Whoa there (Off-Topic)

by Kermit , Raleigh, NC, Friday, December 20, 2019, 15:10 (1798 days ago) @ Korny

Speech can absolutely be violence, as far as I’m concerned. Someone telling other people that whatever group should be killed (or deported, or jailed, or whatever) is as good as pulling the trigger, especially if that someone has a massive platform with thousands of deranged followers.

You're talking about calls for violence. That already is illegal. But that absolutely is not the same as saying speech is violence.

Calls for violence, and inciting violence aren’t one and the same. I’d hope you can understand nuance, and deliberately worded language that can lead to violence. It’s very much a real thing. I’m glad that you’ve lived a privileged enough life to not see those things happening first-hand though. But don’t let that make you assume that it’s not a real thing.

Because I do understand nuance I said calls for violence and not "deliberately worded language that can lead to violence," which is the kind of slippery language people use when they want to shut you up because you have a different opinion about medicare for all.

You seem overly defensive about this. I’m just saying that speech can totally lead to violence, and while we should champion the first amendment, we as a people should use the power of common sense to say that there are things we should not accept, without bringing government into the conversation. Civil society and all that.

I do not subscribe to the words are just words, marketplace of ideas horseshit. Punch Nazis right in the fucking mouth, forever and always.

NO. This isn't the Weimar Republic. We have free speech so we don't have to punch people (and so we can know the idiots by their speech). You scare me, dude. You complain about people who call for violence, and then you freaking do it. Sigh.

https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2017/09/23/why-you-shouldn-punch-nazi/sjghT8vcvVkpbJWMiOrEqN/story.html

Never thought I’d see Kermit defending Nazis on our very forum...
... and yet...

inb4 thread locked.

I'm defending free speech exactly how the ACLU defended free speech until they abandoned their principles a few years ago. You know damn well I'm not defending Nazis, and I'm offended that you'd even joke that I would. I'd ask for an apology but I know that's not your style. Hell, I'll probably get banned again because of your bullshit.

Kind of weird how folks are saying that Nazis are bad, and rather than acknowledging that, you randomly turn the ACLU into the bad guys. Hmm.
Anyway, I don’t subscribe to the “good people on both sides” mentality. There is a clear line between “these people hold this unpopular opinion”, and “these people are racists, and dangerous”. White supremacy is evil; we should NOT tolerate it. Neo Nazis are evil. We as a society that has had plenty of history to learn from, should not tolerate it. It should not be allowed to fester and grow unchecked. Those people should not feel emboldened to spread their vitriol. That line of thinking should be stamped out, because it has been spreading (clearly). And it’s not always so obvious. The below-the surface spread of it is what has led the supposedly pro-life crowd to tolerate (and justify) children dying in cages, causes them to turn the other way when injustices are happening, and causes them to see stuff like kneeling in protest as a bad thing that they want to see stopped (funny how the first amendment suddenly doesn’t matter then, huh?)

Anyway, you know I’ve always been respectful of people who don’t share my perspective, but even so, I think it’s important that we don’t ever defend Nazis, and I don’t think that’s something that anyone would disagree with, because it’s not a “slippery slope” for censorship, it’s stopping evil, and I won’t ever apologize for that. You agree that Nazis and white supremacists are completely, invariably, and irredeemably evil, right?

Okay, gotta admit, I skimmed this last part and somehow missed that you were asking me a direct question (maybe because I didn’t want to believe you felt it necessary to ask). The answer is of course I agree.

So all that crap you wrote later about what my silence says or what my reply says (essentially saying I’m sympathetic with white supremacy)—I’m going to write that off as a misunderstanding. It’s a good thing because it’sa busy time of year. I don’t have time to drive to Georgia and punch you in the face.