Luciom - Maybe you don't know this (I will freely admit I know nothing about other languages), but in English not only does context matter, words can have multiple meanings. In this case, "death to America" would not mean "all Americans should be killed", it means that there should be a radical change in how the government works or that the country falls apart as an entity.

But of course you know this. You're again just trying to make one of your silly points by being intentionally obtuse. Generally, everyone here is on to you.

I know this is what Iranian theocrats say, and what Hamas terrorists say, but you know there are several ways to harshly criticize a government or an institution without using words linked to actual death, but for some reason you want to claim the interpretation of some of the worst people among humanity is the correct one, and any attempt to claim that the use of the word "death" and "america" togheter is a clear dogwhistle favouring and clamoring for actual violence is "a silly point made by an obtuse guy online".

Why are you giving any benefit of the doubt to terrorists and evil regimes?

Death to America

Could mean a lot of things


America isn’t a tangible thing that you can destroy so it’s not as if destroy America means to destroy anything literally


It means to destroy an idea, or the status quo, etc


Now if they said death to all Americans,

That’s diff

It can mean "many things", and you should start from the idea that it means the worst thing possible, given who is saying that

Oh. It can’t mean kill American people because it doesn’t identify them as the subject in the sentence.

America is identified, which is an idea. It’s also a shortened phrase of “death to the American hegemony”

Or “death to American imperialism”

Yeah, the chant doesn’t come from a place of political philosophy. It’s eye-for-an-eye desire for revenge.

If you don't want to to accept the actual definition of words, it makes discussion rather difficult.

No, that's what you are doing. The OP said nothing about terrorists. More importantly, neither did this post, which is what seems to have started this most recent branch of the conversation:

You are wrong about the Death part meaning any sort of death to humans, Luciom

It is specifically about the demise of a country

The point is that it’s not contained so neatly. Righteous indignation includes hatred and the desire for revenge (hidden within the desire for justice), and those who chant death to America, like anyone else, are not yet masters of wielding that weapon.

Are you willing to apologize the next time someone who says "death to America" is then linked in any way to any group that actually tries to kill Americans?

Because otherwise the swastika is an Indian symbol for the sun, that's what you guys are doing here.

If any terrorist group who ever killed, or attempted to kill, Americans, made that slogan theirs, then that slogan is forever tainted by that and should never be used by anyone who doesn't actually want to kill Americans

Posters suggesting no one who says "Death to America" ever intends for any Americans to die would be the only ones that would need to apologize. But of course no one has suggested that, because that would be absurd. The vast majority of people understand that there is a lot of room between "No one who says 'Death to America' ever intends for any Americans to die" and "Everyone who says 'Death to America' always intends for Americans to die". Then there are those for whom everything is black and white.

While I would agree it's not a productive slogan, that's not what the discussion was about. You're once again shifting the goalposts, this time from "According to the left ITT you are morally justified to want to kill people if your life sucks" to "that slogan...should never be used by anyone who doesn't actually want to kill Americans." One can agree with the latter while understanding the former is absurd and not even close to what anyone ITT has suggested.

"Death to America" is succinct, inflammatory and easy to remember. Everything a good chant should be.

Exactly reflective of policy or political goals? Not likely.

Why is acting from the lowest maturity level of the conscience good?

Aren't all public chats designed to encompass the lowest common denominator?

Death of America is used by actual terrorists who would love to kill Americans.

That should be more than enough for everyone to consider anyone who uses it, human trash.

We are discussing the moral validity of using death ti America which quickly becomes 0 after terrorist groups are linked to it, for any decent human being.

Any attempt to deflect from this is morally obscene.

And YES USING IT is a call for violence. An explicit one.

Tomorrow we will discuss why "work makes you free" is a bad slogan for a campaign that wants to push for labor in prison

And yet how many people here in this thread are telling you that they don't hear/use these words to have the meaning you ascribe? If you understand how language and communication works, then you'd realize you must be wrong.

I would say the idea of public chants / protesting being a “necessary evil” has been lost and replaced with the idea of being good.

For an adult, protesting is a low level act which needs to be redeemed with the moral high ground. It’s not enough to believe you have the moral high ground; you actually have to have it and it should be undeniable.

Protesting has been associated with “political engagement” and political engagement has been associated with moral goodness. At one level, this is ignorant. At a deeper level, it’s degenerate and destructive.

So I guess the idea of a good chant wouldn’t necessarily be false, but a wise person would be reluctant to associate goodness with protesting in the current environment.

There is still an important distinction between thinking they are human trash and allowing folks the right to say it. Personally, i havent really met a death to america provocator irl who didnt have glaring mental illness but you opening up the door to essentially close the door on who can say what to whom is a terrible solution, and one that has certainly been done before.

Let's go Mets!
Let's go Mets!
Let's go Mets!

He said his position was to protect the speech. I was the only one exploring the moral case for removing the protection. America is founded on the moral high ground, this is my proposal, and the moral high ground is not constant.

Hang Mike Pence! - heard Jan 6

F You Ref! - heard tonight at Cavs game.

There is one way to let people know how you feel about it. You could protest yourself

Agreed.

Unsurprisingly, you have Luciomed the issue.

The problem with using a phrase like "Death to America" (for those who are using it to mean something other than killing Americans) is that it's very polarizing, and much like your posts, lacks nuance. It's not convincing, on its own. Of course, slogans like that are typically meant to provoke, and draw attention. However, this kind of strategy is used more and more frequently today, and thus has become less and less effective (see: Israel-Palestine). That doesn't make everyone who uses such a strategy "human trash", however. Because...wait for it...

wait for it...



No, it isn't, unless it's intended to be.

But of course « fight like hell » isn’t something similar right ?
It’s funny how u can find some inner deep hidden level of different meaning when someone like trump says so huh ?

Even with what actually happen afterwards ….