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A comment on Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “battle rifles” ready. Parent comment

Re:Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “ba... by licyeus on Thursday August 16, 2018 @07:40PM (#17779307)
"People need to have their battle rifles and everything ready at their bedsides" is not a figure of speech I've ever heard. Is Milo Yiannopoulos's quote "I can't wait for the vigilante squads to start gunning journalists down on sight" a similar figure of speech?

Excusing extreme calls-to-action after the fact as "figures of speech" gives license to say anything: when you've found you've gone too far, you can simply walk it back and say it was metaphor. Should any of Milo's or Jones's followers act on this, would you still say their comments were just figures of speech?

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Re:Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “ba... by benmmurphy on Thursday August 16, 2018 @08:12PM (#17779437)
the second part of that quote makes it much less worse. 'everything ready at their bedsides' implies resisting an armed attack as opposed to going out and hurting other people. previously i'd only seen the 'battle rifles' ready part of the quote in the media. though, possibly the rest of the context is probably worse for jones :/
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Re:Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “ba... by licyeus on Thursday August 16, 2018 @08:31PM (#17779499)
Full context is available in a tweet linked in the article[1], but Jones states "We're under attack and you know that and you've pointed out that mainstream media is the enemy. But now it's time to act on the enemy... They're coming and they're coming and they're coming. They think they can really take down America. This is it." before urging his followers to have rifles ready.

[1] https://twitter.com/mmfa/status/1029477795561463808

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Re:Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “ba... by lylecubed on Thursday August 16, 2018 @08:20PM (#17779461)
> though, possibly the rest of the context is probably worse for jones :/

If the rest of the context was worse for jones, the press would have used it.

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Re:Twitter suspends Alex Jones for urging people to keep “ba... by h4b4n3r0 on Thursday August 16, 2018 @07:51PM (#17779358)
Yes, it’s _obviously_ a figure of speech. Alex Jones is not, nor has he ever been, a leader of armed resistance of any sort. Neither was Milo. They do not _actually_ urge armed resistance. Anyone who argues otherwise is being deliberately obtuse. If you want to go after violent resistance, check out hundreds of accounts of violent Antifa activists which are, miraculously, not banned from Twitter.
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