Ideas do not kill people, and when we begin to impose restrictions on ideas because of things people MIGHT do, then we have presumed ourselves more sage and just than the individual at hand.
That depends. When the ideas are meant to persuade, you are right that they don’t “kill people”, because the ideas might not be persuasive enough to lead to that kind of drastic action. Hence, ideologies that have lead to killing have also faded over time as their persuasiveness fades due to changing conditions in the real world.
However, when the words are meant to lay a responsbility on an individual, I do think that ideas “kill people”. Islam has a notion that jihad, violent or stealth or what have you, can become a “responsibility” if the Muslim ummah is threatened. As they say, “look it up”.
Think about the Mafia. Their swearing of a code leads them to kill where there is no direct personal gain to be had, because saying the words puts a responsibility on them to act.
To say the least, this is not an idea I am comfortable with.
I’m not comfortable with it “in general”, but I am comfortable with it in the context of Islam. The entire damn “religion” is based on conquering and enslaving non-Muslims. To use another analogy, I let my dog walk around my house, but if I had a pet scorpion, I’d keep it in a cage.
