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He Infiltrated a Notorious White Nationalist Group. Now, He’s Being Sued for Exposing Them
(www.rollingstone.com)
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this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2023
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politics
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You're still speaking about opening a door and setting a precedent. I'm saying that if someone really is motivated to strip rights from people, they don't need a precedent. They will do it if they have the power to do it. Whoever they may be, hypothetically. That shouldn't stop us from taking action when we can against groups whose sole ideology is hatred of others.
Anybody in the future can set a new precedent. Why should that limit us from challenging the problems of today?
You don't seem to be getting the point that I'm talking about us, not them. Adhering to principles that guarantee everyone--even our most hated enemies--get basic human rights is what separates us from them. If we abandon those principles, we become no different from them.
This principle is laid out in Marvel movies. It's not hard to grasp. I don't understand why it's giving you so much trouble.
I'm pretty sure the things that separate me from Nazis include "I do not want to kill people based on racial or sexual traits".
"We shouldn't let the guy who wants to vote to kill us vote" !== "We shouldn't let the women vote"
As for the the human rights thing, I already admitted that I jumped the gun with my reply to that. I didn't read your comment closely enough. No need to be patronizing. I don't want to strip people of human rights under any circumstances.
But your idea about separating us from them reminds me of the paradox of tolerance that is often cited around left leaning Fediverse communities. What do you think about this?
Then I'm not sure what we're arguing about anymore. My objection was to denying people their basic human rights, not civil rights.
Karl Popper was simply saying that if you never stand up to intolerant people, they will eventually steamroll the tolerant and dissolve the tolerant society they grew out of. It's like a pacifist who refuses to defend themselves against physical assault. But I've seen plenty of well-meaning people on both Reddit and Lemmy misusing this concept to promote physically assaulting KKK members who are simply protesting, and therein lies the danger of what I'm talking about. Those people have now crossed the line into unjustified intolerance, and by their own logic other people should come kick their asses. And then another group should come and attack them. And so on and so forth.
Generally speaking, tolerance of ideas and speech is a good thing--even reprehensible instances. Likewise, intolerance of violence that isn't done in either self-defense or enforcement of the law is also a good thing (and even those can go too far, obviously). But when we start locking people up for simply expressing intolerant views, we create a chilling effect on the marketplace of ideas that can (and usually does) result in authoritarian ideologues taking over anyway. No one thinks intolerant extremists can come from their corner, because too many people have a poor understanding of human psychology.