Arizona

[jmermin]

Yeah, I'm gonna go there.

So there's a thread on coleoptera's facebook in which (very loosely summarized) coleoptera calls for the victims to sue Sarah Palin, and LF decries the implicit blame assignment as a formal logical fallacy

Comments

[coleoptera]

I loved this!

A more verbose description of my position, naturally ill-suited to Facebook, is that public figures, especially those who make statements intended to achieve some result (politically or otherwise) are at a bare minimum morally responsible for the actions that they influence. They are quick to claim credit for results that are viewed positively, either in a partisan sense or otherwise, but also quick to evade blame. The idea that this would or could NOT happen, after the months we have had watching people whipped into violent frenzies at rallies, is illogical.

Lawsuits in our country are a way in which we make a claim that someone has wronged us and should be held responsible by a higher authority. It doesn't mean that they truly are or that it will be decided that they are, but instead that one believes it and, should it go to trial, that there is sufficient evidence to make the claim.

I believe that it is probably time that victims of fear and hatemongering have a new day in court to lay out arguments for and against these actions. It is likely that under current laws and interpretations of those laws that figures such as Palin will not bear any fraction of responsibility, but it is also our responsibility as citizens and lawmakers to decide if that should change.

In a nutshell, victims and families should strongly consider seeking justice from all parties they believe had a direct influence on the outcome of that fateful event. No one should get away with murder.

[jmermin]

I respect where you're coming from here, but the cure you propose is far worse than the disease.

First, we should recognize that -pretending for the moment that the bullseye map is the only monstrous thing she's ever done- Palin's moral culpability in the shooting of Representative Giffords and her constituents is exactly the same today as it was last week, and exactly the same as her culpability in the shooting of Representative Rahall and his constituents (which, it is devoutly to be wished, will never happen).

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have an oracle which can determine this level of guilt. Could Giffords have taken Palin to court last week, or did she have to wait for someone to actually shoot her? Can Rahall take her to court now, on the grounds that the nutjob who finally cracked was equally likely to be in his district? A negative answer to either question is nonsensical, but a positive answer discards habeas corpus.

Either way, suppose you manage to bring her to justice, however it's defined. Since you were successful, we know that she has a large following which includes many nutjobs. They will view her as a martyr. Congratulations! Nick Rahall is now more likely to be assassinated, and you own some of the guilt.

Meanwhile, while you were busy nailing Palin, I assume you also rounded up the adviser who suggested the targeting campaign, and the intern who built the graphic, and the cable news anchors who gave it airtime, and the local broadcast stations and newspapers that talked about it, and all the local bloggers that linked to it, and her ISP who left it up, and so on? (Maybe you can find a way draw the line somewhere in there, but I really can't see imagine how you would justify ignoring the intern.) I don't think I want to live in that country.

(Or were you simply suggesting that people should be SLAPPing her in order to make her life difficult for a while and in the hopes that something might stick? Because that sort of thing tends to be meaningless to people like Palin with lots of resources, and ruinous to people like you without. Open that door, and powerful men and corporations will walk through it and destroy you.)

As every, the best and only remedy for irresponsible speech is responsible speech. You will find that it is much easier to establish Palin's guilt in the court of public opinion than in a court of law. Do that without exacting any formal punishment, and you deprive her of both her platform and her martyrdom. She will fade into obscurity, becoming a footnote or a laughingstock, and her words will lose the power to kill. Isn't that enough?

[coleoptera]

Most of what you say is accurate, but ignores the fact that irresponsible speech led to crimes including murder. The victims and families of those crimes have a right to ask for justice. I don't suggest that they should or will receive it, but that I believe that the question should be asked again in a court of law. It is much more about that process than it is about the outcome. This isn't anything like a SLAPP - these people have legitimate claims to make that deserve to be heard. To ignore such a potential avenue for justice is to cede that right.

Her moral culpability is not the same last week as it is this week. Actions matter.

[fractal9091]

I think that last sentence is an good and important point. Really, we don't know a priori what the actual danger of a given action is, and the danger is not constant. For example, Jeff could post violent metaphors in his LJ, and trust that his audience consists of sensible people who would never act on such things. In that situation, the only way to judge whether he is in fact being responsible or not is to look at the outcome - did any of his readers actually go and do something stupid? If something does happen, his metaphors would have to reevaluated in that context.

To put it more mathematically, since we don't know the true risk of such a post, when something happens we'll have to use Bayesian methods to update our expectation of the distribution of risk. Since Jeff is believed to know his audience better than we did, we hold him at least partially responsible for having known this improved model of the distribution. (Such responsibility is a consequence of trusting him and giving him greater freedom to say things in the first place.)

[johnthacker]

In that situation, the only way to judge whether he is in fact being responsible or not is to look at the outcome - did any of his readers actually go and do something stupid?

So you're saying that since the actual shooter in question didn't pay attention to Palin at all, then her culpability is less?

[fractal9091]

If she had no influence or control over the shooter, then I would say she has no responsibility for his actions.

[jmermin]

the only way to judge whether he is in fact being responsible or not is to look at the outcome

No, the way to judge my responsibility is to re-run the universe a million times from the instant of my posting, then re-run it again from the same moment, but stipulating that I didn't post it. Then count the deaths and subtract.

Since we can't actually do that, we make do with estimating my responsibility by guessing based on what we know about the size and character of my audience, the specific nature of the violent rhetoric, the likelihood that the signal would somehow get boosted, etc. Of course the actual outcome in this universe affects our estimation in a Bayesian way, but it doesn't affect the underlying probability that my post would lead to death at the time I posted it.

In the same way, Saturday's events have caused us to revise our estimate of Palin's responsibility upward. (Unless we're able to convince ourselves that the shooter was living under a rock for the last two years, and was never exposed, even indirectly, to anything she said.) But the actual underlying responsibility level hasn't moved.

Incidentally, if you think I am being irresponsible here, I hope you will tell me. It's not like I have an editor. Also, that's sort of exactly what I'm calling for in the post.

[johnthacker]

First, we should recognize that -pretending for the moment that the bullseye map is the only monstrous thing she's ever done

Only if you admit that the Democratic Leadership Council and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee are also guilty of doing "monstrous things."

Oh well.

[jmermin]

Did you actually read what I wrote?

Oh well.