is free speech.
I get it, you don’t like your enemies and you want to find a way to punish them. Maybe even to prevent them from saying things that seem to be increasing their base of support. So you find a few dangerous whackos who also happened to articulate the same points that you’re trying to suppress. Boom, instant justification to suppress that speech! Even if the speech isn’t per se illegal, maybe the fact that both your target and the whackos said the same thing makes it ok to suppress that speech anyway!
No, that doesn’t make it ok. Free speech is free speech. Stop trying to unconstitutionally suppress the rights of your opponents.
If someone actually took this idea seriously, they would have to start with data about terrorism and then ask what speech might have inspired them, and they would end up banning pretty much all political expression. The Wikipedia article on Terrorism in the United States lists Attacks by Type[1], two of the types are left-wing and anti-government extremism and right-wing and anti-government extremism. That about covers all political speech.
But for people who refer to this idea, the starting point is always that they want to censor specific speech, and they look for acts of terror to justify that.
There's no advocate for censorship that couldn't make up their own "stochastic something", and I'm sure many have, I'm sure people have argued that porn is stochastic rape or something.
Anyone who has ever advocated for censorship has argued that the speech he wants to censor leads to violence and social breakdown. Do people who consider "stochastic terrorism" a serious concept see themselves in this tradition, just expressing themselves more formally or do they think they've invented something new here?
From Hannah Arendt's book The Origins of Totalitarianism, first published 1948. She identified what we now call stochastic terrorism but did not give it a name.
Mostly such orders were "intentionally vague, and given in the expectation that their recipient would recognize the intent of the order giver, and act accordingly", for the elite formations were by no means merely obligated to obey the order of the Fuehrer (this was mandatory for all existing organizations anyway), but "to execute the will of the leadership". And, as can be gathered from the lengthy proceedings concerning "excesses" before the party courts, this was by no means one and the same. The only difference was the the elite formations, thanks to their special indoctrination for such purposes, had been trained to understand that certain "hints mean more than their mere verbal contents" -- Arendt, Hannah. 2025. Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism Expanded Edition (LOA #389). Edited by Jerome Kohn and Thomas Wild. New York, NY: Library of America. (588-89)
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[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 46.2 ms ] thread“Stochastic terrorism” is free speech.
I get it, you don’t like your enemies and you want to find a way to punish them. Maybe even to prevent them from saying things that seem to be increasing their base of support. So you find a few dangerous whackos who also happened to articulate the same points that you’re trying to suppress. Boom, instant justification to suppress that speech! Even if the speech isn’t per se illegal, maybe the fact that both your target and the whackos said the same thing makes it ok to suppress that speech anyway!
No, that doesn’t make it ok. Free speech is free speech. Stop trying to unconstitutionally suppress the rights of your opponents.
But for people who refer to this idea, the starting point is always that they want to censor specific speech, and they look for acts of terror to justify that.
There's no advocate for censorship that couldn't make up their own "stochastic something", and I'm sure many have, I'm sure people have argued that porn is stochastic rape or something.
Anyone who has ever advocated for censorship has argued that the speech he wants to censor leads to violence and social breakdown. Do people who consider "stochastic terrorism" a serious concept see themselves in this tradition, just expressing themselves more formally or do they think they've invented something new here?
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorism_in_the_United_States...
Mostly such orders were "intentionally vague, and given in the expectation that their recipient would recognize the intent of the order giver, and act accordingly", for the elite formations were by no means merely obligated to obey the order of the Fuehrer (this was mandatory for all existing organizations anyway), but "to execute the will of the leadership". And, as can be gathered from the lengthy proceedings concerning "excesses" before the party courts, this was by no means one and the same. The only difference was the the elite formations, thanks to their special indoctrination for such purposes, had been trained to understand that certain "hints mean more than their mere verbal contents" -- Arendt, Hannah. 2025. Hannah Arendt: The Origins of Totalitarianism Expanded Edition (LOA #389). Edited by Jerome Kohn and Thomas Wild. New York, NY: Library of America. (588-89)
This perfectly describes what leftists have done by importing Muslims and the third world en mass to the West. Part and parcel!