The Paradox of Tolerance

[Arkle]

Wielding shame also tends to be counter-productive. Compare someone to a nazi? many would rather embrace it. Ignore them and Stop giving these morons a platform. Most of them aren't a real threat and let law enforcement deal with those that are.

This? this is just feels like identity politics run amok - neither side is actually arguing over anything they're just arguing at each other.
What are they even fighting over? best I can tell some cheaply made statues racists put up during the civil rights era to annoy the other side.

Right. Ignore fascists and they go away. Much like how you can cure cancer by ignoring it. Beucase that's how hisotry shows us this works. *eyeroll*

[Fuzzy Necromancer]

Wielding shame also tends to be counter-productive. Compare someone to a nazi? many would rather embrace it. Ignore them and Stop giving these morons a platform. Most of them aren't a real threat and let law enforcement deal with those that are.

This? this is just feels like identity politics run amok - neither side is actually arguing over anything they're just arguing at each other.
What are they even fighting over? best I can tell some cheaply made statues racists put up during the civil rights era to annoy the other side. They were made to be inflammatory and provoke this exact fight.

So not just violence, but SHAME is counter-productive?

Buddy, I am a feminist, and people have been comparing feminists to Nazis for years, EQUATING us with Nazis, calling us "Femi-nazis", and yet somehow i have never even been TEMPTED to become a Nazi.

You deny Nazis a platform by suspending their Paypal and Youtube accounts, by punching their spokesmen so that they are afraid to go out in public, but not treating "both sides as equal" in every debate of any kind in mainstream media.

I honestly expected better from you.

[Admiral X]

Since when does acknowledging that everyone has the right to free speech equate to ignoring them? No one has said these people should be ignored. Where exactly does this weird idea that recognizing people we don't like have rights like the rest of us, it means they can do whatever they want? I truly am curious.

[LittleRaven]

You deny Nazis a platform by suspending their Paypal and Youtube accounts, by punching their spokesmen so that they are afraid to go out in public, but not treating "both sides as equal" in every debate of any kind in mainstream media.

Paypal and Youtube are private companies - they can do what they like with their servers. But if you truly want to fight fascism, stop talking about punching Nazis. Nazis WANT to be punched. They really do. They thrive in an environment of violence - especially in this country. That's why they invite it, stoke it, and seek to escalate it at every opportunity. Berkeley was a perfect example of this - Antifa went off the rails, starting punching people because 'they were Nazis' and 3 months later we have an actual torch march going on in Charlottesville. These two events are not unrelated. When people see the left employing violence, support for the far right surges.

Now fortunately for us, Nazis in this country are still a pretty stupid lot, and they overreached badly in North Carolina. That diminished them significantly. But if the left keeps punching people just for saying stuff they don't like, the Nazis will rebound. Do not make the American people choose between the radical left and the radical right. I very much doubt you'll like what they pick.

[Arkle]

But if the left keeps punching people just for saying stuff they don't like...

Which is not what's happening at all. That is nonsense. No one is getting punched for disagreeing about what the top marginal tax rate should be. We're punching people FASCISTS! This is not a both sides issue. Why is this so hard for people to understand? How fucking stupid does someone have to be to be like;

The "Alt-Right": We want to create a white ethnostate that denies basic civil rights to POC, women, LGBTQ people, Jews, Muslims, and anyone who falls into one or more of those categories.
The Left: Uh, no. We had a whole world war about that shit.
So-called Rational people on the Internet: Look at both these extremists! I can't tell the diference!

[LittleRaven]

Which is not what's happening at all. That is nonsense. No one is getting punched for disagreeing about what the top marginal tax rate should be.

Then tell me, what was Allison Stanger's crime? Where did she cross the line from 'academic disagreement' to 'NAZI WHO MUST BE PUNCHED?'

[Arkle]

Protecting a racist piece of garbage who gets away with spreading anti-Black pseudoscience with a book that was discredited 20 years ago? Of course, that's just based on the Right Wing op-ed that you shared, written by a man with very little credibility when it comes to accuracy. And also there's the Right Wing tendency to exaggerate. Righties love to equate even mild criticism with things like lynch mobs and Kristallnacht. So I have cause to doubt the credibility of her story. Meanwhile, we have the very deaths caused by the Right. So again, we come back to stupidity.

Left: Allegedly scares someone.
Right: Literally murders people at protests, on trains, outside mosques, etc.
You: BOTH SIDES! BOTH SIDES!

[GandALF]

Which is not what's happening at all. That is nonsense. No one is getting punched for disagreeing about what the top marginal tax rate should be.

Then tell me, what was Allison Stanger's crime? Where did she cross the line from 'academic disagreement' to 'NAZI WHO MUST BE PUNCHED?'

Just leave it. Arkle doesn't seem to understand nuance or politics.

[Arkle]

Just leave it. Arkle doesn't seem to understand nuance or politics.

I understand nuance just fine. I also understand that there are times when it's not called for. There aren';t many, but when you';re dealing with self-described white nationalists, that's one of those times.

It's one of those things I've learned from being actively engaged in politics since the Fall of 1988. Or as you call it, "knowing nothing about politics."

[LittleRaven]

Protecting a racist piece of garbage who gets away with spreading anti-Black pseudoscience with a book that was discredited 20 years ago?

Ok. Let's assume, for the moment, that Charles Murray is, in fact, a racist piece of garbage. Does he deserve beating? Does every racist deserve a beating? Who determines who is and isn't a racist, and when they have and have not been sufficiently beaten? Do you actually have to be a racist yourself, or is merely agreeing to, say, moderate a debate where a racist may be speaking just cause for getting punched?

I'm no pacifist, and I recognize that while violence is always the last resort....sometimes, you reach the last resort. When Nazis are walking through your neighborhood with torches, it just might be necessary to get down and dirty. But I'm honestly puzzled as to why it was necessary at Middlebury or Berkeley. I'm hoping you can enlighten me.

So I have cause to doubt the credibility of her story.

Great, bring on the facts. You have the greatest source of information ever devised by mankind at your very fingertips. Please, show me your side of the story. I'm eager to hear it.

For what's worth, this is the framework I'm operating in. Here's Allison's own account of the evening. For the record, she doesn't particularly agree with Charles Murray. But she's an academic, who believes that scholarship is settled with debate. Here's long but thorough Politico article on what went on that night and how. Both sources are really quite sympathetic to the left.

Do you have any actual evidence to support your skepticism? Or has the inability to recognize basic facts, which we see so often on the American right these days, begun to spread to the left as well?

Meanwhile, we have the very deaths caused by the Right. So again, we come back to stupidity.

Yes, the right has the higher body count. And they're losing, at least for the moment. These two facts are not unrelated. In the modern American political sphere, being associated with violence is absolutely toxic for a movement. Which is why 'not punching people' is such a fantastic position to take. It's not only the legal, ethical, and moral choice, it's also the politically smart choice.