That, or you could look around you at the people coming together in recognition that this does not fly, who are taking action accordingly. Hell, you’re even seeing Republicans come down on what happened there. Dude, everyone who is not a Nazi fucking hates Nazis. This is not some rolling tide of white supremacy that is sweeping our country. This is a group of scared little boys, and oh yeah, it’s almost all guys, who recognize that their time is past and are clawing like mad to make people believe they’re still relevant. You buy into that, and you’re ceding ground.
I don’t view 63m people pulling the lever for Donald Trump as a minor problem with people trying to drag us all back to the Stone Age.
OK sure, view it as the worst catastrophe to have ever happened. Doesn’t matter. It’s still a problem to be solved, is it not?
Sure! And one possible solution might be, if I remember the particular strand of argument I’m engaged in in this particular thread, that some varieties of hate speech simply have no more place in civilized society, and maybe we’re better off as a nation if Nazis aren’t free to speak their minds.
Who defines hate speech?
Because remember about half the country thinks that Colin Kaepernick and BLM are examples of treason and hate speech.
Also remember those are the people who currently control all of government.
I’ll take on that stupendous burden for the benefit of all.
No, really, I get your point. But again, I wonder if, had we passed similar measures to many European nations, say, in the wake of WW2, if the repugnant ideals and hateful ignorance that fuel 98% of the Republican voting base might not have been crushed enough to render them electorally inert far sooner and spare us the trouble of slippery slope arguments in the first place.
Then again hey the UK just Brexited so maybe people are just gonna be shit no matter what.
When BLM gases millions and of men women and children, shoves them in ovens and watches others starve for sport… call me.
It’s fine to talk about limits and risks of limiting freedom of speech but let’s not cater to the stupid ass idea that BLM is in anyway close to the Nazis in terms of ideas, speech or actions.
Of course they aren’t remotely comparable. But that’s irrelevant. If those in power decided that they were, they would be in the eyes of the law.
Mind you those people are currently in power.
It’ snot irrelevant. You literally used the same comparisons “those people” people have been using too which actually gives credit to that ridiculous claim. And they don’t control all the government. Even if they have the majority, they don’t control “all the government”. Stop comparing BLM to Nazis. It’s a ridiculous comparison, and yes, facts are relevant.
FFS, I’m not even going to bother.
When you go off on your “I’m not going to understand what you’re saying and instead present strawmen,” it’s just a waste of everyone’s time.
Argue in good faith or don’t bother.
Don’t spread their bullshit comparisons and then expect that to be called anything even remotely related to good faith discussions.
@ShivaX: … Because remember about half the country thinks that Colin Kaepernick and BLM are examples of treason and hate speech.
@Nesrie: … let’s not cater to the stupid ass idea that BLM is in anyway close to the Nazis …
@ShivaX: Of course they aren’t remotely comparable…
@Nesrie: Stop comparing BLM to Nazis. It’s a ridiculous comparison…
We should get this printed on a t-shirt or something!
Well you left off @ArmandoPenblade the entire conversation started with a suggestion on whether or not Nazis’ should be free to speak and suddenly we’re knee deep in a comparison between Nazis’ and BLM, you know, the talking point of the Nazis’ all over social media and news sites since Saturday.
I’ve heard this before though. We can’t punish a kid for calling someone a nigger because this other kid called him a Smurf, as if the two are remotely related. Is it possible to contain Nazis propaganda and hate speech while allow other kinds of speech to continue without that much trouble, maybe. Most the others don’t have the history the Nazis stuff does. Is it risky, could be. Has it be done, yes, yes it has in other countries. Does that approach belong here… don’t know. I know what we have been doing though, not working. Nazis clearly have a stronghold in this country, today. Racism doesn’t seem that diminished. We put racists in the white house in 2017, some with direct ties to white supremacy.
I dunno. Smurfs are pretty evil.
@ArmandoPenblade I’ll go you one better. My wife and I were discussing this morning that we’d be better off right now if the confederate flag had been banned after the civil war. (Part of an evolving comparison and contrast between Jesus and spider-man…I mean Confederate and Man in the High Castle)
See, I came up with the answer to this.
Nazi speech can be separated from other speech which may be deemed offensive, in that Nazis want to strip the rights from other innocent people.
I’ve tried describing this before as the Nazis choosing to step outside the umbrella of societal protections, by virtue of them refusing to agree to the most fundamental rules of society.
We can choose to refuse protection for this kind of speech, without stripping protection from all speech, or even from all offensive speech.
We already make such exceptions for “fighting words”. I think perhaps it is time for us to recognize that advocating for the genocide of other humans is clearly within the realm of fighting words.
At this point we’re going to have to call the bullshit bullshit, despite any and all outrage that causes. What we’re saying has to go beyond these boards, and into the mainstream.
It’s not like the folks who will seriously be outraged aren’t voting Trump anyways. The key is to convince average Americans, the low-information voters, but this has to stop.
Except… we really don’t. Fighting Words has been effectively dead since the day after the case ended.
Gooding was the nail in the coffin—if the fighting words exception has any real vitality left at all (and many commentators, including Nadine Strossen, think it is essentially dead) the Supreme Court has effectively limited the exception to only include abusive language, exchanged face to face, which would likely provoke a violent reaction.
That was in 2006. In 2011 Westboro won their case in the Supreme Court for doing those things. Only Alito dissented and Westboro won 8-1.
Fighting words has been dead for quite some time, literally nothing seem to meet the “well-defined and narrowly limited classes of speech” that they said exists. Nothing. After that one case it has never been upheld.
I would suggest that Nazi speech is different than even this type of thing.
The Westboro baptists, while certainly engaging in speech which many would fine offensive, is still not in line with Nazis. The WB folks basically are just saying that their God hates certain people.
This is different from Nazis, who actually advocate for the oppression and murder of minority groups.