According to the quote I read yes. He was pointing out that assault (at least colloquially) implies a form of aggression, which he believed to be unlikely given official reports.
I think calling such speech "violence" may be a straw man. By calling it violence, people are intentionally equating his words with physically hurting someone. Since everyone knows that physically hurting someone is unacceptable, they are more likely to reject the speech. I think calling it violence is an intellectually dishonest smear
> Sounds like implicit intimidation. I think that if there were claims that he threatened violence, it would have been quoted in the article.
This confuses me a bit. I would personally put "implicit intimidation" under the category of "threatened violence", and it seems that the state agreed.
You're implying physical force by comparing to an abuser situation where an implicit threat of physical force is involved. If you don't want to imply violence, don't use a violent metaphor.
You mean physical violence. Physical violence is not the only kind of violence. It seems common for people in the "nazis get to talk too" camp to forget or ignore that.
When someone is using their fists against you, no words are going to protect you. While I do believe our society resorts to violence too quickly, there is a time and a place for the use of force, and I fear that we're swinging too far in the other direction.
>This notion of equating words with physical violence is so confusing to me.
Nothing in what you quote is equating words with physical violence.
You seem to be confusing the concept of “harm” (which is what is referenced) with the much narrower concept of “physical violence” (which is not, except by you.)
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