Were Manson, Hitler, Criminals? Yes.
February 1, 2017
From: SS
Sent: Monday, January 16, 2017 7:05 PM
To: Walter Block
Subject: Can the “Charles Manson” be defended?
Good evening Walter, I hope you are having a good 2017 thus far. A random topic popped into my head, mostly because I have your book Defending the Undefendable on the way from Amazon.com!
Is someone like Charles Manson defendable? That is, someone that convinces others to commit acts of aggression, while the author of the acts of aggression remains passive in the situation and plays no role in the actual violence. My first thought would be, yes this is defendable. Say for example, some guy in the hallway at school shoves me and that very day (let’s say it was a wednesday) I was super angry and wanted to get revenge and really stick it to the guy but didn’t, but told a bunch of my friends about it and they are equally upset I was shoved. Now lets say the next day (thursday) I have calmed down and realize it was silly to get so upset about, while my group of friends decides to go beat up the aggressor and does serious injury to him, maybe even potentially kills him. Am I, the person that was shoved but committed no acts of violence, at fault for the end results of the initial aggressor being beaten up? It seems like an easy no, but id like your input on that example…maybe you can expand upon it. At the same time, if this were the case then wouldn’t someone like Hitler be defendable? He’s said to have killed six million Jews but, to what amount of those deaths can be attributed solely to him pulling the trigger himself? It also can be pointed out that perhaps (using that word modestly) he was a bit coercive in his realm of aggression and the six million deaths wernt all committed by people who wanted to voluntarily kill others (maybe their life was on the line themselves if they refused to kill). I guess I should also ask if you’ve covered this topic before in your two defending the undefendable books, but if not i’m glad to introduce the thought to maybe make it into volume 3! Always looking forward to your input on these kinds of things, and I am always reading Murray nowadays. He was something special for sure; a true genius. ~SS
Dear SS: Murray Rothbard says this: Should it be illegal, we may next inquire, to “incite to riot”? Suppose that Green exhorts a crowd: “Go! Burn! Loot! Kill!” and the mob proceeds to do just that, with Green having nothing further to do with these criminal activities. Since every man is free to adopt or not adopt any course of action he wishes, we cannot say that in some way Green determined the members of the mob to their criminal activities; we cannot make him, because of his exhortation, at all responsible for their crimes. “Inciting to riot,” therefore, is a pure exercise of a man’s right to speak without being thereby implicated in crime.
On the other hand, it is obvious that if Green happened to be involved in a plan or conspiracy with others to commit various crimes, and that then Green told them to proceed, he would then be just as implicated in the crimes as are the others — more so, if he were the mastermind who headed the criminal gang. This is a seemingly subtle distinction which in practice is clearcut — there is a world of difference between the head of a criminal gang and a soap-box orator during a riot; the former is not, properly to be charged simply with “incitement.” (https://mises.org/library/right-self-defense)
Were Manson, Hitler merely inciting? No, they were “involved in a plan or conspiracy with others to commit various crimes.” So, even, posit, that neither of them actually pulled any trigger, directly murdered anyone, they are still criminally liable.
Progressives v. Trump Four Years From Now