291–300 of 398 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with that. By the same token they would need to remove all the content that promotes communism in multiple countries. In my country it's illegal as is the case with nazism. I don't hold much hope Google, Spotify etc. would actually walk that road.
In what country is communism illegal?
I think the hypothetical that people like me on the left need to consider is the following. Our current vice president is extremely anti-abortion. It's no stretch of the imagination to see that portion of the country growing in strength to be there dominant view in power within ten years. In their view abortion doctors are literal baby killers, websites arguing the benefits of abortion are literally advocating the ki…
Nazis should be able to use public utilities, but the thing is, if we decide Google is a public utility, then so should communists, pornographers, drug dealers, criminal gangs, et al. And in fact, great, let's do that! Let's pass those statutes, let's break up the internet monopolies, let's decentralize and encrypt everything we can, all the time.
But let's also make sure that up until the very moment those statutes pass, we're not giving Nazis special favors.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with that. By the same token they would need to remove all the content that promotes communism in multiple countries. In my country it's illegal as is the case with nazism. I don't hold much hope Google, Spotify etc. would actually walk that road.
In what country is communism illegal?
In the United States, it seems the Communist Party might be technically banned (although it exists): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Control_Act_of_1954
Poland seems to ban "promotion of .. communist .. ideology", and Romania seems to ban "totalitarian .. actions of a communist .. nature". Countries that seem to ban communist symbols include Ukraine, Lithuania, and Latvia. Countries that previously passed similar laws include Moldova, Czechoslovakia (1991), Poland, and Hungary.
Apparently, some countries like Albania, Czechia, Germany, Italy, and Slovakia ban "totalitarian ideology".
There are probably more bans worldwide.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I only have a cursory knowledge of history, so I'm not aware of this. All the cases I can think of where a certain set of ideas were suppressed usually ended up in failure, e.g. Christianity, Protestantism, various heresies, civil rights movements like Gandhi and MLK...
Counter-examples: Nazism (I guess you might argue that after being suppressed it's making a comeback, but that's tenuous at best), dozens of Christian heretic faiths you've never heard about, the genocide of the Native Americans (where's their culture now?), the pre-colombian civilizations of South and Central America, the Roman Empire, Egyptian monotheism under Akhnaten... Keep in mind that listing the ideas and way…
Nazism has only been suppressed in Germany as far as I know(how effective has it been?). Was it ever suppressed in the US? One of the crowning moments of the ACLU's support for civil rights was to stand up for a Nazi march - it's hard to call that suppressed. Can you compare Germany to the US and see whether suppressing and not suppressing Nazism has had a significant effect? Or perhaps there is a roiling Nazi sentiment in each country, which isn't affected in a significant way by suppression? I am honestly not sure.
> dozens of Christian heretic faiths you've never heard about
These were usually expelled from the country or genocided
> the genocide of the Native Americans (where's their culture now?)
genocide
> the pre-colombian civilizations of South and Central America
genocide?
> the Roman Empire
Not really suppressed
I think I'm seeing a pattern, and it's one of the things that frustrates me in this discussion. People talk about suppressing Nazis, but they claim they are interested in just suppressing speech(which has plenty of negative effects already!). The rationalization to ignore those negative effects is what you proposed - Nazis are so dangerous that eradicating them will be a net good. However, all the examples of successful suppression you're giving me are genocide, or at least go way way beyond mere speech restriction - in all of them the people who had the suppressed ideas were hunted down and killed.
Is just suppression of speech actually effective? If I agree to it, swallowing all my concerns about the negative effects, and it fails to work, will we be looking towards more suppression, with a possible end-game of hunting down and killing the Nazis?
I think the hypothetical that people like me on the left need to consider is the following. Our current vice president is extremely anti-abortion. It's no stretch of the imagination to see that portion of the country growing in strength to be there dominant view in power within ten years. In their view abortion doctors are literal baby killers, websites arguing the benefits of abortion are literally advocating the ki…
You should count the number of bombings of abortion clinics over the last decade or two, count the number of laws restricting access to abortion in the last 5, and then decide whether inaction today will prevent action tomorrow.
What is the causal relationship of this argument? If I condemn nazis today, and say the nazis come into power, does my past action magically make it easier for nazis in power to be, well nazis? If I don't stand against nazis today and they come into power, will that magically shield me? Rhetorical consistency has no physical power.
> Google could reply "we didn't even ban Nazis, why the hell would you expect us to ban anyone for you?"
Or they could just do it anyway. Being rhetorically consistent has never been a requirement for taking actual action. Just remember that the United States government has already colluded with business leaders to suppress political beliefs [1]. After the Fowley Square Trial, the United States government actually disbarred and jailed any attorney who defended the communists they charged. They then passed a law forbidding picketing of courthouses. The ACLU supported that law.
Pandora's box has already been opened. It's always really funny how it's the far right who have their rights vociferously defended by centrists but those very same centrists always stood by while communists were rounded up and exterminated. By the way, this happened too in Germany. All of the people who publicly opposed the Nazis before they came into power were condemned with the same exact centrist "both sides are wrong" rhetoric we hear today.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. These very exact arguments were being made in the 1930's. They were being made back in the days of Usenet, BBS and vBulletin forums. They will be made so long as there exist people who want to maintain some abstract virtue at the cost of other peoples' material safety. So long as someone is not directly materially threatened by the white nationalist political program, they will indefinitely stave off any concrete opposition to that program.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smith_Act_trials_of_Communist_...
If you support net neutrality, you fundamentally cannot support the actions of these companies. These two ideals are in direct conflict.
This is how extremism spreads: 1. A Reasonable Position is expressed, in this case - 'Nazi's are very bad'. The Reasonable Position often involves an Enemy that must be stopped. Most reasonable people will agree with the Reasonable Position. 2. The Reasonable Position becomes the overriding factor in any situation that involves it. All other factors and considerations are dwarfed by it and forgotten. 3. Because the R…
My last post on Reddit was simply saying that dehumanising people and denouncing pacifists as sympathisers only creates further radicalisation. Currently at -350 points as it's clearly a controversial statement.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> While I definitely don't support the people they're booting off... A bit off topic but how many bytes are spent on prefaces like this on responses to this topic? I assume that the vast majority of people on the planet don't support Nazis or anything related. I find it interesting that any discussion of them has to include that line lest the speaker/writer be labeled as one (which happens quite a bit anyway but that…
>I assume that the vast majority of people on the planet don't support Nazis or anything related. Apparently the vast majority of people on the planet aren't enough to stop fascists from threatening, beating, and murdering people.
In order to actually stop people from doing those things, society would have to give up a lot of freedom to prevention through force ("stopping"). In a free society, the focus is usually on prevention through dissuasion (influence) or through reactive means (punishment, rehabilitation).
What are your thoughts on how society could physically prevent these actions while maintaining freedom for all its citizens ?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
See here's a great example of why I prefaced my message. Sorry but I'm lacking in either English language skills or politics but I haven't got a clue what you're saying. I'm ill-equipped to respond to this sort of reply. I'm not even sure what side of the fence you're debating for here. Now imagine if it was filled with accusations of being a racist, I'd probably just be curled up in a ball under my desk waiting for…
I couldn't even imagine how stressful it must be to enter into this kind of conversation when English isn't your first language. I feel for you. What I meant was that the meaning of terms like "white supremacist" and "racist" has changed dramatically in recent years. To the point where it's very difficult to speak clearly about these types of things.