Democrats claim that criticism of Representative Ilhan Omar is incitement,

Cher becomes a Republican, and Mayor Pete officially launches his campaign.

I'm Ben Shapiro. This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

Oh man, a lot to get to today. We'll get to all of it, including a Game of Thrones recap a little later in the show.

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Democrats. The narrative is if you're mean to Democrats, you're inciting violence. Now, this is nothing

new. This is nothing new. This has been going on for quite a while. When I spoke at Berkeley in 2017,

there were people outside my speech chanting speech is violence. Now, of course, this is idiotic.

Speech is not violence. And the First Amendment is predicated on the notion that speech is not. Now, of course, this is idiotic. Speech is not violence.

And the First Amendment is predicated on the notion that speech is not violence, that if I say

something critical of you, I am not being violent toward you, then you can rebut my statement

without you being violent toward me. The moment we equate speech with violence, we have now

provided an excuse for government to step in and shut down speech, because after all, it is the government's job to prevent externalities. The basic rule of thumb when it comes to government, as articulated by John Stuart Mill, is you get to wave your hand around in any direction until you hit me in the face. Well, that's how speech works. I get to say whatever I want, and so long as I am not actively inciting violence, telling people to come to your house and kill you, or encouraging people to do so,

as long as I am not doing those things, I am not inciting violence.

And in fact, it is more likely to break down our public discourse for you to continually

suggest that I am inciting violence than is my criticism of you.

To suggest that somebody is speaking in a way that inciting violence, then is my criticism of you. To suggest that somebody is speaking

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