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Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

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Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#171

Post by anigbrowl »

e9 wrote: post #51
ebola1717 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Nazi speech is banned in Germany cause they learned their lesson.

We all know Nazi are bad, no one in their right mind will deny it. But the way they are currently handled through violence and censorship is not right and downright illegal. You are feeding their anger instead of squashing their ideas. We are American citizens and should respect each others right for free speech and engage in civil debate over ideas we disagree. If we resolve to silencing and violence without debate…

First, it's not illegal - although it does raise interesting questions of where public space ends and private property begins.

If we resolve to silencing and violence without debate how are we better? Have you talked to any Nazi? Are you sure they know history and what Nazi stands for? etc etc etc I personally haven't met one ever but when I do I won't punch them with a fist but punch them with debate.

And what will you do if they respond by punching you with a fist? I have talked to a lot of nazis, and listened to them, and have been doing so a very long time. Individual people can abandon the nazi ideology; according to people in the deradicalization movement, the most likely triggers for doing so are the birth of a child (more so if a daughter), or receiving kindness/compassion from someone who is normally a target of theirs.

But the nazi ideology is explicitly predicated on the idea of violent struggle for dominance rather than peaceful cooperation, in contrast to most others. Those who adhere to that ideology and call for the subjugation of other races, genocide, or war are not engaged in debate; they are issuing threats.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#172

Post by stillhere »

anigbrowl wrote: post #166
mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. Today it's Nazis, tomorrow it's not showing enough support for the chosen candidate. This is the one slippery slope. It's evident in PC-speech. Today's PC speech is not the PC speech from the 90s. And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC bo…

I don't see one group controlling that narrative. I see a wide variety of groups uniting to reject one particular narrative/ideology that is widely agreed to be toxic on its own terms ; its loudest proponents explicitly call for genocide and war, and that is literally an incitement to violence against the many and various targets of their dislike. I'd encourage you to check out material from groups like Life after Ha…

Can you name a time when the blog in question actually called for violent direct action? Anyone who calls for violence or commits violence should be dealt with by the law, including the left, not silenced because you're imagining it. Unless the site in question actually called for violent action we leave it alone because you're conflating a crime (inciting violence) with someone's else's ideological opinion which they have every right to express. If we remove this blog we'd have to remove all Communism blogs, Christianity blogs, Islam blogs, etc. Ideology seems to kill no matter which one you choose.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#173

Post by anigbrowl »

narrator wrote: post #149

Even more disturbing to me is that Youtube has started banning UFO research channels like Steve Greer's CSETI. I don't really bother watching these channels and consider the UFO thing a bit of a quasi-religion, but they aren't inciting violence or hate against anybody. Has Google decided they are now the truth police? Is Google taking it upon themselves to be like the Chinese censorship bureaus except for the whole w…

Maybe you should investigate the context before leaping to conclusions. According to this discussion Many people view Greer as a swindler/scammer.

https://www.reddit.com/r/UFOs/comments/6toeoz/cseti_youtube_...

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#174

Post by kenjackson »

julianmarq wrote: post #167
kenjackson wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"? And it seems that the "Freedom of speech" position is the one that has expanded more in context than "Nazis are very bad". Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis (at least not intentionally), but we do seem to be expanding Freedom of speech slowly beyond government censorship to asking private entities…

> But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"? Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration. If freedom of speech is the default, there's no way an extremist group will stop conversation about any particular issue. > Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis…

>Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration.

That seems like an unsubstantiated assertion. As we've discussed here, the extremist view of freedom of speech forces your ideas on me. At the extreme I now have to hire people who believe that I should be tortured because I'm a minority.

Any reasonable position taken to an extreme can result in a bad situation. The fact that it's reasonable in moderation is, as you note, what makes it dangerous. Nothing about freedom of speech seems to make it much different than something like "killing innocent people is bad".

And Goodwin's Law is about non-serious internet rhetoric. Not about actually treating people as Nazi war criminals. And oddly we treat Nazi's really well in the US, despite the Reasonable Position most people have about them.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#175

Post by anigbrowl »

gcp wrote: post #99
tekromancr wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It means all the difference in the world. It means that they won't be arrested for their speech. They won't be jailed. They won't be executed for speaking out against the government. Which is, ironically, very different from the historical treatment of dissidents by governments who adopt their politics. It also means that, for example, they have the freedom to pool funds and buy their own server, and host it in a dat…

It also means that, for example, they have the freedom to pool funds and buy their own server, and host it in a datacenter that is willing to do business with them, or they can host their shit on ipfs. It's not going to help them much if they can't get a domain registrar, or effective DDoS protection (rather relevant given their situation).

So what? The Daily Stormer isn't being treated as a pariah because Andrew Anglin is Caucasian, but because he calls for white supremacy and war against others.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#176

Post by [deleted] »

kenjackson wrote: post #174
julianmarq wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But how do you know the reasonable position isn't "Freedom of speech is good"? Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration. If freedom of speech is the default, there's no way an extremist group will stop conversation about any particular issue. > Thus far people don't seem to be applying the badness of Nazis to non-Nazis…

>Because it's the best (probably only) way to prevent every actual Reasonable Position from overriding every other factor and consideration. That seems like an unsubstantiated assertion. As we've discussed here, the extremist view of freedom of speech forces your ideas on me. At the extreme I now have to hire people who believe that I should be tortured because I'm a minority. Any reasonable position taken to an extr…

[deleted]

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#177

Post by anigbrowl »

piaste wrote: post #102
dredmorbius wrote: post #79

I've sided with the EFF on many, many, many causes. I've sided against Google on numerous causes. The EFF are wrong. Google is correct. And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy. Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not ). The history of media and new-media…

> This includes Hacker News itself, which seems to have quite the fascist problem And here we go. For all the people who (correctly) wondered "how broad will the definition of 'nazi' get", well, parent just helpfully illustrated it for you. The Hacker News comments section has been declared full of fascist unpersons who must be silenced at all costs. But remember: > But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy.

Far from it. You're equating the observation that a fascist tendency exists with an unjust accusation of participation therein. You're also conflating advocacy of ideology with essential personal characteristics.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#178

Post by anigbrowl »

tnone wrote: post #105
dredmorbius wrote: post #79

I've sided with the EFF on many, many, many causes. I've sided against Google on numerous causes. The EFF are wrong. Google is correct. And yes, the reasons are complicated. But "slippery slope" is a facile fallacy. Ultimately, society can, does, and must defend itself from attacks. Including attacks on the underprivileged (of whom the Fascists and Nazis at question here are not ). The history of media and new-media…

The way you get people to not care about real Nazis is to cry wolf every time you encounter a political position you don't like. If we apply those same standards to antifa, they too are a violent, irrational hatemob with blood on their hands. The only difference is they have nice excuses about how it's ok when they do it because of systemic oppression. Even as they wield establishment power against their opponents. N…

The way you get people to not care about real Nazis is to cry wolf every time you encounter a political position you don't like.

Like Rush Limbaugh's 20+ years of complaining about 'feminazis'?

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#179

Post by anigbrowl »

anigbrowl wrote: post #166
mc32 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't agree more. Today it's Nazis, tomorrow it's not showing enough support for the chosen candidate. This is the one slippery slope. It's evident in PC-speech. Today's PC speech is not the PC speech from the 90s. And it's not that I don't like Pc speech. I prefer it. But I also don't want it to be the only kind of speech one can use for discussion. Try and have any good philosophical argument without breaking PC bo…

I don't see one group controlling that narrative. I see a wide variety of groups uniting to reject one particular narrative/ideology that is widely agreed to be toxic on its own terms ; its loudest proponents explicitly call for genocide and war, and that is literally an incitement to violence against the many and various targets of their dislike. I'd encourage you to check out material from groups like Life after Ha…

I can't reply to dead comments and can't link to the original page (because it's no longer accessible by DNS) but this article reports on examples of explicit calls for violence by far right commentators: https://itsgoingdown.org/unite-right-organizers-encourage-gu...

I understand the argument that such determinations should be 'left up to the law' but the corollary of that is asserting that regular people should not have any political agency to express their own opposition to movements they find threatening or inimical to their values.

I'm sticking to a very narrow interpretation of what counts as threats/incitement here.

Re: Fighting Neo-Nazis and the Future of Free Expression

#180

Post by ebcode »

ameister14 wrote: post #134
liberte82 wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it would help. It's been 70 years since WW2 ended and people are fast forgetting its lessons. Take an example, pretty much everyone agrees that ISIS uses the web as an online recruitment tool to radicalize young people and that they are very effective with it. This point is fairly non-controversial. Yet when the same point is made about extreme right-wing movements radicalizing young Americans, these concerns ar…

I don't see open Nazis having a seat in government in any country where it is legal to advocate Nazi ideologies. On the other hand, Austria and Germany, two countries where that is illegal, have together 5 European MP's from their respective Nazi parties.

Apparently you haven't seen Trump.
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