Is it? Would someone refusing to wear a mask, provably resulting in them asymptomatically infecting someone with COVID-19 be charged with negligent manslaughter? This is something that people have been debating.
Many actions humans can take could kill another. Only a subset of these are regarded as murder/manslaughter.
Not to mention the fact that our modern definition of murder is based on hundreds of years of trial and error. Is dueling murder? Is killing your slave murder? Is it murder if you get drunk and kill somebody with your car? etc. etc.
>Is it? Would someone refusing to wear a mask, provably resulting in them asymptomatically infecting someone with COVID-19 be charged with negligent manslaughter?
It is not murder. There's a concept called "Negligent homicide," but even that is relatively well defined and requires intent to cause harm.
Don't want to get into the rabbit hole, and I am not in agreement with all the laws the US has, but the point is that "bad speech" is way harder to define than murder/homicide. Not only is it harder, it is arguably impossible to attain a good consensus on what it is.
PS: I don't agree with the premise that we should regulate speech, but if you were to want to do it it would most likely backfire or be counterproductive because of these reasons
Does encouraging people not to wear a mask (or just not wearing a mask) in the face of clear evidence and recommendations to the contrary count as intent to cause harm? That is, if I know doing something will cause harm but do it anyway am I engaging in negligent homicide?
Is it? Would someone refusing to wear a mask, provably resulting in them asymptomatically infecting someone with COVID-19 be charged with negligent manslaughter? This is something that people have been debating.
Many actions humans can take could kill another. Only a subset of these are regarded as murder/manslaughter.